Mongol Rally Day 20

Pamukkale (TUR)- Konya (TUR)

August 2, 2014

Woke up by the intense sun. Our tent was super hot at 8am already. We got our coffee at a cafe for a tourist price of 6 Lira each. Then we heads up to Pamukkale.

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We hike up from the bottom entrance and this natural wonder is absolutely beautiful. Very pristine and interesting organic limestone structure. The more we hike up the more crowded it gets since all the bus drop the tourists off near the Hierpolis ruins. And we starts seeing more brownish/ reddish algae at the top tavertine.

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There are tons of people, and lots of Korean/ asian and Russian tourists. The Russians obviously love their thermal bath, we saw some big lady scrubbig her feet very hard on the limstone. Young saw a guy with yellow toes. OK, too many bikinis in all shape and size we headed back down to the more quitet area where the limstone is still white and the water is still turquoise.

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We had lunch at the campsite restaurant- some mixed-meat pide (pizza) and a mixed grill meat plate. Around 12:30pm we hit the road heading towards Cappadoica. We calculate the drive will take us more than 15hrs. En route we will visit Konya, hopefully we will be able to see a Sufi Sama Whirling Dervilish dance. From our research, every Saturday at Melvana Cultural Center there is a free performance.

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It took us 6.5 hours to drive from Pamukkale to Konya. We arrived at Konya around 7pm and settled in Hotel Rumi right in the city center. (around $45 USD per person for a room with 3 beds, breakfast included). Freshen up then walked around 12 mins to Mevlana Cultural Center.

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The Whirling Dervishes is an very interesting experience. After that we ate at Deva Restaurant right in the center of the city. Graham got three differemet yogurt dishes: Betsi, Yogurt Plate and Aryan. Young got the Tikrit, and Kenneth got the grilled lamb chops kebab.

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Posted on December 29, 2014 in Mongol Rally

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