Istanbul is definitely a city which we will visit again. We had just four days there but, during this time, did manage to visit many of the major sights such as Hagia Sophia, Topkapı palace, Sultan Ahmed mosque and the archaeological museum. We also spent an enjoyable day travelling along the Bosporus to the Black [...]
The beautiful city of Esfahan was where we were to spend our first wedding anniversary. We were truly blown away by the place. The stunning Naqsh-e Jahan square with its beautiful palace and mosques was one of the most impressive places we’d visited so far on our trip. Our anniversary was spent Naqsh-e Jahan square [...]
Our first task after checking into our hotel in Shiraz was to purchase a manteau for me. At Sharjah I had changed into one of Matthew’s shirts in order to adhere to Iran’s laws regarding how women should dress in public. Finding a manteau was no problem. The lady at our hotel pointed us in [...]
Amritsar was definately one of the highlights of our ten week Indian adventure. It was also one of the friendliest cities we have visited. Travelling across town by cycle rickshaw, our drıver was furiously whistled at. We turned around to find a burly Sıkh policeman grinning at us like a Cheshire cat and giving us [...]
For our second Nepali trekking expedition we decided to undertake a trek in the Helambu region, just north of Kathmandu. We took a taxi to Sundarijal where we were to begin our trip. After walking for an hour or so we entered the Shivapuri National Park, getting our prepaid permits checked. The first day was [...]
Following a short taxi ride from our treks end point at Phedi we arrived back to some luxury at Hotel Nirvana. We enjoyed a few celebratory beers before attempting to cleanse ourselves of the previous five days worth of grime. That night we treated ourselves to steak at the Everest Steak House, washed down, of [...]
We boarded the Golden Travel coach for the long journey to Pokhara. After a predictably slow start we made good progress until an accident brought the traffic to a complete standstill for over an hour. We finally reached the relaxed town of Pokhara soon after 16:00. The touts were nowhere near as aggressive as we [...]
The International Guest house was a peaceful haven, just outside the chaos of the main Thamel tourist area, where we were to base ourselves for a couple of days. We had a day and a half in Nepal’s capital before Pam arrived. Wanting to save the sightseeing until she arrived, we spent this time relaxing [...]
I had been really looking forward to arriving in Delhi for several weeks. Aside from the excitement of visiting India’s capital city, I couldn’t wait to see some of my friends for the the first time in nine months (some longer.) They had come for a friend’s wedding in Faridabad, near Delhi. We stayed at [...]
As with most tourist destinations in the north of India, Agra had been badly affected by the fall in tourist numbers following the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. This clearly had a devastating effect on small businesses struggling to survive. The less serious, yet extremely annoying, effect on us was an intensification in the hassle [...]
