I've always wanted to visit a Tatooine parlour!

It's true - all you fellow Star Wars nerds out there can rejoice - I visited Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine last weekend!

Yes indeedy, I took a tour to the magical Kapdokya (Cappadoccia in it's more irritating English spelling) region last weekend. This series of valleys and canyons has massive collections of post-volcanic rock formations called 'fairy chimneys' into which the early Christians carved out elaborate homes, monasteries and churches to hide out from persecution. (They also served as the homes for assorted creatures on Tatooine. Need evidence??) They are absolutely phenomenal - what an unlikely place to come across fantastic 1000+ year old frescoes! Mom, take comfort: I reckon I visited more churches last weekend than I ever have in my life. Ironic that it was with a tour group who were primarly Muslim, wouldn't you say?

I wish I could report more details about each photo, but our tour guide had an annoying habit of trimming down the English translations of his verbose speeches to approximately one twentieth of the detail. I actually learned more from a Turkish friend who translated Guidey's speeches to French, which I could then relay to the other frustrated anglophones. It was like a multilingual game of 'broken telephone', played in a series of dark caves.

Another cool stop en route to Göreme was the salt lake (see below). This inland lake has such a high concentration of salt that you can walk on it, like sand or snow. The locals believe the water also has healing powers, but I didn't get a chance to confirm this myself.

Anyhow, enjoy the photos. There are plenty more where these came from!