Cappadocia, Turkiye

Thur 30/1/14

Cappadocia

Happy Chinese New Year from the skies of Cappadocia! What a way to commemorate CNY!

Journey today:
Urgup - Goreme : 10km (18 mins)
Goreme - Pasabag: 5km (7 mins)
Pasabag - Avanos : 3km (5 mins)
Avanos - Guvercinlik: 13km (20 mins)
Guvercinlik - Urgup (back to hotel)
Urgup - Uchisar: 15km (19 mins)
Total journey (1 way): 46km

Urgup - Goreme - Pasabag - Avanos - Guvercinlik - Uchisar

The hot air balloon tour was optional and not included in the package. It cost USD220 for the 1 hour ride with breakfast. We woke up early at 5am to be picked up by the hot air balloon company – Royal Balloon at 5.50am. My mom did not join me as she had vertigo. We had our early breakfast of bread, eggs and tea at the Royal Balloon Royal Stone House in Goreme. It was too early to eat that much anyway

early breakfast

We proceeded to our basket – 24 of us fitted into 4 sections of the basket. I thought it was too crowded putting 6 person per section, we could hardly move or turn. Fortunately, the breathtaking view from above more than made up for the tight spot that we were in, literally. The unique landscape of Cappadocia is a Unesco World Heritage site listed under #357 - Goreme National Park and Rock Sites of Cappadocia

the basket

firing up

From wikipedia and wikitravel:

Cappadocia covers an area approximately 400 km east–west and 250 km north–south. Due to its inland location and high altitude, Cappadocia has a markedly continental climate, with hot dry summers and cold snowy winters.

The unusual rock formation was a result of the eroding rains and winds of thousands of years of the level, lava-covered plain located between the volcanic mountains Erciyes, Melendiz and Hasan as well as its troglodyte dwellings carved out of the rock and cities dug out into the underground. The rivers, flood water running down the hillsides of valleys and strong winds eroded the geological formations consisting of tuff from volcanic eruption on the plateau formed with tuff layers, thus creating bizarre shapes called fairy Chimneys.

Here is the summary of the cities of Capadoccia region with its attractions:

Ürgüp — The biggest town and heart of Cappadocia. Our Hotel Dinler is here

Göreme — Cave Houses built into the Fairy Chimneys.

Uçhisar — The highest point of the region with it's natural rock castle.

Avanos — Pottery town which is divided into two by the longest river of Turkey (Kızılırmak).

Ortahisar — A small village famous with it's rock castle.

Mustafapaşa — Old Greek village

This is also a good summary of Cappadocia

Here is a Top 10 list of valleys in Cappadocia where you can also trek

Enjoy the scenic view of the Cappadocia landscape from up above!

houses carved into rocks

We celebrated the end of our balloon ride with the toast of orange juice (no champagne for our group) and silver medal giving ceremony. It was a cute gesture.

Overall, it was a greatly enjoyable experience. If you go to Cappadocia, I suggest you to experience the hot air balloon ride, although the cost is expensive. But the price is worth the money.

However, I have a few gripes on our hot air balloon operator - Royal Balloon - although the pilot is experienced in his manouvres, controlling the balloon movements and elevation, but:

1. He and his assistant did not provide explanation to us on the landscapes that we were seeing, how they were formed such way and the historical background of the area. Perhaps the company is selective in providing its pilots and assistants, as I've read on tripadvisor (prior to my travel to Turkiye) that those on the forum cited a good experience with Royal. 
2. Too many of us were fitted in one basket - 24 of us. We were in a tight space, we could hardly move around and not comfortable. Plus, it was safety concern as we exceeded the capacity- Royal Queen Flight max capacity is 20 persons (5 persons per section of the basket). See their pledge to customers here.

Please please please ensure you are not placed in an over capacity basket and ask for a pilot who could give a good explanation of the beautiful landscape of Cappadocia. I had to resort to Mr Google. I don't have the option to choose the balloon operator as well as it was provided by Poto Travel.

We arrived back at the hotel at 830am and had another round of breakfast before proceeding to our tour of Cappadocia today. First stop was the Carpet factory nearby our hotel in Uygup. We were shown a demo of carpet weaving. Although the hand made carpets were beautiful, I didn't buy any as they were expensive. Even the prayer mat could fetch up to RM800.

hand woven carpets on display

Carpet show

Next agenda was enjoyable for us – Turkish ice cream eating by the roadside stall overlooking the Uchisar village and Pasabag valley. Then we descended upon the valley for an up close view and photography session. Again, we were given such a short time – only 30 mins! Only the 3 of us ventured around the valley while the rest of the group browsed the shops for souvenirs. We enjoyed the view of the surreal luna-esque landscape which, according to Burak were on of the shooting locations of the Star Wars movie. There were also churches carved into the rocks of the faicry chimneys. During the time when Christians were hiding from the Romans and Ottomans.

Fairy Chimneys at Pasabag valley

It was then time for lunch at the Uranus Sarikaya cave restaurant – it was a truly unique experience, dining in the caves. We were entertained by live Turkish traditional music performance of the Qanun while dining. According to Wikipedia, Qanun used in Turkey have 26 courses of strings, with three strings per course. It is played on the lap by plucking the strings with two tortoise-shell picks, one in each hand, or by the fingernails. The food was just OK, but the ambience more than made up for it.

Facade of Uranus Sarikaya cave restaurant. No sarikaya found here though

Passage to the dining hall

 

Our dining table

Playing the Qanun

Main dish of rice and grilled fish

From the cave restaurant, we moved on to the lovely town of Avanos to watch a demonstration of pottery making, but not before stopping for solat at the Merkez Yeni Camii by the lovely river with chubby ducks happily swimming. The city was simply lovely! We had a bit of time to take some pictures before going to the pottery factory. I didn't buy anything here, but I was particularly impressed with the pottery which glowed in the dark – they had some special paint on them. Oh, I loved the factory itself as well, as it was located in the caves with an underground section which were interconnected with a labyrinth of tunnels.

Merkez Yeni Camii

chubby ducks

Lovely river at Avanos

Making pottery

painting pottery

Pottery galore

labyrinth

glow in the dark pottery

Then it was another round of photography session of the unique houses carved in rocks at Pigeon Valley (Guvercinlik). The villagers also kept animals in the rock enclosures.

cave house / animal enclosures at Uchisar

 
We finished off early today with a round of shopping of the local apricot chocolate and halva. I liked the halva which have peanuts in it, but ironically, according to Burak, halva are served during the mourning of a person's passing. Probably to lessen the burden of the surviving family with something sweet.


By 6pm, we were back at the hotel to have dinner (not so yummy, unfortunately. I had to rate the food at the 5 star Dinler hotel as the lowest ranking of our gourmet experience in Turkey). At 7.30pm, those who opted to watch the Cappadocia Night Show of Folklore and Belly Dance performance were whisked to the Yasir Baba restaurant about 20 mins away. We paid USD60 for the 1 hour performance (excluding breaks in between for the performers to change their costumes), which also included soft drinks, water and nuts. Non Muslims were served with alcoholic drinks as well.

Yasir Baba restaurant

The show was fun, it started with the Sufi dance of the whirling dervishes, then some folklore dance – a pair getting married, fire dance and the highlight of it all – the belly dance. I perked up when the belly dancer made her entrance from above (yes from a capsule descending from the ceiling, such an entrance!). She was flawless with the gyrating moves, long flowy skirt and high heels, never once tripping over (yes I was worried). Some of the men in our group didn't want to go because of the sexy belly dance moves – but for me, I thought it was mild – nothing erotic, just showcasing her synchronized body moves to the traditional music.

whirling dervishes

traditional dance

coming down from capsule

belly dancer

We reached back to our hotel at 10.30pm and called it a day. Tomorrow would be another long journey heading to Ankara.