Captivating Cappadocia

The boy and I fulfilled a dream of mine when we paid a visit to Cappadocia last weekend. We were joined by a coworker, his partner and their cheeky two-year old tyke.

Cappadocia is located smack-dab in the middle of Turkey. To get there from Istanbul, we flew out of Sabiha Gökçen airport, got a rental car, and drove an hour and a half to the town of Goreme, where we had rooms booked at the Elysee Cave House. By the time we arrived in town it was already quite dark, so we tucked into a delicious meal at Topdeck Cave Restaurant before calling it a night.

The fellas & cool cave interiors of the restaurant!

The most tender lamb I've ever had. Mmm.

Morning came all too soon. Bleary-eyed and yawning, we loaded into the Turkiye Balloons van that pulled up to our hotel at 5 AM. The van wound through Goreme's narrow streets, slowly filling up with a collection of tourists (and equally impressive collection of DSLRs) from all over the world. After the last pickup, we stopped into a cafe for a light breakfast. Not everyone was a fan of our early start, though.

Nobody has seen the troubles he's seen.

Bellies placated by warm bread and coffee, we piled back into the van. In no time at all, we had left the small town as a red sun rose overhead. Then not ten minutes later, gasps and excitement ensued as we got our first glimpse of the enormous hot air balloons that were slowly inflating among the volcanic rock minarets.

Red sun rising

At this point I was so excited that my mouth had gone dry and I was clutching my camera in a death grip. We made our way over to our balloon and eagerly hopped into the basket.

I loved Turkiye Balloons' motto.

And then we were off!

As the colors of the sunrise gave way to a blue sky, our course took us through valleys of different rock formations, each stranger than the last.

The balloon ride lasted for about an hour and a half in total. At our peak, we ascended 980m into the sky. A few times I peered over the basket, saw how much air was between my feet and the ground, and may have had a small panic attack. But our pilot proved to be very experienced as he navigated us within a hair of rock formations with total ease. And it was difficult to stay worried with these views set to a cheesy-but-comforting soundtrack (Eye of the Tiger, My Heart Will Go On, The Final Countdown) and even cheesier jokes "This is my first time flying!", "This balloon is named the Titanic", etc. After we landed, we received our flight certificates and celebrated with flutes of champagne.

In true hobbit manner, we had second breakfast and then napped for a few hours. But pretty soon it was time to venture out again!

A asking a cowboy for directions.

He's ready for his close up.

We split ways for a few hours; the S family to see some old cave churches in town, while the boy and I ventured into Rose Valley (not a euphemism!!!) for an afternoon trek.

Rose valley selfie

The volcanic rock made for an interesting (and at times, slippery) trail.

Photo op from a small grotto

Whee!

Next up, a visit to the fairy chimney structures:

Our only group shot.

A beautiful family.

True love.

And to end a magical day, a viewing of the sun setting over the town.

Sunset selfie

Rocking my 'Javier-Bardem-from-No-Country-For-Old-Men' hairdo... aww yeah.

Some shenanigans with the little one ensued...

This was his attempt to imitate the boy and I after we had limbo'ed beneath the wooden railing.

Dinner that night was at Old Cappadocia restaurant. We started with hummus on vehicles of fresh, chewy, oven-baked bread.

For mains, we both ordered pottery kebabs - a dish that is baked in clay pots and broken at the table to reveal the stew-y meat-y goods within. The presentation was certainly up there, but the taste was just okay. I'm certain this wasn't anything close to the authentic version and reckon it's a bit of a tourist trap menu item - ah well, gotta take the good with the mediocre.

The next morning, we awoke at dawn and went up to the terrace of the hotel to watch the balloons take flight over Goreme.

Shy balloons inflating

Mother balloon and her babies.

All too soon, it was time to say gule gule to Cappadocia. Visiting there was an absolutely magical experience - one that is without a doubt something I'd recommend to anyone visiting Turkey.

The Roving Eye

Last weekend, the boy, our roommate and I roamed out to Taksim, a district that is often referred to as the heart of modern Istanbul. We were strolling along İstiklal Avenue (the equivalent of Chicago's Magnificent Mile or London's Oxford street) when we came across an art exhibition named The Roving Eye, a collection of pieces by contemporary artists across Southeast Asia.

It all began with the donut-like ping pong table, which immediately caught our eye through the glass as we were walking by...

Curiosities thoroughly piqued, we wandered in, unsure of what we were getting ourselves into.

One of these is not like the other.

Some pieces like this one seemed whimsical at first but on closer inspection, carried heavy political undertones.

It became obvious very quickly that this was no ordinary museum. Many of the exhibits encouraged or even required their audience to interact with the art.

Listening to traditional Southeast Asian music.

Making some music of our own.

???

Hats in the styles of various monarchs, all made of scrap metal.

Playing dress up.

One particularly interesting piece was set up in such a way that the viewer is invited into a small area with ordinary furnishings and a mirror on the wall. You walk in, survey the things around you, wonder what's so special about this area, and take a quick glance into the mirror on your way out - only to see nobody there, or worse, a different person entirely! Because there is no mirror after all, just two identical, very cleverly set up spaces. Really alarming stuff.

Another really memorable exhibit was one in which high-def cameras mounted on the ceiling were pointed at records on a table. The view from the camera was then projected on the wall so as a participant, you could see your hands as you disc jockey'ed. In the picture below you can see on the left what both projections looked like (before I stuck my mug into the right one):

I managed to convince the boy to join me for what I think turned out to be an interesting photo. The pose was tricky and required performing a bridge-like move, arching our our backs back so that our faces could fit into the small frame of the lens.

At one point a museum docent approached us and I was sure he was going to give us a stern talking to for laying our heads down on the records... but he was so amused that he actually helped the boy bend back further. He also requested to see the photos afterwards, to which we happily obliged.

We spent almost two hours in the museum before wandering back out. It was getting dark already, so we weaved downhill through stores and restaurants until we reached the Galata Tower.

Along the way, we picked up a funny little souvenir.

Best 5 turkish lira I've ever spent.

We concluded our evening with a meal back in our part of town, Mecidiyeköy. I went for a traditional kebab dinner with a healthy serving of kuru fasulye, a Turkish bean stew that is addictingly good. A delicious end to a fun day out.

Reminiscing about Rhodes

Rhodes will always be special to me because it's where the boy proposed. But despite being the highlight of our trip, getting engaged wasn't all that we did during our week there. Here are some photos and memories from our vacation.

We booked our trip via Thomson, a UK-based travel operator. We chose a couples-only package that included flights and seven nights of half-board at the Atlantica Imperial Resort in Kolymbia, a small town on the east coast of Rhodes. This was our first time using Thomson and we weren't sure what to expect. Looking back, I loved how perfectly easy it was - all I had to do was choose my dates, flight times, and review the hotel options. 

This was also our first beach vacation together, one where we would stay in the same place for all seven nights instead of the city-hopping, sock-losing, two-night-maximum, suitcase-barely-unpacked-before-throwing-everything-back-in-again-and-dashing-off maelstrom that is our usual routine. I actually had some reservations about going to a beach and plopping my ass down into one place for this long. It seemed so... normal. So not mobile. So...not...me?

I was a fool. It was all amazing. Within just minutes of arriving, I could feel my stress and worries and control-freaked-ness wash away with the gentle lapping of the ocean waves.

Our resort was roughly halfway between Rhodes' two main cities. Our first excursion out was to the aptly-named town of Rhodes.

I use Yelp and TripAdvisor religiously when traveling, so I was stoked to visit the most well-reviewed place in town for lunch - a small restaurant named Tamam. I was met with impeccable service, fresh fare, and such a kind group of people who ensured my dining experience was utterly enjoyable. It may have been one of the best meals I've ever had in my life.

Having achieved culinary satisfaction to an extent previously unbeknownst to man, we spent the remainder of our day strolling around the rest of the city and the old part of town.

Then there was one day we went kayaking and exploring the grounds of the resort. I vividly remember feeling so amazed by how clear the water was and how well we could see the bottom even as we paddled far out beyond the bay.

I won't deny that we didn't spend an awful lot of time just lounging by the pool, Kindle in one hand and cocktail in the other. In the photo below you can see me holding the paddles we used to volley a rubber ball around in the water - sort of like tennis/ping pong for the lazy. Really simple good fun. We nicknamed the activity 'bum-paddle' and got mildly addicted to it over the course of the week.

Yet another lazy was spent relaxing on Tsambika beach, which all the locals insisted was the most beautiful of all the beaches on the islands. A perfect place to eat a gyro, down a beer, and get the biggest surprise of my life.

And last but certainly not least, there was Lindos, with her breathtaking views from atop the Acropolis.

As I hope the pictures show, Rhodes was just forehead-smackingly beautiful. I can't think about the trip or look at the pictures without grinning, salivating, and sighing hopelessly - usually all at the same time. It really was the vacation of a lifetime, one that will be hard to top.