I woke up about 6 but breakfast was 7:30. When we go down the Farises are already eating. The owner brings out special fried bread. Homemade, of course. The owner brings out gifts including a bracelet and charm. Also there is a pack of postcards. Then we have to pay for the rooms, etc. The Farises used the services more than we did. They were not happy with the bill. While they were discussing it the owners said that they may have charged high and start cutting some of the prices. After breakfast we bid farewell to the Farises, certainly two of the more interesting travel companions we have had. We pay our bill. Maybe a bit high by Turkish standards, but still fairly reasonable.

It is still a bit early for the bus so we wait in the room. At the appointed time we leave and the owners of the Ozturk wish us goodbye. They give us business cards for us to give other travelers. We go to the Koray to get our ride to the bus. It is almost ridiculous. They take us to what would be a ten-minute walk away. We could have walked it easily. It is a small drink stand with a table. There we wait for the next bus. That will take us to the big bus terminal. The man running it asks us “Would you like something to drink?” Basically it he lets people sit at his table waiting for buses in the hopes of selling something. The town has three or four layers of bus terminals and bus sub-terminals.

We have to be careful with our money. It is not because things are expensive. The money machines just don’t want to give very much. Getting money is really difficult here. We don’t want to use up our money. We are sort of artificially poor.

We have taken a pay bus to Denezli and are waiting in the terminal for the bus. Next to us a family is sitting on the tiled floor and eating the lunch they seem to have brought. They have a loaf of bread and a metal dish with vegetables. I am trying to find something unique about this bus terminal but aside from the language and the Islamic head coverings of the women this looks a lot like a standard bus terminal. It is a little more open air and it is lined with a lot more stalls serving drinks. I pass a large vertical turning spit of lamb, what we call gyros. Our bus pulls in and we start to board. Someone stops us and asks to see our ticket. He pulls us into the bus terminal to the bus company desk. They rewrite our ticket. Probably because it was a hotel who wrote the ticket it has to be re-written. Earlier we were assigned seats 15 and 16, now it is 5 and 6. There are layers of middlemen. We get on the bus and a few minutes after the appointed 11am it pulls out.

The woman ahead of me is reading a newspaper called Asabi. The front page features a wordless news story. It just has the picture. Apparently it is important news when an attractive blond wearing only the bottom half of a bikini looks over her shoulder to smile at a news camera. No other major newspaper seems to be covering the story. The reader has her head covered in the conservative Turkish way, in accordance with the laws of Islam. Turkey is a land of contradiction. What land isn’t?

The buses are really the popular mode of travel in Turkey. What the trains are to India, the buses are to Turkey. And they make every effort to make bus travel pleasant. I don’t know why they pour cologne in your hands on the buses. I suppose the people are poor and some may not smell good. This way the buses always smell fresh. Next they come around with water. Perhaps this is a Middle Eastern welcome. It seems like it could be. Then they come around with Coca-Cola.

We drive past a large stratified stone mountain. Little scrubby trees growing out of it. You could film a Western here. Not as many nice rock formations as Utah, but we could be in the Western US.

At about 12:15 we stop for a rest stop, possibly lunch. It is sort of a gas station and a large covered outdoor restaurant. A shop sells touristy items. There are bead-covered bags, calendars, scarves, and instant “Turkish” apple tea. A “market” has candy, racks of the ever-present Doritos. They seem to have more varieties of Doritos than we have at home. Also Ruffles. It would be interesting to know how much of this is bought by Turks and how much by tourists. I am not sure which would be the bigger pity. Here comes another splash of cologne.

I make faces at the little boy in the seat ahead of me. He must be about three. I thought I was helping to entertain him but eventually he is swinging his arms and crawling on his parents. I figure he needs some benign neglect. We are now going through some gently hilly farmland. Another three ounces of Coca-Cola.

More driving, more writing. We stop in a town for ten minutes as we go into a somewhat deserted otogar. We do find a stand open to get some snacks. The man counts up the cost of our snacks, tells us the value and short changes us by 100,000TL. Evelyn caught it. He could have told us the sum of the good was more and we would not have known. But if the price was alti-yuz-something and you expect to get at least 300,000TL back. Two 100,000 bills and a coin won’t do it. Evelyn had to write the figures down and the man finally accepted that we could do Turkish arithmetic.

We got some cookies, some rod-like sesame crackers (really more breadsticks), and a bag of something mysterious. They were the size of peas, were brown with burn spots, and had very little flavor. Bite into them and they become a fine powder. Slightly peanut in taste. They turned out to be roasted chickpeas.

The steward comes around with the making of hot tea. I am not a big hot beverage person and on a bumpy bus even less so. The driver’s tray is full and a teabag (in cellophane) falls to the floor. He goes down to pick it up and his stack of cups falls over and more falls off his tray. I pick things up for him and he thanks me. He asks me if I want tea or coffee. No to both, but when he offers cola I say yes. He is not serving cola now but because I was helpful to him, he brings cups for Evelyn and me. A small thanks for a small favor, but it reminds me how nice most of the Turks really are.

Well we got into Konya and tried a recommendation we went to the Otel Petek. It is a tiny room though it does have both a double and a single bed for $16 a night. The place is something of a dump and second only to Salihli as the worst room we have stayed in. But that seems to be how things are in Konya, which seems like an older city. In fact local legend would have it that this the oldest city. When the great flood receded the first place that the waters left was Konya. Actually it is a city about 7000 years old, so it may well be the oldest city I ever visit.

This is the first city we have been in that does not have a lot of Western tourists and you really can feel a difference. There are no carpet salesmen haranguing you. In fact there are still some touts, but not very many. In general you get left alone. Carpets are not the big thing here and I would never have guessed what it is. Believe it or not the really big sales item is cigarette lighters. That is the item you see being hawked on the streets the most. Not only that, there are a bunch of stands set up to refill empty lighters. What kind of economy has that as the main consumer item?

We did find some stands selling the worry beads also. You see a lot of people carrying them. Evelyn very cleverly suggested that they would make a good chachka item.

Well we went out to try to dinner, but first find a bank machine for money. Finding a bank machine has not been the problem. But this one would actually give us a decent amount of money. We are no longer poor. We are once again solvent. Our first thing to do is to find dinner. It was easy to find all sorts of shops including a few sweet shops but when you are looking for a place to eat dinner, that is not so easy. We found a kabap shop finally and tried to communicate. The place was dark and smoky. We ordered one thing off the menu and they were out. Two others they had out of maybe ten. Well, we picked the right thing. We translated some of the other things on menu and found they were things like trotters. We got a regular and a spicy meatball sandwich with coucous, grill tomato and pepper, and lettuce and onion salad. That a Pepsi and a tea came to $4.40 and they had to send out to get the beverages to two different places. But the meal was pretty good.

After that we went walking. We got some ideas for restaurants. This seems to be a very religious town. The vast majority of women cover their hair. Supposedly alcohol is very hard to find.

There seems to be a sort of Central Park. This is the Alaettin Tepesi. (A Tepe is a hill. This is the hill with the Alaettin Mosque.) We walked once around it looking at the shops across the street. Some seemed a little more upscale. Not like Manhattan, but not small and falling apart either.

I suggested we go find the other hotel that was recommended to us. It is a little further out. It takes us a while to find it but it is a pleasant clear night. We find it and while we are thinking of going in the owner practically pulls us in and insists we look at a room. I do and the room is just okay. It is nothing special. It is also three flights up (like our room) and costs $24 a night. We will probably stay where we are. We come down stairs and the owner has already made tea for us and is ready to give us a high pressure talk. Of course he is at a real disadvantage. He speaks only Turkish and French. And French is definitely not the Lingua Franca. We pull away and are out the door making a clean getaway.

Back at the room Evelyn starts a wash. We both drink water like fiends. We really need a lot of water in this climate. We have to buy a 1.5 liter bottle a day. The problem I run into is my throat and mouth are dry telling me I am thirsty, but my stomach is full. Maybe I should not eat such spicy food.

We went into the lounge. There were two men and a boy watching Turkish TV. The program almost seems like the old American idiot favorite “Queen for a Day.” It seems to be some sort of panel program where a woman in tears tells some sort of story to dramatic music playing in the background and the panel discuss what she is saying. I think there has been more than one woman on, all completely in tears. They say nothing without crying. I have not figured out what the program can possibly be about.

This is the first real Turkish TV I have seen. What do they have on? “Wheel of Fortune.” The Turkish edition, but easily recognizable. Another program comes on in Turkish but it is clearly Steve Gutenberg. I wonder if he knew he spoke Turkish. Another program is music video. Then they put on the news. That is quickly replaced by a situation comedy whose bad acting transcends the language barrier.

Back in the room I listened to Radio Moscow, now called Voice of Moscow. I hadn’t realized they changed the name. The toilet, once flushed, makes noise for 20 minutes if it doesn’t get stuck. If more than 20 minutes pass and it still sounds like a waterfall, then you go in and jiggle it. This room is somewhat overpriced for Turkey. Especially considering that this is one of the few places where breakfast is not included. The window is cracked. The bedclothes have stuff stuck to them like they have not been washed in the 1990s. In Goreme we will choose more carefully.

Well we were awake at 7 and the bus leaves at 9. If there are problems getting to the bus terminal, which I doubt, best to get them out of the way early. We put on full packs and head down to the desk. Nobody was at the desk. We knocked on the desk, but nobody came. I left 8,000,000TL on the desk with the key.

A mini-bus comes a way down the street and we run for it and ask “Otogar?” The driver shakes his head yes. Evelyn sits down in back. The driver gestures to me to take off my bags then to sit next to him in the front seat. This is sort of a place of honor. Drivers will frequently have a friend in this seat to talk to. Often the person in this seat will make change. He ask the usual questions. What language I speak. Where I am from. That sort of thing. Mostly we just drive and I see the streets and we listen to Turkish music. He has the money he has collected on a tray next to me. He moves it to the dashboard. Friendship is one thing, responsibility is another. When we get to the Otogar I thank him using the longer form. “Chok teshekul ederim.” I get a big friendly handshake. These are the most friendly people in a country we have visited since China.

We got our ticket and sat down to wait. Our next challenge was getting breakfast. There were three stands in the bus station. All had almost exactly the same selection of baked goods. I went to the one near where Evelyn was sitting. I asked for a corn muffin and a pizza, 100,000TL and 200,000TL respectively. The boy behind the counter was surprised I wanted pizza at this hour. I nodded. Crazy American, I guess. I was told to pay the cashier first. You pay first and bring a receipt. I did. They grilled the pizza. Actually it was like a roll a foot long topped with meat, cheese and onion, though not much of the latter. Hot? Yes. So he folded it in half and grilled it on something like a waffle iron. It was pretty good. I wrote for a little while.

We get on the bus. There is a lot of arguing about something as the bus starts to leave. I suspect they have oversold the bus. They sell seats, not rides. A family of four can ride for the price of two if they keep the kids on the parents’ laps.

We pass by a field where the army is training. The drill instructor sees the bus and waves at it.

Apparently if you total your car in an accident the state gets it and then leaves it at the side of the road as a ghoulish reminder to drive carefully. Usually you see this along rural roads but Konya had one in the center of town with a mannequin impaled on the broken windshield and basted with plenty of fake blood.

The radio playing on the bus has a time tone but time tones vary by as much as two seconds here depending on where you hear them,

The countryside is not really very interesting. These are the Steppes of Turkey. It is pretty flat. You see herds of sheep tended by shepherds.

There was a dead sheep by the road. I figure the shepherd leaves it there as a ghoulish warning to the other sheep to stay out of the road.

We stop at an otogar and the man ahead of me tells me that we will be here for ten minutes. I pass the word back to the English-speaking couple behind me. I bought a “bagel” at the stop and we talked to the people from behind us on the bus, a New Zealand couple who had not been to Anzac Day. They are also going to Goreme. We discussed the food and other pleasantries. They had been to LA, New York, and Israel. We discussed how friendly the Turks were compared to the Israelis. I wrote and napped a little.

At about 12:25 I saw an interesting rock formation in the distance and thought it would be good to get a picture. It looked like a big termite mound. The road took us closer and closer until we were in amongst what looked like a whole colony of termite mounds. The bus steward tapped me on the shoulder saying this was where I get off. Sure enough this was Goreme. By the time we were off the bus our luggage was on the ground. The strange squalling sound I had been hearing turned out to be a chicken who did not want to go into a small box in the luggage section. Frankly I am on the chicken’s side. It would have to be a contortionist to fit in the box and certainly would not want to travel that way. I was rooting for the chicken.

Now I wanted to see where the heck I was. Goreme is a bunch of homes and hotels dug into strange Utah-like rock formations. Yup, this is where we are staying for the next few days. There is a tour and accomodation center. We heard about a place to stay, the Melek. Okay, we set out for it with full pack. It is a climb up a hill to get to it.

There is a local place called the Flintstones Hotel. Except that the rock formations are more pointed and conical and that the place is more hilly than Bedrock that is a pretty good description. You are either living in a cave or a rock building built into a hill.

We climb, having some problem finding the Melek in part because an arrow fell off one of their direction signs. Evelyn finds a souvenir along the way, the part of jawbone of a sheep complete with three or four molars.

We ask to see the room and find it a big climb up, even from the lobby. There is a common area like a porch for four rooms that looks like a piece of a grape orchard. The shade is provided by vines hanging over crossbars.

The rooms are the tiniest yet but the look and feel is amazing. If I wanted to put myself someplace exotic, this is it. Descrbing this place is just not sufficient. This is the kind of place I never expected to get any closer to than pictures. Evelyn says that this is our cheapest international trip yet. If you don’t count airfare India was cheaper, but this was the cheapest all inclusive trip on a per-day basis. And as I look from our patio I cannot believe what it bought us.

Goreme is part of the region of Cappadocia. The Cappadocian Fathers who were the followers of St. Basil came to this region and here carved churches into what were really volcanic chimneys. There are hundreds of volcanic chimneys that are easy to hollow out to create buildings. These days the area has been discovered and there are efforts underway to protect the beauty. Part of the reason we chose the Melek is the owner is supposedly a leader in that preservation.

We probably should have run out right away to get some pictures but Evelyn wanted to wash her hair and I really wanted to get my log entirely up to date. I also want to take it all in. I feel like I have fallen into an issue of the National Geographic.

So we are sitting on our porch looking across at a cliff-dwelling family who seem to raise chickens. Every once in a while one of the chickens or people comes out of the home for one thing or another.

Well we had to make arrangements so we climbed down the hill and walked into town. That takes all of about 10 minutes. Evelyn stopped and talked to a New Zealand couple. They recommended Flintstone Travel to book a tour of the area so we did. That seems to be the most common nationality here. Actually the travel agencies all seem to off the same three tours and seem to designate them exactly the same way. There is the red tour, the yellow, and the blue. I bet they all charge the same for them. So it makes comparison between travel agancies very easy. And pointless.

The woman at Flintstone Travel was also from New Zealand. She was on her first day and we got into about an hour conversation about travel, local food, politics, and a number of other topics. I asked what was happening to New Zealand’s currency. It seems it has been very unstable and headed very much downward.

After that it appeared to be ready to rain hard so we figured that we ought to get out of it. 5pm was early for dinner but we’d had little real food. We went to a restaurant called the Sedef. I had Ayran and a dish that turned out to be chicken, cheese, and tomatoes in a clay pot. Evelyn had chicken and couscous and Raki, an anise flavored liquor. While we ate the sky opened up for our benefit with lightning and thunder, though not enough of either to be exciting. For desert I had Fresh Fruit with Honey and Yogurt. That was fairly good.

After we eat we go to a grocery and get a package of Turkish Delight just to try it.

From there it was back to the room. We were sitting inside our small room when we heard people on the patio talking English with a North American accent. “Ah, someone to talk to,” I think. I take a look outsiede the window and see someone who looks familiar. “Hey! I know him!” “Who is it?” asks Evelyn. I have to think for a moment. “Sammon. Pat Sammon.” Yup, the people we met going from Istanbul to Canakkale, in Canakkale, in Sardis and again in Selcuk. They had gone their own way and had ended up at the same hotel in Goreme. I just caught a flash of him receding around a corner. I go to the manager’s office. There is Pat registering. We are in room 20, he in 21.

We get caught up with them on what had happened since. They had gone to some more restful sites. I think Pat and I have both had digestive problems. They are not sure which tour to take. We suggest they join our tour. They agree it is a possibility and ask how to find our tour office. I suggest we walk them. So we head back into town and take them to Flintstone Travel. The woman is surprised to see us again. Not as surprised as we are to be here. One of the chimneys supposedly contains a pre-Christian church. We go to see it and it is in a restaurant. We look at the doorway in and it looks like a storage room for cleaning materials. The owner of the restaurant says that we should walk in. So we do only to discover he is decorating the inside like one would a van. It will be a music club. At least until the loud music damages the chimney.

After that the plan is to try to find a high place that we can see over the entire town. We do some climbing but do not manage to find any place easy to go. We are at 1000 meters or about 3300 feet. That makes breathing something of an effort. Though it is one effort we are anxious to make, at least considering the alternatives.

We find a relatively high place that gives a view. As we are admiring it a woman comes out of a house just to be friendly and talk to the foreign strangers who have come up her road.

We do a little more exploring and then go back to the hotel. We sit in the lounge, drink apple tea, and talk to the small, soft-spoken Nico Leyssen, the owner. He is Dutch with a close-cropped moustache and beard. He always seems have sunglasses and to wear jeans, a cream-colored turtleneck and a black vest. He is trying very hard to save this region from developers who would do things like put music clubs in the chimneys and who want to put of concrete buildings all over. He has political enemies and has been thrown out of Turkey twice and has had to sneak back in. Part of the reason he can get back in is that the “y” in his last name is a “j” in his own country and there is no “j” in Turkish. That causes confusion when he is looked up in the database. He has to leave but we continue to talk. I say the the big developers really should be stopped, but there are local people who are just trying to make a living here and they will be a problem. You really hate to tell them they have to lose their jobs to protect the feel of the area.

The conversation drifted and then settled on the Y2K problem. We told the Sammons some reasonable precautions to take.

Back at the room we opened a package of Turkish Delight and I had my first sample.

There is a classical radio station that we can just barely get. I listen to that until they switch over to jazz. Why do classical station have this tendency to play jazz, even here? Jazz stations don’t feel compelled to play classical music. A lot of jazz seems to me formless and unmelodic. I wake up at 11pm and realize I had fallen asleep writing. I turn off the light and go to sleep in earnest. This involves going over to the door since that is the only switch that controls the light over the bed. That gets dust on my feet since like desert areas the dust seems to just blow in and cover things. By the time I am in bed I am fully awakened and it takes a good half hour to fall asleep. But I don’t wan to turn the light back on and awake Evelyn.

I must sound a little like a hypochondriac, what with colds that go away (real) and kidney stones that disappear (speculative). But I was concerned. Really I suppose the mileage is starting to show on this Indiana Jones.

We were up at about 6:30 and showered, and dressed until about 8. We had breakfast with the Sammons, this time for what I assume was the last time. There is little chance of seeing them in Istanbul. Pat noted that Mary Lynne tried the Cappy Cherry he bought last night and agreed that it was great. She drank a can and a half of it. This stuff is bottled by Coca-Cola but not available in the US. What a pity. They do have some fruit drinks in the Coca-Cola line in the US, but they are all under the apparent separate brand Minute Maid. I doubt Minute Maid has anything this good.

The back wall of the lounge where we have breakfast is a Camel cigarette ad that I find very funny. It is maybe four feet high and eight feet wide. It purports to be a film ad for a film called The Wild and the Brave though I sort of assume that no such film ever existed. On the right there is a picture of a man and a woman, both in their mid-30s, both in sort of African hunting gear. He is in the foreground with a big Camel cigarette between his fingers. She is standing behind him looking statuesque. To the left is the picture of them fleeing an angry bull elephant. He is standing on the landing strut of a flying helicopter. She is hanging over the side holding on only by his hand. The ad says, “Taste the Adventure.” Wow! Now that is excitement. We didn’t do that when we were in Africa.

We did not have a real itinerary planned for the day except that we wanted to go to the Open Air Museum. I think the idea was to take it easy. Pat asked us directions on how to get to the bus stop where he would be picked up at 9:15. I suggested we could walk them down and show them. Yet again we wished them well. This time I really think it was the last time. Then we climbed back up the hill to our room. Whoa, what a climb. One does not take it easy living up a hill like this, there are just varying degrees of strenuous activity. We decided to sit on our porch and write until we got our strength back.

We intended to head out something like 11 am after getting caught up in our logs. The day was clear. So we sat and wrote. An Australian family came through and we talked to them about what Anzac Day had been like and our plans to go to Australia. They left and some other guests came by. I noticed the woman was reading The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence. Basically the film Lawrence of Arabia is based on this book and on a reworking of the same material, Revolt in the Desert. We talked about that Syria where they had visited. We talked about cinema. These are Clark and Ria Olson who live a little north of New York. She is Belgian-born and a translator. She looks a little like Vanessa Redgrave. Clark looks a bit like Richard Dreyfus with a neatly trimmed white moustache and beard. He does woodworking. Before we knew it was 1pm. I told the Olsons that we were going to the open-air museum and suggested that they join us but they had arrangement to make including setting up a tour for the next day.

We headed out for the open museum. Different countries have different things they call open-air museums. This museum was at one time all one huge church carved and hollowed out of the volcanic cones in this area. In a way I have not seen in any other region of the world volcanic force has pushed up cones of what looks to be a soft stone. A cone may be 30 feet to 100 feet high and maybe half of that in diameter. The rock is soft and crumbly. It is easily shaped. Here in this valley many small buildings were carved to make one church. There are crude geometric under paintings and in the 11th and 12th century there were still crude but more advanced frescoes painted on top.

We decided to walk from town to the open-air museum. It seemed to be just on the outside of town. It turned out to be about a 45-minute walk in the hot sun, mostly uphill. The scenery is otherworldly so that probably makes it worthwhile. It is sort of a cross between the American Southwest and Mars. But I realize as we are getting to the museum how much the walk has taken out of us. We each get a coke. The man gives us each a can and a yellow straw. The straw is leaky and what we are drinking is Coca-Cola foam. I give up and drink from the can.

The official name of this museum is the Goreme Acik Hava Muzesi. You walk in a big circle going into buildings. Even this time of year it is crowded with tourists. Since the only light for many of the rooms is through the doorway, people blocking the doorway is a problem. One climbs up rough steps to go through little doorways to get into claustrophobic rooms.

The cones have names like The Nun’s Monastery, the Apple Church, and the Snake Church. The latter is so called because it shows St. George slaying a snake. We take some pictures for some tour groups. Joke with some Japanese. We spend maybe a couple of hours there. On our way out we see the Olsons coming in and make arrangements to get together for dinner. We head back out for town. Funny this road seems to be mostly uphill in both directions.

I want to belatedly wish my mother a happy Mother’s Day. So at 5pm we want to call her. That will be 7am in California. It is now about 4 so we stop for a snack. I get a big kabap sandwich (to share with Evelyn) and a fresh-squeezed orange juice. There is nothing sweet about the orange juice, which tasted like lemon juice. Of course, I like it sour. More tourists go by carrying the Lonely Planet. Evelyn says next trip like this she want to put a different cover on the Lonely Planet just so we don’t look like everyone else. I suggest we put on the cover of the Lonely Planet India book. That would really confuse people.

At about 4:30 we go to the PTT office and ask how we call home. We are told we have to call from this phone inside. We verify the access number with him. He wants us to dial it now, but I say that I want to wait until 5pm. So we wait and other tourists from our tour yesterday come along. We talk. At 5 we call. Wouldn’t you know it, my mother was called from the shower. I should have called earlier. “Where are you calling from?” “Goreme. You know, in the Capadocia Region of Central Turkey.” (Sure he knows. Right. Well, he can look I up in the atlas.) But it makes something of a hit to call home from someplace really exotic. We talk a little about Turkey and politics. Well, it will give them something to tell their friends, that they talked to Turkey.

Little did I know that I would have to fight to save my love on the way back to the hotel. We were climbing the hill (ugh!) and there in a little grassy patch were two turkeys. Yes, there are turkeys in Turkey. (I think I have heard they give them a different name.) I took a picture of the male. Good stuff for the photo album. As we were walking the male turkey stepped in front of us to take a closer look. Evelyn asked if they peck hard. I don’t see how they could. They have that wattle in the way. I tried to step around and the turkey jumped at me kicking out with his claws. A minivan came along and suggested we wave a turkey steak at it. Big help. But as the van distracted it I walked by. The turkey went after Evelyn. The turkey actually jumped at her a couple of times as she tried to pass. Evelyn asked if I could find a way to ward it off. All I could find was a piece of wood bark on the ground. It would break if I tried to do much with it. But I whipped it at the turkey’s head. The bird was not anxious to have its head whipped with bark and walked off. The threat was enough. I should have used my umbrella. That grows fast from a bird’s point of view.

Back at the room we had some time before dinner so I put on the radio. It was playing American Country-Western music. I should have gotten some Coke and some Doritos and had them while I was listening. The storeowner would have been tickled pink to have me pay in American money. I would find it a lot tougher to go Turkish back at home.

Meanwhile the weather was changing and I went out to enjoy it. The sky goes like gray cotton. There is a constant rumble of thunder. Evelyn and I go out to watch the lightning on the sandy mountainside. The birds are reeling as if to get their last bout of flying in before the rains come. Perhaps they are looking for what they will use for shelter. Lightning scratches streaks in the sky. Across the way on the caved mountain women in veils to cover their heads rush around pulling in wash. The storm changes from sprinkling little drops to dropping heavy, pendulous bursts of water. Still there are parts of the sky that are blue. And some are white. But overhead it is a heavy gray. I am getting wet. I jump inside the door and clout myself on the head. This is the feel of Goreme, the feel of a clout on the head. I felt it again and again in the underground city. Again and again as I clambered under rocks I felt the concussion. Again and again as I climbed into low cave entrances in volcanic chimneys. And the low door of my room partakes of the tradition. This is the feel of Goreme.

At 7:30 we meet the Olsons and head down the hill for dinner. They had somewhat dressed up, but I knew it was still a long muddy walk to the restaurant. The Planet recommended the restaurant in the Hotel Ufuk II. We go there and it is a walk up a sort of muddy sandbank. We get to the restaurant and it turns out the kitchen is being renovated. The owner recommends another restaurant, Tardelli’s. We decide to try it. Evelyn and I have lamb kabap. We get a salad and a Haydari for the table. Evelyn shares a bottle of wine with the Olsons. We talk about the usual: travel, food, movies, books. We compare stories of when the Olsons were in China with when we were there. They thought the Western breakfasts were great in the early 90s. In 1982 they were pretty bad and we were always better off if we could get Chinese food instead of Western. Clark is also a Russell Hoban fan, like Evelyn. We discussed the effect Ted Turner has had on film. I am less critical of Turner than most serious film fans. Yes, he colorized some films, but he also restored them to do that. If you say you lose the subtlety of lighting that the director of the black and white film intended, so what else is new? Even on film that changes with time and certainly the adjustment of the TV set affects it. And Turner has made a lot of nearly unavailable films become widely available. The damage he did by colorization is minimal compared to the good he has done for cinema fans. And Turner is giving a billion dollars to the UN. Bill Gates spends his money on himself. I think Turner’s TV news is not very good, but overall I think very highly of Turner. I don’t have much good to say about Bill Gates. Gates is just a selfish, immature little boy who cornered a highly profitable market. Compatibility has value to business so whoever made the operating system that American business standardized on would be very rich. That was Gates.

As we climb back up to our rooms the sky is partly cloudy. There is a full moon and it silvers the edges of the clouds. To stand at the base of one of the cones with the light glinting golden off of it and look up at it and the sky is a beautiful picture, but one I cannot capture with my camera, unfortunately.

We get back to the room.

Toilets in Turkey work about as well as turkeys do in toilets.

Breakfast was not ready when we arrived so we talked a little bit to Nico. First about the Camel ad. It apparently was used in a German film. The discussion turned to his battles with the Turkish government to preserve this area. He seems to have a set of abstract complaints and desires and I have not gotten a good idea of exactly what he does want. First he is saying that they want to buy the cone he restored and they should have been asking him six years earlier. Then he is complaining that they may not want to buy it. He wants the bus station and the stalls outside the open-air museum torn down because they were not designed by an architect. He complains they are “Door. Window. Door. Window. Door. Window.” He wants the government to come in and spend a lot on the town. I don’t know what exactly he wants things to be like.

We were worried the Olsons would miss their tour. They came into breakfast at 9, which seemed a bit late.

After breakfast we went back to the room to rest up from going back to the room. Evelyn asked me what I wanted to do today. Well, like yesterday it was already kind of a lazy day. I looked in the Lonely Planet and they had maybe two places worth going to. I dozed off a little, I guess and woke at 10am. Evelyn said the places I picked were really a bit far to go today. Okay, so now what? I suggested what if we were to check out and head for the less lazy area of Ankara. We would be going a day earlier than planned, but there would be more to do there. Evelyn said there was probably no convenient bus. Then she looked and discovered there was one about 12:30. So that was decided upon. The hotel never asked us how long we were staying. At least in this season things are a little loose. So we are off to Ankara. It took us about 15 minutes to me out the door. I cracked my head on the top of the door one last time on my way out. We had just flushed the toilet and we could not get it to stop so we just told one of the employees. Nico saw us and asked us a couple of times, “You’re leaving?” He was also sort of mumbling to himself.

We got to the bottom of the hill at 10:35 and it turns out one of the bus companies had a 10:45 bus to Ankara. The bus pulled up early and at 10:38 we on both the bus and our way to Ankara. It is hard to imagine timing getting better than that. We seem to be on the bus with a somber group. It is just a small bus, larger than a mini-bus but maybe two-thirds or less than a full-size.

The bus takes us to Nevsehir. Here we will wait for a half-hour for the Ankara bus. The time comes and we board. This is video-bus, our first. It was built by Mercedes-Benz. They start a film and I tell Evelyn it is safety instructions (like on a plane). The joke turns out to be quite true.

But then they do have a movie. The movie is Gunah. The plot must be more complex than this, but since it is in Turkish I may be missing some of the subtlety. An inter-city bus driver is a good guy whom everybody likes. A mysterious woman running away from her village rides his bus, and she fascinates him. He keeps seeing her in the city at the other end of his route. He finds out that she has become a sexy belly dancer. He wants to save her from this life. Eventually he kidnaps her at gunpoint, drags her onto his bus and takes her to the ocean where he washes the makeup off of her. She melts into his arms. She tells him what she was fleeing in her village but it is lost in the Turkish. Presumably they are very repressive. They hug again. Flash forward: they are engaged and deliriously happy. Even the groom’s mother agrees. They have a wedding ceremony. Everybody is happy. Then at the height of the ceremony the bride is shot dead by her family. In agony the bus driver grabs the dying body of the woman he loved.

Some of the things I learn from this film:

Some Turks eat like Indians, using the bread to pick up the food.

The life of a bus driver may be considered to be romantic in this culture like being an airline pilot in the US or being an engineer on the trains in Canada or India.

It is not unusual to see men holding hands and kissing each other on cheek. I have also seen this on the street.

Almost like Indian films ,they may often have songs for no reason in the middle of some Turkish films.

The approval of the groom’s mother is very important in deciding if a wedding can take place.

Brides in Turkey wear very Western-looking gowns.

Pretty much a whole village will celebrate a marriage. The men may have a dancing ceremony that has a mock fight with sticks.

There is still a great deal of tension between the fundamentalists and the more Westernized Turks.

I think you learn the fastest about a country the first couple hours you are on the street and when you watch your first movie from that culture.

We stopped for lunch break. I did not know how long we had. I went to the steward and pointed at my watch asking “On? Yirmi?” (“Ten? Twenty?”) He said, “Okay. Okay.” Well that was not much help. We bought a couple of chocolate bars and talked to an Australian couple about travel, etc.

At this writing we are approaching Ankara. This is a city known for taking that which is tangled and making it straight and that which is straight and making it tangled. In the first case it is the hair from Angora goats. The city was once called Angora, in fact and is the center of the Angora wool trade. And making the straight tangled is obviously the chief function of government and Ankara is center of Turkish government.

The town was a center of trade going back to the Hittites at 1200 BC. It changed hands to the Phrygians, Alexander, the Seleucids, the Galatians, and in 25 BC the Romans. The Byzantine held the town, but it was captured by the Seljuk Turks. Tamerlane captured it and its Sultan. But when his state collapsed it became a sleepy goat-raising town again.

Ataturk made it his government in 1920. After his War for Independence it became the capital of his new Turkey.

Well, we arrived in Ankara and the first thing we needed to do was find the bus to Ulus. Evelyn tried to ask in broken Turkish how to find bus 198 to Ulus. I told her to never underestimate the power of the written word. I wrote on a piece of paper “Otobus 198 -> Ulus”. I showed that to people and got conflicting answers but at least they understood the question. One man could not tell us where to go so walked us to the place to buy tickets for the bus and waited there with us until the ticket-seller arrived. We told him he could go, but he insisted on waiting with us. The Turks are a very hospitable people. We really should have taken a taxi, probably. We are saving ourselves a few small dollars, but people here are willing to humor us.

The bus comes and it is a double bus. It is really two cars with a sort of turntable arrangement between so people inside don’t risk the floor turning under them and gaps forming.

We get off at Ulus. This is really a business street with banks, more up-scale stores, and crossing Cankiri Caddesi anywhere but at the light is taking your life in your hands. When you cross at the light it seems that all of Ankara is crossing one way or the other and perhaps both. We fight our way across. On the other side one street over we look for the hotel, the Yildez. Behind the counter there is a rather strange looking clerk with a falsetto laugh. Something has pushed his eye teeth forward of his other teeth giving him the appearance of an underfed and slightly swishy vampire. We ask to see the room, first he wants to see our passports. This does not sound good to me, but I insist on seeing the room before paying. The bellboy takes our stuff up to the room. Well, if he insists. The room does not look too bad. I test the toilet and it works. It is a reasonable room; it even has a TV. Okay, we pay for three nights on the room. I go back upstairs and start to settle in.

I tried flushing the toilet again. This time nothing happened. Terrific, we have now paid for the room and the toilet is broken. There was water in the tank the first time, but the tank did not fill. I memorized Turkish for “the toilet is broken.” Down to the desk.

“Tuvalet yanmiyor.” The desk clerk smiled at me. “Yes.” That’s it? Yes? “Tuvalet yanmiyor.” “Yes.” But this time he was searching for the right words in English. “Seven.” “It will work at 7:00?” “Yes.” He bent his arm and made a muscle as if to say, “Be strong.”

We go looking for dinner and go to the Lahmacun Office, a pizza joint. It is decorated with a poster of Georgia O’Keefe and other flower pictures. We each get a different kind of pizza. I order Lahmacun, called Turkish Pizza. This is on a cracker-like piece of crisp bread, a circle about eight inches in diameter. On it is a think layer of ground lamb and tomato sauce. Then it is baked. Much more like pizza at home is Kiymali Pide. This starts with a crust a little thicker. It is covered with tomato sauce, cheese, and ground lamb. A rim is folded on the pizza from the top and bottom so it is no longer a circle but an eye shape. It is baked and then cut with parallel cuts the short way across. You get strips of pizza with rolled crust at each end. At this restaurant with each you get a little parsley salad, no utensils, but a salad. A slice of lemon is there as the dressing.

After dinner we walk around the shopping area. There are lots of more prosperous-seeming stores. Perhaps they are just more the style we see in the US and less like open and less formal mom and pop stores. You do have people selling battery-driven toys on the street. There is the car that drives to a wall, tries to climb it, falls on its back, and then rights itself. And runs in the opposite direction. There is also an electric dog that barks. There are sweet shops with open fronts.

We walk out into the square and there is a very large statue of Ataturk on a horse. Ankara, of course, idolizes Ataturk, at least officially. Here it is a punishable crime to show disrespect for Kemal Ataturk.

At the base of the statue there are kids playing soccer or hockey with an aerosol can cap.

We look in a bookstore window. I was surprised to see a Turkish edition of George Polya’s mathematics classic How To Solve It? There were novels by Dean R. Koontz, Stephen King, and especially Wilbur Smith. But we saw no science fiction. That was something of a surprise. There seems to be no market that I can see for science fiction in Turkey.

This is really the least touristy section of Turkey we have seen. We haven’t even seen a tourist since the Otogar. I also have not seen one carpet shop. There are no touts chasing tourists either. The closest you see is beggars who pick out foreigners.

Well, enough walking. We get back and the same clerk is behind the desk. I point out it is 7pm. I say “Yedi.” He responds only by giggling. We get upstairs and there is still to toilet. We can use the toilet only by filling the tank from the showerhead.

There is not much on the television of interest. I work on my log. I think I will treat myself to my last on-hand can of Cappy Cherry.

I have to be a little negative on Turkey for more than just the tout problem. Just about wherever we go the level of service is a bit dishonest. Now the hotel knows they the toilets don’t work and they basically lie about it rather than fix the problem. The desk clerk knew darn well there was no fix to the toilet coming. He just did not care.

I must have hit the sack about 10pm. I really don’t remember for sure. What I remember is that I got caught up in the log and decided to play one hand of solitaire. I have Klondyke on my palmtop. It worked out for me and I decided nothing better could happen to me today. From the next room I hear the monotonous of a computer video game. They have it turned up too loud. But it does indicate these things are available here.