Leaving Istanbul for Berlin...

Going to head to the airport in a bit, so here some more pictures from Istanbul.

The weather was pretty good for it being december, mornings were cold and rainy, but in the afternoons it always clears up with a mild amount of sun, and bringing out everyone onto the streets.

What suprised me about the atmosphere here also besides it being very european, is how quiet it is. After the 24-7 car horn symphony that is India, this place is a sea of quiet, with very few cars in any streets. Combined with the wintery but sunny look made it feel very... peaceful. Not what I had expected at all but great nonetheless.

I had a blast with the food. I went to a restaurant on the first night, but stopped doing that pretty soon as it was more fun just living on a continuous snacking tour from street vendors, which was tasty and cheap, and even decently healthy, as there's fresh fruit, nuts, juices etc to be had every 100 meters.

Istanbul is also quite the shopping paradise, especially for guys, as there are insane amounts of little leather shoe / suit shops everywhere, all at about 10% of the price you'd pay in the US. I don't have space to carry much but got some nice shoes and a pair of pants just for the hell of it.

Oh, and to my loyal readers: if you haven't read about my Dubai experiences yet, that may be because I made 3 posts all at once last time, and you only saw the top one... scroll down :)

..and Istanbul

ok, third blog post today, had some catching up to do, I'll keep it short this time. Just arrived in Istanbul, early in the morning, so I have already seen quite a bit. First impression is that at least the atmosphere in the streets feels very much like a European city, I had expected it to be a bit more islamic (besides the obvious mosques everywhere).

But this place is definitely very pretty. Some first shots:

On to Dubai...

So as I was about to head for the airport, I casually grab the "Indian Times", and spot the front page news: intelligence reports of possible terrorist attacks and hijackings at Chennai airport (where I was headed), on so and so dates (today). Increased security at the airport, blah blah. Great. Seems like this stuff is following me around.

So I went to the airport anyway to see if I could avoid yet another change of plans, only to find out that the majority of flights had been canceled, due to "security reasons", including mine. There were very few travelers at the airport (wonder why?), so I got an army of airline people on my case to see if lost puppy - the only white guy in the terminal - could be helped on his way to Dubai.

After pretty much anyone in a uniform had had a look at my passport and ticket (note to other travelers: always bring printouts, not the whole world has caught on to the idea of an "e-ticket"), I managed to get a later flight to Abu Dhabi instead, and then took the bus to Dubai (One further note: if you think the smart response to the fact that Dubai hotels are expensive is to simply book the cheapest one, be prepared to be staying in the local prostitution scene).

So yeah, Dubai. I had my rental car, and was warned that Dubai traffic was pretty crazy, but turned out to be rather normal (yes, they speed a bit more than in Dallas, but that only meant I blended in better). I spent the whole next day driving around, in search for crazy extravagant hotels and such.

Dubai does not disappoint. Its hotels make the Vegas strip look positively pedestrian. Its hard to imagine that there's enough rich people to fill all of them (Dubai is rather wide spread... clusters of crazy hotels everywhere), but I guess if you wanted to learn about economics and how prosperity can "snowball", Dubai is a good place to check out.

It was quite funny going from feeling like a rich guy in India to a poor one in Dubai. This exemplified itself most annoyingly however in the fact that pretty much every square meter of Dubai is "private", meaning the fancy hotels have whole armies of people checkposting every entrance to make sure their well-off guests are not disturbed by losers like me trying to take pictures of the architecture. I need to practice some good one-liners explaining why I am visiting the hotel for next time, or maybe some fancier clothes would help too.

So I ended up seeing most hotels from the outside, often quite far. One or two hotels I managed to sneak into, until inevitably caught.

Also, Dubai isn't quite finished. I would think in a few years time it will be more interesting, a lot of areas I couldn't enter because they were under construction.

That said, it was a pretty amazing experience, as there's no place like it. Excess in all directions.

Food was suprisingly cheap, if you go to "normal" restaurants, and pretty good.

India

Thanks to the Thai rioters I didn't have as much time in India as I wanted, but I made the most of the time I had, which was a crazy time. India is quite the sensory overload, with every street always feels like there's a million things going on.

There's plenty of countries that have a strong rich/poor divide, and India is a certainly a strong example, but what makes it different is that they are more mixed than anywhere I have ever seen... making it feel like total chaos. I spent a lot of time driving around (not myself, I would have hit plenty of cows and other less worthy creatures) and it feels like a never ending movie scene. Not sure what kind of movie, but a quite intense one, for sure.

Loved the food, much better than what I had regularly while living in the UK..

I can't say I have taken that many really exciting pictures... a lot of what would have made for great photographic material I didn't really have the balls to go take the time to shoot (it always involves someone or someone's stuff, not always in the best of circumstances). Here's some random bits and pieces...

Indian car insurance procedures: Yell at the guy at fault for 5 minutes, until he gives you some rupies to get your dent hammered out:

From Sydney to India...

Sorry, was a little internet-deprived the last few days. I have arrived in India, which is easily the craziest place I have been sofar :) Some pictures of that later.

Yesterday was spent flying the whole day, and the 2 days before that, driving 1100km along the coast line from melbourne to sydney, which turned out to be a fantastic road trip. I am really a big fan of the australian countryside, I must say. A few more pictures below.

I spent rather little time in Sydney, enough to drive/walk around a bit (mostly at night).

State of Emergency

This friday night I was supposed to fly from Melbourne to Bangkok... except a bunch of people there decided to start rioting in the streets, fighting the government. "State of Emergency" has been declared, and airports have been blocked off. Details here.

So, time for some rerouting. Of course, by now all flights are full, so the only flight I could get was out of Sydney on dec 2nd, flying to Chennai, my next destination. That is going to cut my India trip a bit short, but it looks like there is no other way. India has some major trouble going on as well, but unlike what is going on in Thailand, not something that would affect me (Mumbai is across the country from Chennai). If any terrorists read my blog... I am not american, honest, the whole Bush thing wasn't my fault.

Which still requires me to get to Sydney, for which I couldn't get a flight on my Round the World ticket. I could get a ticket on another airline alliance, but that would be way too sensible for me... I am going to drive. Should be a fun 1-way road trip along the coast (1000+ km). I will leave this sunday morning, giving me 2 days to get there which should be more than plenty, and allow me a minimal amount of sydney sightseeing on monday too.

Some more gratuitous Melbourne pictures to lighten up this otherwise gloomy post:

it's raining...

But that didn't stop me from doing another road trip, this time along the "great ocean road", a twisty road along the cliffs of the south coast west of melbourne. A highlight was a rock formation called the 12 apostles, see pictures below. The next day I ventured into the rainforest in the same area, at one spot you could walk high up in the trees on metal suspension bridges.

I saw several kangaroos, in the wild... one even almost caused me an accident.

Last weekend we had wine... lots of it. We went tasting in the nearby wine region, just an hour or so away from melbourne. I discovered some fantastic ports, in particular. You can grill here outside in the park...

Down under adventures

By now I have seen more of australia... took a small rental car through some of the countryside near melbourne which was fantastic.. a great diversity of everything from mountains, jungle like, savanna like landscapes. I put the rental thru its paces with over 100km of off-roading through twisty narrow mountain roads with big dropoffs (hi mum, I am still alive, don't worry ;).

Melbourne is really nice, reminds me quite of Austin, eclectic variety of buildings, restaurants, etc.

Last night ate kangaroo steak... bit chewy, reminds me of deer.

Korean Metal Shops

As promised...

Singapore... Melbourne...

I have just arrived in Australia... my friend here doesn't have internet access, so updates may appear more randomly :)

From China I flew to Singapore where I spend 2 days talking about programming and walking randomly through the city with my former roommate from the Crytek days, Alberto (I am visiting quite a lot of former Crytek buddies on this trip..). We understand eachother rather deeply when it comes to programming and other topics, I have definitely missed talking to him.

Singapore itself was, um, humid... otherwise quite a nice city but nothing remarkable. No pictures yet, as my laptop started misbehaving and had to have windows reinstalled... and my cardreader stopped working.

The aussie customs people gave me the most thorough search I have ever experienced at an airport (no, it didn't involve plastic gloves), I hope they enjoyed digging through my dirty laundry.
I haven't seen much of Melbourne yet, mostly enjoyed talking to my buddies here again.

再见, Beijing

Today was my quick tour of Beijing, aided by sightseeing by taxi. I saw the forbidden city, which is indeed rather impressive, and the summer palace, likewise. Ate the obligatory Beijing duck (I think the waitresses were puzzled seeing me roll it up fajita style...)

I normally use my mobile for telling the time, but since I didn't bring it on my trip, I am frequently without a clue of the time, which can be impractical at times. So I thought maybe I should buy a watch, and hey, what better place than China, right? Problem is, I don't want a fake rolex, nor have I seen any other cheap watch that I like sofar. So the ironic situation is that a watch is the only item I want to buy right now, I get offered them on the street continuously, yet I can't manage to buy one...

So this morning, as I was asked for the 100th time by a random guy if I wanted to buy a "rolex", I was about to wave "no" to him, but then I spotted something much more to my taste in his hand: a watch with the Mao himself waving at you. So after negotiating him down to 5$, I proudly put on my wrist, happy that I finally managed to buy one. It didn't fit snugly, so I tug on the strap... and promptly break it. The street vendor wasn't around for my warranty claim. Oh well. I guess the chairman will have to tell me the time from my bag.

Tomorrow I am flying to Singapore.