Sunday 16 December 2012

My Istanbul Winter Trip: Bosphorus Cruise

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Salam Semua...Jom sambung story

The next day, after breakfast (breakfast free kat hotel), we went to Eminonu for a Bosphorus Cruise ride.. Dari Sultanahmet, naik tram hala ke Kabatas, after 2 stops (Gulhane & Sirkeci), stop ke-3 (Eminonu), kite turun. Pagi tu, kami terhegeh2 carik kaunter Istanbulkad, rupanya kat Sultanahmet x ada.. Tengah terbangak2 tu, terjumpa satu Romanian couple bawak bag besar nak balik...Borak2...Mereka dngn baik hatinya sold their cards to us for 8tl (each card had 4tl balance)...Seperti org mengantuk disorongkan bantallah kami.. Suka sangat!

Tengah seberang jalan nak ke seberang sana nk p borak (sorry, arrow yg tunjuk ke arah
Romanian couple tu dh hilang plak). He..he... Kat sini ala2 koboi sikit..cross laluan tram sesuka hatimu aja..
Nampak x cart kat ujung jalan sana..? x nampak..? Sila lihat gambr di bawah
Bottom: Nampak x...? Mereka buat mcm jalan mereka sendiri...
Top: Suasana di waktu pagi... Kedai belum bukak
Org kata, x sah ke Istanbul kalau x naik Bosphorus Cruise. There are many cruise operators that u can choose from but the most famous one is the public one (lupa plak nama syarikat die) tp opis dielah paling besar kat Eminonu tu. They have 2 types of routes. one is the long route (25tl) and the short one (12tl). The long route is about 6 hours coz they will drop u at a village called Anadolu Kavagi..Kat situ bolehlah kalau nak makan2 Fish n Chips..Or, u can just opt for the short route...x payah turun..1 hour pergi and 1 hour balik... U can even get a one way tix for the long route. I think it's about 13tl. Then, u can catch a bus to get back to the European side.

This was Eminonu Station. 5 minutes from Sultanahmet.
Kt blkg tu, Yeni Camii @ New Mosque.
However, we didn't go onto the public cruise as the time for the short cruise is 2.30 pm. Malas nak tunggu. We chose other company's cruise for 10tl. Oh ya..long cruise mereka hanya pukul 10.30 pagi sahaja..

While waiting for the 10.30 cruise, snap2
gambar dulu...
Even though weather forecast mengatakan hari hujan, tp alhamdulillah, hari panas...Bestnya naik cruise disinari matahari...Iyelah, nama pon forecast..x semestinya betulkan..? On the cruise, we met with a Singaporean family. They just arrived in the morning... Sampai tertido2 anak dara die dlm cruise, dek letih kot... I met with a few Singaporean groups when we were there. Never knew Singaporeans love Turkey. Perhaps because their currency is higher... TIPS FOR MALAYSIANS: NEVER EVER CHANGE YR MONEY TO TURKISH LIRA IN MALAYSIA. CHANGE TO USD OR EURO, THEN CHANGE TO LIRA AT ATARTURK AIRPORT. SELEBIHNYA, TUKAR AJA DI ISTANBUL. Bukan apa, masa sebelum p, i ingat nak tukar sikit di Msia, lepas tu baru tukar yg lain kat sana. there was this one money changer near my house. I surveyed the rate and they quoted me rm2.60 per 1TL..Mak aiii...cekik darah betol! X jadik tukar. I changed all my money to USD and Euro. At Atarturk Airport, i changed USD100 dulu.. Their rate at that time was RM1.82 per 1TL. Can u see the difference? Gila mahal kalau tukar kat KL. The rest of my money, i changed at Sultanahmet for RM1.73-RM1.76 per 1TL.

Jom, let's check out the photos that we snapped during the cruise...

Yg ni feri biasa...Boleh pakai Istanbulkad kalau naik.
Pergi Karakoy rasanya. Rate sama aje mcm tram
dan bas.
Some of the sights along the way
Other sights
And more...


After Bosphorus Cruise, perut pon dah lapar... What I love about Turkey is u can always eat the food sold here...Mcm kat Malaysia...

Ramainya umat di hari Ahad @ Eminonu
Org kat sini suka fishing. Penuh jambatan mereka bersidai mancing. Arrow dh hilang lg...
Is the jellyfish dangerous?  coz teringat cerita Will Smith berlakon tu
The other end of the sea..Atas org fishing..Bawah plenty of restaurants to dine. Prices vary...
These people sell fish kebab on the boat. 5TL per piece. 

Top: mula2 makan fish kebab from the boat, then, x kenyang..
Bottom: Makan kat restoran plak.. Personally, the fish kebab from the
boat tasted better than the one at the resto. My own personal
view la...Dif people dif taste... Price is the same.
There are plenty of restos along the sea...tp rimasla... asal kita lalu aja, they will stop u...asking u to eat at their resto..So, u imagine if each resto asks u every time u pass by, bila nak sampai hujung daa...

Buah berangan rasanya...
Sampai Eminonu jangan lupa belik Istanbukad or top up yr kad...:) 


To be cont...

Friday 14 December 2012

My Istanbul Winter Trip: Hello Sultanahmet!

Salam semua...mesti ada yg perasan post yg be4 this....tried to upload a vid but the file is tooo big and Internet connection kat rumah ni is toooo snail pace, i think i just have to cancel nawaitu to load the vid. Penat ja buat....huh...! Oklah, nk start citer dah...

We went to Istanbul with Qatar Airways. Bought the tix during the 3 days sale. The tix was rm1900++ all in. Cheap eh? The cheapest i found so far. If u guys read my last last last new year's eve post entitled 12 places i want to visit, Istanbul n Rome were in my wishlist.

Anyway, we departed in the morning..Sapa yg nak naik Qatar Airways from KLIA, i advise u to do online check-in beforehand. Bukan apa, Q for those yg x online check-in, mak aii, 3km long... Serious..! I think it will take almost 2 hours...Ada lebih kurang 100 umat yg berator. On the other hand, if u already have yr e-tix, u will walk calmly, with no hassle whatsoever to the designated counter, with no one, i repeat no one queuing in front of u.. Heavennya rasa waktu tu... I told myself.."pak arab2 ni sumer, x reti nk online check-in ke..? Sanggopla berator berejam..." We sent our bag, p makan, lalu semula kat counter, my gosh, the Q was longer... Oh, we got 25kg each for luggage..x guna habis pon...travel light kan...?

How's Qatar Airways? Patotla menang skytrax award... They were great! Dah rasa mcm ular kembung dlm flight... X sempat nak lapar...x makan, minum, x minum, makan... Tngk movie...ada bnyk movie die...lebih dr MAS rasanya...Pekerja smiling 24 hours...aman hati rasanya... Patotla gaji air hostess mereka mahal, coz 24 hrs bekerja.... Cuma waktu balik, i had a complain..but will tell u all later ah, waktu balik...

Top: Blanket, kit2 dlm pouch n small pillow.
Bottom right: food, food n food, bottom left: layan Adele...la..la..la...

Ni biskut favourite. Tiba2 dapat banyak masa dalam flight.

 We had to transit at Doha..Qatar Airways kan..mestilah ke Doha... very short transit of 70 minutes. i purposely chose the short transit. No intention to stop longer..regret it later..hu..hu... so, turun2...terus ke next terminal of departure. We had to ride a bus to and from the terminal.

Qatar air space. Lawak plak tengok rumah ala2 kotak kasut...he...he... Ni outskirt area sikit rasanya coz once we
were nearer to the airport, the buildings are more modern.

The journey to Doha took us 7hrs ++ while the journey to Istanbul from Doha was 4 hrs. Dlm flight yg ni, tv rosak..huh...baru puji tadik...may be coz short haul flight kot...down sket quality.

Process at the airport was smooth. We took the metro. Signboards were everywhere. One would surely not get lost here.

This is the metro at the airport. Havalimani means airport in Turkish

U need to buy a jeton (3TL) for each ride regardless of 
the distance (above). So, untungla sapa naik jaoh2...

The journey from the airport will take u about half an hour to reach Sultanahmet. From the airport, u need to stop at Zeytiburnu, cross the street to the other side, buy another jeton and get on the next tram. Sultanahmet, Sirkeci and Eminonu are all on the same line which is the line to Kabatas. U can also buy Istanbulkad at the designated kiosks. The only kiosk I knew was the one at Eminonu. I think there's one at Sirkeci too. If u have the card, u will only have to pay 1.95TL per jeton/ride. Cheap, isn't it..? It's just like our touch n go card where u have to reload it (at the designated kiosk i had mentioned) once the money finishes.

Ini rupanya Sultanahmet! We reached here at about 6.30pm. Winterkan..gelap awal..Ahhh..hate that! Not good
for travellers like us!
One thing I like about winter trip is the cheaper price in everything but the downsides are u need to tolerate with the  bad weather and earlier nights...[sigh...]

From GoogleMap, our hotel is just 10 minutes walk from the tram station but in reality...kalau bwk bag, jalan atas jalan batu2 jarang2 mcm kat Istanbul ni, mau 1/2 an hour... But, we did find a short cut later on during our stay... Silap kami jugak p bwk bag troli..But, how on earth would we know that the walkways are like that? jarang2 mcm gigi rongak...x ada pulak tngkp gmbr batu2 jalan tu...or else i can show u... i think those who were already been there would understand what i meant...

After asking people, we arrived safely at the hotel...Ahhh...bahagia tol rasa dah sampai... Turks are very helpful. They are always willing to help u even though they are not so good in English/couldn't speak at all...kadang2 mcm itik ngan ayam, kita pon anggok beria mcm la paham...they showed right but they uttered left, mcm2 lah... The weather at the time we arrived was 13 degree celcius..Ok la, not so cold... From our room, we could see the Blue Mosque di sebalik cabang2 Astro Turki nyer aerial...Ha..ha...

Tu...! Nampak x?

OKlah folks, guess i'll stop here...I will tell u about our hotel in another post...:)

Till then!

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Greetıngs from Istanbul



Hello all...ı guess most of u have already known where am I... And I am stıll here. Wıll do the update later. Bye...

OVERNIGHT AT THE BERBER DESERT CAMP

Selepas lunch, kami teruskan lagi perjalanan yang panjang sampai lah petang.  Look at the view.. Magnificent!  We crossed the High Atlas Mou...

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