Silk Road

Bright and early we walked out of Old Town to get to the bus, and then left Antalya for good. It would be a long bus ride to Uçhisar, just outside of Nevşehir, in the Kapydokya region, as the Turks call it. The Bible calls it Cappadocia.

We traveled on modern, interstate-like, divided highways almost all the way, following the route of the ancient Silk Road. Much as highways in parts of Europe paved over Roman roads, our guide told us that they had literally poured asphalt over the old caravan trail.

Several places along the way we saw, still standing and renovated “caravansarai.” Literally, caravan palaces — though there was nothing palatial about them, even when they were built by the Seljuk emperors in the 12th century AD.

These mini-fortresses were spaced approximately a day’s travel by camel, and were provided as a way of subsidizing the silk trade. Caravans could stay the night for free, protected from bandits. They could feed and water themselves and their animals at government expense for up to three nights, but then they had to keep moving.

We traveled into the Taurus Mountains to an altitude of nearly 6,000 feet about sea level, where there were pine forests. Then we descended onto a high plateau where opium poppies are grown. In Turkey, this crop is highly regulated.

Farmers must be granted a permit for a certain number of acres, and their market is a single customer, the government. At this time of year the poppies are flowering in beautiful white and vivid purple.

Our lunch stop was in the city of Konya. This is considered to be one of the most conservative areas in Turkey, and one can see immediately that almost all of the women are observing hijab in their attire. The big draw here is the monastery where the “whirling dervishes” or Sufi sect was originally formed, more than 700 years ago.

Rumi, the founder of the order, and other key figures in the origin of Sufism, are buried here. Muslims come from all over the world to pay their respects, even though the monastery is no longer in use and there are no live Dervishes here. Officially, it is a museum. But the mosque is still used.

While visiting here, we were approached by a couple of groups of young women. They were a class of high school students who had been brought to the museum by their English teacher with the assignment to find some English speakers and have a conversation. A couple of the girls were clearly enjoying it, and the others were along for the ride. But when they found out we were Americans, they thought they had hit the jackpot. It was fun to chat with them.

The land in this area is about as flat as anywhere on the planet. Rainfall is scarce, and the population density is pretty thin. Small towns with grain bins and stacks of hay bales could have been in Kansas or Utah, if the mosque and minarets were simply swapped for a church and steeple.

We finally reached our destination about 6 p.m. A day on a bus is tiring, even when you aren’t the one driving. We had another big dinner, after which we were pretty much ready for bed.