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!

Cymbals, kangaroos and yurtles!

OK...last post about Turkey I think. In the last blog I got a bit confused between the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque...which should be quite difficult to do when you actually compare them! Oops! Here are some photos so you can play spot-the-difference!

The Blue Mosque (it's blue on the inside!)

Hagia Sophia in the daytime

Another shop filled with delicious treats - this time we only stopped to look!

The main mosque in Edirne

We have no idea what this shop was selling, but we are sure that it had nothing to do with kangaroos or anything even remotely Aussie!

Anyone for tripe (Ted??)!! The YTL in the photo refers to the Turkish currency (Yeni Turkish Lira), however, we ended up making up our own name for the money - yurtle! This was just a private joke between us until the day I asked our Turkish-carpet-selling friend "How many yurtles is that?" and he looked at me very oddly indeed! Luckily he probably just thought we were crazy foreigners!

Andrew couldn't resist the opportunity of a street-side fruit purchase in Edirne!

Our final Istanbul adventure involved a half-hour taxi ride to a desolate part of Istanbul on the quest of the famed Bosphorus cymbals. We were given a tour of the tiny little factory where these cymbals are produced. In this picture, a circle of men all have a go at bashing the cymbals in order to achieve the required shape...when they have finished adding their touch, they pass it on to the next chap to have a go! Each cymbal is then finished off by one of three master cymbal makers. Maybe Andrew will post a blog with all the photos we took at the factory and give the complete rundown on how these amazing instruments are made from start to finish (in our dreams maybe!!!).

Perusing the wide selection available, Andrew ended up buying a ride, crash and pair of high-hats at about half the price he would have paid for them in Australia (or on E-Bay for that matter!).

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

Kebabs, carpets and cobbled streets

It's me again...Lorraine. Yes, I'm sorry, but I'm back. I could have pretended to be Andrew, but I'm afraid you would all have seen through the thin facade...for starters, I'd be about 20 years too early. Never mind, at least you have something to look at now! I was sifting through our photos from Turkey today, trying to decide which ones to get printed...so here are a few memorable scenes from our time in Istanbul...

The Hagia Sophia in the heart of the old part of the city, Sultanahmet - formerly an Eastern Orthodox church, converted to a mosque in 1453 by the Turks, then a museum in 1935. It had an almost ethereal presence at night time, when it was brightly lit and encircled by birds in the misty night skies. Every mosque we saw in Istanbul and Edirne was very similar to this one - with a central dome and between two to six towering miniarets dominating the skyline.

After having come from vegetarian heaven in India, Turkey was a bit of a let-down for Shanks. He thought he would be scoffing down falafels by the dozen...alas, no-one in Turkey knew what a falafel was...or a vegetarian for that matter! For the first couple of days, Shanks survived on cheese pide (really just a glorified toasted cheesie), but later on he had his appetite satisfied with vegetable kebabs. I, on the other hand, was in a carnivore's paradise...the meal above was DELICIOUS and we just had to come back again!

The Grand Bazaar was a mind-boggling collection of ceramics, carpets, textiles, mosaic glass lamps and tea glasses...all very colourful and very beautiful. It all lost its gloss a little bit though when one of the shop owners was rude to us as we browsed the scarves displayed at his shop. Although we were in the hunt for gifts for friends and were willing to part with our money, we had a very hard time trying to raise the attention of any of the shopkeepers (very unusual in Istanbul!) so in the end we decided to leave empty-handed.

Did you think we could be in any country for any length of time without sampling the sweet menu? This gorgeous place had a mouth-watering range of sweet treats and I think we ended up coming here 3 times in 5 days!! The hazelnut tarts on the left were real winners!

Each morning started with a typical Turkish breakfast consisting of a huge basket of fresh bread, white cheese, cucumber, capsicum, a boiled egg and various spreads. The first hotel we stayed at also had lovely views over the Marmara Sea.

I think these are felted wool hats...I have no idea what they are called!

We were completely mesmerised by the intricate ceramic plates, tiles and vases on display in dozens of shopfronts and were almost ready to buy something but thought better of it at the last moment...

Instead we decided to spend our money on a Turkish carpet! We sat in this shop for over an hour while we were shown dozens and dozens of different carpets and kilims: silk ones, wool ones, big ones, little ones, cheap ones and very expensive ones. We downed a couple of glasses of hot apple tea before finally coming to a decision and making our purchase.

Another beautiful shopfront with the wool hat things and other stuff. I am very descriptive aren't I? It may have something to do with the fact that it is now 4:00am and I am getting slightly delirious.

Good Night!

Full circle

Forty-five days, nine flights, four currencies, eight languages (Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Konkani, Hindi, Turkish, Hebrew and Arabic) and thousands of kilometres later, we are back where we started from...tired and weary but not yet in bed - just the way we began our adventure!

Our flight to Perth touched down on time at 3:30pm, but by the time we went through immigration and customs it was past 5:00pm (Shanks had a little seed collection to declare, consisting of date palms, holm oaks, carobs and avocadoes pilfered while we were in Israel). Unfortunately they were all seized, but the customs inspector was very helpful and told Shanks the best way to get such things through next time.

It was a bit strange to be back in our own home at first - everything looked a bit odd - but soon enough we were right back in the comfort zone - eating a delicious Indian meal prepared by my mum and relaxing on the couch watching The Bill (some things will never change!).

Tomorrow we will unpack and progressively start getting ourselves back in order again...both of us will have to start work again shortly (Shanks' boss even tried calling him when we were in Israel!). But right now, we may have a quick look through some of our photos and go to sleep with very pleasant memories circulating in our tired brains!

Good Night!

Almost there...

After almost 45 days of adventuring across 3 different countries, we are just 9 hours away from returning home again. The return leg of our journey back to Perth has been challenging - we left Haifa at 5pm on Wednesday afternoon, spent that night at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv before our early morning flight to Turkey. We arrived in Istanbul at about 9am on Thursday morning, where Shanks and I, despite being severely sleep-deprived at that stage, went in search of the famed Bosphorus cymbals (more about that adventure in another blog!). Then we snatched a few hours of sleep at the hotel we stayed in previously, before setting out to make some last minute purchases (well, you didn't really expect us to leave Turkey without a carpet did you?). At midnight we hopped in a taxi to the airport for our 2:15am flight to New Delhi, arrived there at midday on Friday and once again, without having slept very much at all, had one final Indian market experience (not to mention one final masala dosa!) before heading back to the Baha'i House of Worship for some much needed peace and tranquility. This achieved, we experienced one last crazy rickshaw ride to the airport...there is nothing like a 1 hour rickshaw ride through the streets of Delhi to make you so glad to leave India! Despite our trepidation upon arriving once again at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, our fears were allayed as soon as we saw that there were no unimaginably horrendous queue awaiting us - we even ended up having an hour to spare before boarding!

We landed at Changi Airport at about 4:30am this morning, our third night without uninterrupted sleep! However, being in Changi has a tendency to relax and refresh you straight away - the airport is so clean and visually beautiful, full of little comforts like the famed foot massagers, exotic gardens and of course, the free internet (great for killing time!). We now have about 3 hours left before our flight to Perth...we both have mixed feelings upon our imminent return home. Our travels have provided such wonderful experiences that partly we both feel like just keeping on going. On the other hand, there is never anything quite like home. Shanks is looking forward to returning to his evening musings in the garden and meeting the latest duck/chicken arrivals that hatched while we were away! And we're both looking forward to a looong sleep!

Well, the next post will no doubt be from the comforts of our own home, where we will be able to post lots more photos and magical moments to share with you all.

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!

Istanbul...city of mosques and cats

Istanbul. Although having seen very little of this city of 15 million people, Shanks and I are already moved to descibe it as a city of great beauty. We have confined ourselves to only one part of the old city, Sultanahmet, which is conveniently littered with the main tourist attractions that Istanbul has to offer. As we wend our way through city streets, we catch glimpses of ships afloat on the Sea of Marmara; the miniarets and domes of impressive mosques, even more beautiful at night when they are brightly lit and atmospheric, tower over the buildings around them; an amazing array of carpets and kilims are on display at every second shop-front; glittering jewellery, multicoloured mosaic glass lamps, and intricately worked ceramic tiles, plates and bowls decorate almost every street that we have ambled along. And around every corner, atop every stone wall, under every bench and seat are cats of every colour and description!

Our time here is short...we fly to Tel Aviv on Sunday at 2:30pm. But we will be back, I am sure of it.

Istanbul in the evening

Lorraine
Flying over Istanbul as we prepared to land, the city beneath us sparkled with thousands of lights. This time, no smog, fog or layers of pollution to cloud the scene below...just a gem-encrusted landscape enticingly drawing us ever nearer.

This is the first time that I have travelled in a country where everything is foreign to me - something that was making me slightly nervous the closer we drew towards our destination. Every time I travel in India it is like a home away from home - I feel more Indian than ever and quite settled. When I visited Canada many years ago with my mum, it wasn't really a challenge either - we had family there and the language, food and culture was easily negotiated. Shanks has only travelled to Europe with his parents as a child, and although his memories are still very clear, this is his first time to Turkey as well.

The other thing that started worrying me as the wheels of the plane touched ground, was that we were landing in a foreign country without a travel guide. I realised that having a travel guide is something of a security blanket - just a quick flick of a page and you can work out where you are, where you want to go and how to get there. Landing without any information at all makes one rather nervous. On the plus side, we had, at the last minute managed to book a hotel and arrange for an airport pick-up, so after clearing immigration and customs in all of about two minutes (it actually seemed a tad too quick after India!), we were mighty pleased to see a young lady with a placard bearing our names on it. Racing through the city streets at night, wide-eyed and wonder-struck, it was funny to see the types of things that eased me into a sense of familiarity again - a BP service station that was a carbon-copy of the ones at home; Christmas trees brightly lit and decorated; a children's playground in the typical blue, red and yellow plastic common to playgrounds everywhere...

It was also a bit of a shock to the system, after having been in India for a month, to see clean streets and cars sticking to their lanes (albeit on the wrong side of the road), even if there was a complete lack of indication before switiching lanes. As we sped through the streets, we passed high rise buildings, department stores and restaurants - everything looked very modern and upmarket until we swung a few corners and found ourselves just as suddenly on narrower roads and cobbled streets. Out of the corner of our eyes, we caught sight of a beautifully lit mosque, a dimly-lit shop with loaves of fresh bread lining the windows...and then we were there, in front of our hotel, and eager to get out of the car and observe the scenes around us.

We are in a part of town called Sultanahmet - one of the older parts of Istanbul. It has a beautiful feel to it - quaint guesthouses and 'pensions' as they are called, cobbled streets, shops brimming with Turkish rugs and ceramics. We went for a wander to find a bite to eat, and came to a tiny restaurant, sheltered from the cold, where we eagerly tucked into our first plate of Turkish fare.

This morning, we rose late but managed to make it to the rooftop restaurant for breakfast, which was included with the room. A simple meal of bread, cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, egg and olives was devoured as we took in the view through the rain-spattered windows - the Marmara sea looking rough and grey, dozens of houses with crumbling tiles and flocks of pigeons and gulls swooping and swirling before us.

We are already feeling our focus change as we prepare ourselves for the momentous occasion that looms before us - our pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The cold, grey weather is somehow playing its part as we turn our thoughts to the journey that Baha'u'llah and His family and companions made during the icy winter (the coldest in living memory) from Constantinople (Istanbul) to Adrianople (Edirne). During that jouney they had to light fires next to the frozen-over springs for a couple of hours just to obtain drinking water.

The plane flight from Delhi was also quite exciting as we flew over Tehran (in Iran), where Baha'u'llah was first imprisoned before being exiled to Baghdad, then over eastern Turkey above some the towns which Baha'u'llah and His companions passed through on their exile from Baghdad to Constantinople. If only the plane was not delayed so we could have seen more of the journey in daylight!

Trying to leave India...

Leaving India ended up being rather more difficult than we had imagined (and we had already imagined it to be pretty difficult)! Our flight was scheduled to depart at 1:15pm. We managed to check ourselves in on-line the night before, so we weren't in a huge hurry to get to the airport. In fact, before arriving at the airport, we managed an all too brief visit to the Baha'i House of Worship in New Delhi, named the Lotus Temple, and attracting well over 3 1/2 million visitors each year (some photos are below). We spent a quiet hour in prayer and reflection and had a brief look at the impressive information centre, which wasn't there 5 years ago when I first visited. We hope to come back for a few more hours during our stopover on the return leg of our journey back to Perth.

Anyway, we arrived at the airport at around 11:45am. There are no signs telling you what to do or where to go, and it was only previous experience that told us that the first thing we had to do was get our bags scanned. We did this fairly promptly and then proceeded to find our check-in counter. Again, no problem, though the queue here took about half an hour. As we were lining up to check-in, we noticed an alarmingly long line of people waiting to go through the security checks. Hoping the queue would be somewhat diminished by the time we had to line up, we completed the rest of the check-in procedures swiftly. By this time however, the rather long queue had multiplied phenomenally and was now coursing through the entire departures terminal like a gigantic human snake! A little bit startled, but nevertheless good-humoured (after all, we thought, we are in India), we proceeded to try to find the end of the line. This in itself took a good few minutes, as the human snake had doubled and re-doubled on itself in an attempt to create some semblance of order in a fairly chaotic situation. Taking our place at the end of the queue, it was now our turn to observe the looks of sheer bewilderment and horror as fellow travellers also realised the full extent of the queuing scenario that was about to greet them.

The queue was moving fairly slowly and we had just made our way around one coil, when two parts of the line decided to merge into one. Not ones to get too worried by this we kept in line and went with the flow. However, with the finishing line just in sight - the inevitable happened - queue jumpers appeared and decided that instead of lining up at the end they would try to sneak in at the start! Understandably, this incensed a few fellow-queuers - one American lady started yelling at the little sneaks to "Go away", and suitably-chastened, a large party of shame-faced Finnish passengers took their rightful place at the end of the huge line. However, this didn't stop others from trying it on, and finally, with the camel's back well and truly broken, an Englishman decided that he had a cause to champion on behalf of his fellow sufferers who had, like us, patiently stood in line for an hour and a half already. He took his cause up with one family - mum, dad and son, and things, inevitably got quite fiery, with the Englishman refusing to give up, and the man and son raising their voices and getting very upset. The beleaguered Indian airport officials, when called upon to intervene, did nothing - you could see in their eyes that this was a situation that happened frequently and they felt powerless to deal with it. The stoush continued for a good fifteen minutes, until finally the queue-jumping crew were removed to the back of the line. Small victory indeed, as many of the on-lookers themselves had pushed in and were probably hoping that no-one would point the finger at them too.

Anyway, by this time, our plane should have taken off an hour ago, yet we were still in the line. Obviously no procedures to speed up the processing of those passengers whose planes are first to depart. A few times, a lady came around calling for Turkish Airlines passengers. We eagerly identified ourselves to her, but it was no more than a head-counting game and we resigned ourselves to the fact that we may never end up leaving New Delhi after all. By this time, we realised that "foggy conditions" are really just a convenient cover-story for the Indian Airport Authority - delayed flights have got nothing to do with the weather at all - it's all just the complete lack of proper procedures and systems to deal with passenger arrivals and departures!

Finally, when we had been waiting for over three hours, together with another couple travelling on the same flight as us, we were bumped up to the front of the line (much to the annoyance of others!). We cleared the security checks in a flash and raced towards the boarding gates. Two hours after our scheduled departure time we were in the skies, quite happy to be leaving the chaos and confusion of India behind us...and no doubt to happily return again many times in the future!

Photos of the Baha'i House of Worhsip in New Delhi

http://info.bahai.org/article-1-6-0-7.html

One of the paths leading to the Baha'i House of Worship in New Delhi

Thousands of people from all faiths visit the House of Worship every day

A view of the interior of the House of Worhsip

Aerial view of the House of Worhsip, about 1/2 hour from the centre of the city

The House of Worship at night

Leaving India

In just fourteen hours, our great Indian adventure will only be something to look back on with many fond memories of all the bewildering, joyful and fun-filled experiences we have had over the past 4 weeks.

We are in New Delhi right now - icy cold New Delhi - which has sent us scurrying to our suitcases for our socks and jackets. We thought that this weather was bad enough...until we decided to look up the weather forecast for our next destinations - Istanbul and Edirne in Turkey. Forecast night-time temperatures in Istanbul are 5C and Edirne -6C! We are somewhat rueing our decision to visit Turkey in the winter!

Tomorrow we fly out of New Delhi at 1:15pm, though we are quite certain that it will be somewhat later than that due to Delhi's constant problem of fogginess and traffic congestion. We haven't had too much of a chance to explore this bustling city of millions - we arrived slap-bang in the middle of New Year's celebrations on the 31st, and today spent a bit of time at some upmarket shopping places (big mistake) before grounding ourselves again at the mind-blowing markets in Old Delhi. We would have loved more time just to look around and orient ourselves, but alas, our time has run out as we now look frward to the second leg of our journey.

Later on we hope to fill in some more gaps and add some more photos from our wonderful times in Mysore and Goa, but now it's time for bed!

Happy New Year to all of you!

Ten days to go...

I can't believe that tomorrow the countdown launches itself into single figures...it seems like just days ago we started our blog at 24 days to go...

Nevertheless, we now have NEWS to report on the travel front! We finally managed to get around to having our jabs today...Tetanus, Polio, Hepatitis A and Typhoid. If the needles didn't make us feel faint, the cost of the whole thing certainly did - over half a grand - all we could think of was the number of masala dosas and gulab jamuns we could have bought instead!!!

Anyway, on the way home we decided to treat ourselves to a meal at one of our favourite Turkish eateries...it is an absolute dive of a place to look at but it dishes up some of the best Turkish fare in Perth. It is run by 7 brothers (not that any of them look at all like one another), and I feel that a marvellous opportunity is being missed with the naming of the establishment (wouldn't you just be drawn to dine in a place called the Seven Turkish Brothers)? Anyway, this of course got us both thinking about our trip to Turkey, which being situated between India and Israel both geographically as well as on our itinerary, we seem to have glossed over amidst our mounting excitement to visit the other destinations.

Nevertheless, we have three main places in our sights in Turkey - Istanbul, Edirne and Gallipoli. Each have very special significance for Baha'is, as Baha'u'llah, the Prophet-Founder of the Baha'i Faith, spent 4 months in Istanbul and 5 years in Edirne before arriving at His final destination of Acre (Akka) in Israel, where His resting place is now the central point for Baha'is who come on pilgrimage. Baha'u'llah only briefly adjourned in Gallipoli en route to Akka, but Gallipoli of course has great significance for Australians, as it was here in 1915 that thousands of Australian and New Zealand soldiers (ANZACS) lost their lives and it is their sacrifice that we commemorate and honour each year on April 25th, ANZAC Day.

A Map of Baha'u'llah's Exile from Iran to Israel

There is a feeling that for both of us, our journeys in each of these three lands will bring us that much closer to a greater understanding of our cultural, national as well as spiritual heritage.

Twelve days to go...

The Intrepid Adventurers + 1

Well, seeing as there are no major developments on the travel front to announce, I thought I might just take a moment to fill you in a little bit on the main protagonists of this blog...Astrid, Christian, Shanks (Andrew) and me (Lorraine)!

Hmmmm...who can I start with...perhaps Christian...Christian Holyoak...sometimes known as Holy Smoke (he's the redhead on the left in the photo above). Christian and I met when we were both studying (well, okay, perhaps not really studying) at university in 1995. For some reason we both seemed to gravitate towards the front left hand side of the lecture theatre and at some stage we must have struck up a conversation and so the story goes. Christian, was and still is, a fairly lackadaisical, likeable chap, and our friendship has remained firm throughout the past 11 years. Christian is a psychologist (almost at the end of his Masters) and a keen traveller, having spent a lot of time in Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala to name but a few countries. This will be his first trip to India and the first time he has travelled with any of us...I wonder if he has any idea what he is in for...

A Scene from the Pilbara

On to Astrid. I met Astrid in 1997 at another friend's house. We connected immediately and have continued to be very close despite having lived far, far away from each other for most of the time since we met. Both of us have lived and worked out of the metropolis for a few years, I in Tom Price, in Western Australia's spectacular Pilbara region, and Astrid in Alice Springs, where she worked both in the town itself as well as at a remote Aboriginal community called Ltyente Apurte (pronounced Jenja Porta). Astrid is another eager adventurer and some of the countries she has visited and worked in are Kenya, Guyana, Spain, Portugal and North India with me in 2001 (by the way, she used to eat all my share of the Indian sweets that we used to take back to our hotel each night)! After Christian, Shanks and I head off to our various destinations early in January 2007, Astrid will be staying on to do some volunteer work at the Bahai-inspired Barli Vocational Institute for Rural Women in Indore for a further 3 months, before heading to Turkey, then Israel for her Baha'i pilgrimage.

Well, that leaves us with Shanks...someone else may have to write about me! Shanks and I first met in Tom Price in 2001. We got married 3 years later and now live in Perth with our menagerie (plus quenda)! Shanks is a farmer...we have a beautiful 140 acres of land in a town called Wongan Hills in Western Australia's wheatbelt (north-east of Perth). We will be moving there at the end of next year so that he can finally get started growing things...it's what he does best!

Well, until tomorrow, good night!

Our Block in Wongan Hills

Twenty four days to go...

Twenty four days to go until we embark on our journey to the centre of the Earth - a journey that will culminate in our pilgrimage to the Baha'i Shrines and Gardens on the slopes of Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel - the most sacred spot on the planet for millions of Baha'is throughout the world.

View of the Shrine of the Bab, the Prophet-Forerunner of the Baha'i Faith

Along the way, we will be travelling with two of our friends taking in the sights, sounds, tastes (yes, and smells!!!) of southern India. As we draw nearer towards our destination we will pass through Turkey, following in the footsteps of Baha'u'llah, the Prophet-Founder of the Baha'i Faith, as He trod the path of exile from Tehran to Baghdad, then Constantinople (Istanbul), Adrianople (Edirne) and finally to the Holy Land, Israel.

We will update our blog regularly so that you can keep track of where we are and what we're up to! Our departure date is Thursday 7th December, and we arrive back in Perth on Saturday 20th January...45 days of what we are both anticipating will be a momentous adventure, both physically and spiritually!