Wrapping up Istanbul and on to Bahrain

After two full days in Istanbul, we keep on finding new things to see and do in our last two days before head to Bahrain to see Niall.  First we took a really nice (and inexpensive!) cruise around the Bosphorus.  It's always interesting to get a waterside perspective on a city like this, and this trip definitely exceeded expectations :-).
 Afterwards we found the Turkish Archeology Museum, which was among the best museums of this focus that I've ever visited.  This is a part of the world with so much ancient history, and like most Americans, we are largely ignorant of the significance of the place and the people here over the past 3000+ years.  Finally, we were able on our last day to get to the Museum of Islamic Science and Technology, as well as the Museum of Islamic Art and Design.  
Both were again outstanding museums- easily the equal of our Smithsonian museums in Washington, DC.  If you decide to visit, look into getting the 2 or 5 day Museum Card, which includes entry into most museums and historical sites at a significant reduction in fee ;-)

After finishing up with our wandering in Istanbul, we took a cheap overnight flight to Bahrain. While I hate the red-eye, it was about 25% of the cost of a mid-day flight on the same airline- go figure!  After getting a bit of an overdue sleep following our 3:00am arrival at our hotel, we slept in a bit and met up with Niall for brunch at a fancy French brasserie.  It was great to see him after 6 months here in relative isolation after the October 7 war started.  He's looking good now, and looking forward to heading to "A" school next year as he'll likely stay with the Coast Guard for at least one more tour of duty.  

After breakfast, we did some shopping (grocery stores here are as big as Wegmans, and have every food imaginable!), and the set out to see a little bit of the "rural" part of Bahrain.  We drove about an hour south of the main city of Manama into the desert which is anything but wild-- it is basically a "petro-scape" made up of oil dertics and wells, sprawling pipelines, gas flares, various support industries, and scattered camping sites (!?).  Our main goal was to visit the Tree of Life, the oldest tree in Bahrain, that oddly enough, isn't even a native plant! It's a 400+ year old mesquite tree from the deserts of the southwest US and Mexico.  Scattered among the oil facilities were also hundreds of informal "campsites" which seems to be scattered without much organization, rhyme or reason...  But it's apparently a thing here ;-)
On the way back into Manama, we also stopped at an estuary filled with lesser Flamingos!  Our first "life bird" of the trip, and an unexpected one for sure, given the location!
Tomorrow we're planning on visiting the old Portuguese fort (UNESCO world heritage site), and the trying out some kayaking at one of the big, over-the-top malls in Manama ;-)
Until then...
Cheers!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yes- we survived Saigon and the Scooterpocalypse!

Image
Saigon is big, busy, loud, stiflingly hot, and absolutely over-run by scooters, but still worth a visit... but 3 days was plenty! We learned a lot about the craziness of the 20th century here (and our uncomfortable role in it), layered on top of what we'd already seen in Hanoi and Hue.  I'm still amazed at how open and friendly everyone here is, but I suppose the obvious growing prosperity here has bred a very forward looking optimism.  Architecturally, Saigon is a blend of modern, French colonial, and a bit of traditional Vietnamese, with a strong NYC like feel to the central city.  There were several good museums, a really nice botanical garden, some great downtown avenues, and even more great food, at crazy cheap prices.  So no complaints, other than the heat.  95-100F at high humidity just isn't much fun for wandering around ba city on foot!   so... Tomorrow we are ...
Read more

...on to the Mekong and Laos!

Image
Having spent 7 days in Chiang Mai doing typical city things, mostly on foot, we began our nest part of trip with a 4 hour van drive to Chiang Khong, on the Mekong River along the border with northwestern Laos. We left Chiang Mai relatively early (8:30) after yet another wonderful breakfast at our hotel, and were quickly out into the Thai countryside. Initially, we drove along the flat Ping River valley through rice paddies and various exurban commercial sprawl until reaching the mountains that frame the valley and much or northern Thailand. After several winding hours of driving, we first reached a new "Wat" or Buddhist temple, completed only 15 years ago named WatSang Karw Photiyan. This included a rather striking garden full of ferns and orchids. Our guide, Suzy, was very helpful in explaining many of the traditional design elements in the temple and their significance in Thai Buddhist culture. After seeing this new Buddhist temple, we...
Read more

On to Chiang Mai

Image
We'll, we've been exploring Chiang Mai in the north west of Thailand now for three days, and thoroughly enjoying the change from both Ko Tao and Bangkok.  Bangkok was a typical Southeast Asian capital city - big, chaotic, bustling with energy and very hot and sticky ;-), Ko Tao was a typical beach town- very much like some of the places we've visited in Costa Rica. Chiang Mai is a busy city - the largest in the north of Thailand, but much less sprawling and developed in comparison to Bangkok.  More importantly, it's in the foothills of the Himalayas, so it's quite a bit cooler here!  Most days do far it's been in the high 70's to low 80's(F), so much more comfortable than at the beach or in Bangkok, where it was a humid 90F+ every day... We're staying in a small hotel in the old city - about a mile square area surrounded by the protective most built in the 14th century.  While much of the historic architecture has been lost, the many rema...
Read more