Turkey!

Autumn 2009 - Turkey beckons us. And we simply could not refuse! So off we were on the direct non-stop Turkish Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Istanbul. New aircraft (Boeing 777-300) with contemporary livery, individual touch-screen entertainment systems and of course, our specially ordered Indian Vegetarian (AVML) meals! :-)

We were fortunate to have 3 seats for the two of us - it helped make the 11 hour flight just a little more comfortable. The flight path had us fly over China, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, and Iran before the final stretch over Turkey. Tehran glistened in the night, and on the flight, I saw we were flying not too far from cities like Qom, Isfahan and Shiraz - places that we've read and heard so much about because of their rich cultural and religious heritage!

The arrival in Istanbul's Kemal Ataturk International Airport was the smoothest in recent memory! We didn't even have to fill up an arrival form! Short immigration queues, quick scan of our passports, and before we knew it, we were legal visitors in Turkey! Wow!

The early morning taxi ride from the airport was smooth and quick - it had rained overnight, and the pre-dawn drive along the coast had us in awe as we passed by some of the monuments bathed in white lights... the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia... places that we had only read of before... In fact, the very fact that we were in Istanbul - Constantinople - Byzantium... so much history and so much geographical importance lies nested in this city - we had to pinch ourselves to realise that we were actually visiting this place. How fortunate we feel about this!