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?"

Persepolis

Hello, foreigners!

Shiraz, Iran

In Shiraz, locals happily greeted us by shouting out loud, "Hello foreigners, hello tourists!"

Zoroastrianism

Sven Hedin mentioned in his autobiography about his stealing of three Parsee skulls for research from the Towers of Silence in Iran, he went in with a bag of watermelons during the day time of hot summer when everybody hid in house to avoid the blistering heat, without notice he sneaked in the Tower of Silence and stole three skulls by putting them into watermelon bag and later sent back to Sweden.

Zoroastrianism was the main religion across the Iranian plateau before Islam entered this land, it was one of the first religions to postulate an omnipotent, invisible god, represented as an eternally burning flame in Zoroastrian temple. Zoroastrians refuse to bury or cremate their dead bacause of their belief in purity of elements, both methods would pollute either the earth or sky. the dead were indeed exposed in Tower of Silence to allow vultures clean up the corpses.

In Yazd, the home of Iran's largest community of Zoroastrian, I went to the site, where two Towers of Silence are set on two barren hilltops, there was no one guarded the gate, I hiked up the small hills, and found a small opening in the middle of high wall, stepping on small depressions I climbed up and went in through it, at the centre of tower there is a big concavity where the dead bodies were once placed in sitting position, priest would then observe which eye was taken by vultur first, if it was right eye, the soul would have good future, dim if otherwise.

Women in Black

Most women here are covered in black chador, as imposed by law, exposed only the faces. The suggestion of this image as conservative and reserved is misleading. Since the town of Kerman, I have noticed the women in town outnumbered the men, they wandered freely, either by themselves or in groups, free to strike a conversation with stranger like me, after buying things from a shop, some even happily screamed out loud, "I love you!", what a culture shock!

Iran, Iran

Entering Iran I straight away faced the problems of not having any information, no guide book, and not being able to speak or read Farsi. Hence all the most original methods were used, sign language, drawing, and cracked my head to look for information. First the bookshop had only Farsi books, then found some internet cafe, it was good to see a qwerty keyboard, went online to look for some information, finally made my way to the bazaara in Kerman with the help of two friendly bus driver and conductor.

"We love Taliban!"

The Osama-looking shopkeeper made a face by pressing down his nose and then pushed out the ears, said in a joking tone. "This is Iranian, hey, why d'you want to go to Iran? Iranian are bad, they only think they are right, everyone else is wrong, here we love Taliban!"
In this border town, Quetta, there are in fact many supporters of Taliban. Quite a number of people, including a military officer, Khawar, warned to take extra precautions and not to wander around town. However, as Miles and I strolled from one market or bazaar to another for most of the afternoon, people were mostly friendly and hospitable, some even invited us for tea.

Sufi Night

In the small courtyard of a temple which was coloured green and red, it was packed with people sitting closely on the floor, marijuana was passed around for people to smoke, the atmosphere was charged with strangeness.

When we came in, two men first playing drums. Then one black shirt guy playing saxaphone. The Gongasain brothers camein at about 10pm, started playing big drums which were hang around their necks. The elder brother was huge in size, like a giant, with long hair, wearing a black and white patterned long shirt. They played drums in synchronize, the right stick was straight and smaller, so it was lighter when hitting the drum. The left one was shaped like a hook, giving out a lower but forceful sound. At the peak of the event, 7-8 people went to the centre of courtyard started to dance in to a trance like state, shaking their heads, stomping their feet, one's feet tied with a lot of rings, giving out rhythms of sound while dancing. Then some started to spin, crowds would shout "la lit pa", "yer le la" to call their spirits back, the elder brother started to spin with drum. The whole process went on several times, finally stopped at 01:30.

A Stroll in Lahore

Lahore was a busy, vibrant and lively city full of vehicles, motor ricksas, bicycles, horse and donkey carts, with all the honkings added as background.

Since the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) incident, there were many polices stationed all around town, especially outside the major mosques, it was actually good to avoid wlking near them as they were always the easy target for suicide bombers.

There were many small stores along the streets in old city, selling all sorts of things like spices, food, cigarettes etc. Some building were in old indian styles which was very interesting. On the streets there were also horses, donkeys, goats, cattle etc, some goats were dyed with star-pattern by using henna. From old city it was easy to access to Badshahi Mosque and Lahore Fort.

Traumatized Islamabad

High alert hs been declared in twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad now, heavy deployment of rangers has been made at various places in the cities. Foreign nationals have been advised to restrict their movements to avoid any possible attacks.

Some parties urged the government to publicly admit the mishandling of the Lal Masjid bloody stand-off resulting into loss of lives. Government declared about 100 people died, while the locals speculated the death toll to be about 1400 - 1500.

I could not enter the Youth Hostel at Sector G6, many roads are currently blocked and armed by police forces which makes one feels the strong undercurrent in the seemingly clam atmosphere. Curfew is still on around the Lal Masjid area. In fact, many towns in Pakistan are not really safe at the moment, might need to get out of here real soon.

Hiking Up the Ultar Meadow

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This was by far the most dangerous hike for me.

In the morning Noriyoshi, Calvin and me went up the Ultar Meadow through the Baltit village and orchard according to the map drawn by Hiroshi. After follwing the canal, there was a small trail along the sheer drop face of mountain, having vertigo I felt dizzy when looking down and tried leaning towards the mountain side. After the trail, we could not find a proper way up, therefore started climbing on the rocky slopes, many a time I felt like dropping into the deep abyss, and inched towards the possible safer direction, with loose rocks bouncing and rolling down. With much effort we managed to climb up to another trail, by looking down, I did not know how we climbed up and wondered how to go down later. We kept missing the right track and had to climb up again and again. Finally we reached the Ultar Meadow at 14:00.The 6000m Lady Finger, Ultar I and 7388m Ultar II were just right in front, we rested for a while and went on to see a waterfall and the tomb of Hasegawa, who died while climbing the Ultar mountains. At 16:00 we went back down but again missed the right trail, going down on a steep slope, at one time almost found nowhere to proceed as there was a cliff below, the rocks were mostly loose with many thorny plants around, which made it very difficult to climb through and slide down, finally we found a section where the cliff was not too high up and thus we slid our way down from there.

It was just nice to walk on a flat steardy road.

Strolling Around Karimabad

It was an easy and relaxing day as we just strolled around the streets of Karimabad, some travellers considered here as one of the blackholes on earth, because when you come in here, it is difficult to get out due to the charm of this small town. I have stayed here for 9 days now, every morning we woke up and decided not to leave.

Eagle's Nest

Lady Finger Peak or Bubulimating, 6000m and Ultar Peak I

Wooden door of local house

Local house at hill side

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Local kid
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Eagle's Nest, overlooking the mountain ranges

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It was a long walk from Haider Inn through the village dirt road up to the Eagle's Nest, the villagers were mainly Ismailies and they were preparing for the celebration for the birthday of their leader Prince Karim Aga Khan. We were invited to taste the mulberry there and later we also got a free ride back down to the Karimabad.

Starry Starry Night in Hunza Valley

Up the roof we went to enjoy the starry sky, there were quite a number of shooting stars flashing across the sky, occasionally we could see satellites flying by. The nature is truly wonderous if the busy people could stop by for a while to savour.

With cold winds blowing and music played by some other travellers, relaxing on the rooftop was a wonderful moment.

Walking Along the Water Channel in Hunza Valley

Local kids

Cattle house

A local suggested us to walk along the water channel to go though villages from Karimabad to Hyderabad, the water was milky greyish in colour but locals claimed it drinkable. Locals were most friendly and greeted us all the way. Along the way there were a lot of apricot trees, plum trees, pear trees, potatoes etc, and the 7788m Rakaposhi peak, Lady Finger peak and Ultar peaks were all in sight.