Category: Asia

  • Turkish Baat 3 : Bodrum

    Continued from Days 1,2

    Day 3

    The Salmakis Hotel reminded me a bit of Santorini, perhaps a less prettier cousin, mostly thanks to the construction of the hotel and the colours used – white and blue. But that wasn’t the only thing. It was the attitude of the service staff – they always had something better to do when you beckoned. D noticed that the colour of our wristband – given to us when we checked in – was different from many others. I also agreed that colour had a lot to do with the disparate treatment of guests. The view from the restaurant area was fantastic, but though the breakfast spread was not lacking in terms of quantity, it wasn’t impressive in terms of taste.

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  • Turkish Baat 2 : Istanbul and beyond

    Continued from Day 1

    The night vanished and so did the headache. We finished a heavy breakfast that involved a cheese fest, and started out on our guided tour -at 8.30 AM, after a series of tour bus changes. They bring everyone to one place and then distribute into various buses depending on the tour chosen. Our group had, among others, four Indian middle aged ladies, a Pakistani couple, a US couple who name dropped Myanmar (!) every ten minutes, a Singaporean Indian who was having nightmares of a belly dance experience from the previous night, a Chinese girl, and  an elderly Indian gentleman who was forever confused about the hotel he came from. (he raised his hand whichever hotel name was called out!) The tour was arranged by our travel operator through She Tours, and our guide was a lady named after Minerva. We also saw a hop-on hop-off sightseeing option called Big Bus Tours on the way. First on the agenda was the Hippodrome of Constantinople. It has a Serpent Column, a granite obelisk, a bronze (stolen since) obelisk and a German fountain. The place was crowded, also because there was a rally scheduled to happen in the evening. Quite a nice coincidence, because the place was originally famous for horse and chariot racing.

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  • Turkish Baat 1 : Istanbul, almost!

    Prequel: Turkey resisted us twice, back in 2013. We planned a trip in January only to figure out that the weather wasn’t the best in all the places we wanted to visit. We tried again in May and there were protests. Not against us, but in general. This year, thanks to the house shift, it was all one big rush. To add to that, we had to shift our trip by a week at the last minute because my visa process was bungled by a very inept ‘travel agency‘.

    Day 1

    Maybe it was a bid to compensate, the cosmos decided to grant us an uneventful beginning to the trip. Though we began at an insane hour (4:15 AM flight) the Meru cab was on time, and we met B and P at the airport, on their way to Jordan. Chatting with them also meant that we didn’t fall asleep. Qatar Airways gave us an omelette and chicken early morning meal, and though I had plans to watch a movie, I promptly fell asleep. We landed at Doha’s Hamad airport and saw that giant teddy bear that belonged to the royal family. Wes Craven would be proud of that thing! But otherwise, quite an awesome airport, though I couldn’t find free WiFi. That tin-man playground seemed quite fun.

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  • Penang Post! – Part 4

    Continued from Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

    The last day of our vacation. Sigh! We only had one item on the agenda, and no prizes for guessing it involved food – specifically lunch! But before that, we had our standard awesome breakfast at Spice Market cafe. They had an awesome Blueberry Crumble and the banana cakes had been fantastic for a couple of days now!

    We didn’t have a lot of time to digest it, because we had to leave the hotel by 2 and had very minimal time for lunch. We took a cab to the Living Room Cafe (actually walk-able, but 10 MYR away by cab) which served fusion Malaysian. A small cafe on the main road that also sells art. They had quite a few interesting photos around  – Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin, Muhammad Ali & the Beatles etc. There was also a band practicing. I ordered a Cider, D an banana juice and we waited for what we had come for – Beef Rendang. We got talking to an American lady who had been in Batu Ferringhi for 1.5 years and planned to stay 2.5 more. We wondered what it must be like. Meanwhile, the beef rendang did prove to be an excellent choice.

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  • Penang Post! – Part 3

    Continued from Part 1 and Part 2

    We lazed around and barely made it in time for breakfast! The buffet at Spice Market Cafe was awesome as always, and my meal was made thanks to the parfait and bread pudding. I also saw what suspiciously looked like a snide remark on Twitter 😉

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    The day was not really packed in terms of schedule, but we were a bit delayed and when I learned that the taxi to Penang Hill would work out only to about 30 MYR, I immediately voted to skip the elaborate bus plan. We reached the Penang Hill station in about 45 minutes  and it actually worked out to 50 MYR (contrary to what the lady at the hotel said) but it was a wonderful ride – peaceful settings with only a couple of traffic bottlenecks. There are a couple of queues to be navigated – one for the tickets (30 MYR per person) and the other to actually get into the train that will get you to the top. The internet suggests that one person should stand in each, since the waiting time could turn out to be quite much, but the line for the latter seemed reasonable, so we stood united! (more…)