Articles from this Category
16 November 2024
I had opted not to do an excursion till tomorrow, due to wet weather forecast. It is good that I have a spare day. Instead, I’ll do the sights of Trabzon further from the bazaar area where I’m located. First up, I walked to the Gulbahar Hatun Mosque built in 1514. En route, I passed […]
15 November 2024
Sumela Monastery Trabzon’s highlight for me was going to be the Sumela Monastery out of town. In the late autumn season, I had read that public transport options are more difficult, so I booked a tour online with Sumelatur for TRY700 (NZD35) and came with a number of other sights. I walked to their office […]
14 November 2024
Arriving and domestic transfer in Istanbul With only 4h between meals onboard the flight from Male to Istanbul, I took only half a sleeping pill instead of a whole one. I enjoyed 2h sleep horizontally on three seats and managed to doze for a further two. Surprisingly Turkish Airlines served 2 full meals on the […]
29 June 2024
Revisiting sights Kim arrives in Istanbul today, coming from Taipei via Hanoi. His flight was scheduled to arrive at 0520 but had landed at 0445. I had set the alarm for 0610 and hit the tram at 0630 for Aksaray Metro. He had already been waiting 10 mins when I got there at 0640. The […]
28 June 2024
Flying to Istanbul I woke to an email from Turkish Airlines advising of a 50 min delay to my 0725 service to Istanbul. From the airport hotel, I walked over to the terminal about 1h25 prior to the new departure time. At the check-in desk, I asked if they would accept a mobile boarding pass […]
18 January 2024
Another dream standby flight My Thai Airways B777-200 pulled up at the gate 5 mins before our schedule departure time. Boarding took place without passport checks. We departed about an hour late but it was otherwise an awesome flight with only around 50 passengers. I had three seats on which I was horizontal for 6h […]
17 January 2024
Killing the day I had spent yesterday entirely indoors on the computer and at the hotel gym, only stepping outside to get a meal. My only human interaction in spoken words was calling home to Kim and also a friend. Tonight, I have a flight after midnight but realised that the 1200 check-out isn’t true. […]
15 January 2024
Saying goodbye E leaves today for Riyadh for some time with friends before returning home. We ate the buffet breakfast together early before I ordered him a car to the airport. This trip, I’ve been lucky to have found three great travel companions: first the two schoolfriends while in Japan and E in Saudi. E […]
14 January 2024
After several hours out in the car outside of Jeddah, we returned to the hotel to use hotel’s pool and sauna facility. It was a waste of time as the former was cold and the latter lukewarm. The showers were cold too. We gave up pretty quickly to chill in the room instead. Returning the […]
13 January 2024
Back to Jeddah Today we return the car after 11 days back to Medina Station and take the train to Jeddah where we finish our trip together. This is the beginning of the end. This rental, our second in Saudi, had taken us 3119 km. We commenced the day with one of our rare hotel […]