Trabzon

On the bus from the aeroplane at Trabzon's military airport to the terminal I met a very nice person called Kay Stevens with whom I visited the Sumela Monastery the following day. I stayed at the Erzurum Oteli for 15,000 TL per night.

A touristic City Map I picked up has this to say about Trabzon (click on it to enlarge it):



How historical! All those fantastic names. I remember having to study Xenophon for Greek O level. The romance of names such as Mehmet the Conqueror or Suleyman the Magnificent wasn't really matched by the look of the place.



It was all a bit higgledy-piggledy and not very attractive, really. The place I intended to visit was the Sumela Monastery.





My energetic clambering in Cappadocia had been a little training for the climb up to the Monastery which is at the foot of a cliff 1,200m up overlooking the Altindere valley. The monastery was started by two Athenian monks Barnabas and Sophronios who claimed to have found a relic of the Virgin Mary there. I wonder how on earth a relic of the Virgin Mary could have found its way to the foot of a cliff half wat up Mount Karadag? There wasn't anything there before the monks began to use the cleft in the rocks as a church. I have some difficulty with this claim. No matter, people at the time (375-95AD) believed it and over the centuries the Roman empite, the Kingdom of Trebizond and even the Ottoman empire kept up the development of the place. My picture is above and a postcard I sent home is below.




The alpine scenery was indeed magnificent and the exercise was very good. The contrast in the scenery from Cappadocia was remarkable. The humidity is high here and the area is renowned for tea plantations. My pictures of it weren't very good. I think they were blurred because of the mist. I must say, however, that when the monastery was reached I found it a bit of a disappointment. The place seemed not only to have been fallen into ruins but had been vandalised in the modern sense of the word. I wasn't impressed by the frescoes particularly. They were damaged and I am sure that I remember there being graffiti too. The way I heard it was that the place had been vandalised when the area had been under occupation by Russians or Georgians or Armenians. The information on the web suggests that the place is being restored at present so it could be much better now.





On the other hand, the views from the monastery were pretty good.



As mentioned I went up to Sumela with a woman called Kay Stevens I'd met the day before. Kay, from Brisbane, was the most Australian person I have ever met. She told me she was a cook for an airline in Australia and was traveling alone taking advantage of the huge discounts on worldwide flights available because of her work. When I wrote home I said that she seemed a bit lost and definitely at risk of being ripped off. I don't think I meant this unkindly. It just seemed like she hadn't really the faintest idea where she was going or what she should expect to find when she got there. After Turkey she was off to Egypt and Jordan.



After descending from the monastery we ate at a Pide Salonu - basically a Turkish Pizza restaurant. I haven't mentioned it before but the food in Turkey was invariably excellent.

The next day I had breakfast at Guven Pasthenesi and saw Kay Stevens off back in the direction I'd come from. I recommended the Australian Pension in Selcuk. I then went to the Post Office and posted back the ceramic plate I'd bought in Cappadocia hoping it would arrive in one piece. Despite my attempts at careful packaging it didn't but my brother Hugo did stick it together. It wasn't exactly ceramic either. It was more glazed plaster of Paris. I think it has now been thrown away.

Then I had a shave. You might wonder why this was noteworthy. The point was that I didn't shave myself. I went to a barber's shop and had the barber shave me. I have to say that this experience is well worth it.



After that I sat around in a Cay Bacesi drinking more tea and writing postcards etc. Towards sunset I went to see the Aya Sofya or Aghia Sofia or Ana Sofia as I notice it is variously called.





I should say that by this time you might be wondering whether I was a religious nut. After all I seem to have been doing in Turkey is visit places of religious interest. The fact is that I am not a very religious person at all but in Turkey the whole place is steeped in religious history. Everywhere you turn there is another fascinating religious edifice.

My purchase in Trabzon was "Guide to Eastern Turkey" by Ilhan Aksit. The biographical information about Ilhan Aksit sets out a very impressive CV in archeology between 1965 and 1982 when he retired to take up a career as an author. I should say that this book is very good and the photographs in it are very good too. The main reason for buying the book was to make up for the fact that I couldn't take photographs of everything and to make sure that I had some kind of visual reminder in the event that my slides failed to come out. Anyway the book is well written with loads of good information about the places in Trabzon I was visiting and some of the places in Eastern Turkey I planned to visit next. I'm sure that Ilhan Aksit was not responsible for the biographical blurb which after explaining his retirement to write popular books on Turkish archeology and tourism: "He has nearly 3 titles to his credit to date, including. 'The Story of Troy', 'The Civilisations of Anatolia'. 'The Blue Jpurney', 'Istanbul' and 'The Hittites'." What attracted my attention first was the use of the word "nearly" in the context of the number of books he's written and then a list of a couple more than nearly 3 titles: nearly twice as many as that but actually 5!


Ilhan Aksit says that the "Hagia Sophia of Trabzon" (as he calls it, giving it yet another name) was built during the reign of the emperor Manuel I (1238-1263). I've never heard of emperor Manuel I. His name suggests there were more than one emperor Manuel and this was news too. I am no expert on frescoes and so you will know that it is Ilhan who tells us that it is believed that the frescoes were done in the year 1260 and appear to be the earliest examples extant of the Paleologue period. That's what it says. I'm sorry but I don't know what came before or after the Paleologue period let alone what the Paleologue period might be. Look it up, if you like.



Above: a postcard showing the miracle at the marriage in Cana on the western wall of the "Narthex". Says Wikipedia: "The narthex of a church is the entrance or lobby area, located at the end of the nave, at the far end from the church's main altar. Traditionally the narthex was a part of the church building, but was not considered part of the church proper. It was either an indoor area separated from the nave by a screen or rail, or an external structure such as a porch. The purpose of the narthex was to allow those not eligible for admittance into the general congregation (particularly catechumens and penitents) to hear and partake in the service. The narthex would often include a baptismal font so that infants could be baptized there before entering the nave, and to remind other believers of their baptisms as they gathered to worship."



Above: a postcard depicting the loaves and fishes miracle on the northern side of the Narthex.



Above: Jesus discoursing with the Doctors in the Temple on the southern wall of the Narthex.

Below: two postcards of the ceiling or central vault of the Narthex depicting the four evangelisists.




Below: The interior of the church. This is from Ilhar Aksit's book.



This was a very peaceful place. I was, so far as I can remember, completely alone there.



My notes say that I had a Doner Kebab for dinner. I can confirm that this was much better than the Doner Kebabs I used to have from City Road Cardiff when I was a student there. Before I went to bed I telephoned the Australian Pension to let them know that Kay Stevens might very well arrive.

The following day I wandered around Trabzon. The port was full of Russians (as was my hotel) who had come ashore and who were feverishly trading whatever they had for US dollars. A 3 litre bottle of Stolychnaya would have cost £6 and I remember being shown some very dodgy looking face cream.

My diary says I went to Boztepe but frankly I have no memory of it. I had to look it up on the net to find out what it was. It's is a hill with views of the city below. There are places to sit and drink tea and apparently a couple of ruined monasteries. I can't remember whether I went there or not. I don't know why I would have written a note in the diary



And so the sun set on my last day in Trabzon. But the excitement wasn't over.



A fortnight earlier Trabzonspor the city's football team had notched up one of the most famous victories in its history by beating the mighty F C Barcelona 1:0 at home in the first leg of the their first round match in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. Embedded below is a You Tube video of that famous night. Isn't that Johan Cruijff in the dug-out?



The second leg in Spain was this very night and there were high hopes of a major upset. Television sets did not seem to be widely owned and so every Cay Evi (Tea Room) and Hotel Lounge was packed to watch the satellite broadcast. The Town Hall had even rigged up a big screen in the main Square.

Despite Trabzonspor scoring first, to near hysterical jubilation, gaining that all important away goal that meant Barcelona had to score at least 3 times, they managed to net 7 goals in reply. Although Trabzonspor did manage another goal the final score was F C Barcelona 7:2 Trabzonspor (aggregate 7:3). Gloom descended over the city. Mysteriously there seems to be no You Tube footage of this match.

The next morining it was raining. I checked out of the hotel and got on a Dolmus up the coast past the terraces of tea plantations. At Hopa the Black Sea coast road crosses into Georgia. I changed minibuses there and began the climb over the Kackar mountains to Artvin.

Cappadocia

So after a free breakfast on 23 September 1990 I set off for Cappadocia. I got a bus from the Otogar to Urgup via Nevsehir. On arrival I booked into the Born Hotel (pictured) at 14,000 TL inc. breakfast. Hotels were getting even cheaper still. A postcard I sent home calculates this as £2.60 per night. This makes the exchange rate 5,400 TL = £1.

Once again my notes are poor. I have no recollection of the room I was in except that it was in the front of the Hotel on an upper floor and the postcard I sent home says it commanded an impressive view. I do remember getting up before dawn one morning specifically to record the Meuzzin's call to prayer echoing in the silence. It wasn't a bad recording except for the fact that about a minute or so in the sound of a noisy truck coming up hill towards the hotel can heard getting louder and louder. I remember the man in charge was called Rejep and he was a chess player. I can't play chess. I know which way all the pieces can move and the objective, of course. I just don't seem to be able to think a number of moves ahead which is the skill you need to win. Rejep beat me very easily. It was embarrassing.


When I arrived in Konya I kew at least that I was in the East but when I arrived in Cappadocia I wasn't sure I hadn't arrived on another planet.



Pictured above are some fairy-chimneys in Urgup itself. Urgup is about 7km from Goreme. Just as in Selcuk and Konya, I bought a book in case none of my slides came out. This book is not as useful as the other two because the English translation is not brilliant. It's called "Cappadocia Cradle of History" by Omer Demir. At least it jogs my memory a bit.

The landscape of Cappodocia is amazing. It is the result of the erosion by wind and weather of the volcanic lava called Tuff or Tufa that covered an area of 4000 square kilometres when Mount Erciyes erupted. The massive stratovolcano is the highest mountain in central Anatolia (3,916 metres). Wikipedia says that the Greek historian Strabo (born in what is today Amasaya in Turkey in 63/64 BC) said that from the summit you can see both the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. These days it is one of Turkey's most important mountaineering and winter sports centres. I was there in September and I am not a fan of skiing.

The last time the volcano may have erupted covering the area in Tufa or Tuff was 253 BC. Tough is not what Tuff is. Easily eroded and easily tunnelled or dug is what it is.

The first places I visited were Kayamakli and Derinkuyu. Both of these places are famous for their underground cities. I apologise to Omer Demir for making fun of the book but I am trying to include some useful information that might be gleaned from it to help any reader of this blog. He tells us there are 36 such underground cities and I quote directly from the book: "I wonder if people of another world, or the underground people that do not know the world's surface, made Cappadocia in a form of an ant's nest by digging these underground cities, which I believe will increase with further investigations, to their forms of today." I'm sorry but I don't really follow this. What is clear from the book is that Omer has done a lot of research and he is not entirely clear what drove the people who constructed these cities underground. The constructions are not just caves. They are quite sophisticated. They go down several storeys.



I really did go there. I honestly did. The book makes it sound very interesting. It is really interesting. I mean it is amazing. Then again. I can't remember much about my visit. I vaguely remember going into a tunnel and being led down into chambers but honestly don't recall much else.



What I think about it now is that when one hears about terrorists hiding out in caves it begins to make sense. I mean it is in fact quite possible that these places that exist in Anatolia could exist in Afghanistan or places like that and they are quite habitable with sophisticated air supplies. They provide excellent shelter from the excesses of the weather.

What remains with me much more lastingly is the general landscape of this amazing part of the world. "Landscape" may not be the right term. Often it was more like "moonscape".

My tourism of the area took me next to Goreme and Uchisar. Omer Demir tells me that I was following the route of the Byzantine population of Derinkuyu ahead of the advance of the Arab armies.



Goreme was considered by St Paul to be the most suitable place to train missionaries and was was one of the greatest centres of Christianity from the seventh to ninth centuries. There are about 400 churches in the area. Omer Demir lists half a dozen churches in Goreme alone. These churches are hewn out of the rock over a thousand years ago. The frescoes are spectacular. Postcards I sent home show some of the frescoes in the eleventh century Karinlik Kilise (the Dark Church) they are particularly well preserved because very little sunlight penetrates into the caves.




Above: Three postcards of frescoes from the Karanlik Kilise. Below: a postcard of a fresco from the church of Ysuf Koc. In the postcard I sent home I complain that the main problem with these places is the massive number of tour buses bearing mainly Germans and Americans which make virtually impossible to stay very long.



As I said before it was the landscape which what I found most fascinating. The postcards I wrote home relate how my careful planning came in useful. In addition to the trainers I had bought on Oxford Street I had also bought some trekking trainers from Blacks (in Argyll Street?) where I bought my rucksack. These had proper soles with enough grip for clambering up the rock formations. I discovered that the trainers were completely useless for this when I followed a French couple up through a hole in the rock and out into the open through the top of one of the "cones". The Nikes had virtually no grip and once or twice I nearly slipped and fell. It wasn't until later that I noticed that Pascal (the chief dare-devil) was covered in cuts and bruises.

The following day I donned the trekking trainers and walked from Urgup through the Zelve Valley to Avanos.







Despite the better footwear there was more than one occasion when I found myself on a the edge of a precipice completely alone with heart pounding and jelly knees wondering how I was going to get down without falling. The tops were covered in a fine gravel so that keeping a sure footing was not at all easy. Another of the essential pieces of kit it is suggested that one packs is a whistle to attract attention in an emergency. I had it with me but it did occur to me that in order to be able to blow a whistle you would need at least to be conscious. I was completely alone in this landscape and had I fallen I can see no reason why I would ever have been discovered. Even if I had been conscious the likelihood of breaking bones would have been very high and getting a whistle out might have been impossible. I mentioned this in my postcard home and my mother worried about it.



My postcard says that if the slides came out the scares I was giving myself would have been worth it and the picture above does I think do justice to the wierd and wonderful landscape I was in. You can see that it was hardly a gentle ramble.

Below (sadly in shadow because I arrived there late in the day) is what I think is a cave monastery. Omer Demir's book has a better picture (taken years previously, I'm sure) which shows there are steps either side within the gaping Cavern entrance.





This trek was an exhilarating experience. I would recommend Cappadocia to anyone. It is rather like being on the set of an episode of Star Trek (the original series with William Shatner). The geography seems almost as artificial as some of the planets that Capt. James Tiberius Kirk. Mr Spock and Dr Bones McCoy would be beamed down to along with a pneumatic female crew member and a couple of technical support crew at least one of whom would be killed. I remember seeing the comedian Craig Ferguson at the Hackney Empire doing a routine about this. Basically his point was that if there was ever a need to beam down to a planet there was no way he'd have volunteered - the chances of returning were only 50/50.

I only bought one souvenir from Cappadocia. It was a large floral patterned ceramic plate. Knocked down from 120,000 TL to just 30,000 TL by virtue of "the Saddam effect" namely the fact that the Gulf War was putting tourists off.

In addition to the underground cities, the cave churches, the Zelve Valley pigeon houses and fairy chimneys there were also two "castles". One in Uchisar and one in Othisar.






I think I packed plenty into a week in Cappadocia and took the Saturday off. I slept in and spent the day relaxing in a Cay Bacesi drinking that black tea and writing postcards home.

The next day I took a bus, a Mercedes 303, to Ankara where I used the second of my internal flight tickets to fly to Trabzon on the Black Sea coast.

Konya

On the flight to Konya I met a woman from Helsinki. She was in the Textiles trade on a buying trip. That's all I remember. It's extraordinary really but I can't remember a single thing about landing or arriving in Konya. Maybe this was because I didn't arrive until well after dark. I checked in to the Otel Petek which I note is still there. I don't have my Lonely Planet book anymore (I'll explain why later) so I've had to check the internet to see where Otel Petek was exactly. As previously mentioned my camera was loaded with slide film so I didn't really want to waste shots on nondescript things such as hotels or the rooms I stayed in. I wish that digital cameras had been invented because I would have taken snaps of nearly everything and today I would be able to look at them and remember things. As it is I can remember nothing whatsoever about Otel Petek on Çikrikçilar Içi and only know that it cost 20,000TL per night because I wrote that down. I'm not sure anymore what the exchange rate was in 1990 - was it 6,000TL to £1 or more? Anyway, hotel rooms were getting cheaper. It wasn't far from Allaaddin Teppesi.

Konya is a conservative place. It's not as if Turkey is the kind of place that has bars or night spots. There might be such places on the Aegean or Mediterranean coasts but certainly not in Konya. The woman from Helsinki had mentioned that she was staying in one of the larger hotels and given that there was nothing else that could be done I went over to that place and found the bar. When I got there she was there but she was clearly with business associates and I didn't want to intrude. I had a beer and left shortly afterwards. I had the impression and still have a nagging feeling that there was more to this woman than met the eye. I couldn't believe she was just buying textiles (she had mentioned cotton) for some Finnish fashion house. I thought that maybe she was some kind of diplomat. What was she and the men she was with discussing? I'll never know. They were talking furtively. I went back to my hotel and doubtless tuned in to the World Service before bed.



So what's Konya all about? Sufi mysticism, that's what. The Mevlânâ, that's what. What's that? Who's that? more like. Mevlânâ Celâleddin Rumi is who. He was/is one of the greatest philosphers and poets of the Islamic world. He was born in the city of Balkh in present day Afghanistan. According to a site I chanced upon today "It is an astonishing fact that, 800 years after he was born, Mevlana Rumi is the most popular poet in the United States of America." I can't vouch for this. It goes on " The name Mevlana Celâleddin Rumi stands for an ecstatic flight into infinite love.

The story of love must be heard from love itself
For like a mirror it is both voiceless and expressive.
Mevlana Rumi (1207-1273).

This philosopher and mystic of Islam addressed all people, regardless of their faith or ethnic origin. Mevlana's original Sufi philosophy and importance surpass national and ethnic borders. He advocated unlimited tolerance, positive reasoning, goodness, charity and awareness through love. When Mevlana Rumi died, for the first and only time known in world history, Moslems, Jews and Christians quarreled about the honour to carry him to his grave."



It seems that when he was a child the Mongols had reached the outskirts of his birth city and his family joined a caravan for Nishapur. Immediately after their leaving, Balkh was destroyed by the troops of Jenghiz Khan. His travels took him next to Baghdad then Kufa then Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem. Damascus and Aleppo. His father, Veled, is then reputed to have said "God has inspired us to go to Anatolia. That country draws our caravan to it." Anatolia was then under the Seljuk rule of Alaeddin Kekubad I. He sent envoys to persuade Mevlana's father to come to Konya. He did and stayed two years until his death. His father's followers then attached themselves to Mevlana. However Veled's successor at the Madrasa sent Mevlana to Damascus and Aleppo. When he returned he took over his father's post as madrasa teacher.



He was a person of extraordinary intellectual maturity but grew dissatisfied with the extent of his knowledge and understanding and began to move towards a mystic approach to philosophy. It seems Mevlana was accosted one day (apparently exactly 25 November 1244) by a crazed and elderly itinerant dervish called Semseddin of Tabriz who had become a mystic at an early age, studied with a number of sheyhs (spiritual teachers) and had sought out Sufis searching for a guide to his spiritual ecstasy. The two of them became inseparable and spent all their time engaged in long discussions and ecstatic exchanges. Mevlana disappeared from the mosque and madrasa and while his followers had at first tolerated his new-found mystical relationship with Semseddin, in time they grew jealous and began to threaten him. In February 1246 Semseddin of Tabriz disappeared apparently without trace.

Mevlana was beside himself, left in a spiritual vacuum which he expressed in lyric poems full of longing for Semseddin. Nothing was heard of him but then a dervish returning from a visit to Damascus brought news of him and after four letters of invitation (the last delivered personally by Sultan Veled, Mevlana's son) Semseddin was persuaded to return.

All the above, the wonderful names etc, the places and such like really conjures up a truly oriental world. It's all summarised from a book I bought in Konya called "Mevlana and the Mevlana Museum by Mehmet Onder. It is edited by Zumrut Aksit who missed the fact that the book says having been away from Konya "for several years" following his disappearance in February 1246, after his return to Konya, after having been reunited with Mevlana, married to his daughter and ensconced in a corner of the madrasa, those opposed to Semseddin renewed their schemes to remove him. Mevlana's daughter died within a short time of Semseddin's return and their marriage. Those against Semseddin blamed him and plots began to take shape and the book says "on the night of 5 December, 1247, he was waylaid with great cunning, it is thought, and never heard of again". The Editor should have corrected the text, it was clearly several months that Semseddin had gone missing the first time.

Mevlana was inconsolable and gave himself up to mystic ritual and devotion. He wrote more longing poems for Semseddin. The poems might lose something in translation but they are really quite excessive in their tone. A person might be forgiven for wondering whether the relationship was more than spiritual. For instance: "Oh, the essence of a thousand rose gardens, you masked yourself from the jasmine. Oh my soul's soul's essence, how did you hide yourself from me". It goes on at length in this vein but I think it is explained by Mevlana's belief that one can find the love of God under the guidance of a spiritual mentor who himself had attained the mystical truth.

After Semseddin of Tabriz, Mevlana became influenced by Sheyh Selahaddin Zerkubi - the goldsmith. Selahaddin's daughter was married to Sultan Veled to seal the bond between them with marital ties and Selahaddin was Mevlana's closest companion for 10 years. Selahaddin died in 1258. Mevlana's next inspirational companion was Celebi Husameddin. He inspired Mevlana to write his great 6 volume work the "Mesnevi". Semseheddin had been responsible for creating the sufic personality of Mevlana, for nurturing his mystic self beyond the level of ultimate in divine devotion. Selahaddin matured his esoteric leanings, while Husameddin was responsible for encouraging the great philosopher-poet to write the"Mesnevi" a work of great importance for mystic literature.



Mevlana died on Sunday, 17 December 1273 while the sun was setting. As mentioned above his funeral was not an exclusively Islamic affair. People from every religion were there, Muslim and non-Muslim. When a group of Muslims said to the non-Muslims: "What business do you have with this funeral? Mevlana was the leader of our religion. " They replied: "We realized the truth of Moses, Jesus and other prophets from Mevlana's plain words and saw in him the actions and personalities of the prophets as we have read in our own Holy Books. Just as how you Muslims recognized him. Just as you loved him, we loved him too, and became slaves for him far more than you did." A Greek monk added: "Mevlana was like bread. No body can keep himself away from needing bread. Have you ever seen a hungry man who refused to eat bread?"



Konya became a centre for pilgrimage. His tomb, which is also known as the Green Dome (Qubba-i Hadra), was built by the efforts of Sultan Veled and Ala al-Din Qaysar, and by the material support of the Seljuk Emir, and his Georgian wife Gurju Khatun. Its architect was Badr al-Din from Tabriz and was completed a year after Mevlana's death.





Mevlana referred to "love" as the greatest guide on the mystical path, spiritual devotion being, in his words, the true guide to spiritual enlightenment. "the way of the prophet is the way of love. Be not without love and you be not without life. To love is to be alive." You can't argue with this philosophy. It makes me wonder how we have arrived in the situation we seem to find ourselves in today. Clearly the radical teachers and preachers who we are told are preaching hate draw their influences from somewhere else.

In the book I bought Mehmed Onder says: "Mevlana believed that by renouncing false temporal pleasures, greed and ambition, instinctive desires, evil, falsehood and hypocrasy, the adept could attain an understanding of true beauty and truth, could find true peace of mind. The attainment of such peace implied for him the nurturing of devotion to God as the finest of devotions." The first sentence chimes with the teaching of Buddha (see much later in this (eventually enormous) blog.



After his death the Mevlevi Order was founded. Mevlana was not the founder or leader of any order himself. The order is famous for the whirling dervishes. A postcard I sent home depicting this is shown above. There's a great deal of symbolism which is far too complicated to describe. The dancing is the Sema ritual and the purpose is to induce a controlled ecstasy in the individual through which he may divest himself of his physical self and attain the ultimate truth. Whirling induces a a form of spiritual inebriation in the performer.



I didn't see any whirling dervishes. From what I can remember the whirling season was a few months off in December. I did wander around the Tomb. It was a spooky experience. The place is exceptionally ornate and beautiful and there's the sound of the Ney-flute playing all the while in the background. I bought a couple of cassettes of ney-flute music and when it becomes possible to embed audio in these blogs I'll do it. For the moment I have embedded a YouTube video. Press the play button and have a listen while you read. The Tomb of the Mevlana is something that should not be missed if you are in Anatolia. Mind you it's not really a tourist site. It really is a holy place and although I'm sure I was not dressed disrespectfully I did feel slightly out of place. Other people had clearly come to pray.



Armed with the Lonely Planet I also visited the Ceramics Museum which I can recommend too. The Seljuk portal to the museum was spectacular enough in its own right. My picture and a postcard are below.



I have to say that I liked Konya. At last I felt that I was in the East. Istanbul is big city and Ephesus was too touristic to really get a truly oriental experience.

After a day in religiously visiting the places the Lonely Planet guide recommended I decided to take the next day to shop for a more substantial souvenir. Walking up and down the Mevlana Caddesi I had seen a great carpet hanging in the window of a shop. It caught my eye because it wasn't a traditional design. The carpet had a Caravansaray design.

I didn't really want to get into the hassle of rug buying. Having been to Turkey twice before I knew the drill and I had heard all the sales patter. I just liked this particular carpet. I went in to Young Partners and negotiated a price for the object of my desire. It involved quite a bit of tea drinking and looking at other rugs and carpets that I really wasn't interested in buying. There are doubtless lots of people who have been through the process who consider it to be an ordeal. Not me. I really enjoy sitting in a room full of beautiful rugs and carpets. Now I don't know whether this was a sales ploy but if it was it was a pretty good one. The showroom had a good number of rugs rolled up and packed for shipping and the address labels showed they were destined for Liberty's in London. The salesman told me that Liberty's buyer had been in a few days before and when they had time all these parcels were to be taken to the post office for shipping to London.

Anyway, I bought my carpet. I was invited to stay in the shop and drink more tea while my carpet was rushed off to the Museum to have a lead seal affixed to guarantee its authenticity. While I was there another tourist came in and was looking at the rugs. I was invited to join in the sales talk. I was able to confidently assure the potential buyer that the dyes used for the colours were all vegetable based. The blues were indigo, greens pistachio, browns tobacco etc. I drew their attention to the parcels ready for Liberty's and of course I had myself just bought a carpet for myself. What better way to feel confident that the product was genuine. Another sale was made! As a result I was invited to eat with the shop owner in a restaurant around the corner. I had Konya Kebap (what else?) and it was on the shop owner.



The next day, Saturday 22 September, there was food festival and after a day sightseeing, more free food! I was on my way to Cappadocia the next day but before I went I was treated to a free breakfast by my new best mates in Young Partners. In 3 days in Konya I only had to buy one meal for myself. I've still got my carpet and it's on my living room floor now. 17 years on and its still fine. Things have been spilled on it and I have had it cleaned and can say that the colours did not run. I'll add a picture to close this post shortly.