Turkey Day 9

Breakfast buffet at hotel, it is down a flight of stairs across the street and up another makeshift staircase past a mosque to get there, luckily it was worth it. Then we were picked up at the same place at 9:30 to go on the Southern Cappadocia tour.

We drove about an hour away to Ihlara and from there westarted our 7km hike along the valley floor stopping occasionally to see a cave church.

It took us about 2 hours to do the hike and we arrived at Belisirma and had lunch. They had the unprepared food on dishes covered with saran wrap which they brought to the table and you chose what you wanted to eat. On the tour there were 3 talkative Australian girls, a Japanese couple living in Shanghai, 2 Italians, and 2 more Europeans. Our guide was a young girl named Gocan, or Rosebud.
After lunch we drove to Selime and saw a church that was converted into a mosque. Next we stopped at a small underground city in Derinkuyu I believe. We went into 2 levels, this city, we were told, is the only underground city where you can see the toilet.
We got back around 6:30 and went toeat dinner at a pita place, they are calling it Turkish pizza. On the way back I stopped and bought a long sleeve shirt because it has been so cold in the evenings

At 9:30 we went to the Hamam at the hotel for our first Turkish bath experience. they sell pkg plans so we got the 70 min one which was in hind sight a mistake. I was so satisfied with the sauna, scrub and wash that I could have been finished gone back to the room and went right to bed, but we had a 30 minute oil massage that was just so so that I had to endure. I would like to check the difference at a real Hamam. The other surprise that we got was that this one was mixed, which I was not really happy with, but at least we were covered with a towel. Shin had a woman wash him, which I thought was very interesting, because I thought they wouldn't do that. The oil massages were also given by women. It was good to go here to understand how it all works, but know that I know better I would be much more specific on what I wanted. The most interesting part about the was was when they put the warm soup bubbles on you. They get a big bunch of bubbles and they dribble them on your stomach. It felt like this warm thing was warming up my inside, at first I didn't realize that it was the bubbles but figured out that was what the sensation was from, it was so interesting.