Articles from this Category
19 November 2024
Visa on Arrival I landed on time at 0030 at Baghdad International Airport. It’s not a huge airport and I was at the Visa on Arrival counter 10 mins later completing a very simple form. The form and passport was returned about 15 mins later with a visa stuck inside. Officially, payment had been cash-only […]
17 November 2024
Tea factory and sweet shop Today I did an excursion to Uzungol, a picturesque lakeside village with the lake formed about 500 years ago due to a landslide blocking the outflow of water. The trip came with a few other inclusions. I reported to the tour office at 1000 and departed soon after. We collected […]
16 November 2024
I had opted not to do an excursion till tomorrow, due to wet weather forecast. It is good that I have a spare day. Instead, I’ll do the sights of Trabzon further from the bazaar area where I’m located. First up, I walked to the Gulbahar Hatun Mosque built in 1514. En route, I passed […]
15 November 2024
Sumela Monastery Trabzon’s highlight for me was going to be the Sumela Monastery out of town. In the late autumn season, I had read that public transport options are more difficult, so I booked a tour online with Sumelatur for TRY700 (NZD35) and came with a number of other sights. I walked to their office […]
14 November 2024
Arriving and domestic transfer in Istanbul With only 4h between meals onboard the flight from Male to Istanbul, I took only half a sleeping pill instead of a whole one. I enjoyed 2h sleep horizontally on three seats and managed to doze for a further two. Surprisingly Turkish Airlines served 2 full meals on the […]
13 November 2024
Heading to the airport Today, I leave Maldives for Trabzon in eastern Turkiye. Boo was flying back home to Malaysia and had to take the 0730 ferry while I had the luxury of the 1230 one for my night flight. This allowed me to fit in a 45 min final dip at the beach before […]
12 November 2024
Above: Chained birds near Maafushi’s port area. I had booked to dive with Arena Dive Club who offered the best rates of USD40 per dive and USD10 for all equipment per dive, plus a discount of at least 10%. (The discount turned out to be 20% when I returned to pay that night). They were […]
12 November 2024
Above: Chained birds near Maafushi’s port area. After a relaxing day yesterday of chilling and swimming, it was time for me to do some diving before leaving tomorrow. I had booked to dive with Arena Dive Club who offered the best rates of USD40 per dive and USD10 for all equipment per dive, plus a […]
11 November 2024
Even though Maafushi is a lot more built up than Gulhi, it still has pockets of island vibe. The bikini beach here is deeper but it doesn’t have the pure sandy bottom that Gulhi’s has. We had been skipping lunches a bit, at first to be virtuous, but now because we were running low on […]
10 November 2024
Above: In front of Maafushi’s prison. Because the prison offered employment to locals, they had capital to start guest houses and hotels when the tourism industry was liberalised in 2009. Today, we have a fifteen-minute ferry ride at 1615 from Gulhi to Maafushi, as we move our base over for the next three days. We […]