Cappadocian Dreaming

Rhodes, Greece

Hello once again, boy it's only been a week or so since my last email. I'm having a harder time keeping up on these now that the mail is delivering the pictures faster. Back in India I could count on at least a month or so between emails. Oh well. So let's see when we last left off Daysha and I we're bidding a bittersweet adieu to India. From Bombay we flew to Istanbul, Turkey(with a brief layover in Baharain). Driving in to Istanbul, we coundn't help but notice how clean and organized everything was. There wasn't garbage everywhere, barely any beggars, and the drivers kept, for the most part, to the correct side of the road, it was shocking. Of course, we then met some other Americans who had come from Europe and we're complaining about how dirty everything was and how the roads were just chaos. We had to laugh. Anyway, we really enjoyed Istanbul, it's a beautiful city with mammoth marble mosques, and lots of ruined forts and walls. There were shops on every corner selling Turkish carpets of every shape, size and design. We thought about buying one, but after carefully inspecting the space in our backpacks we decided to wait until next time. And after carrying a surprisingly heavy stone statue, that I had bought in Rishakesh half way across the world, we deemed it a wise decison.

From Istanbul we delved deeper into the heart of Turkey, ending up in Gorme Cappadocia. Cappadocia is a dreamscape that's full of valleys carved out of tuff rock, leaving crazy rock formations, some of which are embarassingly fallic in nature. The tuff rock that these formations are made out of are easy to burrow into, and so for thousands of years people have been carving into the rock, making houses, churches, and monasteries. In fact in some places entire cities were carved out of one massive rock formation. Daysha and I spent a couple of days hiking and exploring all through the valleys of Cappodocia. The churches were especially a treat with beautiful paintings depicting scenes from the bible on the rock walls and ceilings. We had a lot of fun imagining what it would have been like to live back then. We actually had a chance to see what it was like. When we checked into our hostel, they asked us if we wanted to spend the night in a normal room or a cave room. I, of course, jumped at the chance to stay in a cave, but as we moved our luggage into the small unheated and quite drafty cave, it started to snow. After several minutes of careful consideration, commen sense(Daysha) eventually did prevail, and we stayed in the warm and comfortable room.

Unfortunately, because we only have a month or so to explore Europe, we only had time to go to one more place in Turkey. The place that we decided on was a small town named Olympos on the Mediterranean coast. Set amongst craggy rocks and Roman ruins, it was beautiful place to spend our last few days in Turkey. Because of the Roman ruins, people aren't allowed to build out of stone in Olympos. I guess that the government doesn't want anybody to use the already conviently made, and remarkably fashionable carved pillars to make an outhouse or something. So someone came up with the creative idea to use tree houses for hostels. We stayed in one that had several tree houses that were used for rooms, but using our commen sense again, and seeing that it was still pretty cold, we stayed in a comfortable room on the ground. While we were there a bunch of kids from the local universtiy showed up and stayed for a couple of days, and we made friends with them. They took delight in staying up around the fire singing traditional Turkish folk songs and drinking Raki the Turkish national drink. I think they might have annoyed some people who were trying to sleep, but I had a good time staying up and listening to them throwing in a Elvis song or two(after which I had numerous requests, unforunately my AC/DC and Guns and Roses are a bit rusty). Well I think that about does it for now. I think that these pictures are among our best and you, as always, can check them out at moemntm.flickr.com I hope that this email finds everybody well. Our trip is winding down and we will be home soon, but don't worry there's still a couple emails left. I'll talk to y'all later, Moe