Any visitor to Turkey will recognize these evil eyes, which show up everywhere to ward off wickedness and bad luck. More on this later.

The day started with a morning hike through the Rose Valley, full of what you call “rugged beauty.”

Apricot trees, large and small are coming into bloom.

There are more churches to visit in this odd locale.

There’s a feeling that early Christians felt safer here, even boldly carving a cross into the valley walls.

There’s even a pretty large church to be found in yet another cave.

Still, they were discovered. Here we saw evidence of Theodosian invaders who erased the faces of the Christ and the saints.

Here’s the smelliest animal we’ve ever been near: an aged camel. I think he somehow sensed this and chose to ignore the fact with considerable dignity.

Moving even further back in time we visited the little town of Kavusin, which was pretty much destroyed in a 1960 earthquake. Perhaps its most famous resident was John the Baptist who lived here for a time, still with his head.

Underneath the Turkish flag is the main entrance to one of Cappadocia’s 36 underground cities. Presently four floors are open, and at least 4 and possibly 12 more floors remain to be cleaned and explored. (It was only rediscovered 50 years ago.) It was occupied as early as 1750 BC by Hittites who worshipped the goddess Diana (Artemis). It was used by successive cave dwellers as a safe place to withdraw to in case of attack, including Christians from the 5th to 9th centuries A.D. There are one-ton slotted rolling doors that seal off each level and space for 5,000 people. The air ventilation system is awesome, providing fresh air in all the areas we saw. It would have to be considering the number of people with their oil lamps and cooking fires. We saw a passageway that provided a 9km escape route to the next underground city. The inhabitants could put in supplies and water to last for 2 months.

One has to wonder at the engineering achievement here. Support columns were constructed that support the caves to this day. The ventilation shaft which is at least 50 meters deep and could provide fresh air. Those ginormous doors. I can’t imagine how they could have managed to build this, so it’s entertaining to learn that there have been 1600 modern sightings of UFOs in Cappadocia. Could little green men have been the original cave dwellers?

Remember those evil eyes? On the edge of a cliff we saw tree of them next to a little shop. Guess who…

And of course, we had our daily baklava:

Two days here in Cappadocia, we could have easily spent a week here exploring the area, going for hikes and just hanging out. Much more laid back than bustling Istanbul, it’s a great place to relax. Maybe on a future trip.

Another day, another railway station.

Our train rides in India have been unforgettable, but they’ve also been long and uncomfortable and, today, very crowded. The schedule is very informal, like many things in India, a suggestion more than anything else.

We checked into a great place on the banks of the Betwa River which has tents put up for part of the year. Not a camping tent by any means, these are regular rooms, which just happened to be in a tent.

Besides the fun of it, they sit in the shadow of these cenotaphs (monuments) of Bundela emperors. (The spired towers are reminiscent of the Buddhist stupas of Southeast Asia, aren’t they?)

Not much on the usual tourist route except as a stopover on the Agra-Khajuraho route, Orchha is a laid-back and relatively hassle-free. In and out of Mughal domination, the Bundela were the native rulers here.

Going up to the citadel, we clambered around the ruins of Raja Mahal, which looks nothing so much like an M.C. Escher print:

This 17-century palace is certainly well-aged, but in places, under eaves and in some interior spaces, you get some idea of how brilliant they must have looked back in the day.

The views across little Orchha and it’s handful of other monuments is great:

Coming down, we saw a very site very familiar once we left Delhi, cows and tuktuks:

The festival celebrating the marriage of the Hindu gods, Vishnu and Parvati, the parents (sort of) of Ganesh, was starting its 10-day run and we chatted with these guys who were setting up as djs.

While this temple was relatively quiet right now, it would explode with music and fireworks and people later.

Dinner was an unventful tourist buffet of Indian food at the hotel.

So LBi, a company in the UK upgraded their phones and found a fantastic way to repurpose the old ones.

Here’s an video of the thing going up.

And to make it sweeter, there’s a way to send instructions to the Mobile Mobile using your keyboard. It’s sort of laggy so it’s probably better in the middle of their night (8 hours ahead of the West Coast.)

Tonight is the evening of the harvest moon. Since it involves eating, I’m partial to the Chinese Moon Festival. So head outside, gaze and nosh.

(By the way, the photo was taken in our backyard tonight.)

Some very clever people have an idea of how to re-use the old double-decker span once the new eastern span of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge is completed. The idea of architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello is to stabilize the old bridge and then create an urban park out of it. Other possible uses include housing, cultural activites and, of all things, rock climbing.

And why not? After all, Florentines have had their shopping-mall-on-the-Arno, the Ponte Vecchio for over 650 years.

Read about it at BldgBlog.

Rael & San Fratello’s proposal makes for interesting reading, even for laypeople like myself. Check it out here.

Sounds good to me.

Four years ago, right about this time of year, I started keeping chickens. Here are the very first three, Donell, Chantal, and Blondelle (who’s crashed out on the fish wrap). I knew they’d be entertaining and useful (as in eggs, fertilizer and bug control), but it’s always been surprising how personable they can be.

There’s a photographer down south who’s been similarly smitten and he has a picture blog of his chicks day-by-day. He’s on day 9. Check it out…very cute. (Depending on your outlook, the names are pretty funny too.)

THREE CHICKS A DAY

A couple of years ago, another very talented blogger did pen and ink drawings weekly of her little peeper. Also worth a look:

LITTLE CHICKEN GROWING UP!