We had debated a bit last night and agiain this morning as to whether we should try and enter the city of Konya or simply take the bypass and give it a miss. On the one hand Konya seemed to offer some interest as it is the home town of the whirling dervish orders and on the other it is always a bit of a stressful challenge driving the truck in an unfamiliar town. Fortunately we decided to give-it-a-go and discovered that Konya had wide streets, the route to the center of town and the Mevlana Museum was well sign posted and right near the museum were a couple of large vacant lots in which we could easily park (we soon discovered that hordes of tour busses also parked in these lots).

The Mevlana Museum was quite a surprise. We have now seen many many Islamic mosques and from the outside this museum looked like "just another mosque" though with the now familiar Turkisk variation. But the place was very different inside. Completely different style of decoration and with burial caskets all over the place (I had not realized it was a memorial building). Sitting on top of each casket was an elaborate dervish turban. Interestingly the turbans were status symbol with the number of wraps of the turban signifying spiritual importance of the caskets occupant. Unfortunately - photography not allowed.

We then spent a couple of hours wandering around the city doing some shopping and watching local women doing their "ablutions" - a.k.a washing their feet etc.

Back on the road we headed west and south towards Seydisehir before changing our minds and turning north again towards the town of Beysehir the lake of the same name.

We arrived in Beysehir about 1 hour before sunset, found a really nice place on the lake front to park (right next to a park with very elaborate picnic facilities) and went for a walk before settling in for the night.