joie de vivre

posted : December 29, 2009

Continuing.

14 Dec 2009. 12D9N in Turkiye was awesome. SIA flies through Dubai with a transit time of almost 1h 45 min leaving a total flight time of almost 13 hours. But somehow since it was a night flight. Sleeping through the night wasn't so bad as it seems. Upon arrival at Istanbul Airport it started freezing although I presume air con was down to minimal. After clearance my shoe buckle gave way. What luck seriously! So while pushing the trolley of luggage I had to change my footwear and put on another layer of jacket. Mind you I was starving! And had a Starbucks sandwhich for almost 10TL in hand! Met up with our tour group soon after and waited for our coach (second home!) to arrive with the chilling wind blowing at my face. Turkey is a beautiful, scenic place. So much history loaded on the nation. So many ancient ruins, palaces, mosques, churches, amphitheatres to visit. And of coz petrol koisk lunches! Our lunches were mostly at restaurants near petrol koisks coz of the travelling time normally stretches over lunch coz of the long long distances between states. Our tour guide Gurkhan is so knowledge. He is a linguistics major doing history stuff so no wonder really. But its amazing how he can just speak of the cuff for practically every place we go. He has been in this line for decent number of years plus he has been doing tours for almost 4 months back to back. Immediately after my tour he rushed off for home to catch a few hours of sleep before meeting his next tour group at 5am. Amazing amount of energy and vigour for a 32 year old dude!

Sightseeing: A lot of historic places. Was a pity it was really too much information for my brain to retain. But I guess looking back on the photos will allow me to recall some information at least. The leather jacket factory visit with the fashion show was hot. haha. The male model is probably the hottest ever turk my eyes have seen! Beat's Gurkhan hands down! Then turkish delight store was interesting. The amount of sweets Turks consume is comparable to Indians. Jewellery factory ended of with a turk sharing national facts with my family. About average income for various professions, his family background etc. They are very friendly! And lastly the carpet factory. Amazing to see the way the women weave the double knot carpet with such swift and nimble fingers. Our jaws just dropped seeing the various beautful designs in the showroom. After much delibration we managed to settle on a design all of us liked! Not forgetting the horrible tasting Raki (45% alcohol). Nothing but a cloudy ppt. Oh lion's milk I forgot.

Food: Eggplant(brinjal) and cauliflower are probably the ONLY vegetables I consumed for the 12 days. The cheapest vegetables during winter time according to Gurkhan. The preparation style for the vegetables and meat(fish, chicken) are almost the same everywhere. After almost 3 days I started to get sick of their food. Their rice is quite interesting. The grains are coated with butter (for lubrication!). So wierd. Their salad spread and variey in bread is amazing seriously. Breakfast buffet spread in most hotels were probably the best. The last day at a 5 star hotel in Istanbul was really the best spread.

Guys: Almost every other Turk guy is friendly. Over-friendly key word here. They all have nice rosy cheeks coz of their large tomato intake I presume. A few random dudes go beyond over-friendly and try to hit on you. Especially ppl with interesting colour skin coz all the Chinese girls in my tour group were ignored. Also interesting to note how the Turk guys try to use as many descriptive words in their sentences even with their limited knowledge of the English Language. 'Spice Girl' 'Bootiful' LOL

Weather: The standard temperature we experienced was below 10 degrees. Sometimes even when the temperature is decent the cold winds are the scariest to handle. Your fingers will almost feel so numb and you can feel the cold seeping through your ears into your body if it's even possible. On 21st Dec while we were having lunch it began snowing! The more interesting thing rather than the snow itself was how we witnessed the transition from slight rain drops to heavy snow itself. Was exhilirating! Only pity though was we couldnt do the optional Mediterranean Cruise coz of choppy waters but settled for Bosphorous Cruise in Istanbul on the last day. Was a real scenic cruise by the buildings.

Travelling: Our only mode of transport was through the coach for all distances. In such a big country and with out itenary spreading across almost the entire western part of Turkey you really must be up for travelling almost 5, 6 hours in the coach. As we were in each city for only a day except for Antalya and Cappadocia where we spent 2 days each, our afternoons are usually spent in the coach travelling. And also since its winter time the nights are longer with the days being shorter. So usually upon arrival at the hotel around 6pm we have dinner in the hotel and then its lights off by 9pm. Only on 1 of the night we decided to play snooker and call it a night about 11pm. Only fun thing which came about coz of travelling is that we got to stay in 7 hotels for the 9 nights we spent there. Like nomads we checked in and out of hotels. =)

That concludes my 12D9N stay in Turkey and I touched down on Xmas morning! Home sweet home! Always feel good to be back to your own country, comrades, food at the end of the day!

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