Turkey, here we come!

Hello bloggers!

We are over halfway our journey and this week we are going to visit the Republic of Turkey.
All of us have all been looking forward visiting this country. We are sure it is going to be spectacular.

Turkey is an Eurasia country bordered by eight other countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Asia) as you can see on a world map.

As we noticed while visiting Turkey, Turkish is the official language but the habitants also speak Kurdish and Zazaki. These two languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas. At the airport of Antalya, we already learned some Turkish words! Çıkış means exit (you pronounce it like tchikesh) and otopark means parking.

We arrived at 10am at our hotel, the Antalya Hostel Abad Hotel but it was too early to check in. Because of the great location of our hotel, we could leave our baggage at the reception and start exploring the city by foot.

Antalya is a very famous city for tourists. Not only for the beautiful weather but also for its history and monuments. A lot of people think that Turkey is all about partying but that is definitely not true.

Back in our hotel, we found some brochures about things we have to see during our visit. We discussed at lunch what we are going to visit first. It is very hot around noon so we decided to start off with the famous Antalya museum.

We took the bus to Konyaalti, one of the districts of Antalya. The Antalya Museum or Antalya Archaeological Museum is one of the largest museums of Turkey. It has 13 exhibition halls and an amazing open gallery. In 1988, it won the “European Council Special Prize”. The museum has its focus on showing examples of works which show the history of the Mediterranean and Pamphylia regions in Antalya.

Antalya is surrounded by mountains, this gave us the opportunities to make great pictures of the sunset and sunrise. It’s really amazing. These are some pictures we took:

We had dinner at a local restaurant in Konyaalti at the beach. We were told that the economy of Antalya depends on a mixture of tourism, agriculture and commerce. Industry does not take the upper hand at all.

We spend the rest of our time in Antalya at the beautiful Lara beach. Here you find a lot of 5 to 7 star hotels. Most of those hotels are replicas of famous places around the world for example Venice and Kremlin.

Wandering around in the Kaleici, the historical centre of the city is something you really have to do. Also Hadrian’s Gate is worth a visit. It is an triumphal arch which was built in the name of the Roman emperor Hadrian who visited Antalya.

Luckily, we still have some time left to discover this beautiful country. Delphine will be your guide!

İyi günler

Lies Descheemaeker

The old Persia

And indeed we did arrive in Tehran the next morning, the biggest city in the country with over more than 8 million people. It is a very important city because Tehran is the centre of most Iranian industries and the leading centre for the sale of carpets and furniture.

I have been reading a couple of brochures and it says that the population of Tehran is very young and high educated but unfortunately many of them, leave their country to work elsewhere because of the bad economical situation. Well, we have seen a lot of colleges and universities, each and every one of them has something special concerning their architecture. So you could say they do invest a lot in good education starting with this.  

When we arrived in Tehran we immediately noticed the air pollution. It belongs to the five most polluted cities in the world. It was very difficult to breathe sometimes because of the cars (80% of the pollution is due to cars).

Besides the bad traffic, taking the metro was incredible because Tehran has one of the cleanest and nicest metro! It was unbelievable, you can see it in the picture, it is very modern. You still have the basics, plastic seats and all, but very neat without having to worry about your clothes getting dirty.

Of course, there are some other things worthwhile to visit such as the famous Bazaar located South in the city Tehran. Which is actually a market where you can buy all sorts of things. And of course we did not wanted to miss the local specialty called ‘Chelow Kebab’ which is originally a Persian word for meaning grill. They do not only serve traditional Iranian food but also cosmopolitan cuisine. So we could eat whatever we wanted without worrying about what we were eating exactly.

What you must not forget while visiting Tehran although it might seem silly since the pollution, is visiting some parks. They are gorgeous, such as the Mellat Park, which is one of the largest recreation areas in Tehran. As you might not think of, there is a cinema, a coffee shop, some snack bars and of course pathways for walking and shade for picnics.  

Oh and there is also the previous palace (Golestan Palace) which is an old building but very nice to go and take a look inside. And if you also like to visit museums, there is the Carpet museum which is a very special designed building, really an eye catcher.

We did have some difficulties visiting Iran this week but after all it was a very interesting country and maybe if the pollution is solved, we might visit again some time.

Thank you for reading, we cannot wait for our next adventure! 

Sofie Van Laeken

Sources: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran

Iran

Afghanistan was a pretty amazing country to visit. As Lies and Delphine told you it has a lot of culture and history but its political and economical state is not what it's supposed to be.

Every day we hear news items about this area of the world and after a while, I have to admit, we become used to these news feeds. That’s why it was so intriguing to visit this country and the next one Iran. It’s until you visit the country and see for yourself what misery those people have there, that you realize how good you’re off here in Belgium, far far away from all the misery.

Anyhow, glad we visited this country, we wanted to compare with another country that is in the same position, at least what seems to be in the same position as we don’t really make a difference between the countries in the east.

 

Packed with all our stuff we took a bus to the boarder of Iran. Finding out where we had to buy our ticket and making ourselves clear where we wanted to go was not at all easy!

But once they understood us, we were ready to go. 

Traffic in Iran is horrible, all motorized vehicles think they have the right to pass first. If you’re by foot, you have to see for yourself how you get to the other side of the street.  Therefore we took a lot of cabs, they are not at all expensive. Also, they have a system called ‘shared cabs’. It’s like a bus because the cab follows one route and stops now and then. Transportation was not at all difficult as you can see.

Another thing which surprised us was the hospitality of the Iran people. Whenever we passed, someone would say ‘Hello miss, where from?’, ‘Come to my place, eat something’. At first we did not want to say yes to this invitation. However, after a while we met someone nice who kept insisting us to come and have dinner with him. As we only had eaten kebabs with rice and a lot of bread, we accepted his invitation and had a delicious meal!

This all happened yesterday and right now I’m typing our adventures into a WordPad file. Internet Explorer fell out a couple of times and I save my file every 2 sentences to then copy it onto our blog!

Internet is not hard to find and is not at all expensive, although the computers run very slowly.

Well, I’m all out of things to tell you! Tomorrow we’re leaving for the capital Teheran!

Bye!

Julie Hamerlinck

Source: http://www.wereldreis.tv/countries/iran2.htm

Afghanistan Part II

As Delphine already told you, we are still staying in Afghanistan for a couple of days.
We have not seen a lot of mosques, that’s why we are visiting the second largest town of Afghanistan,  Herat!

Herat is the capital of the Herat province in Afghanistan and is situated in the valley of the Hari River. You can follow the Hari River or Harirud 1100 m from the mountains of central Afghanistan to Turkmenistan where it ends in the Kara-Kum desert.

There are almost 400,000 people living in Herat. The Persian speaking part leads with  85% followed by the Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbeks and Turkmens.

Luckily we didn’t came here in the summer, because the temperature can rise above 40 °C.  The winter is mind, snow melts as it falls and even on the mountains it does not lie long. Three year out of four it does not freeze hard enough for people to store ice.

We picked out a beautiful sunny day to visit the Friday Mosque, also known as the Jumah Mosque.
This mosque was built by the Timurids, a Central Asian Sunni Muslim dynasty who lived in modern Afghanistan as well as large parts of Pakistan and North India.

Our tour guide told us that many of the glazed tiles had been replaced, the Friday Mosque in Heart was given its present from during the closing years of the 15^th century. Herat also posseses a lot of small neighborhood mosques for daily prayer but most communities in the Islamic world have a larger mosque for Friday services with a sermon. That is why they call it the Friday Mosque.

The next day, we visited the Jihad Museum.  We were told at dinner last night that we really should take a look over there. It was kind of crazy, it had traces of civil war museums like those in any small museum in any small town. We saw what had happened years ago from the perspective of the invaders, watching the revolution.

While leaving the museum, the caretaker of the museum said, “If I had known what the future held, I wouldn’t have helped in the Inqalab (revolt against the communists in Herat). We fought so we wouldn’t be the servants of the Soviets but now we’re the servants of everyone.”

Our last stop was the Herat University. This university was build in 1988 and is now attended by approximately 3,000 students. The first thing we noticed was that there are more men than women attending this university, only 30%. Although the school has 11 faculties and is still recovering from the long period of war and chaos in the country, the reconstruction moves on fast.

Despite the stories we heard about Afghanistan, we had a great time. It really got us back with two feet on the ground and we can be blessed that we live in such a developed country as Belgium

See you!

Lies Descheemaeker

Afghanistan

Hi bloggers!

Our next country on the list: Afghanistan!
Not a nice country to visit nowadays because of the war and all the problems but we have to cross Afghanistan to continue our journey. Despite all this, we are happy that we have visited Afghanistan.

We took an airplane to go from Beijing to Kabul, the capital and the biggest city of Afghanistan, because otherwise we would lose too much time.

The first day we were tired because of the flight to Kabul so we decided on doing something relaxed. We went to the Paghman Gardens, a popular place to relax. We heard that a lot of people spend the weekends over there with their friends and relatives. The entrance looks like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, only smaller.

In the evening, we were invited by an Afghan to have dinner. In Afghanistan people always have food enough in case that some friends or relatives come over to have dinner. They are very happy to see everyone satisfied and you will never come away hungry from an Afghan table.

We spent our second day in Kabul by visiting the old part of the city with a lot of bazaars. We also went shopping in the Kabul City Centre. It is a shopping mall with 9 stories that opened in 2005. Before we could enter the building, we were even screened by metal detectors!

We were a little bit chocked when we walked through the streets because there is a lot of poverty and problems. First of all, a lot of people moved to areas that are more safe or to other countries because of the war but since 2002 the refugees are returning. This massive return causes some problems e.g. shortage of water and food.
Besides, there is also an education problem because of the Taliban. During the period of the Taliban, it wasn’t a priority for boys to go to school and girls were absolutely not allowed to attend school. Nowadays only 36% of the population can read and write.

The difference between Belgium and Afghanistan is very big and we realize that we are very happy in Belgium and that we have everything we need!

We are almost half our journey and up to now it was a great experience.
To be continued...

Delphine Van Vooren

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabul_City_Center
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paghman_Gardens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan
http://www.afghan-web.com/culture/cooking/#desserts

Beijing, the city that never sleeps

We woke up that morning with a lot of excitement. Going to Beijing, the capital of China, is a big deal.  The Olympic games of 2008 were held there and the history of the city is rich and interesting.

 Walking through the streets we realized people are very proud of their city and country.

Beijing is the second largest city of China after Shanghai and is divided in 16 districts and 2 counties. A bit like you have in Paris, only bigger, much bigger.

Beijing is known for its distance between locations and its flatness and regular construction.

If we’d get tired it was because of all of the walking, not because we had to climb mountains and hills. 

That’s why we decided to rent bikes for the second day.

So the first day we walked through the heart of Beijing. The heart lies in the Xicheng, Dongcheng, Xuanwo and Chongwen district.

In the Xichang district we visited the Beijing zoo. It was incredible. As a child, the zoo of Antwerp seems big, but comparing to this one, it’s really tiny. The Beijing zoo is huge, it's like a national park but with hundreds of animals in cages.

In the Dongcheng district we walked around in the Forbidden city. The Xuanwo district was kind of boring, nothing really interesting to see there. But in the Chongwen district we found the Temple of Heaven. A great place to end the day with.

The second day we went out to search bicycles we could rent. We found Bicycle Kingdom Rentals & Tours. This is a company that also offered guides and tours. As we didn’t know the other district in the city and were a bit afraid to get lost, we decided to rent a guide as well. This guide took us to the other inner suburbs, on the map indicated with the colours orange, olive green, light brown and pinkish.

The Haidan district was the most interesting, at least for us. All the universities and the heart of technological industry and business clusters are centered there.

We also got the opportunity to visit a class of archeological studies and meet some of the students. All of them were very friendly and spoke good Enlgish. They told us the pressure to succeed was big and that it was not easy for them to get an education.

Feeling lucky again that we have the opportunity to study as much as we like and being able to make this journey, we ended the day with a walk in the parks of the Summer palace and headed back to the centre of Bicycle Kingdom Rentals & Tours.

Until the next blog!

Julie Hamerlinck

Source: Beijing travel guide

What a trip!

Hi again!

Thailand was definitely worth visiting, now we are going to visit China. Getting to China was quite a journey, first we had to cross the border of Thailand to Myanmar. We took quite a couple of busses and trains to get there, after that we only had to cross the border of Myanmar up to China. It took a lot of paper work just to cross two borders, everything is well surveyed. But at least we made it without any difficulties.

Our main goal was getting to Peking, the capital of China but of course, not without visiting some interesting places. Such as the Jinma Biji Archway which is a traditional piece of architecture. It represents emblem of the city Kunming with a golden horse and a green rooster. Because of our long trip getting to China, the night was falling so this was a great opportunity for us because the archways were beautifully illuminated. Tired of our trip we had a good night sleep in one of the hotels nearby.

The next morning we went to see the Huangguoshu Falls which is also known as the Yellow Fruit Tree Waterfall. It is one of the smallest waterfalls in China but quite worthwhile visiting. The waterfall is located in Anshun on the Baihe River.  It is that popular because you get a lot of different views depending on the location of the viewer.

Because of our budget we wanted to save some money so we decided to  hitchhike, we were already close to a busy road so it was easy to get a ride. After a couple of hours we arrived at Chongqing. It is a very high-developed city with lots of skyscrapers because of the government’s investments. We were highly certain that we could easily find something nice to eat and afterwards a train that would take us far enough. Further on our trip we spend the night in Xiangfang, in a simple but nice hotel, the people were friendly as always. The host of the hotel even offered us dinner, which we definitely did not reject.

We went further on our trip by train, straight to Shijiazhuang. Over there we visited a very famous bridge called the Zhaozhou bridge. It is the world’s oldest open-spandrel stone segmental arch bridge. Although it looked quite simple, it was still very amazing.

By the end of the day we can definitely tell you that China is quite spectacular! You cannot imagine how big it is, there was so much to see. The last journey was taking a bus to the capital of China. We immediately went to bed because we were thrilled for the next day.

Thanks for reading our blog, hopefully you will keep on reading!

Sofie Van Laeken

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaozhou_Bridge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (photos > curiosities)

North-Thailand

Hello everyone!

After our visit to Bangkok, we moved on to explore a new city. We had to cross Central-Thailand and also a big part of North-Thailand because we wanted to go from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. As we were moving closer to North-Thailand, we could see the landscape changing. There are a lot of hills and mountains here in Chiang Mai and also the weather is different, it’s not so hot as in Bangkok.

Chiang Mai is a very popular city among tourists because you can make a “jungle trek” that starts in Chiang Mai. There are a lot of temples and we also visited the evening market which is very beautiful because there you can find whatever you like.
Chiang Mai has been modernized very quickly the last years. However it’s the main centre for needlework, jewelry (especially silver) and wood carving, the city is not such a metropolis as Bangkok.

We had just arrived in our hotel, when we met some other Belgians, Maya and Nico. They have now been living in Thailand for 5 years and they invited us to their home to drink something and to give us some more information about Thailand. Of course, we couldn’t refuse this nice offer. Maya and Nico told us that Thailand is going to host the World Expo 2020. It’s one of the most prominent events for nations to promote their economic, social and scientific development. The preparations for the Expo will result in a better infrastructure and also more employment. According to Nico and Maya, we really have to come back in 2020 to see the changes.
At the end of the evening, we thanked them for the pleasant evening and we went back to our hotel.

On our second day in Chiang Mai, we really wanted to make a safari. We didn’t have a lot of time so we decided on making an organized one-day-safari. We saw a training camp for elephants, a garden full of butterflies and a nursery where they breed orchids.
After that, we made a tour on an elephant and a boat trip.
It’s was a very vibrant day but we will never see such a beautiful piece of nature again!

Today it’s the last day in Chiang Mai because tomorrow we have to leave. Before we leave Thailand, we are going to take a real Thai massage as there is an abundance of variety of massages in the streets of Chiang Mai. After the massage we will do some shopping and than we are going to prepare us for our departure.

Our next country on the list is China and we hope you will continue traveling with us by reading the blog!

Delphine Van Vooren

Sources:

http://www.greenwoodtravel.co.th/Thailand/reizen/chiangmai_dagtochten.php
http://www.tceb.or.th/world-expo-2020/index.php
http://www.greenwoodtravel.co.th/Thailand/reizen/chiangmai_dagtochten.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Mai

Discovering Bangkok

Hi there!

Here we are again! This time live from in Bangkok, the city where we heard so much about.
After our powernap, we were ready to start exploring the capital of Thailand.

As we see while we are wandering around the rich areas of this town, Bangkok is definitely the economic center of Thailand. We noticed a lot of banks and were told by a citizen that all of Thailand’s major commercial banks and final institutions are headquartered in this town.

The next day, we decided to visit the Chatuchack weekend Market! Yesterday, we met a group of tourists from France who visited this market and recommended it. They told us to go on an early hour so arrived at 9 o’clock. It was really impossible to see everything because the market had more than 8000 stands. It was  good thing we went early because at noon it became very hot under the roofs of the stand passageways.

That night, we were invited by the people of France to have a drink. They already have been staying here for 2 weeks and know all the good places to go. Until the end of the 20^th century, Bangkok was seen as the city to party. The citizens  thought that everything in life had to be sanuk (fun). Unfortunately, minister Purichai Piumsombum made an end to this freedom. Lots of people who owned a bad or disco are now in prostitution that’s definitely very much alive in Bangkok.

Massive traffic jams, air pollution and water pollution are the main environmental issues. These are things the population of Bangkok get s faced with every single day. Even with  the recent  construction of an expressway with four levels, many tunnels and flyovers, the traffic jams are still a serious problem. They say the continued popularity of private automobiles and consumer credit for automobile purchases are the major reasons for this.

Because we were a bit tired of all the fuzz in the centre of Bangkok, we visited the Lumphnii Park. This park offers an artificial lake where visitors rent a boat. Hundreds of joggers come here every day, mostly in the evening when it is not that hot.

The Grand Palace is the official residence of the Kings of Thailand from the 18^th century until today. However, the present King of Thailand King Bhumibol Adulyadej does not live here.

After this, we moved on to the “Wat Phra Kaew Sri Rattana Satsadaram” which means Tempel van de Smaragdgroene Boeddha in Dutch. It is the most important temple of Thailand situated within the site of the Grand Palace. Many legends tell the story about the Buddha statue but it’s hard to find out if they are really true. 

Too bad our three days in Bangkok are already over. Tomorrow we are taking the train to Northern-Thailand where our adventure continues.

Lies Descheemaeker

Sources:

http://203.155.220.217/office/ppdd/publicpark/english/index.asp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangkok http://www.bangkok.com/