I mentioned in my previous blog post that the journey took 8 hours. I slept the whole freaking way. But, this part of the journey showed the beautiful countryside of Turkey. It reminds me of Switzerland. It is green and beautiful. At one spot, Mr Ouz stopped the bus so that we can took a picture in the midst of Cherry trees with the snow-capped Sultan Mountain at the back. It was truly truly beautiful. I can easily fool myself that I am at Mount Fuji.

Beautiful.

We arrived in Konya where we visit the Mevlana Museum. This is the place where is is famous for Sufi. Here, it showcase how a Sufi is educated and how their day-to-day lives. Sufi was deemed as a person who chose to live in a simple manner. They are devoted fully to seek Allah's blessing by doing Dervish dance.They are distinguished by their robes and special sufi tarbush. The museum also locates the tomb of Mevlana himself and the box that allegedly contained Prophet Muhammad PBUH beard. Amazing enough, his beard smell so good. You can smell it from the small holes but you cannot see the beard.

Mevlana Place

Supposedly contains the Prophet's beard

We then went to the First Rest Stop in the world. This place is called Kervansaray. This hosts merchants and travelers who used the Silk road. The complex includes mosques, hotels, restaurants. From everything I noticed, all the historical sites are very well preserved. I enter what they called a hotel room. It is cold. The temperature inside is colder maybe due to the construction material.

Ancient R&R complex on the Silk Road

Our last agenda was to see the Derwish dance. We are lucky because this show is included in the package price. We can see people around the world are coming to see the Dervish show. The rules are that you kept quiet during the entire show and no photography are allowed during the first half. this is due to the fact that they "did not perform on the first act but they are reciting prayers". We are allowed to take photo/video during the second act though.

One of Turkish delicacies - yougurt with Poppy Seed

Aku pun pelik sebab dia punya pusing, yang kitorang yang tengok ni pun pening. Pelik betul lah.

We then continue our 3 hours journey to Urgup, Cappadocia. We reached Cappadocia around 8-9 pm. Sadly, we could not see the infamous caverns. The only thing I can see is the lights from the Cavern Hotel. We stayed at Perissia Hotel for 2 nights. We shall continue on the next entry.