Day 3 Konya District
Today we decided to get a bus to the town of Sille about 6 km's outside Konya to visit the Cave dwellings and Old Churches found there. But first it was a visit to the Selimiye Mosque here in Konya, before we left for Sille. It was about a 20 minute drive on the bus out into the barren hills, no money to worry about as all the transport in Konya is controlled by electronic tickets bought at kiosks all over the city, just get on and flash the card at a machine in the door and your in.
We were dropped off at the bus terminal, well the road comes to a dead end anyway and soon found some of the buildings and caves we were looking for. Also, we were also discovered by some young lads, who then showed us around laughing and joking all the time. We had great fun there and saw some amazing cave dwellings including the home of one of the lads (see picture). We took the lads for a coke in the only çay shop in town, they thought it was all great fun and left us a little bit richer than when they found us in the hills.
On our return to Konya later in the day we we ploughed our way through the hundreds of market streets mostly selling to Turkish tourists. Then we rested and planned our main journey for day four and day five, this has changed a bit as we have discovered super places to visit from our discussions with the locals and literature we were able to get from the local travel Information office, yes, there is an information office with shelves of English literature for the area all free, so wait and see where we go on day four and day five.
The next two days will be more out of the way so our next report may be a few days in coming.
Also, there is NO alcohol here in Konya, so if you need to dry out this is the place, although it is a most religious place it is still not thrust at you and in fact it is still very western in its dress and outlook etc. But without doubt, there are many more females in head scarf's here, in fact in Sille we did not see any females without one, however the dress is still western and smart.
So far no one has asked for a postcard so we have sent one to our happy postmaster in Akbük just to give him something to do!
Steve and Pete.
Akbuk Turkey .com
The Independent website about Akbuk in Turkey
