It was a wonderful trip!
Here's how our travel plan went: We started from Istanbul, drove south, crossed the channel that divides Europe and Asia, meandered around west Turkey, mostly along the coast line but occasionally going inland for site visits such as Pergamum and Ephesus, until we reached the southern Mediterranean metropolis Antalya, then traversed north to the central wild land Cappadocia, then flew back to Istanbul, where we spent one extra day and a half touring the city, then flew home.
* The map above provided by the travel company is mostly accurate, except it skips the parts of travel from Pamukkale to Antalya then Antalya to Konya.
What do I find fascinating about this trip?
1) The Country and the History
Modern Turkey is a diminutive remnant of what was once a great Ottoman Empire that straddled between Southeastern Europe (Greece, Bulgaria, the Balkans), North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt), West Asia (Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, western Iran), and Southern Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan), controlling the East-West trade routes and lands around Mediterranean basin for over 5 centuries. It had been in steady decline through the whole of the 19th Century (and given a nick name "sick man of Europe", just like the Qing-dynasty China was called "sick man of Asia" during that same period), however, and finally dissolved after the end of World War I.
The Turks were a nomadic people originated from North-Central Asia, between Altai and Ural mountains, neighboring the Mongolians, and probably mixing with the earlier Xiongnu (匈奴) tribes in northern China, and were first given a definitive reference as Tujue (突厥) in 6th century Chinese history records. They helped Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) quell An-Shi Rebellion (安史之亂), and founded 3 regional dynasties in northern China after Tang's demise (後唐,後晉,後漢, their founders all being Shatuo Turks 沙陀突厥人).
One branch of the Turkic people migrated to the Anatolian Peninsula--present day Turkey--in the 11th century and started conquering and "Turkifying" local people, while defeating the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire at major battles, forming the Ottoman Empire in the process, that culminated with the eventual invasion of Constantinople (name changed to Istanbul after the take-over) that officially ended the thousand year old East Roman Empire in 1453.
2) The Land and the Old Ruins
Being a land bridge between Europe and Asia continents, and with the Mesopotamia "Fertile Crescent" just around its southeastern corner, it's not surprising Anatolian Peninsula was where many ancient civilizations originated or crossed paths. The city of Troy was built and rebuilt 7 times even before it was destroyed by the Trojan War, and then two more times after that; Ephesus had been a prosperous town a thousand years before the Romans came; the Greeks kept coming from the west to colonize more lands here, and the Persians kept thrusting their army through from the east to complete their imperial conquest. The Romans, with their engineering and organizational prowess, after their conquest, picked their "Club Med" spots here for healing resorts, scenery retreats, strategic positioning, etc., criss-crossing the serene Mediterranean blue sea to visit these places just like strolling through their backyard... Life must be pretty darn good for those Roman emperors (before they were assassinated too soon) in their hay days...
3) The People
Turkey is a Muslim country, with 99.8% population following Islam religion. Mosques are everywhere, blasting out calls for prayer from their minaret towers every now and then. It may be annoying at times, but somehow also gives you a sense of community in a vast country like this. It kind of reminds me of those mobile peddlers roaming around the neighborhood with blaring microphones exhorting people to buy their goods or bring out the scrap metal for collection when I was little in Taipei City... busy, noisy, yet so full of life.
To give us a truer feel of Turkish people and their culture, our tour company included two specially arranged events in the itinerary: A lunch at a villager's home where we sat and ate their home-made cooking, and a visit to a rural elementary school where we donated gifts and met with its students. Even though we don't speak their language and they don't speak ours, the hospitality, good will, and fondness of each other were well sensed and as indelible as those fancy landscapes and grand old ruins we saw in their country.
4) The Food
The majority of the meals we had were at the hotels, buffet style, so we got to explore different flavors of food this agriculturally endowed country and its culinary profession can cook up for us. Not being a vegetarian myself, I found nonetheless I enjoyed their green dishes more than the lamb or beef kabob that I was familiar with before I came here. Plates I liked were: marinated white broccoli, steamed Brussels sprouts, and spicy millet salad, etc.
We tried a couple times their fish servings outside the hotel as well, once at a sea side restaurant where they let us select their catches of the day at the front counter and cooked for us, and the other time we ordered a simple fish sandwich at a street corner in Istanbul. Both were fresh and simply good.
We also liked the pomegranate juice crushed by the street vendor right in front of our eyes. It's tinglingly refreshing with right balance of sweet and sour taste, not to mention 100% pure and natural.
Then there was this thin-crust bread with tomato and minced, spicy meat topping, wrapped with some Turkish herb or cilantro we had at a restaurant nearby hotel that tasted so crispy and delicious but much less filling or fattening than the typical American pizza.
5) The Things We Bought
I am no shopaholic and did not plan on buying anything in particular before the trip (my wife might have had different ideas I didn't know), but we ended up buying more stuff than usual during this trip. Altogether, we bought:
3 leather jackets (two for my wife one for myself), one floor carpet (they ship direct from factory to the US or wherever you want to so we don't need to carry them), 3 scarves (cotton, wool, or silk), two leather belts, one hat because I needed it to deter the hot sun at Ephesus, one swimming trunk because I could not resist the grand swimming pool I saw at the hotel in Antalya, a vest and one pair of jeans at the clothing store right across the hotel we stayed in Istanbul, a miniature whirling dervish dancer because I enjoyed the dance by these Muslim mystics I saw at one optional event the tour arranged in Cappadocia.
I don't know if we got the best deals out of these items or not, especially on those bigger ticket ones, not being good bargain hagglers as we'd like to be, but I believe we got quality products at reasonable prices, and we are happy with them.
6) The Tour Guide and the Tourists
Our tour guide is a Turkish American who had lived many years in the States and been guiding tours in Turkey for almost 30 years and speaks flawless English, with great sense of humor and vast knowledge on arts and artifacts, history and hearsay, of all the places we traveled to. It's never a dull moment when he talked.
Our fellow tourists mostly came from the US and Canada region, each with different background and personality that we get to share ours with: Geraldine and Joseph are a gracious old couple from New York City and Geraldine is a practicing psychologist who seemed nervous about the food she ate every time while Joseph always smiled and looked so calm and gentlemanly with everything and everyone; Pete and Dell are a retired couple from New Jersey and Pete had been walking at least 10,000 steps a day for the past 10 years or so and said he had continued to keep at it even during the trip; Charles is a petro-mechanical engineer from San Antonio, Texas who seemed to be carrying a map exploring every new place by himself yet was very talkative and knowledgeable whenever you engaged with him; Ellen is a reporter from Detroit, Michigan who is going to write a column for this trip which she said she'll forward to us afterwards; and Galo and Sofia are the young couple from Ecuador who just got married a week before the trip and seemed to be late to the bus and sleep-deficient all the time...
Isn't this a wonderful trip?
* If you want to see all the pictures and the photo-by-photo narration of the trip, you can go to:
