Actually that's been one thing about Turkey so far - it's pretty much dry unless you go to a tourist bar/hotel. We only visited one restaurant in the three days we were in Istanbul that served alcohol - it was a swanky new place in New Town and charged through the nose for it. Everywhere else people just drink varying flavours of tea (the sweet fruit ones seem popular), smoke cigarettes and shisha. You never see drunk people, you never see vomit on the street (looking at you London), and we don't even miss it - Willy and I are turning into avid tea drinkers.
The other thing about Istanbul (haven't had a chance to experience it elsewhere yet) is the traffic. Yes they have traffic jams like all cities, but the most iconic part of their driving (for us) has been this; Imagine a four way intersection of one way roads. Now imagine that there are cars in all four of those roads going both directions, everyone is in a hurry, nobody gives way, there's no room for any of them to get past and they are all honking at each other. Throw in a motorbike or two zipping around the outside and a few pedestrians trying to get past and that's pretty much it. That's what traffic in Istanbul will always remind me of, in fact that exact scenario played out in front of us while we were eating dinner on our last night.
Moving on, Cappadocia.
We got picked up at 4am after packing up our room in the dark. Lesson learned re showering at night. Our shuttle driver played Turkish music as he drove us through the dark but far from deserted streets, it was really surreal, kind of like watching it in a movie. At the airport we checked in without a hitch, payed stupid amounts of money for coffee and a pastry, I had to choose between the Cosmopolitan and Time magazines - there are limited choices if you only speak English, then made the 55minute flight to Cappadocia. Another shuttle met us at the airport and drove us to our hotel - about 45 minutes from the airport. On our way there we drove past several tent cities, no one could/would tell me if they were farm workers, homeless, or refugees.
Our hotel is in kind of in a cave house, it's pretty weird, there's no aircon, it's a bit run down (our shower head doesn't attach to the wall and hasn't for some time), and the free wifi is shit. It's somewhere to lay our heads for the night but it certainly doesn't rate against our hotel in Istanbul.
It quickly becomes apparent to them and to us that we have no idea what the hell we are doing. As we are without a car and only have a short amount of time here they suggest that we do a tour. One phone call and 20min later and we find ourselves the final two in a van of fifteen tourists zooming round the countryside with a couple of Turkish men.
We start the day at an underground city, we go down eight storeys which is apparently only a third of its depth. Weaving our way through tunnels that are half my height, slipping past large stone doors, peering up air vents and looking into tandoori ovens that were used as recently as forty or so years ago (our guide told of how his mother had baked bread in it when he was a child) was quite unreal. It was great to visit but I cannot imagine having to live down there for any amount of time. Although I guess if your only other option is death at the hands of an attacking tribe/army you would be grateful for the protection.
He bundled us back into to the van and drove us to a lookout overlooking a valley. Supposedly there are a thousand little homes, businesses, and churches dug into the country side down there. We walked somewhere between 3 and 3.75kms along the stream and it was gorgeous. So not what I had expected to see. Trees, birds, flowers, it was so very pretty. We stopped briefly at a little pit stop which had a toilet, some seats in the creek to soak your feet, traditional food and drink, etc, before carrying on to the end of the walk and lunch.
Lunch is in a kind of traditional establishment - we are seated in the lower level under the deck. There are some great examples of dubious structural welding and Willy is pleased when the end of lunch arrives and he can get out before it collapses. Doesn't appear that Turkey has much in the way of building compliance. We eat lentil soup which is amazing and I need to find out how to recreate it. The rest of lunch is ok, but nothing special. There are a lot of flies.
We retreat back to the bus and slowly slip into a food and heat induced coma - the van thermometer reads 42 degrees Celsius. After just a couple of minutes we get woken and bustled out of the van to check out a centuries old fairy chimney village. The path is very steep and for the first time in my life I regret wearing jandals - not that we knew anything about anywhere we were going. Just as at the underground village, it blows my mind that people created this place and lived here. From a Kiwi point of view, I find it interesting that they are allowed to bring tourist here - the potential for serious injury or death should you step over any of the many unguarded drops is huge and even the path up/down lends itself to busted ankles, etc. OSH would hate it, but it preserves the integrity of the place, stopping it from feeling like a total tourist trap.
Our guide has given up on us all by this point. The next stop after an hour of driving is an Onyx workshop where we are supposedly going to be shown the process behind producing it. Instead we get told a small amount about the different kinds of Turquoise and another form of jewellery (a bracelet made from several kilometres of gold or silver thread and took a long time to produce), but no Onyx and no demonstration. We were pushed upstairs to the shop where the hard sell got put on. Willy and I had a look, then quickly bailed outside as did the Belgium girls and Australian couple we had befriended.
Frustrated that we hadn't bought anything, the guide and driver take to another shop, this time owned by the guide, where we are given a small tasting and again have the hard sell put on us. We buy a box of tea and then get the hell out of dodge. Once again our group fails to provide a satisfactory sale ands he drops us off, our guide states that tips are expected and Turkish custom. This is the first time that we have encountered this and we don't react well, especially since we have just been and bought something from his shop. I tell Willy that we aren't tipping - we paid a decent sum (240 Lira or $120 NZD combined) and the last hour or so have been spent getting told to spend more money including visiting his shop. We had had far better experiences in Turkey and despite the tour being beneficial, it was not one of the better ones we had participated in and demanding a tip is just tacky. Not a fan.
We go out for dinner, I have Turkish Raviolli which is so good. Willy's meat casserole leaves a bit to be desired though. At 9pm or so we head home and have an early night.
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