This is the last part of the "Turkish Summer Vacation" series I posted beginning from this August, covering the final closing of the vacation after the last day of the tour. Friday, 6 July 2012 (Evening) After our last dinner, we boarded our bus which would bring us to Atatürk International Airport. However, we got a surprise here. Before boarding the bus, I saw the owner of the restaurant where we had last dinner talking with several youths of our groups on the façade of the restaurant, in Indonesian language! It turned out that he was a volunteer stationed in Indonesia for several years and had been in several cities in Indonesia. No wonder he spoke fluent Indonesian. And the surprise was that that man joined us on board, without anyone knowing before Ümit introduced him to the rest of us. His name was Murat. Ümit let Murat took over him to speak in front of all of us. Here, Murat introduced himself and his background, in Indonesian, definitely. It turned out t
Thursday, 5 July 2012 After the long day (and long night) the day before, we woke up and had breakfast in our hotel in Cappadocia. That day, Thursday, 5 July 2012, we were to leave Cappadocia for our next destination, Ankara, the capital of the Republic of Turkey. The total journey would take roughly half days, with one stop in Tuz Gölü (Salt Lake) on the way to Ankara. View from our hotel that morning But before leaving Cappadocia, we were brought to a carpet factory, producing Turkish signature carpets with unique motifs. All the carpets sold there were handmade and the design was elaborate, therefore the price was high also. Again, my family was not interested :)) The making process of the carpet The sample on the wall We left the carpet factory and went on to Ankara with one stop in Tuz Gölü (Salt Lake), the main source of salt for Turkey. The lake is shared among three provinces, which are Konya, Ankara, and Aksaray. We visited from the Ankara Province side, w