Desert Bazaar

As my travel agency handled all the visas, I wasnt aware that Turkmenistan is one of the most difficult countries to enter. They are not keen on issuing very many tourist visas.Although my visa was obtained from the embassy in İstanbul, it seemed like it took hours to please the customs officer at the airport. He showed great interest to every page of my passport as if it is a rare thing..

So with lots of patience, I entered the country in the early hours of a rainy day. Although I had only few hours of sleep, I couldnt resist to visit the desert bazaar near Askhabat in the morning. Well, they said it is the biggest in Central Asia and tell me how could I resist...

Locals called this bazaar as Tolkuckha, a name comes from the Russian days, and they were right it was big. You could find almost everything, from second hand cars to wedding dresses, from construction materials to cosmetics, you name it..It was such a perfect place to start my adventure on the ancient silk road.

I think you could probably identify most of the goods but in case you couldnt get the ones on the last photo, they are pop corns....and the puppy was not on sale, he only likes his picture to be taken..

I came back from the land of turquoise...

I came back from the land of turquoise, from the land of Tamerlane.... I am full of wonderful memories as well as tons of photos. I have to rest a bit and organize my notes and photos but in the meantime here are some teasers for you. See you very soon.

Silk Road

I havent been around much lately. I know I neglected my blog as well as visiting yours BUT I am getting ready for this year's adventure. In couple hours I will be flying to Ashkabad - Turkmenistan. After spending couple days in that country, my next destination will be Uzbekistan. A journey on the old silk road. I have no idea about the internet connections on the road, but if there is any I will definitely try to write something but if not see you in 10 days time with tons of photos :))

photo: from my files ( I have no idea where I found it)

Collection # 1

Well,regular followers know that she is our love and joy....

However when we are sleeping during night, she has a life of her own and every morning I am collecting some strange objects from her little plastic house. Below Hera proudly presents her last week's work with you, and guess which one caused the biggest shouting from her proud owners..

Faces from Tibet...

On my previous post, I tried to show you places from Tibet. Now faces from Tibet. Individualization of a very colorful culture. I remember watching the pilgrims in and out of the Jokhang temple in Lhasa for hours. Look at all their turquoise jewellery. Priest, Buddhas, pilgrims. All are easily taking you to a very different era.

Places from Tibet

Recently I am writing couple posts to my Turkish travel blog about Tibet. A magical country, I had the chance to visit 10 years ago. Unfortunately my photos were belong to another era where digital cameras were not common. A time when you had to wait for your return to develop your films and as far as I remember there were always couple or more bad surprises. I cant believe how digital cameras changed our lifes and improve the quality of our travel photos.

Capital city Lhasa were under heavy Chinese invasion even at that time. Potala Palace was a big tourist mecca and the holy Jokhang temple and the famous Barkor square in front of it were already surrendered by ugly tile covered Chinese buildings. I wonder how it is right now...

However when you left the city, country's dramatic nature with its striking colors were immediately capturing you.

Later it took us days to visit the ancient monastries in the cities of Gyantse and Shigatse. Although they were hit heavily during the Chinese invasion and later the cultural revolution, those were the places you could come as close as possible to the real Tibetian spirit.

Next post will be about faces from Tibet.