'One does not become a wise person by wearing a cloak and a turban'

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'One does not become a wise person by wearing a cloak and a turban. Wisdom belongs to one's character, be it inside a silk dress or a coarse woolen cloth.' So said Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, otherwise known as Mevlana the 13th century Persian poet, mystic and theologian with a marked propensity toward spinning round and round in circles with his head cocked to one side. Yes, we are off to the birth place of the whirling Dervishes - Konya.

But first we have a long, long coach journey to get us there, shared this time with Turkish passengers who it seems the bus company has double booked in the same seats as us. They get really annoyed at us bloody tourists sitting in their seats and poor Burak has to listen to them complaining to the bus driver the whole journey despite us having moved to accommodate them. We are off to an area of Turkey that is much more conservative than we've previously witnessed and we are asked to cover ourselves up more than we would normally think to do. As we drive through the mountainous scenery and through some of the local towns we notice more women are wearing long dresses or skirts and head scarves or are covered entirely with black burqas.

We finally arrive in Konya, a large city in a flat valley at about 1,200m above sea level. The city is much more conservative than previous places we've visited in Turkey so far and we see lots of shops with row upon row of rather drab looking long dresses on shop dummies that alarmingly are tied to each other with a piece of rope around the necks. Nearly all the women we see have their heads covered and wear a version of these long dresses. We take a quick walk around the main sites including some mosques and what turns out to be a man-made hill at one end of town with a park and water fountain. Then we go to the main attraction of Konya, Mevlana Tekkesi, home of the whirling dervishes. Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi was a Muslim who taught and preached in Konya around 1230. A pivotal moment in his life was meeting Shams-e Tabrizi. Their philosophical discussions changed Rumi's life and he began writing poetry that preached tolerance, forgiveness and enlightenment. Basically this guy is responsible for all those 'uplifting' memes popular on social media these days. Here's an example of the kind of thing he wrote 'Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it' or 'Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I am changing myself'. You know the kind of thing. Anyway people went nuts for it and a following built up. Sadly Rumi's best mate went missing, possibly got rid of by the more traditional religious types of the time. Rumi was heart broken by the loss of his dear friend. One day as he was passing a goldsmiths he heard the goldbeaters hammering 'tin, tin, tin' and this rhythmic sound made him cock his head to one side and begin to spin with one hand to the sky to welcome god and the other to the ground to pass on the message of transcendence to perfection. And so the whirling dervishes or Mewlewi Sufis came into being.

After his death Rumi or Mevlana (my master) was buried at Konya and a building erected for his followers to live and study in. His son took over as leader of this Melewi Sufi order and it became a place of pilgrimage, which continues to this day. Now the building is a museum where you can see where Mevlana and his descendants are buried. You can also view the living quarters of those learning to become fully fledged spinners. They practiced this form of meditation by using a board with a pin in the middle to ensure the novice twirlers did not stray from the central axis of their spin.

To this non religious, non spiritual, non meditative pragmatist it all seems a bit overly serious for what is essentially whirling round and round on the spot and spouting vomit making platitudes - sorry Rumi followers, but it's not for me! I decide not to go and spend an hour watching men in white dresses and pointy hats spinning on the spot whilst getting orgasmic about their route to perfection and oneness with the universe and god and instead opt to luxuriate in my massive hotel room for the rest of the evening (I have it to myself, my turn to have the single option - shared between three of us over the course of the trip).

An odd day finding out about odd things and odd people. I'll stick with the world spinning round and leave the whirling meditation to others.

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