From Istanbul
(by Hynek)
We spent one day in Goreme Though the place is very touristic I liked it still. There are plenty of opportunities to escape the tourist circus. We did so by venturing out into the countryside. A rather psychodellic countryside where you walk among tall stone formations that look like mushrooms... magical mushrooms!!! through a lot of erosion of this sandstone-like rock... high mushroom-looking rockformation grew high. Most of those mushrooms are houses in themselves that the first christians in the 3rd up to the 13th century carved/ Churches, monasteries, chappels, animal sheds etc. Now nobody lives there anymore and you feel like walking through a deserted gnome village... though these gnomes were tripping ....
We then continued our jurney west and passed through Konya where we visited Rumi's (the great persian poet) sarkophag. Unfortunatelly the whirling dervishes were nowhere to be found... the place became a big touristic museum. though so close to the tomb of this great soul you feel peaceful and good energy fills the mausoleum.
3 days at Ayvalic at a house of a mother of a friend of friend. The best that could happen to us before hitting Istanbul... 3 days of nothing to do, absolutely nothing ... readin, swimming in the mediterranean, and I actually coudn't resist and cleaned the car> washed the seat covers and beautified it with some grigri out of sea shells.
Today we arrived in Istanbul by taking a ferry for 20 minutes across a fjord from south to north. While approaching the city, Istanbul greated us with rain. Yes we were crossing over the bridge from Asia to Europe and it was raining like nothing I have seen on this trip. Europe greeted us the way Europe is at this time of the year> cold and rainy. Still I was rather euphoric and had to take a one last leak in asia before crossing that bridge over to Europe. After 4 years in Asia we are touching Europe's soil again!!! (of course I was back during that time by air ... but let me have the excitement).
While we approached the inner city the sun came through and Istanbul was shining in its most beautiful colours! with a rainbow over the Aya Sofia (now that is already too kitchy for me!!). The old houses were shining back the evening sun that was covering the city in a golden orange light. We crossed the Bosphorus where fishermen were already at work (they must have been standing at the water while rain was coming down). We could see the old palaces next to the Bosphorus them too all clean of the dust by the evening rain.
The welcome to this city that I really looked forward to see could not have been nicer.!! must write that in my diary...
I will keep you updated about our doings in this metropole that we are planning to document for our project. And at the same time there is the Istanbul Art Biennale and the Istanbul film festival that will show all the great films from Cannes... perfect timing
love to you all Hynek