Whirling Like a Dervish in Konya

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December 5 - 7, 2006

Tuesday

We arrived at the Konya bus station, approximately 15 kilometers outside of the city center, after dark and apparently in the midst of rush hour. Completely clueless we followed the crowds from the bus station to the city tram line. Wedging our voluminous bags into crowded public transportation has become one of the most enjoyable aspects of our trip and this was no exception. We couldn’t help but feel horribly impolite but the local Turks were accommodating and patient with us. A very nice older man on the train pointed out a seat to Amy when it opened and made sure Roger got his seat when he got up. We exited the tram as it began its circle around the city center and looked for a wide spot on the sidewalk where we could put our bags down and select a hotel from our guidebook.

As we perused our book a man approached us to see if we needed a room. Hoping to avoid any hassles we told him we had a reservation but his description, the hotel being a mere five minute walk away, and the promised price wore us down and we agreed to at least inspect the place. Following strangers through strange towns where we are obviously foreigners has also become frighteningly familiar to us. While we never felt unsafe we both paused just a bit when our guide led us through a narrow and unlit passageway off the main street, through some construction, and down an alley.

We stayed at Otel Mevlana Kent (www.otelmevlana.com), which was every bit as good as promised and had tremendous hospitality. Before leaving, the tout who led us to the hotel invited us to his carpet shop and we took his card without intending to go. We felt yucky after a long day on the road and were very happy to relax in our room. The hotel had someone bring tea to our room, which provided pleasant refreshment before dinner.

We asked at the front desk if they recommended any nearby restaurants and the older man, we presume the owner, pulled out a map to try to point the way. After a moment’s contemplation with the map the older man decided that his young bellboy should lead us to the restaurant. The awkwardness of the situation is hard to explain but it was very funny and we could not quit laughing over how surprised the bellboy seemed at the task. With the bellboy bewildered the older man led all three of us outside and pointed us in the right direction and we honestly walked about one and a half blocks before the bellboy dropped us off (he did not even come in so that the restaurant knew where the business came from). We may be slow but we probably could have figured that one out.

Dinner was very good and consisted of lentil soup, pita with mutton and onion, and pide with cheese and meat. Roger was not feeling good and actually threw up in their upstairs bathroom, prompting Amy to eat only slightly faster than usual so that we could pay the bill and retire. Walking back to the hotel we were stopped by a guy trying to make conversation with us and, probably, to line us up for a sales pitch. For some reason, even sick, Roger stopped to talk and we found out that the man had lived in Takoma Park, Maryland, and still visits the east coast once a year. The man even claimed to have helped the Smithsonian restore rugs, an expertise he plies with various universities and museums around the country. He was very nice and very enthusiastic about America and we were sad that we could not take him up on his invitation to have tea since Roger was sick. We took his card and promised to visit his shop the next day.

Our first night in Konya was a rough one for Roger who experienced new ways of being sick in the tenth month of our trip.

Wednesday

By the time we reached our hotel’s complimentary breakfast it was pretty picked over (an almost tragic occurrence for Amy, who could eat olives and cheese non-stop for weeks on end). We started our day trying to find a place that would do our laundry. The place the hotel marked on the map was either incorrect or dated so it took us much longer to find than it should have and we had to stop and ask several people for directions. The woman at the laundry that we did find didn’t speak any English but we fumbled through with the help of gestures and our guidebook’s limited dictionary. Our laundry wouldn’t be done until 10am the next day but at least it was relatively cheap (cheaper than the last couple of months in Europe).

Konya has been a significant settlement for more than 4,000 years and today is a large city of just over three quarters of a million people. Every year more than 1.5 million people visit Konya, many of them drawn to the Mevlana Museum and the dervish ceremonies. The dervishes follow in a line of Islamic worship based on the teachings of Celaleddin Rumi, a poet, mystic, and student of Islamic theology who was born in 1207 and passed away in Konya on December 17, 1273. Now known as Mevlana (Our Guide), Rumi inspired worshipers seeking to grow closer to god through a ritual trance-like spinning and prayer ceremony (ever hear “whirling” dervish?). Regularly scheduled dervish shows run throughout the year and our primary task was to figure out where to buy tickets to the regularly scheduled 1pm dervish performance.

Our guidebook suggested we buy tickets behind the Mevlana Museum. When we inquired at the museum we were directed to the impressive new exhibition center a mile down a dusty roadway. After walking to the exhibition center we were told that we should buy tickets from the Mevlana Museum. So we walked back to the Mevlana Museum and asked where we could buy tickets to see the dervish show and they directed us to the museum office. In the office the only show the guy mentioned was the 7:30pm show. When we asked about ticket information the clerk sent us across the street to the tourist information office. At the tourist office we found three ladies having tea who did not seem to work there. We asked about the shows and they directed us back to the office we had just visited.

As we ambled around town trying to sort out the dervish tickets we also investigated the bus schedule to our next destination, Antalya on the Turkish coast. Metro, a bus company we had already learned to enjoy, offered a curious schedule with departures at 1:30am arriving at 5am. We are not clear why anyone would want to do anything starting at 1:30am and concluding at 5am.

Confused by our ticketing odyssey and with Roger not feeling well we went back to our hotel and appealed to them to make sense of the show times and tickets. At the hotel they said the only show was the night show. It was not until much later that we learned a lot of the confusion was not generated by incorrect show information in our guidebook as much as the whopping inaccuracy of our guidebook in presenting the dates of the annual Mevlana Festival. According to the book the festival, an observance and celebration complete with a dervish ceremony and concert at the new exhibition center, started “around December 10.” The celebration had in fact been expanded to two weeks and was already running, temporarily halting the afternoon shows and leaving the large annual celebration for which tickets were in high demand.

We had lunch at a place near our hotel (white rice for Roger, stuffed peppers, rice and salad for Amy) and then almost insensibly returned to the ticket office where he told us they were sold out for the next 3 days (We think the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. At least this time there was a different result - no more wild goose chase - just sold out.). Frustrated we went to the Mevlana Museum (5 YTL per person) which also happens to be the tomb of the Mevlana and several other prominent dervishes.

The Mevlana Museum is beautiful from top to bottom and from the outer courtyard to the tombs inside. Outside the turquoise of the most prominent dome is stunning and the interior is fantastically ornate. No head covering was needed for Amy although she felt weird without it, and we were required to wear plastic covers over our shoes. There was a good amount of information in English and we enjoyed walking slowly through the facility among worshippers saying prayers and Turkish tourists gawking at the beautiful tomb.

From the Mevlana Museum we walked to a travel agent that was in the guidebook to see if they could get us tickets for the night but they suggested we go to tourist information. It was worth a shot. While we had resigned ourselves to seeing one of the two regular dervish shows in Istanbul we had become more and more interested in seeing the dervish ceremony in its original setting. On our way to the hotel we tried to stop and visit the shop of the former Takoma Park man we had met the previous night and we were disappointed that his door was locked.

At our hotel we asked a last time about tickets and were pleasantly surprised and a little embarrassed at the lengths they went to in an effort to find them for us. One of the staff members made several calls and then told us that if we went back to the ticket office quickly there were 2 tickets available (due to a cancelled reservation or something). We went quickly to the office where we walked in and asked for tickets. We have no way of knowing whether it was a coincidence, if he had seen us and followed, or if he had actually helped our hotel find the tickets, but the man who had found us on the street and taken us to the hotel showed up as if by magic. Unsure of whether we partially owed the man a debt of gratitude and with no obvious retreat we agreed to visit his shop, stating ahead of time that one of us was sick and that we would not be buying anything. We talked for a while in the man’s shop but excused ourselves when the friendly chatter diverted to carpet quality and prices.

We passed several touts on the way back to our hotel and had almost made it to the room when a young man named Nazif stopped us by asking the irresistible question, “Why don’t Americans come to Turkey?” We talked to him for several minutes, starting with an answer to his question - “here we are!” - figuring he was leading up to the routine invitation to his shop. Making it seem like Americans don’t like Turkey is a good methodology and preys on what we see as the American desire to be well regarded. Eventually, of course, the conversation did turn to us visiting his shop but we begged off and asked for his card only to be told that he didn’t have one (and that we should just go to the shop…). We thanked him for the conversation and told him we don’t buy things anyway, but he changed tone quickly and produced a business card from his pocket and told us that we were smart.

Konya, at least the city center around the museum, has a much different vibe than our previous Turkey stops. While it is a more conservative city with a very prominent spiritual site and festival, it also has the pushy sales pitch market-style feel, almost slimy with friendliness. We try very hard to be respectful and polite but we were growing weary of the constant invitations to converse, knowing the sales pitch was buried at the end of the talk. Aside from the dervish festival Konya is not reputed to draw many tourists, though it would be hard to convince us so judging from the number of touts we encountered.

We took a break in the room, Roger sleeping and Amy looking for a room for the next night. Just after dark we headed out to get some food and to attend the dervish ceremony. On the way to dinner we again ran into Nazif, who was as likable and charming as he was persistent, who greeted us saying that it is bad luck if you run into someone twice and don’t go to their shop. We had some twist and pull when he tried to get us shopping but we only wanted to eat and see the ceremony so we invited him to dinner with us, an invitation we were happy to have Nazif accept. In addition to his entertaining and informative company Nazif also found a restaurant that was both good and cheap. Amy and Nazif had delectable iskender kebabs and Roger ate what Nazif suggested for a weak stomach (rice and yogurt, which were a big help). Dinner was followed by tea and something Nazif called “bread dessert,” a great treat drenched with syrup.

Over the course of the meal we learned more about Nazif and he entertained us with all of his pickup lines, even asking what several of them meant (not knowing the context for things like Lucky Charms, Hershey’s, or Campbell Soup he still wielded the flirtatious lines rather well). Nazif also filled us in on how his business works - his brothers watching the street for tourists and calling him on his cell phone to swoop in with his near-perfect English and his charms to try and lure folks to their shop. It’s a smooth business and they incorporate everything from finding hotels for tourists to giving them tea and maps to build up good will. His phone rang several times during dinner but he didn’t answer. Among his myriad charms Nazif also ended many of his sentences, especially his pickup lines, with “Wazzup.” We’d learn he had dated a Canadian woman about 5 years ago and figure that is probably why that particular slang hasn’t been updated.

Having tickets to the show and having broken bread with him did not break Nazif’s spirit for getting us to his shop. Though we felt like suckers we went to his shop for tea. The shop was very nice and loaded with carpets of all shapes, sizes and colors. We had apple tea and listened to some stories about how many carpets Nazif had sold to American soldiers from the nearby air base (he even has a coin from the head UN general). The conversation peppered with compliments to Amy, pickup lines, one-liners, and “anymore questions?” Nazif is very entertaining and we can’t imagine how many cars (or anything else) he could sell in America. When it was time to go he took us to the bus and told the driver where to take us.

Having only been in Turkey a short time we were already convinced that we would need to return. The food, for one, almost demands it. And we do intend to return to Konya to see Nazif and purchase a carpet. In the meantime, if you are in Konya you should spend some time in Nazif’s shop, Yoruk Hali (332-350-3396 & [e-mail]). Have tea, maybe go for a meal, and buy a nice carpet. If you take him to Vegas please call us because we’d love to see that.

True to Nazif’s word, by taking the bus instead of walking we had time for tea and still made it to the dervish ceremony by 7pm. The impressive new theater, built specifically for these annual ceremonies, was packed with Turks, most of whom were well-dressed (we love love love wearing our ratty travel clothes every day!). We asked one of the attendants, an older man, where the restroom was and he directed us and then did his best to talk to us for awhile. He was very nice and made a point of introducing us to a young woman who also worked there. The conversation was pleasant but a little awkward - maybe he was her English teacher? - we’re not sure.

The dervish ceremony lasted about 2.5 hours and began with several numbers performed by a famous Turkish singer (whose name, regrettably, we have lost). The dervish performance, modeled on the traditional form of worship the Rumi perfected in Konya roughly 800 years ago, was elegant and beautiful. There is a great deal of ceremony to the performance, but one by one the individual worshipers, clad in their white stack hats and white robes, would begin their whirling meditations until the entire stage was covered in the uniform spinning or dervishes. The movement of the worshipers extending their hands slowly up to the sky, their skirts swirling around them, was simply hypnotic.

There were many dervishes including a little dervish who could not have been mush more than twelve. The crowd was generally very appreciative though we will never understand the annoying flash photography and people leaving in the middle of the ceremony (before the ceremony people were asked not to do so in both English and Turkish). Getting out was not fun. Despite the enormity of the facility it felt like the entire audience was funneled through one door, and those stout little old Turkish ladies can shove like nobody’s business.

Thursday

We made it to breakfast before it was too picked over, picked up our laundry, and hopped onto the tram to the bus station. On our way out of town we ran into Nazif who was out on the prowl for business. We talked for a little while about the performance, Lucky Charms, etc.. He invited us up for tea but since we had a bus to catch we said goodbye.

We arrived at the bus station 3 minutes too late for the 11am bus so we bought tickets for the 12pm bus to Antalya. Buses in Turkey are simply awesome. They are so plentiful and so comfortable that it makes it as easy as can be to get around. And, odds are, you get tea and cakes from the attendant during the trip.

We had some tea and then went downstairs to use the restroom, one of us staying with the bags while the other went. While Roger went, Amy sat there and a young woman and two older Turkish women came in (we tend to call them babushkas even though we know that is not accurate). The seats in the lobby were in groups of three. Amy was seated in a middle seat with our luggage to her right and an empty seat to her left. Even though there were probably twenty empty seats in the immediate area around Amy, including several sets of three, the oldest babushka was sat next to Amy so the other two could use the restroom. The babushka made herself very comfortable.

Awkward experience behind us we headed for Antalya on the Turkish coast.

We leave you with two of our favorite quotes from Konya, the first by Celaleddin Rumi, the second by a more modern Turkish poet.

Come, whoever you may be,
Even if you may be
An infidel, a pagan, or a fire-worshipper,
come.
Ours is not a brotherhood of despair.
Even if you have broken
Your vows of repentance a hundred
times, come.

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You are like Lucky Charms.

You are magically delicious - wazzup!!!!

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Photos

The Tomb of Celaleddin Rumi
In the background there is a large mound, the sarcophagus, with a large turban perched upon it to signify the spiritual significance of Rumi.

Nazif and Roger in Nazif's Shop
Nazif's as handsome as he looks, ladies.

The Mevlana Museum
The courtyard between the museum and tomb

Crowd at the Dervish Ceremony
We saw more women in head scarves in Konya than in other areas of Turkey and this crowd was no exception