介绍:
Hello and welcome to Postcards, a show helping you reach across borders without actually taking a trip. I'm Shen Ting.
Turkey has long attracted tourists with its natural beauty, but it's also becoming more and more popular with yoga lovers.
Suleyman's Garden is among those offering retreats to people in search of the ultimate place to practice yoga and relax. Here's Wang Jing with today's first postcard from Turkey.
Reporter:
It's early morning at Suleyman's Garden, in southern Turkey, and the yoga shala is already full.
Surrounded by nature at Aktas Beach, in Faralya village, it's easy to see why yoga lovers enjoy coming here.
Most of them travel over from the UK, but this type of holiday is attracting tourists from further afield too.
The yoga retreat usually consists of a week of intensive yoga practice, vegetarian meals sourced from the garden and local farmers, sightseeing and sailing in the beautiful surroundings of Turkey's Mugla province.
It's not the first time that yoga teacher Sharon Farah has come to Turkey for yoga.
She says that she's taught yoga in different countries around the world, and Turkey stands out.
"It's a beautiful country. It's a beautiful place to come to. This retreat in particular is very relaxing. And the other place that we've been to belongs to the same people, also here in Turkey. It's equally as beautiful. So we really enjoy coming here."
The owners of Suleyman's Garden have a second yoga retreat in a mountain valley nearby and a boutique hotel on the coast.
All three are devoted to combining yoga with agro tourism.
Jean Irvine is a yoga and Pilates teacher from London, but she came here as a student.
"I came just to chill, relax, see a bit of scenery, see a bit of Turkey, meet different people."
She has been to Turkey several times to get away from her busy life in the city.
Along with yoga practice, the students relax in rural bungalows, enjoying the swimming pool and the delicate flavors of vegetarian food grown by the owner in the resort garden, where goats, chickens and even wild boars move freely.
Fresh cheese, tomato, cucumber and fruit, home made tahini, jam, honey and ready-made bread form part of the daily meals.
Gary Carter is a British yoga teacher.
"We are always eating the food that we see growing in the fields here. I love coming to this place. It is good to be in a center like this where everyone can be concentrated. So they stay onsite, we live onsite."
International tourism started in this region in 1995 with the opening of the Butterfly Valley.
Back then, most of the visitors were backpackers.
When the historical Lycian Way was promoted by the local tourist board in 2000, the region became globally famous attracting thousands of tourists each year.
The footpath stretches for more than 500 kilometers from Mugla to the neighboring Antalya province, dating back 3,000 years, when it was populated by the Anatolian people who were incorporated during the Iron Age into the Achaemenid Empire.
As a result, the area is not only rich in unspoiled, natural beauty, but also has stunning ruins steeped in history.
Ian Worrall, a 52-year-old Briton who grew up in Turkey, is the advisor for UK reservations at Suleyman's Garden and the two other retreats.
He and his family have been in the yoga business in the area for almost two decades.
The philosophy of these centers is to combine the local traditional farming system that dates back three-thousand years with a kind of tourism respectful to the environment and steeped in yoga practice.
According to Worrall, this is a way of helping traditional business to survive amid a global system that is making it increasingly harder to make money from agriculture.
"Our other yoga center is based on using what is locally available. It always has an ecological component to it in terms of we want to support the local community. We support local minibus drivers, local farmers. We always keep everything local, so that the money stays in the local economy. That's for ethical reasons."
The three centers run by the owners are 95 percent self-sufficient.
This tourism trend is very different from what Mugla province has experienced for the last decade.
It's mostly been tourists searching for beaches, entertainment and nightlife, which has helped to develop hotels, tourism facilities and roads.
Oludeniz, a beach resort in Fethiye district, has proved popular with visitors.
But Faralya village, which is 30 kilometers south of Fethiye town, is also now on the tourist trail.
Hasan Karaburun is head of the Association for the Preservation and Protection of Nature Tourism in Faralya village.
"The tourists who like entertainment and night life are staying in Oludeniz, also the ones who want to stay close to the beach. But in this region, tourists like the environment and want to chill and relax."
But tourists are stoking concerns in the region.
Nihat Tokdil, a trekking guide, says limits should be put in place to ensure the area's natural heritage is protected.
"On the positive side, there is an impact in terms of tourism facilities and life in the village. But there are also negative impacts coming along with this, because roads are built and this damages nature. I hope we can find a balance between these two concepts."
It's a balance yoga lovers will no doubt support, as they continue to come here for total relaxation and stunning scenery.
大家还在听
