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.

Tulip Time in İstanbul and home..

I am sure most of you associated tulips with Holland. Well, you are rather correct but do you know that those precious bulbs brought to Holland in the 16th century from here. Ottomans started the commercial cultivation of this wonderful flower.

The period between 1718-1730 named as the tulip period in Ottoman history. Tulips became important in arts, folklore and the daily life. This period described in Wikipedia as:

"The name of the period derives from the tulip craze among the Ottoman court society. Cultivating this culturally ambiguous emblem had become a celebrated practice.The tulip period illustrated the conflicts brought by early modern consumer culture and was a shared material symbolism. During this period the elite and high-class society of the Ottoman Period had established an immense fondness for the tulip, which were utilized in various occasions. Tulips defined nobility and privilege, both in terms of goods and leisure time."

For the last 5 years the municipality started a tulip festival to reassociate this delicate flower with İstanbul. In the first 2-3 weeks of April all the parks and the roadsides in the city covered with tulips of all colors.




A big bunch of tulips also found their way to our home. Hera the puppy who likes to eat all the flowers at home is rather indifferent to them. They are probably not taste as good as they look.





First two photos are from the facebook page of İstanbul

Blogger Friend in İstanbul

Dont you love blogging?? I especially love it when I finally meet a favorite blogger in the real world.Well, Phivos of Taxidiaris and his wife Poppy are here in İstanbul this weekend.


We have met on Friday afternoon and as you can guess there were so many things to share and learn about each other. It was a lovely evening. I believe that a virtual friendship turned into a lifelong one that evening.


We even managed to visit the Orthodox Patriarchate before the dinner. It was a rainy night before the Easter but still lots of visitors were there..


It was so nice to meet with you guys...Lets try to do it again soon...

The old water mill

They say,its the coldest time of the sea. I am not that brave so I did not test it personally but I believe them..



So what would you do on a day when sun is really burning you? Why not try the calm waters of the old water mill...Again I did not test it personally but people look quite comfortable.Nowadays the restored building is used as the home of Datca local historian society.