Turkey - Konya - Day 1

I woke to the sound of the fan going off, and my alarm. The road was quiet, though before going to sleep I had to pull in the blackout curtains as there was a really strong light outside. The smell, however, was back in the bathroom. Not good. I decided to talk to reception about it.

I went down to breakfast and took my camera to do the video of the hotel. I managed to get all the footage I needed. I had large breakfast, as I knew that I wouldn’t eat much while exploring the city. I had a couple of böreks, a bit of egg with dill in it, some cucumbers and Turkish sausage. They can’t spell sausage. On the card it’s written like “sousoge”. I had a good laugh about that. I wanted to have some pancakes, but by the time I got to coffee, they were gone. I had an orange with honey instead. I really love the honey here, as it’s one the cone. Lots of sugar, but good for fighting off infections. I was happy to have a quiet breakfast, though the dining room was full of people. I watched them as they ate. Noted how the younger women served the older, the women the men. There were a lot of women dressed traditionally, though some modern ones as well. An older guy sat in front of me, a granddaughter on each side. He didn’t look at them much, for the most part he just stared in front of him. I wondered what he was thinking.

After breakfast I went back up to the room. I was still pretty tired, but decided to quickly finish up the hotel’s video, and upload it to Youtube. The uploading part didn’t go so well. It was going really slowly, and I wondered if it would upload at all. It didn’t even finish until I left for my excursion.

Before I left, I talked to reception about the smell in the bathroom. Communicating in English wasn’t bad, but I got the feeling they were having a hard time understanding me.

I headed from my hotel towards the Mevlana museum. As a preparation for my trip, I had read up a bit on the whole Dervish thing, though I wished I could have done a bit more. Work sometimes gets in the way of plans. So on the way there I came upon this place that looked a bit like a mosque, but not. There was some religious sounding music coming from speakers. I wondered if I could go in. As I was taking pictures, a bride in a white dress stood in the gate, with a white headscarf. She was very pretty. It’s kind of strange, but often when I travel abroad I see brides. There was this one time in Italy, where there was a chapel connected to my hotel, and they actually had a wedding there.

Then I saw some women dressed like me go inside, so I decided it was okay. It turned out to be some sort of military museum, with scenes of war and old village life inside. It wasn’t very interesting to me, because I didn’t know much about the details of Turkish history. However, the courtyard was very beautiful with a fountain and carved ceilings.

Finally reached the Mevlana museum. There were a lot of tour groups going in. I saw some ticket offices outside, but they were closed. It’s actually free, so I’m not sure why they had the offices. After the security check I entered a small garden. There was a place to get the audio guide, but I generally don’t like them. Since it’s spring, there were tulips in vibrant colours everywhere. Sadly, some of them were beyond their prime, but others were in full bloom. To the left was the mosque (camii) converted to a museum. Through a narrow gate I entered the inner part and reached the courtyard. Surrounding the mosque was a long building with little rooms that housed artefacts. The doors were very low, and a lot of people kept banging their heads. In most of them there were a couple of items. As they were very crowded, I first looked through the window, and if I liked the room, went in. A few were set up to look like occupied rooms. I wanted to take pictures of course, and video, but two women took forever to stand and observe the room. As I waited, another girl with a camera, of course a lot bigger than mine, stopped next to me. We looked at each other and smiled, probably both thinking how much we just want to get the picture and move on. Once we got inside, I actually stayed longer. Getting out of the room was hard, because some women wanted to crowd inside, and I had to shove them a little to get out of my way.

There was a fountain and I saw people washing their heads. Mothers their children’s heads, men their own. I didn’t stay to find out why though. I also went into a house labelled as a kitchen, but there was really just a small space set up like that, and the rest was a scene of discussion.

Next I visited the old mosque itself. It was very crowded and it didn’t help that some people decided to start praying in the middle. I quickly did my video and took some pictures. It was very pretty, actually. I do love the designs in Muslim architecture. The intricate patterns fascinate me. I think that not being able to depict humans in art only benefited them. In European art humans, people are always centre-stage. In Muslim art there is a different picture from afar and another from up close. In one part of the mosque they also used green lighting to a very good affect. There was a place where people could properly pray, and there were several doing just that. Men and women separate, of course.

Outside I walked around a bit, but there weren’t very interesting things left to see. So I had a tea in the café. I exited the Mevlana museum on the right side, around the place where I went in. There I found a couple of nice shops and a statue of a massive whirling dervish. I wanted to take a picture, but of course the moment I got there a bunch of women also reached it, and wanted to take a picture in every combination imaginable. I also found a shop with some very nice jewellery, and naturally had to buy something. I thoroughly recommend the shop, as the prices were good and the jewellery pretty.

Leaving the Mevlana site, I headed towards the Alaadin hill. I hoped that there would be a good view from there. The path was easy enough, just walk down the really wide road with the tram going in the middle. I got to a working mosque just when the call for prayer went out. I didn’t see anyone hurrying, but the mosque looked very nice from the outside.

The road to the Alaading hill is filled by shops and eateries. I stopped at an ice cream shop, and took a video as I got my rose (gül) ice cream. A girl in the shop asked me if I was doing a vlog, and when I said yes, she smiled. I talked to a guy there as well, and he spoke pretty good English, though he couldn’t say “rose” properly, and I had a hard time realising that’s what he said. Now I know the Turkish word though, so I won’t have that problem. Actually, “güzel” means beautiful, so it’s similar. The ice cream was delicious, BTW. A lot thicker than what I normally have. I think it could be made from goat milk, as there was a goat on the sign. Which is very good for us lactose intolerants too. I ate the ice cream all the way to the hill.

The hill itself isn’t a big deal. You have some restaurants up there, a nice park and a mosque, which is under renovation. They had some nice tulips, just like everywhere else, and I sat down to stare at the city below a bit. That is actually why the hill was built in the first place. Rich people wanted to have a place to look down on people. Kind of twisted, but makes for a nice park. I was thoroughly exhausted by that point, so decided to head back to the hotel.

The walk was relatively long, and while the hotel is nice, that is a drawback of not staying at a hotel in the city. However, on the way there I took a little detour and discovered a part of the city that is filled with old, two storey buildings and shops. It reminded me of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. I also passed a very pretty mosque.

I took a different route to the hotel, and discovered that not too far from it was a part that had old, dilapidated houses. 

Getting back, I wanted to discuss the fact that I reserved a quiet room, and with the busy road outside, the room was anything but. However, the receptionist spoke practically zero English. I ended up using Google translate. Did manage to get a more quiet room and the bathroom was fine there as well, but it was a hard thing to do. I wish the guy from the morning had still been there. Oh well, can’t expect that. I know how difficult it is to do 12-hour shifts on reception.

In the evening I had dinner and a cocktail at the hotel restaurant. The food was nice, though the cocktail maybe a bit stronger than it should have been. Not too special though. In Turkey, it's very common to have a dish where you get three things on your plate. One is a salad, then a pasta, and the third is a meat. It was tasty.

I was pretty exhausted, and went to sleep quickly. I hoped that by the next day I would be a lot fresher.