Home

We made it home after a 13+ hour flight. Because of the time change we left Istanbul at 1:30 pm and landed at LAX at 4:30 pm. Nevertheless, a long day and we got home about 24 hours after we got up.

I decided to pay for an upgrade from “economy” to “comfort economy,” a $260 per head upgrade, and dragged Patty along. The upgrade was to a cabin with seats much like first class seats on domestic flights. Nicer, wider seats, with a lot more leg room. The seats reclined further and had leg rests. The Boing 777 still had Business Class and First Class, but the seats we got were much nicer than coach.

I watched four movies, ate twice and napped. The almost 14 hours went by pretty comfortably. We walked without stopping all the way to the passport desk, and got our bags, cleared customs, and got the parking shuttle quickly. We got out into the evening rush hour traffic, but the car pool lane moved OK. We needed gas, so stopped at the Fountain Valley Costco, and had dinner at the food court for a couple of bucks each.

Jessie was watching us on “Find My Friends” and called to find out why we were at Costco. She and Kylie were waiting at our house to show off Kylie’s new skill in walking. We got home, coerced a few steps out of a tired little girl and went to bed.

Grey Day in Istanbul

Today was Patty’s second day of her conference.  I was on my own,  but it was actually a good day to be stuck inside.  The temperature has dropped to about 50 degrees and there is a steady light rain accompanied by umbrella destroying wind gusts.

Last night we got to board a bus for a Istanbul law firm sponsored dinner at the restaurant on top of a hotel overlooking the Golden Horn and the Bosporus.  The dinner was attended by about 50 of the conference registrants, and was good food with unlimited wine.  The company was good as we sat with Manau, Patty’s friend from the Netherlands, who is easy to spot at these events.  She is about 6’4″ and does stand out in a crowd.  (She is also the chair of this year’s event.)  Her law partner from Paris also sat with us and it was a nice evening.  Both have toddlers at home so there was a lot of baby talk.

As Patty went off to her conference on the second floor, I bundled up and headed out.  There were lots of vendors on the street selling cheap plastic umbrellas, so I acquire on of those and kept at least my head dry.  I walked across the Taksin park to Taksin Square and caught the funicular down to the water level.  From there it is about a fifteen minute walk to the Dolmabahce Palace.  The Dolmabahce was built in around 1850 to rival other European palaces, and has the look and feel of palaces of that era.  It is amazing that they architects had so little imagination and just built square or oblong rooms stacked next to each other, of varying sizes, but the same boring rectangles.  The furnishing are extraordinary and the palace uses its views of the Bosporus that runs along the east side, to good advantage.

An extra cost tour is of the “Harem,” which of course brings to mind all kind of salacious thoughts, but in reality is just the living quarters, as opposed to the ceremonial and administrative parts of the palace.  It is just a collection of living rooms and bedrooms, all with the same boring boxiness.  It is amazing that given all of the money and power these rulers had, how uncomfortable their living quarters and furniture look.  I think we have learned a little about home design and furniture design since that time.

The rain was unrelenting, and it was nice that the palace tours were inside.  After finishing the tours, I took the funicular back up the hill and had lunch at another local place on the main shopping street.  After that I walked down the shopping street looking for something interesting.  However, the stores are Gap, Addidas, Puma, Nike, etc., and it is hard to get excited.  There are little stalls selling tourist junk,  but that also lacks much interest.

We have a recommendation for a 100 year old Turkish restaurant for tonight (also recommended by the Rick Steve’s book) called Haci Abdula, so we may try that.  Our flight home leaves about 12:20 p.m., so we need to leave the hotel by 9:30 a.m.

It has been a great trip and we have seen a lot.  I think, especially with the weather, we are ready to come home.  We had just about adjusted to the time change, so time to get whacked again.

Back in Istanbul

We got up early and left the Movenpick Dead Sea Resort about 7:30 a.m. The hotel is physically beautiful and the grounds and Dead Sea access are wonderful, but the hotel itself lacked a bit in service. The breakfast buffet tried to be the same as we had in Petra, but the quality was a bit off. Unfortunately, the hotel had a few Europeans, and some obviously wealthy middle-easterners, but the biggest group was a three bus load tour group, mostly from Texas, who were doing what appeared to be a Holy Lands tour with a brief side trip to the other side of the Jordan River. We talked to them a bit, and the day we were leaving, the were loading their buses for a one day tour of Mount Nebo (on the way to Amman, and then on to Petra, and then back to the same Dead Sea hotel the same night. That was going to mean about 5 hours on the buses and maybe three hours to see Petra. Given the physical shape most of them appeared to be in, they were going to be doing well to make it to the Treasury at the bottom of the siq, and were going to miss the vast majority of the site.

The first place we stopped for gas just north of the Dead Sea only took cash so I got rid of the last of my Jordanian money, but we needed to return the car at the 3/4 full mark, and it only got it to half. The road back toward Amman was wide and smooth. The directions got a little sketchy was we got into south Amman, so I took what looked like a major street going the right direction before we got too deep into the traffic craziness of Amman itself, and luckily it took us to the road south to the airport. We stopped for gas again, at a more modern place and had them put in 10 dinar’s worth, which got the tank up to where it was supposed to be. We found the airport, got lucky with a parking space right in front of the terminal and returned the car.

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We were there before 9:00 a.m. We thought our flight was at 11:20 a.m., but it turned out that was the time they opened the gate and the flight did not leave until after 12:30 p.m. We found a Starbucks with comfortable chairs and read our books. The airport was chaotic, but we finally got on our flight, were fed lunch en-route, and landed at Istanbul by 2:30 p.m. We got a clean taxi with a clean looking, non-smoking driver and had a nice 45 minute ride to the InterContinental Hotel in the new city. Checking in was painless and we got a nice room on the eighth floor with nice views to the north and a peek at the Bosporus and the major bridge across it.

We went out for dinner and found a great place with pizza and pasta, and a good wine selection. Back to the room by 7:00 p.m., we tried to stay awake watching the BBC Entertainment Channel, but were asleep by 8:00 p.m.

Patty’s Advance Anti-Counterfeiting Strategies conference started with registration and a continental breakfast at 9:00 a.m., and I went down with her; me in jeans and her in her suit. I helped myself to some breakfast and I left her and went out to explore. The InterContinental backs up to Taksim Square, the start of Rick Steves’ walking guide to the new city. I walked around there, oriented myself, and started down Istiklal Street, the main modern shopping street in Istanbul. One of my goals was to find some black dress shoes for the nice dinner we are invited to tonight. I had purposely not brought any and my regular walking shoes were pretty scruffy after a few days of desert walking.

I spotted a shop with nice shoes, claiming to be handmade, for 210 TL, or about $117, in a style I liked. I decided to keep that in mind, and kept walking down the street. It is the home to a lot of the embassies and consulates, as well as every store you would find in a mall in the USA or Europe. The street actually has a mall attached to it, but I did not go in.

At the end of the street, there is a funicular railway that descends to the bridge over the Golden Horn. I bought my first transit card, and with only the minimal help of the security guard (it turns out the card is sold for 4 TL blank and you have to load it with money for fares), I got the funicular train down. We had come across the bridge on our way from the airport and it was nice to be able to walk around it and the sea front.

I walked down an alley off the of the main street and found a North Face store. Along with the backpacks and flashlights, you could buy pistols and automatic sub-machine guns. I guess hiking around in the hills in this part of the world requires more than sturdy boots and insect repellant. (Yes, Rob, this store is for you.)

After exploring the waterfront near the bridge, I took the tram along the waterfront and got off at the Dolmabahce Palace. It is closed today, but I took some pictures, including of the InterContinental Hotel on the top of the hill above. After wandering around a little more, I took another funicular railway up to the Taksim Square.

I went back to the shoe store I had spotted earlier, found the shoes fit nicely, and bought a pair. I then had lunch nearby at one of the cafeteria style places and went back to the hotel. This afternoon is a Turkish Bath and then we are going out to a nice dinner courtesy of a Turkish law firm.

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Turkish Bath Update
Imagine a large Turkish man, nearly naked, laying you on a marble slab and bending you to see if you break. (I am not yet sure; we will see how my lower back feels in a few hours.) That happened after sitting in a dry sauna at 47 degrees centigrade until almost melted. Then the guy takes a glove made of Brillo pads and scrubs two thirds of your skin off. At the end, you are relieved it is over, not in need of a dermatologist to remove skin imperfections, and undisputedly clean. (Taxi fun and games: 18 TL to get there; 8 TL to get back; metered, same rate. “Tourist route” vs. direct route.)

Movenpick Resort & Spa Dead Sea

We got up early in Petra this morning, had breakfast at the hotel, checked out and got our bags in the car.  We asked for directions and the concierge tried to talk us out of taking the mountain highway directly to the Dead Sea, suggesting that going back to the Desert Highway was a safer, even though longer, route.  He talked about lots of crashes, curvy roads, and dangerous drivers.  We printed out a map from Google Maps in the business center, had a copy from the front desk with the concierge’s notes on it, and our Hertz map of the whole country.  We took off, determined to try the more scenic route recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook.

The road was good up to the point where we turned off of the main highway back to the Desert Highway, retracing our route coming into Petra.  As we made the turn north, off of the main route, the road became a narrow two lane road, with little shoulder.  Luckily, Saturday is a weekend day after the Islamic “Sabbath” which is Friday afternoon.  There was little traffic.  It was apparent that the road would have been difficult with more traffic and trucks, but with light traffic it was fine, winding its way along the top of the mountain ridge, through little villages and past industries and farms.

The road did not have highway numbers and we could only follow the signs to the next town we knew was on our route.  After one questionable intersection, we did stop at a  hardware store, and I asked the proprietor if we were on the right route.  He spoke good English and assured me that we kept going on the road we had chosen for another 9 kilometers before we turned down off of the ridge.  About 13 kilometers later, we came to a well marked intersections and turned west to drop the 4,000 feet to the Rift Valley below.

The Rift Valley is caused by the Arabian Plate moving against its neighboring plate and has created the valley in which the Dead Sea collects.  The mountain ridge we had been driving along is about 3,000 feet in altitude and the valley below is about 1,200 feet below sea level, the lowest point on earth according to the signs.

The road was good, the traffic light, and we twisted and turned our way down with the automatic transmission in second gear to save the brakes.  As we reached the bottom, we intersected with the Dead Sea Highway, with is the second main north/south road in Jordan, and it is a good, wide road and again did not have a lot of traffic.  Surprisingly, the margin between the hills and the valley appears to have lots of water so it is covered in farms for crops such as tomatoes, green beans, peppers, eggplant, corn and other crops.  We passed through villages, saw chemical plants, and Bedouin encampments.  There was even a herd of camels off of the road.

As we drove north, we came to the Dead Sea itself.  Nothing grows on its margins and it is surrounded by salt encrusted rock.  It is surprisingly blue and clear as it appears that nothing lives in it as well.

Near the northern end, we found a cluster of luxury hotels, including ours, the Movenpick, between a Crowne Plaza and a Marriott.  The resort is a large resort and spa, with numerous pools, including a sand beach pool like ours in Woodbridge.  Further down the path they have constructed a “beach” on the Dead Sea itself, with a pool and restaurant on one level, a lower level with lounges and umbrellas where the waiters would bring drinks or snacks.

After we checked in, and had the sandwiches that Patty had made at breakfast on our balcony, we changed and went down to the water.  I went for a swim.  An attendant was wetting the mud near the edge with a hose, and a lot of the patrons were caking it on themselves before going in.  I passed on that experience.  The water itself was about 75 degrees and was very dense.  It took some getting used to as you did not sink as far and floating upright you would only sink to mid-chest.  A sign recommended staying in only about 20 minutes, so I did not exceed that.  They had showers show you could rinse off the oily brine before you toweled off.

We spend the afternoon and evening at the hotel.  There is really no town, just a row of luxury hotels, so there is not much else to do.  You can see the lights of Jerusalem, on the top of the hills in the western horizon, come on as the darkness grows.

Tomorrow we head back to the airport outside of Amman for our 11:20 a.m. flight back to Istanbul.  Google Maps says we can make it in an hour.

Full Day at Petra

Last night’s “Petra by Night” excursion kept us up late.  We had dinner at the hotel buffet (which was actually very good; even highly recommended by the Lonely Planet Guidebook).  We dressed warmly and met at the gate at 8:30 p.m.  The walkway down was lined with candles in paper bags and the Treasury was likewise lit.

This morning, we got up about 7:00 a.m. and had the buffet breakfast at the hotel.  Again, it was very good and we were able to make sandwiches with sliced turkey, cheese, cucumber slices, get a couple of apples and an orange to take with us for lunch.  We headed down the trail about 10:oo a.m. and took our first break at the Treasury.  The canyons, rock and monuments all change as the light changes, and you notice something different every time.  The temperature was in the 60’s, perfect for walking in the desert

Past the Treasury, and around a corner, the canyon opens up to an amphitheater, lots more structures carved into the rock and we were able to climb up to one tomb and go through the caves.  The main part of the city is even further down the canyon, with a colonnaded street, and various Roman additions to the city.

We had lunch on some unused tables at the restaurant and went through the little museum near it.  This part of the Petra Archeological Park is accessible by dirt road from the south, so there is more in the way of modern conveniences.  After lunch, we slowly made our way back up the canyon, heading back to the hotel, probably an hour walk from this point.

The white building just outside the gate, and across the street, is our hotel, the “Movenpick.”  It is nice to have it so close at the end of a long day.

Tomorrow, we head north to the Dead Sea Highway, which runs along the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea (the border with Israel).  Near the North end of the Dead Sea, we check in to the Dead Sea Movenpick Resort and Spa for our last night in Jordan.  They say you can see the lights of Jerusalem across the Dead Sea.  Also, the book says to keep your passport handy because there are many police checkpoints along this route.

At The Marriott, Amman, Jordan

We started the morning with another good breakfast at the hotel (the “Adamar”) and checked with the desk clerk about our car back to the airport; good thing we did as he knew nothing about it.  Since it was early, and we did not need to leave until 11:30 a.m., or so, it was not a problem.  He calculated our discount for having been referred by the Rick Steves book(10%) and for paying in cash (8%).  On our way down past the Hagia Sofia, I got the cash out of an ATM so we had enough to pay him on check-out and get all of the discounts.

Our tour of the morning was the Topkapi Palace, the center of the rule of the Ottoman Empire for about 400 years, until the late 1800’s when the Dolmabache Palace was built over near where we will be staying when we get back, North of the Golden Horn.  The Topkapi is really a complex that was initially just an administrative center but later had the Sultan’s palace built within the grounds.  It is a large walled area that sits atop a hill on the North and West side of the peninsula, with commanding views over the Golden Horn and the Bosporus straight.  The walls also enclose the first Christian church that was used by Constantinople and was the center of the Christian church before it was split between “Eastern” and “Roman.”  It still stands some 1500+ years, even though the soil has built up around it so that the foundations are now in a trench that is 20 foot deep.

The Topkapi Palace is also the home to a large collection of Muslim relics (Mohamed’s broken tooth, pieces of and various keys to the Kabala in Mecca, etc.) and the last bits and pieces of the crown jewels of the Ottoman Empire, including a 78 caret diamond and other such bobbles.  The kitchen and its massive china collection was closed and we were disappointed not to see it.  We got there right at opening and missed most of the tour groups, having the place largely to ourselves until the hoards started coming in as we were leaving.

We got back to the hotel about 11:00 a.m., and checked out.  Our driver showed up at 11:30 and got us to the airport for our 2:35 flight at 12:20.  Our flight was not assigned a check-in counter so we got to enjoy sitting in the Istanbul airport and soaking up the ambiance (how the hell can Libya still have an airline?) (Who knew that Iraq had one; flight to Basra leaving at 1:45 p.m.)  We finally got a check-in counter, got our boarding passes and had lunch at a Burger King (right next to Popeye’s Chicken).

Our flight was delayed for a half an hour for no apparent reason (they only do one flight a day so it did not seem urgent).  Our Royal Jordanian aircraft was an Embraer 75, a small regional jet that was fine.  The served a decent dinner aboard with wine or whisky.  We landed after dark about 6:00 p.m., losing an hour more off of California time.  It is a small airport and would only take Jordanian Dinar at the visa counter, but luckily an ATM machine was close and I got some Jordanian Dinar, not having a clue what the exchange rate was.

We quickly made it through visa, passport and got our bags and then customs, which was a cursory x-ray of the bags.  The “Hertz” counter was a six foot wide affair.  The guy had to fill out the forms by hand and had to use an old impression machine for the credit card.  We talked about a GPS, but he said it was worthless outside of Amman and we did not need it for Petra.  He drew us a handwritten map to get us to the Marriott and made it sound simple.

Driving in Jordan is a lot like Mexico, complete with the speed bumps on the highways.  It was easy until we got to the outskirts of Amman and traffic got tight, drivers aggressive and the roads, which features double level round-abouts, difficult.  With only one wrong turn, we found the turn off at the Four Seasons and the Sheraton, and our little map showed the Marriott right behind the Four Seasons.  Then life got difficult.  Our little, beat-up Mitsubishi sedan got a workout as we followed one road after another, got directions at a tea shop (where the guy said we were going to get lost again), from a lady at a bank ATM machine, and finally from a guy getting out of a Land Rover being valet parked at a nice restaurant.  He drew us another hand drawn map and that finally got us here.  (Good thing English is widely spoken here!!)

The Marriott is beautiful and has high security, with our car having the under-carriage inspected with a mirror for bombs and the trunk searched before we were allowed on the property.  After two hours (45 minutes from the airport and an hour and fifteen minutes wandering around) we were really glad to get to the hotel.  It has a nice, big western style room, fast internet (both wired and wireless) and a nice view that we will appreciate in the morning.

More pictures to come, but I will post this update first.

Full Day in Istanbul

After a fitful night’s sleep, we woke up and went up to the 6th floor restaurant, where, like all good European hotels, breakfast was included int the price of the room. Not only was the breakfast good abundant, the view was spectacular.

After breakfast, we walked about three blocks down the hill to the square that has the Hagia Sofia on one end and the Blue Mosque on the other end. The Hagia Sofia is a spectacular church built in the sixth century by Byzantine Emperor Justinian. Fifteen hundred years later,and a thousand years as a Christian church and five hundred years as a mosque, it is now a museum. Across the square is the Blue Mosque, finished in 1616.

We took the self-guided tour which took us first to the Blue Mosque. Patty was resplendent in her Volcom headscarf as she toured the mosque.

After leaving the mosque, we went out to the hippodrome, the site of the Roman chariot race track, complete with its own plundered Egyptian obelisk.

After coming back down the hippodrome, and finding an ATM, and getting some local cash, we paid the entry fee and toured the Hagia Sophia. It is truly spectacular.

After the Hagia Sofia, we crossed the tram tracks and, on the way back to our hotel, toured the now restored city cistern. It was built in the sixth century to store water for the city.

We went back to the hotel, took a break, and then headed over to the Grand Bazar, a collection of some 4,000 shops that are now mostly tourist traps.

After wandering around the Bazar, buying some touristy stuff, we walked back toward the hotel. We had seen an old shoe shine guy earlier, so we both got our shoes cleaned and shined.

We came back to the room, rested and then went back down to dinner at a Rick Steve’s recommended place by the Blue Mosque. It is a famous old place nicknamed the “Pudding House” and even has its own WikiPedia entry. It was a famous hippie hangout in the 60’s and even has a picture of Bill Clinton shaking the Owner’s hand.

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Arrived in Istanbul

After a 13 hour flight on Turkish Airways, with both Patty and I dealing with a quick moving flu bug, we arrived in Istanbul about 5:30 p.m. on Monday evening. It was dark when we took off in LA, the sun rose while we were flying somewhere over Iceland, and was setting as we landed in Istanbul. Flying east on a Boing 777 makes for short days.

After buying our visas ($20 each, USD please), clearing passport control, getting our baggage and walking through the “nothing to declare” line with everyone else, we were very happy to see the driver from the hotel with a sign with our name on it. It was a nice ride with a little sightseeing thrown in, a drive through the fish market, and delivery to our hotel. The hotel is nice and modern with a great view down two old streets. We have a corner room on the second floor. Other than having to sit right next to the door to get the wifi to work, it is great.