Istanbul

And so it is..Crossing Asia in 79 Days

Today is Day 79 since I left KL. From Macau I went up China, Urumqi,Kashgar and into Pakistan after the racing event, and in the midst ofturmoil in Pakistan, I went into Iran, Armenia, Georgia and now in Istanbul Turkey. Geographically I have reached the end of Asia and entered Europe, overland.There were many twists and turns in the journey, and life will unfold her beauty before you when you let her.

Swimming in Black Sea

Black Sea is not black, just like Red Sea is not red, both are beautifully blue in colour instead.In Trabzon, it was fun to swim with a bunch of happy local kids, played & fooled around a bit. One guy started to do some funny stunt with his bicycle & went straight down into the water, with much effort he dragged the bicycle up, but happily obliged when I asked him to do it again.

A Fine Walk in the Heavenly Svaneti

Out for a walk towards the Mestia glacier, it was dwizzling a bit, the wind was cold, which actually made the walk nicer. Mestia is such a beautiful village with 20 odds watch towers sits on greenery, with icy streams run through, wild flowers awash the shore and snow mountainsas backdrop. Half way, mist came in and enclosed me, it was like walking in heaven.

Kazbegi

Rustavi

Tbilisi

With Mtkvari River running across the Tbilisi town, Tbilisi is claimed to be one of the most beautiful cities in Caucasus. It is nice to walk along the riverside, to wander through the small lanes in old town, to have a cold beer anytime of the day, to take a sulphur bath when you are dog-tired.

Alaverdi

Holy be Your Name

Standing in front of these holy items, the whole history ofChristianity came alive.The fragments of Holy Cross, Noah's Ark, the bones of John theBaptist, Luke etc, were placed in this very room at Etchmiadzin,surrounded me with thousand years of significance. I couldn't help buttrembled when confronted by these important proofs.I have seen the relics of Buddha in Xi'an, China, the hair of ProphetMuhammed in Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, Turkey. Seeing these now inEtchmiadzin would make it complete as three most important religionsin the world echo to each other to bring forth peace and enlightenmentto mankind.However, great minds are meant to be misunderstood, because atdifferent levels they communicate.J. Francis Stroud says, "Religion is like a finger pointing to themoon, but foolishly we grasp or put our arms around the trappings ofreligion, ritual, dogma, and forget all about in which direction it ispointing us to go.…where the finger is pointing to the moon, all that the fool sees isthe finger."And started comparing that my finger is better than yours, my God isbetter than his, my war is holier...

Entering Republic of Armenia

I read about crossing border from Norduz, Iran into Armenia would be slow, it turned out exactly the case. This Armenia border was guarded by both Armenian officers and also Russian soldiers, tried to ask the reason but the Russian soldier said it was complicated to explain why they were stationed there. It took me nearly 5 hours to get the Armenian visa and cross the border. It was late at that time and finally decided to stay at Inter Motel for the night before attempting to find any transportation to Yerevan.

A Dip in Caspian Sea

Caspian Sea is about 30-minute walk from the small town of Chalus. This is probably one of the rare places in Iran where the strict dress code does not apply. The sea was quite calm when we reached there, there beach was full of rubble, the sea bottom which was near the beach had some sea weeds which was slimy to step on, after a few metres it was sands, the water was not too deep and we could go quite far out.

It was really fun to have a dip there and fool around, played and swam in Caspian Sea.

Tehran Bazaar

We stumbled into some small factories roasting different types of nutsin the Tehran bazaar, the workers in each shop were very friendly,giving us all sorts of freshly roasted nuts, almonds, cashew nuts,pistachio etc to try.

Do You Speak English?

Mashhad Hotel, Tehran, Iran

Miles from England asked in his typical English accent, "Do you have dormitory beds?"
Receptionist asked, "Do you speak English?"