The earth from above

Well, it's been a while, but we're back again. This time, some photos with a difference...all taken from altitude. Who won the battle for the window seats? In the end, we settled the matter fairly reasonably and mostly just took turns (though I still think Andrew got more turns than me)! Enjoy the view!

Leaving Perth on the 7th December headed for Singapore. You can see the city skyline in the distance and the South Perth foreshore in the foreground

Flying from New Delhi to Istanbul on the 2nd January. Andrew estimates that this photo was taken while we were flying over Pakistan.

You can't really make out very much in this photo, but the colours of dusk were nice! Taken as we flew above Iran on our way to Istanbul.

Leaving Istanbul for Tel Aviv on 7th January, we had a chance to view the very busy port area on the eastern side of Istanbul, the Sea of Marmara.

Crossing over Turkey we passed some mountainous terrain with a dusting of snow...

...but it got colder than that! A large part of southern Turkey was covered in snow...we were glad that we had only visited the north!

A lake amidst the snowy scenery

And then we had left the shores of Turkey and flew over the Mediterranean...

All the time just waiting for our first glimpse of Israel and hoping to see Haifa from the plane. Alas, it was too cloudy for that. As we flew over Tel Aviv preparing to land, the ground glistened with pools of water and black clouds rolled away in the distance. That was the first and last we ever saw of ominous weather, much to our relief!

Bazaars, buses and baklava

OK...I'm afraid I just can't hold on any longer...I'm not trying to overshadow Andrew's impending narrative, I'm just trying to put off doing some school-work! More photos and stories from Turkey...

Wandering the cobbled streets of Sultanahmet at night-time was always a lovely experience...well, apart from being harangued by a multitude of carpet-shop owners and waiters doing their utmost to get passer-bys to come into their respective establishments!

We arrived in Istanbul late in the evening on Tuesday 2nd January. We went straight from the airport to our hotel and once we had dumped our bags in our room we took off again straight into the cold night air to find ourselves some dinner. We managed to locate a place fairly close by - a tiny little cafe with about three tables and a huge gas heater taking up most of the room inside! Here we tasted the first of what was to become our staple diet in Istanbul - chicken and vegetable kebabs. Istanbul was much, much colder than New Delhi. After the first night, we hurriedly dug out our gloves, scarves and beanies before we ventured outdoors again. The next day we decided to just explore the part of the city we were staying in...a thoroughly beautiful area called Sultanahmet, which is home to the major tourist attractions of Istanbul as well as most of the tourist accommodation. This part of Istanbul really felt like an old, exotic city: the cobbled streets, mosques and churches, dazzling shopfronts and the sounds of traditional music wafting into the night air late in the evenings really set the scene for what was a most enjoyable, though all-too-brief visit.

Crossing a large courtyard on the way from Sultanahmet to Fatih

On the third day, we decided to spend the morning walking to another part of the city called Fatih, where Baha'u'llah had spent four months in 1863, after being forced to leave Baghdad. We found some of the places that He had visited and spent some time just wandering around and taking in the sights. We came back to Fatih the next day, when we had an opportunity to visit one of the houses that Baha'u'llah actually stayed in during His time in this city. There we happened to meet a Baha'i family from Queensland who had just returned from their pilgrimage in Haifa and were stopping in Turkey en route to Australia - doing much the same as we were. We discovered from them that the weather had been terrible during their time in Haifa - apart from the first day of blue sky and sunshine, it poured down torrentially for the following nine days! This got us a little bit worried about the conditions awaiting us in Israel, but we ended up having all the luck with ten days of perfect weather!

Sitting outside a mosque in Fatih, we posed for a photo (I think we only took about three photos of ourselves together during our entire trip!).

On the way back from Fatih we stopped to look in the window of yet another sweet shop, but suprisingly we didn't go in (maybe because we hadn't actually finished the box of sweets that we had purchased earlier that morning!).

Yum...dozens of varieties of melt-in-your-mouth pastries and baklava! We resisted for once, but made up for it in Haifa where we bought a half-kilo box which we promptly polished off in about 2 days!

It was also on the way back from Fatih that we decided to venture into the Grand Bazaar to escape the biting cold of the elements outside. The place was huge and very different from our experience of market-shopping in India. We went in pursuit of cushion covers of a particular size and shape, but would you believe, couldn't find any - though we had many offers from shop owners who said they could whip some up to our particular specifications in a matter of hours!

Beautiful mosaic glass lamps at the Grand Bazaar

The next day, Saturday, we decided to go to Edirne and back - a one-way journey by bus would be about two and a half hours. We caught a taxi to the bus station and our eyes boggled at the sight of literally hundreds and hundreds of individual bus companies all offering trips to various parts of Turkey. Luckily, we knew which bus companies we had to find and we managed to buy our tickets fairly quickly and board our bus about half an hour later. The buses were a huge surprise. Brand new, sleek and comfortable and staffed with two attendants who handed out beverages and food throughout the journey - it was more like a plane trip than a bus ride, but far more comfortable! It was here that I got my first taste of 'simit' - a bagel-like bread that is sold on every street corner and tastes every bit as good as it looks! The highway from Istanbul to Edirne was as good as the vehicles that traversed it. We sped onwards at over 100km an hour and were at our destination in no time at all...what a remarkable change from travelling in India!

Some of the residential areas of Istanbul that really made us appreciate what we have at home

One of the saddest things that we observed as we travelled, were scenes such as the one above. As soon as we had left the heart of the city, for kilometres into the distance all we could see were masses and masses of tall apartment buildings, squashed in so tightly together that there was no room for trees, parks or even a blade of grass. Istanbul is home to over 20 million people and the only affordable housing for the majority of people are such multi-storey apartments. It made us think of how very lucky we are in Australia. Even with the cost of housing going through the roof, homes still have gardens and trees and even those who live in small apartments still have tree-lined streets and parks around the corner. These people had nothing natural at all left in their environment. We asked the owner of the carpet shop where we purchased our rug about this: where do children play and run? The young lad who was also working in the shop told us that when he was growing up, he used to play soccer in the streets with his friends, but now, there was too much traffic even for this.

The Salim Mosque in Edirne

We reached Edirne and walked to the Salim Mosque shown above. Near this mosque was another house that Baha'u'llah had stayed in during His five year stay in this city. The caretaker of the house met us at the mosque and we walked to the house which was a few minutes away. Here we were shown around the house, which had been beautifully restored, and we were also shown the site of another house that Baha'u'llah had stayed in. All that remained were the foundations - but work is starting this year to rebuild the house in its original form. We then wandered around Edirne for a couple of hours before returning on the bus to Istanbul once again.

Shanks purchasing some carob in Edirne

We arrived back in Istanbul at around 8:00pm. We came back to the hotel briefly and were just about to head out the door to find some dinner when the family who ran the hotel we were staying at persuaded us to join them for dinner instead. We had already spent a few hours talking to Bulent and his wife and their gorgeous, cheeky daughter Yasmin. We ate a simple meal of fried fish, salad and bread and then talked away long and late into the night about so many things, including food, schooling, Islam and carpets! We kept them amused by teaching them various Aussie phrases ("G'day mate" being the standard one), but we also had a chance to try to understand more about life in Istanbul from their perspective. There, like here, it has become almost impossible to afford a house and, again, like Australia, many people are leaving the rural areas to come to the cities for work - no-one wants to work on the land anymore. We also asked them about their impressions of the many Australians who come to Istanbul en route to Gallipoli (known as Gelibolu in Turkey). Luckily the reputation of Aussies here appears to be pretty good, which may explain the warm reception we received! Once again, spending time with this family was one of the highlights of our time in Istanbul...connecting with people from a different culture and religion, discovering so many commonalities in the lives that we lead and being treated with so much hospitality and warmth - this for us is really what travel is all about and where its influence has the most positive effect.

The very special family who ran the hotel we stayed at in Istanbul

We were very sad to be leaving Istanbul just five days after having arrived, but also tremendously excited about the last leg of our journey. In the end, we were so busy at the airport trying to change our tickets for the return leg that we ended up having to run to our gate just before they shut the doors, and slightly embarassed about being the last passengers on to the plane, we plonked ourselves in our seats and spent the rest of the flight looking out the window at scenes such as the one below, thankful for our time in Istanbul and awaiting the next leg of our adventure with mounting anticipation.

Snow covered mountains in southern Turkey as we flew towards our final destination

Ten days of sunshine

Here is a very brief summary of some of the things that occurred during our time in Haifa on pilgrimage. Lots more to follow!

We arrived in Haifa at 9:09pm on Sunday 7th January, after an hour-long train journey from the airport in Tel Aviv. Our excitement went through the roof as we saw the distant glimmer of the Baha'i Shrines and terraces on Mt Carmel. We managed to navigate ourselves to our hotel fairly easily and then almost immediately after putting our luggage in our room we headed straight back out into the cool night air towards Ben Gurion Avenue. This is Haifa's main street which leads up to the very foot of Mt Carmel and was in fact realigned in order to provide a seamless transition from road to garden terraces. As you look from Ben Gurion Avenue towards the mountain, the Baha'i gardens and terraces rise magnificently all the way to the top of the mount. We walked to the gate at the bottom of the steps and gazed at an image that has been the subject of millions of photos and is proudly considered by Israelis to be the "Eight Wonder of the World"!

The sight we gazed on upon arrival in Haifa

The association of the Baha'i Faith in the Holy Land, specifically Mt Carmel, goes back to the time of Baha'u'llah, the Founder of the Baha'i Faith, who in 1891 pointed out a site on the mountain which should house the precious remains of the Bab, (pronounced 'barb' and meaning 'gate'), who, although a Prophet in His own right, and in a similar fashion to John the Baptist proclaiming the coming of Christ, prepared the way for Baha'u'llah and foretold His coming. Progressively over the years, land was purchased for the purpose of building a Shrine where the remains of the Bab now lie interred.

The view from the uppermost terraces across the Bay of Haifa towards Bahji

The primary purpose of Baha'i pilgrimage is to visit and pray inside the Shrines of the Bab and Baha'u'llah (in Bahji, across the Bay of Haifa). Imagine what it would be like if we knew the exact sites where the precious remains of Christ, or the Buddha, or Moses lay - how many thousands of people would be making similar pilgrimages across the globe to visit these sacred places! So, for Baha'is, going on pilgrimage is an inestimable privelege that is often a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Many other things occur during pilgrimage - visiting many of the houses and areas associated with the lives of the Bab and Baha'u'llah, as well as visiting the administrative buildings on Mt Carmel which now serve the needs of the Baha'i Faith throughout the world.

Standing at the gates, a security guard suddenly appeared and apparently recognised me (I had no idea who he was!) and we struck up a conversation (later on someone else told me his name!). He was a lad from Perth and is currently at the Baha'i World Centre volunteering there for a couple of years. With our hearts satisified, we turned and headed back to the hotel in great anticipation of the journey still to come.

Standing outside the gates to the lower terraces!

Counting down again...

We have almost come full circle. We are once again sitting here at Ben Gurion Airport, trying to keep steadily ordering small things from the cafe here which offers free internet to its customers. We have a very long wait ahead of us...our plane leaves at 6:45am, but we have been warned countless of times that it takes over 3 hours to clear all the security checks and that the Israeli airport officials turn your suitcase inside out! So...we're in for the long haul.

We fly from here to Istanbul, stay there for half a day (where Shanks will go in search of the magical Bosphorous cymbals), then to New Delhi where we have an 8 hour stop (enough time to scoff down a few masala dosas), before the flight to Singapore and then, finally, home.

There are so many stories to tell and photos to share...even though we will soon be home, we will keep the posts going so that all you who have been following our journey can follow it right to the end...there are many, many gaps to fill in. We hope that you have enoyed the story so far.

Haifa here we come!

Just a quick post from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv while we are waiting to go to Haifa in about an hour's time. We left Turkey with mixed feelings, especially after spending a wonderful evening yesterday with the family who runs the hotel we stayed at. They invited us to join them for dinner and we ate and talked together for a few hours well into the night. As always, meeting and talking to the 'locals' always gives you a greater understanding and appreciation for a country and an insight into the daily lives of people. We quizzed them about everything we could think of, from the cost of housing to cuisine, all interspersed with numerous cups of tea (called 'cay', but pronounced 'chai', as in India), which were refilled instantly the moment they ran dry!

But now, we are just moments away from an experience that we have been waiting for with great anticipation for a long time now...our excitement has only increased since being in Istanbul and Edirne where we had the privilege of visiting some of the houses where Baha'u'llah actually stayed when He was in this region. It is still quite fascinating to think that there is so much of history that is within the grasp of Baha'is.

That's all for now!