My Aunt Karen (Dad’s sister) got an amazing deal on a two week tour of Turkey, so Dad and I decided to use meeting up with her as a motivator to actually leave the boat and explore the interior of the country.
We didn’t want to organize a marina wide trip, but made an announcement over the morning net that we were going to rent a car and if another boat wanted to join us, to help cut expenses, the invitation was open. Within 10 minutes a couple from the boat Hobnob, Shanna and Doug, volunteered and said they had been meaning to make the trip but didn’t want to do the drive alone. We rented a car from Oflaz, the mariner’s choice for transportation, for 25€ a day and planned a four day adventure to Konya, Cappadocia, and anywhere in between.
We left bright and early on March 29 and began the 5 hour trip to Konya. Konya is a mid-way point between Antalya and Cappadocia and a pilgrimage site for Muslims. It was also a place we knew Aunt Karen would be stopping so we penciled it in as the place we would meet up with her.
The drive there went as well as can be expected. The rental car had a manual transmission, which I have yet to learn how to drive, so I was out of commission, but Dad and Doug did an excellent job navigating through a world where the lines on the road are a suggestion and turn signals don’t exist. When we began to pass through the country side, the site of woman dressed literally head to toe, bending over to dig up rocks or other things in the fields while the men leaned against their tractors enjoying a nice cup of tea began more common. We realized we were leaving big city living and taking a step back in time.
This is a camel we saw on the side of the road tied to a tire. We pulled over for a cup of tea and a stretch and when we got back onto the highway there was a camel by it.
Konya is described as a “…you’re liable to see everything you want to see in what is in reality a pretty boring, very conservative town in about half a day…” which led us to believe it was a small town with a museum or two and a bunch of mosques. Wrong. Konya is a huge city and what seems to be the up and coming place to raise a family. We got very lost looking for our hotel, which ended up being off of the main drag on an unnamed alley, but Doug was awesome and managed to navigate around asking the locals, and locate it. The hotel itself was very close to all of the main attractions and much like the streets outside, was a little confusing to navigate at first but then easily became second nature.
I think this is a kebab place, but I’m not sure. It was on the corner of where our hotel was located.
The real question about what was served was when I looked in the display case and saw rows and rows of goat heads… it did become a marker to remember where the hotel was though. “Take a right at the goat heads”
The main attraction and pilgrimage site is the Mevlâna Museum. We arranged it with Aunt Karen’s tour guide to meet the group there at around 3:30pm and walked over from the hotel.
The shrine was erected above Mevlâana Celaleddin Rumi, who died in 1273, and his father who is buried by his side. Rumi believed that music, poetry, and dancing served as facilitators for reaching God and for focusing on the divine. He was the founder of the Sufi order in the Islamic world.
In 1927, four years after the establishment of the Turkish Republic, his shrine was declared a museum and the Sufi order was officially banned as part of the drastic secularization of Turkish society under Ataturk. The museum is one of the most visited sites in Turkey and attracts more than two million people a year.
Photos aren’t permitted inside of the building, and neither are bare shoes. Bright blue plastic covers to put on your shoes are provided and make walking around slippery. Inside of the museum is the above ground markers for Rumi’s grave and then various dervishes, which were established after Rumi’s death. On the markers are various sized turbans to represent the status of the person beneath and an ornate carpet. There are also examples of dervish clothing and many sizes of Islamic text.
Someone we know! Aunt Karen and I in the court yard outside of the entrance to the mausoleum.
Dad and Aunt Karen posing. You can see there aren’t too many people in the court yard, but the mausoleum was packed with tour groups and the official tourist season doesn't start for another 2 weeks.
Rumi died in 1273 and the Mevlevi order of dervishes, famous for their whirling dances, was founded after his death. Konya is known as the birth place of the whirling dervishes, but it’s apparently rare to see an actual ceremony here. In 1927 when the Turkish Republic was doing their thing, the Sufi dervishes were assigned a special status as “Turkish folk dancers” allowing them to perform without the state overtly recognizing the religious basis.
The green dome signifies where Rumi is buried in the building.
One interesting thing that happened while we were inside is we saw part of Muhammed’s beard. When he died they apparently shaved him and sent hairs from his beard around the world to be put on display. It was in an ornate box in a glass case and there were many people praying around it. What caught me off guard was when a man took a small tube of lip gloss out of his pocket and put gloss on the four corners of the case. He then leaned down to smell it, did a shorter prayer and walked away. After he left there were a bunch of people who would walk up and smell the strawberries or whatever flavor it was and then pray… interesting.
When we were driving in circles looking for our hotel we passed Selimiye Cami, or Selimiye Mosque, which was constructed in 1558 by Sultan Selim II. It was a beautiful mosque.
There was a great park in front of the mosque with benches and a fountain. It was at this point that I actually felt like I was in a foreign country. The people were very conservative, the women were wearing head scarves and the men had their heads covered as well.
We happened to be around the mosque during the call to prayer. It was interesting to see people actually respond to the call we hear 5 times a day. I took off my shoes and went inside where I was required to put on a head scarf that was provided. The women had a very small room to the left of the entrance while the men had the main room to pray.
We ate dinner at a local place recommended by Fodors named Sifa Restaurant which was delicious and then walked around town looking for some local music. I left my point and shoot camera back at home (I thought it was on the boat but it’s nowhere to be seen) and I didn’t feel like lugging the SLR with me, but I wish I had. We saw all sorts of fun things ranging from the local McDonalds to Christmas lights in the shape of a whirling dervish. It was a great walk and a really nice end to the day.
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