A quick trip to İstanbul

This past Saturday we flew to İstanbul to attend the wedding of my cousin. As expected, it was pretty hot when we left here.

However İstanbul had other plans for us, but the gray mist over the blue mosque was still dreamy.

Finally at the end of the night, my handsome cousin married to his sweetheart,

and the youngest guest of the party was my 5 months old nephew who had his own quiet plans for the night.

The next day, the newly wed couple flew to Maldives for honeymoon and we flew back to Datça, but guess what??? All the travelling as well as the weather differences made me sick. I think I have some kind of flue, and right now I am laying on my bed on a beautiful summer day and listening the happy sounds coming from the beach. I hope you are all healty and happy..

Gifts from the sea...

Well, this post is definitely not about the timeless book of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Althought its one of my favorite books and I had the habit of reading it every summer for the last 10 years, today's post is about real gifts of the sea.

You know what they say: 'when life gives you lemons, make a lemonade' but what if sea gives  you  a can of beer???

Here our days start between 6:00 - 6:30 with the morning walk of Hera at the seaside. As we are the early birds we found this can of beer produced in Greece.

It is most probably fell from a passing boat but I like to think that it swam all the way from Symi, the Greek island in front of Datca.

So, when life gave me a can of beer, I did the most logical thing: Cooled and drank it  at my balcony and sent a  big cheers to Symi.

So tell me what are the most interesting things you found at the beach? I have to tell you that I also saw an old iron couple days ago but it probably needs a good fix but so far my most expensive find was a Christian Dior sun glass..After a good cleaning my mother still uses it.

Welcome to Mediterranean Days..

Welcome to our Mediterranean days...

We are finally settled to our summer routine. After couple lazy days under the sun, here I am with my first summer post.

Well, this is a rather live post. Right now we are in our favorite beach/restaurant. There is a little bit of wind and the sea is rather freezing at this time of the year but so far everything is wonderful. Above are couple photos taken by my telephone. I wish all of you a great summer or winter if you happen to be living on the other side of the world.

Khiva - Uzbekistan

Samarkand and Bukhara were the magical cities on the silk road that called and lured me for so many years, but I wasnt aware that it was in the town of Khiva, I surprisingly found what I was looking for.

I am sure we all know some of the stories Scheherazade tell to King Shahryar to save her life in 1001 Nights or Arabian nights. For years I always dreamed of a place just like Khiva for the background of those stories.

It is a very well preserved town and a world heritage site, where you can jump into the history easily and be a character in one of the stories.

 The only unpleasent thing I remember from my day in Khiva was heat. Although it was early May, the weather was so hot, making it difficult to walk in the beautiful streets of the town.

If I were a rich (wo) man....

My journey in Central Asia continues...

Well, what if you want to show your wealth in a place where diamonds, designer bags, flashy cars are belong to the other part of the world.

Be brave, pack all your money and go to a dentist. Covering your front teeth with gold is an important sign of wealth in this part of the world.

On a fine Sunday

We are getting ready to move to our beach house for the summer. There are tons of stuff on my to do list. I cant believe that I neglected to do so many things due to my trip to central Asia.

As it happens every summer, there are millions of things ( OK that can be a bit exaggeration) that we have to carry from here to there: Books, Cds, DVDs,PCs, various electronic equipments, neglected projects, Hera's food and toys, etc.... I am constantly packing stuff.

So a wonderful barbeque party we have been invited yesterday was such a fine way to have some rest and saying good bye to İstanbul and friends until fall.

I still have many photos to share from my trip. Coming soon.

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..