POOR MANS ORIENT EXPRESS: SAMSUN TO AMASYA TO GOREME

AMAYSA

Oct 6

We leave Samsun after another breakfast of cereal and french fries and head south into the mountains, squeeky brakes and all.

Every road in this country is being worked on. Have I said that before?

Bet you think you know what this sign means......

....really???

We arrived in Amasya around noon and had a tea. Did I mention these people drink a lot of tea?

Then we went looking for a room and the ones in the old section were overpriced to me, so we headed down the river. We ran into some university students who practiced their english with us and then wanted a picture with all of us. Sorry, no facebook girls.

Right next to the girls was the perfect hotelthe LafeHan Hotel, room on the river at a fair price. The manager spoke english and invited us for tea and then a Turkish coffee. Did I mention these people drink a lot of tea? We are their first American customers and she was very pleased. Her least favorite customers, that she was quite happy to talk about, are Turkish and Japanese.

Our room was one of the balcony rooms on the right.

Me and Baher Unal the manager.

Night view from room.

We climbed up to the old tombs to find that despite what the brochures say, "walking behind them is the most fascinating thing to do.", that not only can you not walk around them, you have to be a mountain goat to get to them.

Tombs above the buildings and castle on the very top.

I climbed all the way up here and you want 3 TL and I can't even do what the tourist lady said I should come here for?

Next we drove higher up the hill and parked the car. Remember that squeal problem? It was fairly steep at the castle with no parking lot, so I set the brake and got out. Fortunately, I looked back as the car was easing it's way down the mountain. I jumped in and moved it down to a flatter spot.

The castle is more OS and they are working on rebuilding it for the tourists.

The castle

These girls were playing music, dancing and clicking their fingers in a very odd manner.

They tried to teach both of us but we did not get it.

These guys carry rock and cement up a steep incline about 100 meters and then down about 300 meters. All day.

Where do they wear these dresses?

The bridge and old town

AMASYA TO CAPPADOCIA

OCT 7

We headed out across ~~Kansas.~~..I mean Turkey. It looks like Kansas. Wheat fields as far as the eye can see.

Knew I should have rented that donkey cart.

Mobile band saw

We came into a town and there were many farm trailers full of something we could not recognize. As hard as the boys tried to explain in sign language we could not make it happen. I figured it was the large root bulb thing we saw them harvesting and they had chopped it up. But why?

Down the road we saw a big pile of the root/bulb things and stopped to have a look. Yulus came out of the office and tried to explain what it was. Not working. Follow me, he motions. Off we march to the office where he grabs a bowl of sugar and points to it. AH HA! Sugar beets!! Everybody smiles, nods, and Yulus grabs a bag and we head off to the trailer. He picks through many, selecting just the right ones and presents them to me. Off we march back to the car where we are joined by Mustofo. More sign language and gesturing but we are not getting it. Vicki has the note pad so Mustofo takes it and draws pictures. AH HA! Bake it for 2 hours and then you eat it. Got it. Mystery solved. Hands are shaken all around and away we go.

Yulus and the sugar bowl

His gift of suger beets.

Mustofo draws an oven.

We stopped at Chez Vicki for lunch of cheese and fruit.

Have I mentioned they are doing road construction here?

Though we do not depend on Fatma aka Gladys, since she is just along for the ride, we do put her on the window so she does not get lonely in the bag. Today she was doing great. Until we were in the middle of nowhere taking a nice beautiful short cut and she said to make a U turn. We ignored her as usual. Vicki declared she had gone rogue and left the reservation as she roamed off to the left over the hills and would cross back over the road and head off west and turn around and come back.

The nice side road we found.

The purple line is the road and the red ball is where she says we are.

Road, we don't need no stinkin' road.

Were we have been.

Down the road we ran into another operation where they were bagging the shredded stuff we saw earlier. A U turn and we are back in the yard. More sign language, but we only get that it is food for cattle. Shortly an old beat up Peugot pulls up and a guy jumps out. He is obvisouly the boss and comes over to us. He knows just enought english to tell us that yes, it is the sugar beet and they wrap it for storage for winter feed. A couple of guys come up trying to get his attention and he waves them away. We are the main attraction. He offers us coffee, the tea machine is broke he says. I say we really do not have time. He says you always have time for coffee or tea. So, we drank coffee.