Turkish Delights
Turkey is an offbeat location but very popular for tourism. It is two and a half hours behind India. Flight from Mumbai to Istanbul takes about 6 hours which is a reasonably comfortable journey.
Istanbul Airport
Istanbul airport is rightly called the meeting place of the world being the largest hub of Turkish Airlines. Turkish Airlines has good service. They provided a sandwich even on a little over an hour-long domestic flight. No wonder it attracts a lot of customers worldwide! Istanbul airport is very beautiful, large and spread out. It takes about 20 minutes to taxi after the landing and
another 15 minutes of bus ride to reach the gate. It has international transfers very closely located from international arrivals. It has quite a distinct marking of the buggy lane for the airport carts.
Cappadocia
We flew domestic back east to Kayseri to drive down to Cappadocia which is famous for its exceptional natural wonders and hot air balloons. We stayed at the fabulous Dilek Kaya Hotel.
You need to get up early and start around 4:15 am to catch the hot air balloon rides which start before sunrise. Travelling from a timezone ahead by two and half hours and the mini jet lag helped the early timing right next day of the travel! Around 150 balloons are flying high at the same time, each one carrying 28 people. These 28 people are fitted in different compartments of size 3 -5 people, arranged in two rows, in the rectangular basket hanging below the huge balloon. They fly as high as 700 meters. It is a spectacular show.
They drive you close to mountain tops, along the edges of the cliffs to add to the excitement. You can also enjoy the view down the Rose Valley.
You can also take a tour of underground cities. It is believed that there are over 120 such cities still getting discovered. These cities were used for protection when enemies used to attack towns. Kaymakli is the largest underground city which is believed to have hosted 3000 people at times.
You can visit Devrent, Pigeon and Pasabag valleys for fairy chimneys.
You can see the finest rock-cut churches at Goreme open-air museum.
Appreciate Master Red galleries in Venessa Seramik Center.
You can hike around Uchisar castle.
Enjoy famous Turkish ice cream at Mado by the riverside.
Konya
The next day we drove down to Konya. We had a stopover at Agacii Turastik Tesisi for nice Turkish buffet lunch on the way. In Konya we visited Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi shrine. We stayed overnight at a nice Anemon hotel.
Pammukale
The following day we drove to Pamukkale which is famous for hot springs and travertines which are terraces of carbonate minerals left by the flowing water. It has Hierapolis — the ancient Greek city on top of hot springs. You can take a shuttle here to drive around to beat the heat.
The areas around travertines are developed into nice parks.
We stayed at the nice Pam Thermal Hotel which had a nice pool, hot water spa and wonderful surroundings.
Antalya
The next day we drove to the resort town of Antalya. It has a population of about 2.5 million and attracts 10 million tourists every year. There is a nice marina offering boat rides.
You can enjoy the all-around view from the viewpoint.
You can also do some street shopping around the area. You can take a walk around the old town which has nice restaurants by the roadside.
You can enjoy the beach and view the Taurus range.
On the other side you get to see 7/ 8 storey million dollar+ apartment buildings overlooking the Mediterranean some of which are also vacation cum investment homes.
They also have a cable car ride here which is supposed to operate from 10 am — 7 pm but is not operational most of the time due to weather or technical issues.
Istanbul
From Antalya, we flew to our last destination in Turkey of Istanbul. It is metropolitan in the country. It is situated in Europe as well as Asia. It has a population of about 20 million which is almost half of the total population of the whole country! The main landscape of Istanbul is the Bosphorus which is a strait uniting the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara and separating parts of Asian Turkey (Anatolia) from European Turkey. The main landmark here is Hagia Sophia.
It is located in Sultan Ahmet Park which also has Blue Mosque and Topkapi palace nearby. One of the galleries in the palace boasts an 86-carat diamond on display.
Grand Bazaar is a historic marketplace nearby still hosting about 4000 shops. It is rather expensive for shopping even after bargaining. A couple of other landmarks of Istanbul are Bosphorus Bridge and Galata Tower.
You can cruise along the Bosphorus and enjoy the most exquisite views of the area.
Another popular hangout place is Taksim Square. Here you drive underground and walk upstairs to a mosque, shops etc. in the area.
The city is full of mosques. 98% of the Turkish population is Muslim.
You get to see food stations used by the street vendors.
We had a very comfortable bus for our ground transportation.
The speed limits on Turkish highways are around 100 km per hour. You see trams in most cities.
The tourism here is quite developed. You can travel safely throughout western and central Turkey. The eastern part is not considered safe due to its borders with Syria. The capital of Turkey is Ankara (surprise, not the largest city Istanbul!) The toilets here are called w/c. Many public toilets charge 3 lira per person per use. The language can be a problem here as many people don’t understand English. Handmade carpets are famous for turkey. There is also a leather industry here like Kircilar.
Currency
The local currency is the lira which is about 4.5 INR at this time. You may not get Turkish lira outside Turkey and your best bet is inside Turkey. You should probably also exchange your lira for more universal currency like US$ or your country’s local currency while flying out since lira won’t be accepted or exchanged at a good rate outside Turkey. If you are going to rather remote areas like Cappadocia, Konya and Pamukkale, you may not find money exchanges there. The ATMs, if you can find them there, might charge a 10% commission withdrawing your foreign currency in the lira. Your best bet, in that case, is to exchange or withdraw at the ATMs at Istanbul airport itself though the exchange rates may not be good. In rather big cities like Antalya and Istanbul, you can find money exchanges giving a good rate. You can find ATMs as well. Did not check whether they also charge any commission!
Weather
Turkey does not have any separate rainy season. It means that it can rain any time of the year! The weather can change at any time. In August it is quite sunny with highs of around 30 degrees Celsius. You can feel the heat in the afternoon walking around the city, and visiting places otherwise it is mostly pleasant throughout. We did not witness any rain throughout the week we were there except for a few glimpses of cloudy weather and some drizzles while driving around. It gets cold in winter and most of Turkey is covered with snow at the time.
Food
Most Turkish people are non-vegetarian. Beef and chicken are common food. The Turkish menu curiously offers soup in all meals including lunch, dinner as well as breakfast! There is rice and bread. There are also a lot of potatoes and cooked mixed vegetables. Some nice Indian restaurants are offering good vegetarian food which is a little more expensive than local Turkish food. Turkish ice cream is a little hard (compared to the soft ones that we get in India) and you see vendors playing tricks with it to attract customers. Turkish delights are sweets made up of jelly and dry fruits. Baklava is another popular sweet here. It has a pattice-like covering. Both of them come in a lot of variety.
Clothing
The clothing is mostly casual. For visiting mosques women need 3/4 of the sleeves and are required to cover the head (just a cap is fine and a full scarf covering all the long hair is not necessary as such). Men are required to wear full pants and shorts are not allowed. In summer the clothing is in general very light. For a hot air balloon, you need a jacket due to the early morning start and the heights reached by the balloons.
We travelled with Kesari who had partnered with a local agency called Dorak. We had an interesting very diverse group. The oldest passenger was 77 years old whereas the youngest one was 4! We had families, couples, friends, sisters, and solo travellers. Amongst us were software engineers, doctors, lawyers, farmers, healthcare professionals, teachers, and students. Some of us had travelled to 40+ countries. The travellers were all over from Pune, Mumbai, Nashik, Nagpur, Bangalore, and Haryana. We had very able tour leader Santosh Mundhe and knowledgeable tour guide Mehmet.
Overall it was a memorable exploration.
My previous blogs including travel to some other places are at: https://sameermahajan.wordpress.com/
