Turkiye Trip

Feels like I haven't written in years, and my brain becomes numb now. So this is a story haven't written anywhere yet...an interesting story between Turkiye and Netherlands. Yes, those are the countries I've been to last month (today is already November, right?).

The trip was started on October 9 to Istanbul. Arrived in Istanbul at 5 in the morning Oct 10 when everybody is still in their dreams, but somebody from the Tulip Guesthouse was already there waiting for us. He's a fine young man, with many secret not yet told. Fine then...we'd find out soon. The overnight flight from Jakarta was a tough one, since I couldn't sleep at all thanks to the passengers behind me. They're a couple just met in the air but sounded like they were a long lost lover!! Damn...what an unfortunate person I was...sitting nearby and unwillingly overheard their stupid conversation and giggling. The man is a German, and the woman in whore dress is Indonesian! The man said he never met such a woman while staying in Indonesia. No wonder!!! She's more bule than the most bule I met!

Back to Istanbul again before I lost my appetite to write. We were picked up by...I forgot his name, but he's a typical Turkish people....beautiful God's creature :-) Entering Sultanahmet neighborhood, I instantly fell in love with the place. That's a beautiful old city I've ever been. We got through the Blue Mosque, in fact, the Blue Mosque was in our neighborhood. I promise I'll visit the place after paying a 2 hours sleep in the guesthouse, But the owner said the place is already full now, our room will be ready after 11 am. Dammmnnnnn...I was very sleepy at that time!!! We had to wait at the balcony and that means I wouldn't get a proper sleep. One by one the guests woke up from their sleep and sat on the bench at the balcony. We had a little chat about which places to visit and so on and got in the hot shower. I really hoped that I would be in good condition that day.

After having a hot shower, we visit the Sultanahmet Square where Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque reside. My head started to pound, that's already a sign of 'go to sleep' from my body. Entering Hagia Sophia (and most places of interest in Istanbul) was very expensive, it's 20 Turkish Lira or Euro 10, or Rp 140.000,- The museum was almost likely as Goa church in India, with a heavy renovation underwent. So, we paid that much money only to find it being renovated. But the story behind the museum is very interesting. It was built as a church at Byzantine era (6 AD), and in Ottoman period (15 AD) it was changed to a mosque. The frescoes in the church was plastered. In 1953 it was transformed into museum, plasters and carpets were removed and voila....it's now a blend of christian and islamic cultures in one museum.

After Hagia Sophia, we were most likely not willing to spend another ten euro to other museum. So we took a walk to the downtown, and found this Adventure travel agency. Before I went on this one, I have to tell that we already booked a hotel in Ankara on our way to Cappadocia the next day. So...here we were....facing an old man with his sons running a family business in travel agency. I felt a little skeptic that day, so I took a silence attitude while Mbak Iwus went on bargaining on prices. The old man came from Cappadocia, so he strongly suggested that we have to go there. He's really good at advising if you know what I mean. But the price was quite to much for me (that's why I kept silent, not to mention my stronger headache kept me away from being any polite). My friend asked me to agree with the arrangement for Euro 375! That's already too much for me, plus the trip with balloon in Cappadocia for Euro 125! I agreed with the Euro 375 trip, but no way with the balloon. I told them I was scared of height, but I knew it's not really the case hehehe...So here we were...already arranged for the trip to Cappadocia and the night bus to Izmir.

We paid a visit to Grand Bazaar and took a kebap lunch on the way home. I lost my appetite, all I need is sleep. So my friend told me to go home first to sleep then go out at night again. Thanks mbak....so we went home at 5pm, our room was already prepared, and I fell a sleep abruptly. I woke up at night and it's already 1 am, confused at first. Heheehehe....I was being a sleeping beauty for 7 hours. My friend told me to go to sleep again because we would be picked up at 6 am to the airport.

At 6 am someone picked us up, he's not very nice maybe because he's tired of picking people up from 1 am. I said to him that it was his job so he doesn't have to be so grumpy, otherwise people wouldn't like him and he wouldn't get extra money. My friend was sooo angry with him, so I took the attitude of being an angel to him :-) See...I am very flexible.

We took a flight to Kayseri for 1 hour or so with our full luggages thanks to the grumpy driver. After that 2 hours driving from Kayseri airport to Goreme, that's the place in Cappadocia region where we lived. Weather in Cappadocia was more colder than Istanbul. We went directly to our site visit to fairy chimney, to see the odd landscape of Cappadocia. It was really a beautiful place. Our tour guide, Recep, was a married young man who admitted that he's single. A friend in our group who overhead him talked and knew who he really was (and who his wife was) asked him of where his wife is now. Oh, maaaaannnnn....he's lying to me! So he smiled at me saying that he's single out of home. Well, everyman is single out of his house :-)

We spent 2 days in Cappadocia, slept in a cave hotel. After the fairy chimney, we went to Goreme open air museum and pigeon valley. No wonder why the first Christians built their churches here, it's really a save hiding place. The second day was a tough day since we had to go to underground city (11 level under the ground) and the valley. But it is paid off by the late lunch we had...finally a proper lunch compare to the lunch the day before. I will miss everything I found in Turkey, almost everything....except the foods! They eat salad as main course with a mint yogurt! They eat spicy foods, but not as spicy as I thought before. In short, you will be confused of whether it is a European or Asian style of foods. They have different style, maybe because they sit in a silk road between Asia and Europe. Poor Turkish....but of course they like it!

After spending 2 days in Cappadocia region, we headed for Izmir at night Oct 12. Spending 12 hours on the bus, we finally got in Izmir at 8 am Oct 13 and find our hotel. It was a nice old hotel with an old elevator, and I surely will avoid going up and down by elevator. Spending the first day at a bazaar near our hotel, we started asking where the hell was Izmir University of Economics (Izmir Ekonomi Universitesi). It's very far from our hotel, we have to go by bus. On the first day of the conference we went by taxi and spent about 23 lira or euro 11.5 to get to the university. We would spend 3 days on the conference, but our Indian fellow tempted us to go on travel the second day. There were many historical places in Izmir, such as Pergamon and Ephesus. I chose Ephesus because the travel agent suggested that Ephesus was more greater and beautiful compare to the other site, and because Ephesus was cited in the Bible.

Indeed, Ephesus (or Efes in Turkish) was great. At the beginning we went to the house of Virgin Mary located at the top of the hill, where Virgin Mary was believed to spend her last days here. It was visioned by a nun from Germany if I'm not mistaken, who hadn't come to this place but could depict the place precisely. When writing my wish list in front of the shrine, I cried as i remember my late brother, and wrote to her to take care of my brother in heaven. Soooo emotional.....after that we got down to the ancient city Ephesus, a beautiful site contain many history of it's inhabitants. A parliamentary office, Celsus library, very big theater where they held many great show at the time, gladiator shows, and Cleopatra story with her lover Mark Anthony when they visited the theater from Alexandria, and even the brothel story behind the walls of the city, all is very interesting. I didn't regret I spent euro 65 for this trip, especially when I found another proper lunch afterwards. Hehehehe...

At the third day, they day when I had to present my paper before the audience in the university, we got more tanned than before and more happier though we missed day 2. After presenting my paper, a member of the committee approached me and thanked me for being there and the presentation was very interesting bla...bla...bla...and it was too bad I wasn't there at the 2nd day when there was a presentation about the women as change agent in Turkey. I said yeah too bad....but in my heart I didn't regret it at all since I have a valuable field trip the second day. After all, it's all in the proceeding, so I wouldn't worry to much :-)))

We took a night flight to Istanbul that night, to spend another 2 days there before flying to Amsterdam, and my friend's flying back to Indonesia. Oh damn, the same driver was waiting for us in the airport, with my name cited in his board. My friend's mood went down immediately, so I had to keep cool. Obviously he's more polite than before. We slept in Istanbul Comfort Hotel, a new hotel in the Sultanahmet neighborhood. The next day we visited the Topkapi Palace, and met with 2 new friends who would accompany us to our Bosphorus cruise at night, and the day ended up very sweeeetttt :-))))) I have to cut off the story because it's not for public consumption.

The next day, Oct 18, we had to say goodbye to Turkiye and its beautiful people and promise everyone that we are going to visit there again someday in the future. Ismail, the front desk manager of our hotel wished me to visit him in Antalya next summer, hehehe...well...Antalya and Pamukkale could be my number one and two list of places to visit in Turkey. Hopefully...

So from there, my adventure was continued to Netherlands.