Articles from this Category
15 October 2019
Preparing for Iraqi Kurdistan My flight to a new adventure starting in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan departs at 1835 this evening. I thought I could do a bit of sightseeing this morning. But this is a familiar city and I’d just be largely repeating myself. And I have two late night departures coming in the next […]
14 October 2019
Exploring Asia In my various stays in Istanbul, I’ve never explored the Asian shores, except for getting to Sabiha Gokcen Airport (SAW). I’ve been close to the various parts on the ferries, but that’s it. Today, I thought I’d remedy that. I walked to the ferry terminal at Eminonu and found the pier for Kadikoy. […]
13 October 2019
Locating places Sightseeing wasn’t a priority today as I had been to Istanbul many times. I thought I’d locate a few places to smoothen the way for later: First up, I found the Eminonu bus stop for getting to the airport. While I expected it be directly across the multi-lane road from where I had […]
12 October 2019
Flying out of Suvarnabhumi My flight to Istanbul was scheduled for 0925. Istanbul is the gateway to my next adventure in Iraqi Kurdistan and then Sharm el Sheikh. I woke at 0545 and left the hotel at 0630 for Suvarnabhumi Airport. I had pessimistically allowed an hour’s ride on Grab to get to the airport, […]
29 June 2018
I thought I’d take Kim to Princes’ Islands today as it is a good and cheap way of seeing Istanbul from the water. We got on the public ferry around 0930 for a 1000 departure. It was vert busy on board with many Middle-Eastern tourists, some domestic tourists and a few foreigners. We called into […]
28 June 2018
Breakfast at the hotel was served on the rooftop overlooking the Golden Horn and the minaret of the mosque next door. Lovely! The plan for today to repeat for Kim, the sights we saw 26 years ago. I had repeated them in recent years and can easily show him the way there. And they’re all […]
27 June 2018
It is amazing how we made the morning disappear with doing very little before our long bus ride to Istanbul at 1200. We walked to Serdika Bus Station (next to the Train and Central Bus stations) where the bus was already there. Surprisingly, Metro Turizm, a Turkish company has Bulgarian-registered buses with Bulgarian livery. Onboard […]
26 July 2017
I had a flight from Antalya to Algiers at 2350. I wanted to do “everything” that I wanted before it got too hot, then rest before the night flight. It seemed the right idea to go for a walk while it was still cool, before breakfast. I wandered into the old city. There was nothing […]
25 July 2017
Above: Antalya eateries in the evening. Most on board had had a bad night sleep but I was OK. I woke around 0700 and breakfast was served at 0800. We had a last swim in Gokkaya Bay before doing a short hop to Demre harbour around 1000. Our arrival was much earlier than expected as […]
24 July 2017
Last night felt warmer even though I had slept in the open, under the stars (as opposed to under the canopy). I didn’t use a blanket unlike the first night. Perhaps I felt warmer because of the dew condensing on me, making me feel all humid. After breakfast around 0800, we swam for quite a […]