We readied ourselves for another long day in the back of the van – TC and I often ended up in the cramped back corner. Mostly because I was really bad at being last on the bus. Thankfully our first stop wasn’t too far away – Denkuyu – one of Turkey’s infamous underground cities. These places dated back hundreds and thousands of years and were where whole towns of people avoided slaughter by living underground. There is a list of warnings that people with claustrophobia and a host of other medical conditions shouldn’t go down there. Normally you would just write these warnings off as a company being over cautious, worried they might get sued. But this is Turkey. And this was pretty much the first safety warning of any kind I had seen. We went anyway. TC was a little scared that the confined space would freak him out but they were mostly worried about being able to get someone out if they suffered a medical emergency, The spaces were pretty tight and the worst part was that you were kind of bent over a lot of the way. Climbing through the tunnels in procession, it was impossible to see how much further you had to walk crouched over and how far up the next open space would be. The most spectacular part was the shaft that let light (and air in). If you leaned right over in a couple of spots, you could just see a hint of sky. Like everywhere else in Turkey, or the world, where there’s a tourist attraction, there’s a gift shop. After that and a “bio break”, it was back in the bus – next stop – the Ilhara valley. (Lonesome – Unwritten Law – the perfect angst-ridden break-up song. It’s poignant lyrics, catchy riff and powerhouse angst have accompanied my angry tears following more than one breakup.)
The Ilhara valley can almost best be described as a gorge rather than a valley in the traditional Australian sense. We walked down quite a lot of stairs until we reached the valley floor. There was quite a bit of room for walking along beside the river the (or really creek) than ran through the valley. It was picturesque and green but like in Southern Spain, the vegetation reminded me quite a lot of Australia. You could almost have been walking alongside the cotter river or the Murumbidgee. Of course there weren’t eucalyptus trees that we see in Australia but much of the vegetation and the light were familiar. Although so far in my travels, I haven’t really experienced big sky the way it exists in Australia. Nowhere here is the sky as expansive. At the end of the valley we reached our lunch destination. A restaurant with floating pontoons on the river set up like ramshackle Bedouin tents. They were joined by a series of floating gangways to the restaurant. Of course we chose to dine on the pontoons. Given my propensity for clutz-tastic disasters (and the fact that I almost fell in on the way over) I let TC and our other tour group buddies go across to get drinks and stuff. It was a lunch of simple Turkish fare and then up out of the valley to the bus our wonderful driver had brought to meet us – almost to the restaurant door. Konya, home of the whirling dervishes. (Human Behaviour – Bjork – My first immersion in Bjork’s blend of avant garde tunes and theatrical demeanor was at the 1994 Big Day Out. It was the perfect interlude to the mix of grunge and punk that occupied the main stages.)
We stopped at the mosque in the centre of Konya – there is a museum there with a history of the dervishes. TC and I (and several of the tour group) decided to have a look through the local market and shops instead. Konya is actually quite an ugly city, as Turkish cities go – the city centre reminded me quite a lot of the market area of Ankara -functional, largely constructed in the latter part of the 20th century, and not really anything beautiful about it. We wandered up the street TC in search of the elusive peach knife. We also found some tacky souvenir stores (and just like in Ankara, loads of shops selling nylon lace and other assorted cheap clothing that no one should be wearing in this climate). The other thing we noticed here was how conservative it was. All women were wearing head scarves and were covered a lo5tt more than other places we had been. We saw traditional face coverings like niquabs and hijabs here. The conservatism is of course driven by the strict religious undertones in this part of the country. As we walked back to the bus, we passed the mosque where a lot of men were washing themselves to prepare for prayer.\
Last strop of the day was Beyshehir, a lake town where we arrived at dusk. We checked into the hotel (which was really nice and quite spacious and relaxed for a while. Our room had quite a spectacular view of the lake. Eventually we headed down to dinner in the hotel. Some of our number had chosen to go and forage further afield but we were pretty tired and decided the in-hotel option, while a little expensive by Turkish standards, was the easiest. I had a delightful meal that started with chicken soup and then a kebab and a few beers. After dinner we decided to go for a bit of a stroll about town and out to the lake. This, more than anywhere we had been, felt like a regional summer holiday place. And one that had been updated in the 80s like so many regional tourist spots in Australia. There were boardwalks along the lake and facilities for holiday activities. Like many Australian lakes, it felt like the kind of place where families might go on a cheap(er) holiday. Only in Australia, they’d probably stay in a caravan rather than a hotel. We took a stroll after dinner, variously running into different members of our tour group as we strolled around the landscaped lake, resplendent with swan boats and everything.
