Carpets, Cooking and Castles in Cappadocia

So we're in central turkey in Cappadocia. Ergun is taking us to all the sights, packing the days full of sightseeing. These are the most photographed rocks in the region because of their funny caps I guess.
Here's Lisa and Jane at Uchisar Fort. You can see the windows to the dwellings within the rocks. Some of them are still occupied.

A highlight on our Turkish Odyssey was the home stay. 16 of us all stayed in a Turkish family's home for one night. They cooked us a typical Turkish dinner, which we ate whilst sitting on the floor, helping ourselfs from the large silver trays on the floor.
We ate fresh bread with Yoghurt soup to start. It was an interesting flavour: creamy yet slightly like vinegar. Afterwards we ate home rolled dolma (stuffed vineleaves) and meatballs made using bulgar wheat and mince. Dessert was also made by the hostess. It was a cross between jelly and mousse made with grape honey. After eating we played cards with the seven year old, Aslam, and taught the group how to play "Pass the Pigs". We'll be sending a few copies of that around the world when we get home. Perhaps we should buy shares in the company?

In the morning the family tolerated photos with everyone and we presented a small gift of money.

Following our stay in Cappadocia we took the public bus about 5 hours to Konya. On the way the bus stopped and we sampled Turkish fast food. They're called Gozleme and consist of pancakes filled with various things. This mother and son team were whipping out loads of the things. The Gozleme are cooked on the black thing that looks like an upside-down wok.These ones had soft cheese and spinach inside but during the trip we sampled plenty of these things with meat or potato or even sweet things like chocolate and banana in the middle. Konya (historically called Iconium) was the capital of Turkey during the Seljuk Empire from 1097 to 1293. There wasn't a whole lot to see here apart from the Mausoleum to Mevlana, the originator of the Whirling Dervish order. Its a religion that emphasises patience. The Mausoleum contained the body of Mevlana and his father but was also a museum. Lots of items are on show, showing their creators patience, for example the worlds smallest handwritten copy of the Koran and several carpets with record breaking numbers of knots per inch.

Speaking of carpets, we visited a carpet factory in Cappodocia. It was a terrific experience since we were taken through the whole process. This factory employs around 20,000 spinners, all women who would otherwise be unemployed. Turkish carpets are special because they use a double knot technique. A silk carpet to fit in a hall way (perhaps 2m by 1m) would take one woman two years to make. She works only three hours a day because the silk cuts her fingers and strains her eyes.

Then we were shown how they make the silk. The silk worms only eat Mulberry leaves which are grown in the north of Turkey. One thread comes from each of these cocoons. 25 threads make a strand and 11-15 strands make a length of silk that can been woven into a carpet. Thats a lot of cocoons!
Mahmet took us to a large room upstairs where he laid out about a hundred different carpets to teach us how the different qualities feel underfoot and showed us the traditional patterns found in Turkey. We were unable to buy one because of the cost but it was truely fascinating to learn all the effort that goes into one small carpet.