Konya and the Whirling Dervishes

The bus from Goreme to Konya comfortably traversed landscape somewhat reminiscent of Nebraska without the corn. Konya is a big city - similar to Kayseri. It was to be our most remote destination in terms of familiarity (e.g., English words on menus, western dress). Our reasons for visiting Konya were to attend the Saturday evening Sema Ritual during which the dervishes whirl and to see the Mevlana Museum, where they used to live. 

Konya is a very flat city surrounded by hills and mountains - some topped with snow. A brisk breeze blows down from the mountains, resulting in a bit of a nippy (ok, it was very cold) feel. There were not very many tourist sights to see, so we roamed around the shops, markets, and parks to pass the time until the 8pm Sema Ritual. 

This site (http://www.whirlingdervishes.org/whirlingdervishes.htm) explains the Sema Ritual and much more about Sufism and Rumi. Instead of trying to re-explain it, I'll just include our impressions. First of all, Konya has built a BIG center for this purpose. It includes a group of new buildings that is surrounded by large, packed dirt lots that presumably accommodate hundreds of buses. There is an outdoor sema area that is supposed to seat 7000 people. It is an inverted cone that starts at ground level and descends many levels. Thankfully, during the winter, they use an indoor area, which was also quite large. The room was perfectly round with many rows of seats. In the center were about 20 lamb pelts. When it was time to start, a person entered the room and placed a red carpet away from the pelts. Then there was an announcement (first in English and then Turkish), after which the band members and the dervishes entered the room and took their places. They moved very slowly, methodically, and reverently. They were initially covered in black robes. The dervish master was the last to enter, I believe. The whirling part of the ritual started after each dervish greeted the master. Immediately after the greeting, individually, each dervish would start to spin. Their movement was very fluid, similar to the others, but subtly unique too. They would spin mostly in place, but they gradually circled around the stage area. We were surprised to see men of all ages enacting the ritual. Some would tilt their heads with their tall woolen hats as if listening to some other message only they could hear. The ritual lasted over an hour, which included three sequences of whirling. They never seemed to tire or stray from their pattern of whirling. Seeing the Sema Ritual was definitely a unique and moving experience.

The walk back to our hotel was quite cold. On Sunday, we had plenty (too much) time to kill. We visited the Mevlana museum first thing in the morning and then a couple other smaller museums in the afternoon. Here are some views of Konya.

We had sleeper compartment tickets for the night train to Izmir. Sunday was election day in Turkey. All of the elections were local, but they postponed the scheduled time change for a day, so we made sure we had plenty of time to meet the train. The ride was smooth. We woke up to green hills of olive trees - somewhat similar to Greece.