(this is from Hayate no Gotoku... very nice... Got so many anime episodes to catch up on!!!)

Well, I guess I really should carry on with my adventures in Turkey, now that i've gotten over the first hurdle of the term (handed in my computing project~!).
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Days 4-5 (4-5 Dec 07) - Goreme, Cappadocia, Turkey

We arrived in Goreme in Cappadocia after a TWELVE-hour bus ride from Istanbul to a somewhat cold morning. After checking into our hostel (Traveller's Cave Pension), we had a little wander around the area. Our initial plan was to see the Goreme Open Air Museum, though we ended up being distracted by some other stuff (read on...).

The landscape around Cappadocia is fairly unique in the sense that it is mostly volcanic tuff that has been shaped by weathering (both wind & water) over the years, to become what it is today. There are many houses that have been carved into the stone, and because they used to light candles at night, the houses were also known as "Fairy Chimneys". I imagine it must have been quite cool then to see the houses at night....

One of the "houses". There were lots of these in the valley we went through, and you could just climb into them as you like.

I guess the highlight of the morning was the Love Valley. It's not hard to see why they called it the "Love Valley" if you were to see the photo below..... ;p

One of the PHALLIC "love" structures in the valley... Don't let your imagination run TOO WILD... ;p

And no, these weren't sculpted by hand (I think.. correct me if I'm wrong). Though they are REALLY HUGE... They are at least 20m high (at least)...

After lunch (Kebabs!), we decided to rent a scooter to explore the area around Goreme, since it was starting to get cloudy, plus we were a little tired of walking. And because Keng Rui isn't too confident on the motorbike, in fact, hasn't ridden one before, we rented just ONE scooter and I had to pillion KR. And nope, I don't have a scooter license.. haha.. But we were only scooting away at about 40-60kph anyway... ;p
See the camel-like rock in the background? This place somewhat reminds me of shi2 lin2 (literally translated to Rock Forest) in Yunnan, China actually...

After returning the scooter, and listening to Osman (from Silk Road Travel), share his woes about his Taiwanese girlfriend (i thought it was quite an interesting story really), we went for dinner at the neighbouring restaurant, where I tried Testi Kebab (don't misread the first word!). It's basically a pottery kebab, where they cook the meat and vegetable in an earthern pot and then you have to hammer it open to eat it. Very cool.

I shall write about Day 5 tomorrow, otherwise it's a bit of an overkill I think... :)

Labels: Travel, Turkiye