Today we started our three day tour to the Southeastern highlights of Turkey. Most of it was spent in transportation (8 hours!), but the best tasting dondurma in the country was totally worth the drive.
Itinerary of the day: Goreme (Cappadocia) → Karatayhan Caravanserai → Kahramanmaras (the original MADO) → Adiyaman
It was the last morning to see hot air balloon floating over Cappadocia for one last time!
At this point of the trip, I was reminded of Turkey's Hatafutte Parade (lol)
"２つの大陸をつなぐ İstanbul
温泉が生み出す綿の城 Pamukkale
Şİş Kebabıを片手に Kapadokyaをちょちょいと案内してやんぜぇ！"
I think I covered it pretty well, even the Şİş Kebabı part!
In a typical itinerary of Turkey, the tourist trail would loop between Istanbul-Cappadocia-Pammukale, plus or minus the Aegean coast. Most tourists stay away from eastern Turkey as transportation wasn't too convenient, and it has a long track record of terrorism by the Kurdish extremist group, PKK.
I admit I was quite ignorant about the political situation in Turkey, so I didn't think too much before booking this tour with Nese Tour, a company based in Goreme. All it took was some great photos of Mt. Nemrut, the idea of a pilgrim visit to Harran, and seeing Gobekli Tepe, the cradle of civilization.
Little did I expect the Turkey-Syrian border with ISIL worsened enough for the Canadian travel advisory to post a warning. I educated myself more about Syrian civil war, ISIL and the Kurdish than I ever did in my life. Knowing more did not ease my worry, but reading upon real traveler experience at multiple travel forums (Lonely Planet, Tripadvisor, Virtual Tourist) did. There wasn't enough indication to cancel my trip, so a couple months later, we got into a van that would take us closer to the action.
Our guide Denis was a very reserved guy who didn't do much sweet talk, but did his job well. Contrary to what everyone else in Turkey told us about traveling to the southeast, Denis warned us that we needed to be cautious. The group would dine in the hotels and stay in at night. We might also not see everything we wanted to see if we encountered any military blockade on the way! Such reassuring words!?
What surprised me was given the tense situation, our group still was full with fifteen people. Most of them were seniors, and they were a fearless, energetic bunch! Three retirement age ladies, who traveled together all over the world, was especially chatty and had no concern about our journey ahead whatsoever.
The main focus of this tour was Mount Nemrut, and to get to the nearest city, Adiyaman, was an 8 hour drive from Goreme. To not bore the group out of their minds, the tour designed a few stops on the way to break up the commute.
Our first stop was Karatayhan Caravanserai, a Selcuk caravansary completed in the 13th century. These are "pit-stops" for caravans on trade route to Syria, which rest, food and care would be given to the travelers. It was part of an extended route that connected to the Silk Road.
I'm always interested in history associated with the Silk Road, so I was excited to see the inside of the caravansary. Unlucky for us, today the building was locked for a private function, so the group quickly hit the road again.
Lunch was at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.
Previous travelers wrote that this lunch was "barely edible", but I actually was surprised by the quality! Eastern Turkey is where most of Turkey's popular dishes were invented (ex. all variations of kebabs), so I don't think one could have a horrible meal here.
Lentil soup...we really do have this almost every meal. Not complaining!
Freshwater fish kebab was perfectly grilled. There were also other options like chicken or beef kebabs to choose from.
Foreigners, and even the Turks in the west, perceive eastern Turkey in a negative light, and often refer them as backward, conservative, poor, and dangerous. I'm not sure how justified these descriptions were, but Eastern Turkey was scattered with large and medium sized cities. It was by no means an underdeveloped rural area.
Around 2pm we arrived at Kahramanmaras, a large city in southern Turkey where Turkish ice cream was invented. Only a type of orchid that grow in this region and its salep can create the distinctive elastic texture and taste of the ice cream. To sample what the original stuff taste like, we stopped by one of dondurma's pioneer, MADO.
MADO is an ice cream chain that could be found all over Turkey, and the name stands for "Maras (short for Kahramanmaras )" and "dondurma (ice cream)". This specific shop was the original location founded in 1850. They might not be credited for the invention of the salep dondurma, but they had made technological improvements to the ice cream and now exports their ice cream across the country. This location served the fresh, non-preserved version, hence the best-tasting ice cream in Turkey.
Better yet, a huge scoop of dondurma here only cost 2TL. That's 1/3 of the price of a MADO chain in Istanbul! A single scoop of ice cream was included in the tour price, but I should have gotten extra scoops because damn it was so cheap!
The ice cream here are also famed to use 100% goat milk and real pistachio shavings, rather than green bean substitutes.
Seriously I can write about this ice cream all day. I've tried MADO in other locations and it just didn't even come close to the original.
Packaged sweets and nuts were sold this flagship store, which I assume domestic tourists might buy as gifts boxes. MADO not only serves ice cream now but also other brunch foods.
After the best ice cream stop ever, we continued on the long drive. I slept enough at this point so I tried my best to snap some photos through the car window.
It was already 6pm when we finally arrived at Adiyaman, the base for tomorrow's drive up Mount Nemrut. We stayed at Hotel Unal, as arranged by the tour company.
The hotel wasn't too bad, though nothing to rave about. The concierge spoke zero English, so all communications had to be done through Denis. My room reeked of cigarette and there was a piece of unclaimed luggage in it. It was unlikely to be a bomb, but the thought did cross my mind!
Dinner was provided by the hotel, as Denis warned us not to go out.
This dessert is called kadayif, made with wheat shreds, nuts and soaked in sugar syrup. Like all Turkish desserts it was insulin-spiking sweet.
