Day 20 - Ankara to Cappadocia

Today we travelled 280km from Anakara to Cappadocia. Our first stop was to the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations and Anit Kabir were we saw the content of The Midas Tomb, the first ever international agreement and the very first gold coin.

From here we visited the Mausoleum of Ataturk, farther of the modern Turkey. This guy changed the governing system, law, alphabet, metric system, calendar and the language. During his lifetime, Atatürk adopted thirteen children: a boy and twelve girls. Of these, the most famous is Sabiha Gökçen, Turkey's first female pilot and the world's first female fighter pilot. He adopted daughters to educated them and make them role models for Turkish women of the future. He was a forward thinker and the political reforms involved a number of fundamental institutional changes that brought end of many traditions, and followed a carefully planned program to unravel the complex system that had developed over the centuries.The reforms were implemented under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in accordance with Kemalist ideology. It also has a very interesting war museum where there is a display like at the Canberra war museum of Gallipoli however this is from the Turkish side and you can see the Aussie diggers coming up the hill and the Australian ships in the harbour.

We then visited Haci Bektas to visit the tomb of Moslem Sufi philosopher and spiritual leader who gave his name to the town. A very ordinary building on the outside however very beautiful on the inside. They also believe the water is holy here and people come and collect the water as they do in Lourdes in France.

 

On the way on the drive after lunch it started to snow, yes snow. The average temperature for the most of the day was 7 but during this part of the drive and at the tomb it was only 3. It was still snowing when we were at the tomb. This is very unusual and the locals can't believe it is snowing in October. I did not think snow was going to be an optional extra when I booked this trip. It is going to make the balloon ride very cold if the weather improves so we can go up on Sunday.

We arrive at our hotel just after 4.30pm so this gave us a little time to get some washing done before a few of us went out to see the Whirling Dervish Ceremony. This was very interesting experience, how they twirl for that long and stay standing I don't know. The ceremony is the inspiration of Mevlan Celaleddini-i Rumi 1207-1273 as well as part of Turkish custom, history, beliefs, and culture. Sema has 7 parts and each part symbolizes a stage of the mystic journey to perfection called ascension (Mirac). While whirling their arms open their right hand is directed towards the sky to receive Gods beneficence, their left hand turns down toward the earth and twirl right to left pivoting around the heart to embrace all of humankind and all of creation with affection and love. It is a state of what is called Nirvana in Buddhism and Fenafillah in Islam and the aim is a realization of submission to God. The boys start doing this around 10 years old and they do it every day. That is what I call dedication to your religion.

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After the ceremony we headed back to the hotel for dinner, blogging and chill time ready for tomorrows adventure. We have 2 nights here in Cappadocia, pure luxury. The temperature tonight is meant to be -1 so who knows maybe more snow overnight.

Our guide is a very interesting person and tells us many stories during our drives. Today he  talked about social issues in Turkey. They do not have an aging population problem here (probably because they all smoke heavily) as 68% of the population are under 28, they estimate by 2016 they will need another 2 million condos. Nothing wrong with the building industry here. This explains the odd condo buildings we see in the middle of nowhere, new suburbs of the big towns one day I guess.

 

Fairy chimneys tomorrow so until then J&N.