WHIRLING DERVISHES AND RUINS – KONYA AND ANTALYA

Oct. 24, 2000
Sema Hotel, Konya,Türkiye

Genghis came to get us in the morning, which wasn’t the plan but was very welcome. We went down and bought tickets for the 8:00 bus to Konya and then drank tea until it came. We took a shuttle bus to Nevşehir and then switched to a bus to Konya. The ride was only about two and a half hours, but it was pretty dull. We drove across grassland and sugar beet fields all the way. It was snowing a little in places but not sticking.

When we got to Konya, our bus was met by the usual collection of taxi drivers, tour operators, and carpet salesmen. We tried to shake them off because we needed to use the WC and check on bus schedules to Antalya. Two men followed us into the bus station, but we lost one when we headed for the bayan (women’s restroom.) Deanna left me with the baggage and the remaining guy and I did my best to discourage him while she was gone. Since he refused to leave, I got the bus schedule out of him and then left him to Deanna while I went to the WC. He was still there when I came back, so we followed him to the hotel he suggested. His name was Ahmed. He took us to the Hotel Sema on the minibus, which was quite a savings, as it was a long ride. The hotel was okay, so we decided to stay. We ate lunch in the hotel restaurant and then Ahmed took us to meet his friend, Sami, who was an English professor at the university and had a translating business. Sami was a tall, charming man who spoke good English.

Rumi's Tomb

After visiting with Sami, we went to the Mevlâna Museum, the former lodge of the whirling dervishes. The museum houses many tombs, including the immense tomb of Rumi, the famous 13th century Sufi mystic poet. The museum, itself. is a beautiful piece of Seljuk architecture and sports a fluted tower covered in bright blue Seljuk tile. The interior surrounding Rumi’s tomb is very ornate and beautiful, as well. After the Mevlâna Museum, we walked over to the Koyunoğlu Museum but it was closed. I was feeling very ill, so I went back to the hotel and Deanna went over to Sami’s office to use his computer.

I slept for about three hours while Deanna worked on her email, helped Sami translate a contract, and attended his English class. I met them about 19:30 and we went upstairs to have dinner in the restaurant operated by the dervishes. We had dinner with Ahmed and Jonathan, a Canadian we had met at the museum, and were joined for tea by Sami, his carpet selling neighbor, and the singer from the dervish band. I didn’t feel well, so just had a bowl of yogurt soup. There was a good band playing Turkish music.

After dinner, we went downstairs to see the dervish dancing. The band played alone, at first. Then, during the second number, the dervishes entered and bowed to each other and the image of Rumi on the wall. They whirled for two movements and then redonned their black robes and bowed some more during the final piece. The music was very hypnotic and our singer friend was very talented. The dervishes whirled rather slowly. The hems of their white robes were weighted so that they sailed outward, perfectly. They whirled with their eyes closed, their right palms turned upward and the left palms turned down. It was less athletic than I had expected, but very interesting.

After the dancing, I looked at a few rugs but the carpets in Konya, though very cheap, were not of the same quality as the ones we had been seeing and I was too sick to be impressed. We came home and I went to bed.

I slept late the next morning and didn’t intend to get up until it was time to head for the bus to Antalya at 13:30.  I was very ill while we were in Konya and may have lost an entire day.  One thing I remember clearly, although I can't figure out when it happened, is that we ate an amazing meal of firin kebap, chunks of lamb slow cooked in the oven until they melted in your mouth.  Firin kebap is the signature dish of Konya and I have never tasted better lamb, before or since.

Oct. 24, 2000
White Garden Pensiyon, Antalya, Türkiye

The Taurus Mountains

Today, we took the bus 349 kilometers to Antalya via Akseki. We crossed some more grass-covered hills and then climbed over the Taurus mountains and dropped down to the sea. The mountains started out with pine trees and got progressively rockier as we climbed. The last few kilometers before the pass were covered in snow. There was much less snow and fewer trees on the other side of the pass. We descended toward the Mediterranean and then followed the coastline to Antalya. Unfortunately, it was too dark to see much.

From the otogar, we took a service bus to Kaleiçi, but could not get a cab to take us the short distance to the pension. A man from another pension gave us a ride and tried to get us to switch, but he was nice when we refused and wouldn’t take any money for the ride.

Hadrian's Gate

We dropped our stuff at the hotel and went out in search of food. I would have killed for a burger at McDonald’s but of course I was overruled because, when Deanna wanted meat, my needs were not considered. We went to the Sefran Restaurant where I had a bowl of tomato soup and an awful pizza and Deanna had a huge mixed grill, all of which she managed to devour.

We walked back via a different route and passed through the very impressive Hadrian’s Gate. Our pension was in the old part of Antalya near the marina. The streets were narrow and winding and it looked like a great place to explore.

Oct. 25, 2000
White Garden Pensiyon, Antalya, Türkiye

The Taurus Mountains from Antalya

Deanna showed no sign of stirring, in the morning, so I got up around 7:45, ate a wonderful breakfast
including fruit and an omelet, and went for a walk. I wandered over to look at the Özman Pansiyon, but didn’t find it as nice as ours. Then I walked down to the cliff overlooking the sea. Antalya sits on a wide bay with rugged mountains behind it. The view of the mountains across the bay, which we could see from our window, was stunning. It was so nice to be near the water, again, and to feel warm air during the day.

View from the Hıdırlık Kulesi

I dragged Deanna out of bed at 9:15 so that she could call Jeanne to arrange to have her vitamins sent. Unfortunately, Fed-Ex said they couldn’t deliver before Monday (It was Wednesday.) and there was a problem with customs. It would also cost over $100 to send them. Deanna refused to accept it, but I didn’t think there was any way that she was going to get those vitamins without going back to Paris.

Entrance to the Roman Harbor

Antalya was a great place. There were a lot of
German tourists, there. Many people spoke German and a lot of prices were in deutschmarks. I took Deanna back down to the Hıdırlık Kulesi, where I had been, earlier. It is a fourteen meter high tower which dated to the first century and may have been used as a lighthouse. From there, we started around the edge of Kaleiçi and down into the Roman harbor, which is now full of excursion boats. The harbor was easily the most beautiful I had seen. It was surrounded by Roman towers and crenelated walls. The mostly wooden boats moored there, now, looked a little antique, themselves. We walked around the harbor, checking out the various excursions and talking to captains. Eventually, we met a nice, young, Kurdish man named Bayram who had a power boat. He took people out on day trips and we arranged to go with him the next day. He introduced us to his friend, Marat, who had a gulet, but wasn’t interested in taking us. He, in turn, called someone else and fixed us up with a three-day gulet trip to Kaş. In Kaş, we would try to get another boat to Marmaris, or at least Fetiye, where we could change boats, again. We stayed and chatted witht them for awhile and then we headed off to see the sights.

Antalya's Roman Harbor

Yivli Minare

We visited the Yivli Minare, a thirteenth century
Seljuk monument and all its related buildings. We looked at the Ataturk statue in Cumhuriyet Square, the art gallery, and lots of shops. By that time, I was starving, since it was 14:00 and I had eaten breakfast at 8:30, but Deanna had to keep stopping to take video or look at earrings. Finally, I dragged her to McDonald’s where I ordered American food in Turkish. The food wasn’t great, but it was nice to eat something familiar. We had intended to go to the museum, but we spent the whole afternoon shopping for sandals and gold earrings for Deanna. She finally did buy some sandals. Both of us had longer feet than most Turkish women, which made it hard to buy shoes. We also bought more video tapes and disposable cameras.

About 18:00, we stopped for a beer in a café overlooking the harbor and stayed to watch the sun set. Later, we ate dinner in a very good Chinese restaurant. We had wonton soup, egg rolls, rice, spicy eggplant, and garlic squid. Deanna complained that we didn’t have enough meat. I thought it was the best meal we had had since the Indian food in İstanbul. After dinner, we wandered around Kaleiçi for a little and then came back to our room.

Oct. 27, 2000

White Garden Pensiyon, Antalya, Türkiye

High-Rises Lining the Bay in Antalya

We didn’t have to be anywhere until 10:45, yesterday, so I let myself sleep in to try to shake my cough. We walked over to the boat and then ran up to the ATM to get some money while Bayram tried to rustle up some more passengers. We had a light load since five people had backed out at the last minute. There weren’t any takers. So we shoved off around 11:30. We headed west across the bay and got a nice view of all the high rises along the cliffs and ten kilometer beach and a quick look at the yacht marina on the west side of the bay. It had good breakwaters, but wasn’t as sheltered as the Roman harbor.

A ways past the marina, we anchored in the lee of Red Island. The island wasn’t very interesting in itself. It was steep and rocky, without a beach or much in the way of ruins. It did make a nice anchorage, though. We stopped there for a couple of hours and I lay in the sun on the foredeck, trying to bake the cough out of my lungs. I think it helped because I coughed less, that night, and felt a bit better the next day. Bayram and his brother cooked us a lunch of salad, bread, spaghetti, and fried trout. It was the best pasta I’d had in Türkiye and even the fish was tasty.

Gulet at Anchor

After lunch, we went further west to some sea caves and anchored there for awhile, but no one on our boat was brave enough to go swimming. I stuck my foot in the water and it was definitely swimming pool temperature. From there, we headed back across the bay to the harbor and returned about 17:30. There was a Belgian fellow name José with us who fished all day, but he only caught a couple of very small fish.

After we came back, we had a beer and watched the sun set after I ran into the post office and managed to buy stamps and carry on quite a conversation with the clerk, all in Turkish. After our beer, we spent nearly three hours at the internet café and then took a long walk across town to a restaurant call Urfa Paşa Sofrasi that came highly recommended, but wasn’t all that great. We got a little turned around in the dark back streets on the way home and accidentally discovered a short cut that I was sure we could never find again.

Oct, 27, 2000
White Garden Pensiyon, Antalya, Türkiye

The Upper Düden Falls

Bayram met us at our hotel, this morning, at 9:00. The first place he took us was the upper Düden
waterfalls. The falls are in a lovely park, ten kilometers inland from where the river falls into the sea. The park was very nicely designed, with small rivulets beside all of the paths. We walked down to the grotto at the bottom of the falls which were about forty feet high. There was a restaurant on the bank of the river, there. We crossed the river and then climbed up behind the falls. It was a very pretty spot.

Behind Düden Falls

From the Düden falls, we drove east fifteen kilometers to Perge.

Perge Stadium

Perge was founded by Greek colonists after the Trojan war. There is a theater and a long, U-shaped stadium outside the walls. I could almost see the chariots racing, there. The first gate you come to is the Roman gate. Inside of that, is the Hellenistic gate, once flanked by the ruins of two

The Roman Gate at Perge

round towers. There were the ruins of extensive baths and we could see how the water was heated and distributed.  We picked our way around the ruins for at least an hour and a half. There were women peddling their wares along the length of the long, collonaded street along the remains of the agora.

The Agora at Perge

We didn’t buy anything from them but fell prey to the peddlars near the WC. We bought some hematite necklaces and a couple of other trinkets.

Bayram Dancing with Jakey Bear at Perge

Backstage at the Theater

The Theater at Aspendos

Next, we drove further east to Aspendos. Aspendos has the best preserved theater in Asia Minor. There has been some restoration done and the place is perfectly usable. We first climbed the hill so that we could look down into it. I scaled the wall and walked around on top of it. Deanna passed up her camera so I could film it for her. The old city of Aspendos is on the hill behind the theater. There are some pretty impressive ruins there, as well. After poking around the hill for awhile and nearly falling into a couple of unmarked cisterns, we walked back down the hill and went into the theater, itself. Like many modern theaters, this one was entered via a pair of staircases in towers on each side of the stage. The staircases led to a wide walkway which ran all around the theater, mid-way between the top and the bottom. We walked around a little in the vaulted apce behind the seats and also went back stage. There was a nice gift shop and a small museum housed under the tower.

Restored Seljuk Bridge

After Aspendos, we drove further east to the Manavgat waterfall. We stopped along the way at a restored Seljuk bridge. Like most Seljuk bridges, this one was hump-backed. It was built of cut stone between 1996 and 1997 on the piers of the original bridge. Below it, there was an egly highway bridge which made quite a contrast.

At Manavgat, there is another waterfall, but it was not as spectacular as the Düden falls, being much shorter and more out in the open. The park there was also very nice and the restaurant hae a lovely view of the falls. We ate a tasty, if rather expensive, lunch there.

Manavgat Falls

The Harbor at Side

After Manavgat, we continued east to Side. Side had been completely overrun by German tourists , but Bayram knew someone at the gate. We were able to ride through all the tourist traps in his taxi. He took us down to the harbor at the end of the peninsula. The harbor was an old, Roman one, but it had been recently reinforced and there were many excursion boats calling Side home, including one immense, three masted galleon that could barely fit through the entrance. At the tip of the peninsula were temples to Apollo and Athena. The temple to Apollo is collapsed and now houses the Apollo Dance Bar. The temple to Athena had been partially reconstructed and was quite lovely silhouetted against the sea. There were many businesses catering to German tourists and we stopped for some (lousy) streusel küchen in a café beside the harbor.

It was a long drive back to Antalya from Side, but we stopped at the Kuşunlu falls just in time to see them before it got dark. These falls were high, but did not have a lot of water going over them. In the summer, you could walk beneath them and take a shower.

Bayram brought us back to the pension and we picked up our laundry after a brief dispute over where to find it. We dropped our belongings off in the room and went to have drinks beside the pool at the Alp Paşa Pansiyon, a fancy restored Ottoman house where they had a live pianist in the evenings. We drank a couple of beers and chatted with Hakim, the bartender who had lived in England for five years and was pale and thin enough to have been English. He was very amusing. After two drinks, we decided to forego dinner and came back to our room.

Oct. 29, 2000
White Garden Pensiyon, Antalya, Türkiye

Saturday, it rained and we didn’t feel much like getting up. We left the pension at 10:30 or 11:00 and walked up Hesapçi Sokak to the used bookstore. The owner was a very well-read man named Kemal, who was clearly desperate to talk about books, or history, or wine, or anything, really. He had a very friendly, white and tabby cat. We traded in a couple of books we had read and bought a few more. Then we headed up to the main drag to look for vitamins for Deanna. She managed to find most of what she considered essential and then we set off, I thought, for the museum. Instead, we had to look in every gold jewelry store along the way, which drove me nearly crazy.

The Ataturk Statue

Finally, we reached a position opposite the square where the shops petered out and I hoped we could actually walk a bit without stopping. Unfortunately, we encountered a platoon of soldiers bearing a wreath. Several such groups, each bearing a wreath, had already congregated around the Ataturk statue. It was time for the opening ceremony for Turkish Independence Day, which was a big thing, that year, because it was the 75^th anniversary. I stayed for awhile, but it soon became apparent that, while every soldier, middle school, and highschool student in the city of Antalya was converging on the square, none of them played any instrument other than a drum. There was a curious lack of spectators, which could have been because it looked like rain. I felt it was because the whole proceding was incredibly boring. Deanna was in the thick of it with her video camera, but I got chased out of my spot by a bunch of guys with guns, so I left and went to the internet café until the ordeal was over.

Deanna finally showed up about 14:00 and then we went to get something to eat at a restaurant overlooking the harbor at the west end of the park. I had chicken Kiev (made with bologna, not ham) which was reasonably good. We walked the rest of the two kilometers to the museum, after lunch. The entire length of the street was lined with high-rise apartments owned by Germans, no doubt. The water side of the street was all a nice park.

The Antalya Museum has a wonderful collection of Greek and Roman statuary, mostly taken from Perge. When we were at Perge, we noted all the niches for statues along the collonaded street and wondered where the statues had gone. It was nice to be able to see them, but a shame that they had all been removed from the site. All of the important artifacts in Türkiye seemed to have been removed to the large cities. It was a shame, really, because it made it hard to tell what came from where and what these places were like in their primes.

We stayed at the museum until they closed at 18:00 and then took a cab to our pension because it had only just stopped pouring and looked like another deluge might be imminent. I crawled into bed with a book. Deanna eventually went out for dinner, but I passed.