Part 2 of my Journey in Cappadocia

   For my 2nd part of my journey, I wanted to

explore Cappadocia. I woke up early in the morning and went out to get tickets for hot-air balloons. On the balloon I was able to see the awesome landscape of Turkey. It was very delighting scene. It was beyond what I was expecting. The landscape was covered mostly with huge rocks, but each was very smooth and curved. It was an art to my eyes. Since it is always better to see than to hear, here is a video of a hot air balloon ride in Cappadocia. After viewing the landscape, I visited the Göreme Open-Air Museum. This museum has many collection of painted cave church. This antique church was very unique. These caves were carved Medieval orthodox Christian monks (1000-1200 AD) from the soft volcanic stone.

Growing up in a christian based family, I was very intrigued by this kind of church. I've never heard or seen a cave church. The fact that people carved stone caves to make church was very new to me. Some of these caves were here for a thousand year. And because of the wind, water, weather, earthquake, and shepherd boys who sought refuge in the caves and used the faces of the figures as targets for pebble attacks, many parts of the cave were damaged. However the beauty of the church was still present inside and outside the church. As I was touring I realized how religion changed over time. Even though Turkey is 

not a christian country today, it used be very christian based country in the past.




   The next day, I visited Kaymaklı's underground cities. The houses built here are constructed around nearly one hundred tunnels of underground city. This is also one of the things that surprised me. How did the people build this without modern tool. I mean it would be pretty hard to build this tunnel even with modern tools. In these caves there is also a church.