Istanbul > Ankara > Cappadocia > Ephesus > Istanbul

[Originally posted Oct 24, 2014]

Yowsers.  It's been a whirlwind of a week.

Our package from FedEx (containing our rear hub) continued to not arrive.  And so after multiple emails, our WS host calling FedEx's Turkish third party MNGKargo around 50 times and Katy and I even tracking down an MNGKargo delivery truck on the streets of Istanbul and asking them where our package was, we got nowhere.  And so we said to ourselves, it will come when it comes.  Let's go see Turkey.

So, last Saturday we took a train to Ankara, Sunday a bus to Nevşehir and a shuttle to Göreme (the center of Cappadocia),  Monday: 4 local buses to see the underground city of Kaymaklı,Tuesday night: a 10 hour overnight bus ride to Pammukale, Thursday: another bus to Selçuk (which is 2 kilometers from the ancient city of Ephesus), Thursday night: a train to Izmir airport, later Thursday night a flight (as in we finally got back on another plane) to Istanbul, Friday around 1am, then a shuttle from the airport to Kadıköy, Friday morning: the Metro from Kadıköy to Üsküdar, and then from Üsküdar back to Kadıköy (changing stations at Ayrılık Çeşmesi),  with a dolmus ride to Çiftehavuzlar.  (take a deep breath) And then tonight (leave in an hour) more metro, an airport shuttle, another flight to Trabzon (to see some mountains in Eastern Turkey), then back to Istanbul for 2 days before another roundtrip flight to Tel Aviv, Israel (we'll be in the holy land for a week) before returning to Istanbul to (drumroll please) finally pack up our bike and fly to Kathmandu where Phase 2 of our trip officially begins (but not without a 36 hour layover in Dubai).  Another deep breath.

If interested: Israel from 10/30 - 11/6, Dubai 11/7, Kathmandu 11/8

Once in Kathmandu - ten days or so of trekking in the Himalayas and then get on our bike (finally, can't wait) and ride towards somewhere in India.  Stay in India for a while, through Christmas and the New Year, most likely.

From the outside, traveling around the world on a bike sounds exhausting.  And it can be.  But no way is it any more taxing and exhausting than figuring out public transportation.  Aye yai yai. And much more expensive.  I'd prefer a bicycle and a simple road map any day.

Cappadocia: so beautiful.  A very southern Utah - Mesa Verde feel.  A couple million years ago a lot of volcanic activity left behind some very striking scenery - tall columns of somewhat soft volcanic rock that covers the land.  This rock is also present underground for hundreds of kilometers in every direction.  So in the 8th century BC, in an attempt to avoid war, the first homes and cities were built out of this rock (construction continued for about 2,000 years).  And when I say city, I mean city.  Some of these underground cities, there are a bunch of them, are 8 levels deep, connected by kilometers of tunnel and contain churches, homes, kitchens, ventilation shafts, food storage, stables - everything you would need to hide 20,000 people underground for 3-6 months while armies pass by overhead.  Two of the largest cities are connected by an underground 8km tunnel.  Katy and I had a great time crawling around one of these cities trying (and getting) lost in unlit closed off tunnels (when I see the closed sign I wait til no one is looking and go for it).

Cappadocia's favorite past time - morning balloon rides.

That's odd.

Cappadocia

Cappadocia

Nice front door. Found this ladder hidden and thought we should see what was up there.  Beehives. Pigeon Nests. 

A current residence, complete with solar panel.

Hiking.

Southern Utah??

Old meets new.

Katy has almost reached Nirvana.

Entrance to church in the next picture.

13th century church carved out of volcanic rock. It's amazing what people have done to have God in their life.

Underground city of Kaymaklı.

Pamukkale: also very unusual.  This oddity of nature is due to a natural thermal spring with an extremely high calcium carbonate content.  The water then runs down the side of the mountain depositing calcium carbonate everywhere, forming little swimming holes and creating an entirely white mountain.  Above the thermal pools is the Roman city of Hierapolis.  Lots of ruins in Turkey.

Main Street, Hierapolis

Let's go to the Theater darling.

Pamukkale thermal pools

Pamukkale

Dining with some French friends, David and Enimie.

Don't love junk, but these are classy. Plus it is cold here!

For Katy, trains, buses and shuttles only mean one thing: Kindle time. If you can't tell, for me: the ol' shut eye.

Ephesus: mostly famous (at least in the small bubble of SLC) due to the book of Ephesians in the New Testament, the writings of Paul.  I'm not too brushed up on my Roman history, but the ruins looked like a great place, a gladiator arena (maybe this was in Hierapolis), a theater, nice roads, a public latrine, a sewage system, a gigantic library.  I'm always baffled to think about cities that are now in "ruins".  If someone were to tell me that in a couple hundred years Boston or Miami or Denver would be mostly underground with a couple shepherds hanging around I'd say, yeah, right.  But that's what happened to so many of these places.

The ruins of Ephesus.

Library of Celsus, Ephesus.

Main road. Sewer underneath.

The writings of Paul (I was really surprised to see that this particular inscription was still around after so many years).

That's been most of the last week.  This morning finally took our wheel off to get fixed up at Bisiklet Gezgini - what appears to be the last great touring bike shop before Asia.  It was nice walking around a shop with Brooks saddles, Ortlieb bags, Schwalbe tires and a nice array of camping and other gear.

The last week has been great (seen a lot), but also a bit underwhelming.  It's been easy to fall into the trap of take a bus to a tourist site, pay our entrance fee, stay at the overpriced local guesthouse, corralled onto another bus, repeat the next day.  I really am looking forward to getting to Nepal where we can head back off in the unknown on our bike, away from touts and entrance fees (and the best part will be that it will cost about $15/person/day - and that's living it up).

Turkish Bath - I don't go to the spa often, but when I do it is in Turkey. Apple tea relaxing.

My DT Swiss 540 Tandem Rear Disc Hub - we meet at last.