Some great quotes on travel

I came across these great quotes about travelling and thought I'd share them. The first one especially encapsulates how we approached our travels in India (or rather, how we didn't!). Also a good excuse to put some more photos on from Haifa!!! I promise some Turkey and India ones will come soon (hmmm....maybe as soon as Shanks writes his blog!).

"If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home."

James Michener


"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

Mark Twain


"I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad."

George Bernard Shaw


"The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see."

G.K. Chesterton

Walking in a wonderland

I spent a large part of yesterday looking through some of the photos from our trip and working out which were my favourites so that when we show friends and family our holiday snaps they don't have to sit through thousands and thousands of photos (with Astrid & Christian's photos added to our collection, we have over 3000!). So here are some more from Haifa and later on I will post some photos from Turkey and also India.

Even though we arrived in Haifa in the middle of winter, the weather, although cold, was stunning - clear blue skys and sunshine for ten days straight...perfect weather for appreciating the beauty and tranquillity of the Baha'i gardens, Terraces and Shrines. We chose to walk around as much as possible, (many people opt for taxis or sheruts - a mini-van that operates much like a bus), as the half-hour walk up and down the mountain each day gave us a perfect opportunity to prepare ourselves for the days events, to reflect and to talk about the things that we had experienced together.

Window overlooking a garden inside the Universal House of Justice Building

Stairs leading to Terraces above the Shrine of the Bab

One of the rooms inside the Visitor Information Centre near the Shrine

Gateway and stairs near the uppermost Terrace

Gardens and view of Haifa from the uppermost Terraces

Entrance plaza to Shrine of the Bab and Terraces on Hagefen Street, looking down Ben Gurion Avenue

Pathway on the lower Terraces

Shrine of the Bab lit at night on the ninth day of our pilgrimage

Fountain on the lower terraces

Scenes from Haifa

Hello again folks! Shanks said that he would write the next blog, so while we wait for him to do this (don't hold your breath anyone), I thought I would share a few more photos from Haifa...Enjoy!

Massive marble columns of the Universal House of Justice building, with the Shrine of the Bab in the distance

Gardens near the Shrine of Baha'u'llah in Bahji

The Garden of Ridvan (Paradise) in Akka

The entrance to the Shrine of Baha'u'llah in Bahji

The Shrine of the Bab seen from the first of the terraces behind

One of the many beautiful fountains to be found on the upper terraces

Gardens near the entrance plaza to the Shrine of Baha'u'llah

Fountains immediately below the Shrine of the Bab, lit at night

Gateway near one of the upper terraces

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!

To market, to market...

The hardest thing about being home again, apart from failing miserably to adjust our sleep cycle back to Perth time, is the thought that we may have to start shopping in ordinary shopping centres again....aaaaagggghhhhh. After weeks of haggling and wandering in markets and bazaars all over India and in Turkey, and having laid eyes on the mind-boggling array of olives, cheeses and assorted delicacies (marinated eggplants, capsicums, tomatoes) in small supermarkets in Haifa, not to mention the luscious treats on display in sweet shops everywhere we went...how can we ever face going back to Coles again???

The truth is, supplies have run low in our fridge and pantry but neither of us are game enough to venture out of doors...I opened a can of tuna for dinner last night and Shanks went without! The area we live in isn't exactly renowned for the fresh produce on offer. There are no fruit and veg markets nearby...the only hope we have is our little Italian grocer about 10km down the road and a cheese shop across the railway line (where we buy our supplies of parmesan, mozzarella and ricotta). The other difference is that shops and markets in India are open till late at night...often 10pm (in Perth everything shuts at 6pm) and wandering the streets of Istanbul and Haifa it was easy to find small delis open even later (no such luck in Armadale)!

Also, being in India, and witnessing the daily lives of hardship and suffering lived by so many thousands has also made us reflect on the life of excess it is so easy to lead here. Maybe changing spending habits on an individual level doesn't affect the quality of life for others the world over, but we will certainly start looking at our purchases more carefully from now on.

Anyway, here are some more marketplace photos (just from India) to tide you over until we have a chance to fill in the gaps from Israel and Turkey. Check out our friends' blog, http://allanmuna.blogspot.com/, for pictures of the markets that we never quite made it to in Haifa and also of their recent trip, like us, to Turkey (some of you will remember Allan - he was the celebrant at our wedding and has recently moved to Haifa with his wife, Muna).

Fruit stall in Ernakulam, Kochi

Another vegetable stall owner keen to pose with the towering Aussie in Ernakulam!

Quality control

Sweets, sweets and more sweets...

...makes it a very hard choice for Christian!

Chillies anyone?

Lentils, pulses, garlic and pasta-type things on display in Ernakulam

Shopping for sarees in New Delhi

Christmas decorations, Indian style!

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.

Going bananas

(Another belated India post, and more still to come)

Warning

We wish to advise that some Australian readers may be disturbed by the following post - you may wish to stop reading now!

For those of you who love your bananas and who are still paying grossly inflated prices as a result of a cyclone that happened long, long ago, you may want to consider movıng to India. About 50 cents Australian will buy you a kilogram of bananas and there are many varieties to choose from. Varieties range from very small and very sweet yellow bananas to large red-skinned ones to foot-long monsters!

Enjoy!

The drivers of this banana-laden truck were happy to pose with the tall Australian chap!

Feast your eyes on this!

This variety of banana is ripe when green and is very sweet!

This variety, called 'gonja', is best eaten...

fried and sprinkled with sugar! A perfect breakfast!

Astrid making a purchase in Mysore

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

Rajendren - our endearing driver

A belated post from Astrid, due to many frustrating Internet problems in India...

Just before piling into the Ambassador where we spent many, many hours together!

Astrid:
Upon arriving in Chennai, we quickly sought out a driver for the next two weeks of our South India trip and were fortunate to meet Rajendren - a smiling, rounded Indian man who arrived at our hotel with his shining white Ambassador. Always willing to help, he was ready to load our heavy luggage into his vehicle with a smile, a gentle Indian sideways nod and a ''no problem, no problem."

Although Rajendren did not own the car, he always made sure to keep it spotless, inside and out

On our first day, our immediate thoughts were to his family - his wife, 13 year old daughter and 7 year old son. What an enormous sacrifice to be away from family for weeks at a time, all for a measly sum of Rs 2000 (AU $60) a month, plus a small allowance of Rs 125 a day (AU $3.65) for driving outside the city limits (this is to cover the cost of his meals and accommodation). He later told us in his cheery broken English, that his rent is Rs 1000 a month and to send his daughter to school was Rs 4000 a year. It once again brought us into reflective discussions and frustration about the many injustices for the hard-working people of this country.

Over the past two weeks, he skillfully handled all the long journeys, negotiating the pothole-filled roads, dodging huge buses and trucks which unpredictably shot out from all directions and narrowly avoided the on-coming motorcycles, rickshaws and cows - all for our "safety and comfort". One of my favourite moments was at a roadside cafe stop, where his joyful love of children really shined. He cuddled a beautiful baby and posed for my camera with his rosy cheeks.

I think I was his favourite though (or the one he thought was the silliest by far of my travelling companions). He'd love all my silly faces, my attempts at the Tamil language and my "Three cheers for Rajendren!" after a particularly long car ride. He would always say to me "Very good girl, very good girl" - much to the amusement of Lorraine, Shanks and Christian, who all thought quite the opposite!

It certainly was a sad farewell to him on Saturday 23rd December before he began his long journey back to Chennai to spend Christmas with his family. We all gave him a big tip and he accepted it with tears welling in his eyes (which subsequently caused tears to well up in mine). When we asked what he'd do with his tip, he said he would buy a nice sari for his wife and chocolates for his children. We asked "What about for yourself?" and he said he was happy with his white uniform and didn't need anything more.

After a slow and sad walk down the stairs of the hotel, we waved him off as his white Ambassador headed through the streets of Mysore towards Chennai.... towards his family once again.