hey heyyyy its kaykayyy!!! today i will try to share the turkey leg of my trip weoooooo!!! warning, i do get dramatic about some parts … so bear with me.
from Greece, we flew to an airport in Istanbul arriving in the morning … then hilariously, we had a flight booked to Cappadocia, Turkey from the OTHER Istanbul airport which was conveniently in the other area of town. We lucked out, however, as the other flight was in the evening and there was a bus that would get you there straight. Honestly, timing wise it couldn’t have worked out better. We got to the other airport at a great time and checked in easy peasy. We flew into the small airport of Nevşehir and got a private shuttle from our AirBnb.
One of the main things I wanted to do here was stay in a cave hotel… which in hindsight funny since most hotels in the area were cave hotels BUT we found a nice one!! Also our hosts were very sweet and helped book Hot Air Balloon rides which was the main reason we came to this area in Turkey.
Now before we get there, I think this was the place I felt a big culture shock or maybe that’s not exactly the right word. But during research, I realized that Turkey, especially rural Turkey where we were for the first part, is very conservative. I was really worried about offending people, especially with my clothing. And I was caught off guard by the call to prayers that happened five times a day and wasn’t sure how to act during them. These concerns quickly dissipated during our first day there, and I was just cautious to dress long sleeves and long pants. We walked around our small town and WOWWW i was just in awe, still am, with the cool terrain, of the desert with buildings in the caves. It is so cool and very unique from what I’ve seen. The first place we ate, we couldn’t see a menu, but this kind man who ran the restaurant/bar was like “i will make you this classic Turkey meat plate” and we were like oh heck yea sign us up. Y’all it was delicious. This hot plate with meat in an incredible sauce. The BREAD was also so good. Shoutout to him. So good, we went back.
The next day we chose to check out the nearby larger-ish town called Urgup. We went to the bus stop and this very nice man pulled over and said “you are going to Urgup? i can take you there”. I was a little freaked out by this buuut being with Ian I was more confident. We tried to pay him after but he was like “nah dont worry, life is not all about money” and I was taken aback by this kind gesture. Hope he is well.
We walked around these very nice streets, found a coffee shop where we practiced saying thank you in Turkish and the people were ecstatic!! We hiked in the heat up to this lookout and WOW!! Again its hard to describe …. such cool terrain. Seeing all these buildings made out of caves. We were living life!!! Trying to find the bus back to our small little city was a different story… we couldn’t really find the bus stop so we went into a hotel and they told us “just stand on this street and wave to them and they will pull over”. We waited for awhile on the side of the road but found it!!!
Now this is where the story takes a turn … so we had booked through our AirBnb host a hot air balloon ride on Thursday. This was one of the biggest bucket list items for me since I saw a video yeaaars ago about how magical it looked. And it was nooot cheap oh my we literally had just enough money cash to book it. Our shuttle was scheduled to pick us up at 3:30 am the day of. So we woke up … pulled ourselves out of bed, got picked up in the shuttle and made our way over to this waiting area where there was a looot of similar shuttles waiting. We were there for awhile and then from there we went to the site where we would take the balloon. We got out and watched as this crew started blowing up the balloon. Then they stopped and we were told the weather wasn’t good and the balloons were canceled. I was devastated, to say the least … I was very sad and I forgot that that was even a possibility. We made it back to the room and passed out. Later that day we tried to book for the next day but it was apparently already cancelled for weather reasons as well. We were planning to fly out on Saturday, but we realized we could probably fit it in in the morning. But our host told us that since it's been canceled two days in a row, Saturday was booked and way more expensive.
I was very very sad but tried to be excited to go explore a bigger city near us. When we got there however, I felt it wasn't how I thought it would be. So I started breaking down … I felt bad that none of this part of the trip was panning out and that I brought us here and it wasn’t going well. I felt so defeated. I tried to plan and it didn’t work. After some yummy lunch, the hummus, and the oLIVES, I was more able to try to just enjoy the town and explore and make the most of it. We hiked up to another lookout, and found the area I was expecting and was hoping for!! It was really beautiful up there.
We ended up making friends with these peeps across the street from us who owned this carpet making store. He brought us through his building and it was so beautiful. He told us the story of his store, and wow these carpets …. ITS A SHAME I ONLY BROUGHT A SUITCASE BC I WOULDVE BOUGHT MY WHOLE FAMILY A CARPET FROM HERE. They were stunning. and this man was so kind. We ended up buying some fun pants from there and Ian got a really nice linen shirt. We really were touched by their hospitality.
Something else I loved was the dogs that just roamed the streets but some of them, when the call to prayer played, would howl and sing along. I loved it. It was really sweet.
We also found a nice little museum in our town called the Doll Museum, and yes it was this multifloor museum with handmade dolls. The details!!! The textiles!! Some rooms had displays that told folklore and some had dolls from around the world that were sent to be on display. Our tour guide was very friendly and a great story teller!!! It was a quite a cool place. And it went on for awhile!! That place had so many rooms!! We kept thinking the tour was over and he was like “ONTO THE NEXT ROOM” like okay wow.
The rollercoaster continued however … That evening … we heard there was a cancellation and that two spots opened up for a bit more money. So we booked it and were gonna try again!!! Fingers crossed. Well our shuttle was half an hour late, and so we were mINUTES from giving up and going back to sleep, we were exhausted. BUT it appeared and we hopped in. We were taken to this place where we got complimentary breakfast. Then we saw them taking out the air balloons and thennnnnnn…. it got cancelled again. Oh boy. At this point … I saw it coming. AND TECHNICALLY I saw hot airballoons in Cappadocia …. and had a photo with them so???
I tried to see this saga as just a reason to come back to do it again. I won’t give up. Some day I will ride these hot airballoons!!! BUT (and here is where I get a lil dramatic) it seemed the world was MOCKING me bc everywhere you go in Cappadocia it is SIGNS telling you to “book your hot air balloon ride” like bitch IM TRYING!!! I HAVE TRIED!!! and then on the plane ride to Istanbul welp the girl sitting next to us was editing her TikTok of HER hot air balloon ride….. it looked amazing … and I am so happy she got to go because DAMN its hard to plan and seems rarer than one might think. yes I did shed some tears on the plane because of it.
TRYING to put this past us we arrived in Istanbul quite a bit later than we expected (our plane was delayed by like 3 hours) and so we were TIRED. and it was a mission to get a taxi to our place. We got this app for Taxis in Istanbul and were messaging this one person and it got CONFUSING. Didn’t know where to meet and then there was a debate over price where Ian was doing great at haggling. He agreed on a price and we found our mans but SURPRISE it was his brother to take us. Oh well. We got to our place easy peasy and then the driver was so kind and was like “listen my brother’s price was way too much so just give me ___”. very honest and we really appreciated it.
I think from all the 3 am wake-ups and travelling we died a bit the next few days…. I can’t remember much BUTTT i started and FINISHED a fun “plane crash survival show” called The Wilds. If youve watched this please reach out I really enjoyed it and then found out that it got CANCELLLLLED. sadness. so I started Yellowjackets, another plane crash show, with a different twist. I enjoyed it but tbh not as much as the other one. Very odd to me to have started these shows when travelling but it was the mood I was in.
anywho our days included wandering our area which was a very cute, kinda trendy with lots of handmade good shops. i decided i wanted to become a NECKLACE girly and i found some cute ones in these handmade shops and I got to meet the creators who were SO NICE!!!! anyways loved the collection starters. and the little coffee shops. I really just enjoyed wandering, walking down the small streets, people watching in coffee shops. our Airbnb was juuust off of the buuusy street. which was fun to walk around there, seemed to be a party street, and it was very cool.
One day we decided to venture over to the other side of the river to do more tourist thangs. We explored the outdoor gardens of the Blue Mosque and went through the giant bazaars. We also went to the Basilica Cistern which we somehow got in with no line??? It was INCREDIBLE and unlike anything I have seen. I really loved that place. We walked through this gorgeous, huge park and walked home. We decided to grab a drink in that fun little hip neighbourhood near us and they were playing a beauty contest on the TV? random but okay.
I FORGOT TO MENTION yall Istanbul has sooooo many cats. Cats everywhere!!! So precious. Cats in store windows!! Just vibing.
Overall the vibes of Istanbul were really cool. It’s a very interesting, unique city that has a lot of cool history but also is quite modern???? I also had the best Chai tea of my life.
ALSO (okay one more thing and then i will say peace this is chaotic) but the figs in Turkey … wow. 10/10 I was loving life.
That’s it for Turkeyyyyyy!!! Onto Thailand!!!
Some images
