Güle Güle, Türkiye!

And finally we say goodbye to this wonderful land called Turkey.

After nearly a week here, we learnt a lot about this wonderful, its history and its heritage. And it surpasses a lot had seen so far on its natural beauty.

We were having flashbacks of the last 7 days spent here in Turkey as we sat down having our final meal in Istanbul, by the Sea of Marmara...

Turkish food is incredibly flavourful and delightful for the senses. One of the tastiest in Turkish cuisines is actually the simplest - lentil soup! Enjoying our last bowl of soup before we hop on the car to head to Atatürk Airport...

The departures board! I wish I could hop on to the flight to Entebbe!

And finally we lift off...

And with the lovely memories of Turkey deep within us, it is hard to say bye....

But we look forward to getting back home...

Güle Güle, Türkiye! Hope to be back here again soon...

Plane Spotting At IST -- Part II

Our Turkey and Europe Trips draw to a close, as we board our Turkish Airlines flight into Mumbai. And begins another round of Plane Spotting...

A Mahan Air Airbus A300 that will be flying into Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport tonight...

This was quite an exotic spotting, with very few Airbus A300s flying these days, it is quite a vintage aircraft...

Our flight map...

Mahan Air has pushed back...

A Middle East Airlines Airbus A330 comes in from Beirut...

A Turkish Airlines Airbus A320 pushes back...

Sunset over IST!

A busy evening at IST!

A Royal Air Maroc Boeing 737...

Fly Turkish, Widen Your World!

An Onur Air Airbus A320 taxis...

An Azerbaijan Airlines Airbus A319, a true exotic bird...

The tulip on the fuselage looks nice...

Sunset over IST...

Qatar Airways Airbus A330...

Turkish Airlines Airbus A320...

Turkish Airlines Airbus A330...

As an Atlas Global taxis towards the runway, I realise that IST is a "redtail airport"...

The runway view from the IFE display...

Atlas Global Airbus A320...

Airbus A330 freighters of MNG Global...

And as we begin our takeoff roll, it's time to say goodbye to Istanbul...

Black as Hell, Strong as Death, Sweet as Love...

Throughout our travels around Istanbul and Cappadocia during our Turkey Trip, one common thing that accompanied me all through was Türk Kahvesi or Turkish coffee!

My initiation to kahvesi began onboard the Bosphorus cruise. The coffee appeared like tar, a brown-black sludge. But willing to experiment, I tasted it quite willingly.

Kahvesi was quite literally an assault on the senses on the first sip, but by the second sip, I fell in love with it completely, and absolutely. And by the third sip, I was ready to kill and maim for one more cup of kahvesi. That is the magic of this dark, bitter-sweet elixir.

Coffee initially came from the highlands of Ethiopia, where it was discovered quite by accident, from where it went across the Red Sea to Yemen. By the late 15th century, the Arabian region had come under the Ottoman influence. And quite naturally, coffee culture spread to Istanbul by the early 16th century. The Ottoman-Bosnian chronicler, İbrahim Peçevi, reported the opening of the first formal coffeehouse in Constantinople:

Until the year 1554, in the High, God-Guarded city of Constantinople, as well as in Ottoman lands generally, coffee and coffeehouses did not exist. About that year, a fellow called Hâkem from Aleppo and a wag called Şems from Damascus, came to the city: they each opened a large shop in the district called Tahtakale, and began to purvey coffee.

In sense, the modern coffeeshops - Starbucks and the Cafe Coffee Days, all owe it to the Turks! The Turks might as well demand some royalties...

And in 1538, when the Ottoman Turks annexed Yemen, they gained a monopoly over coffee trade. They parboiled coffee beans and exported them from a Yemeni Red Sea-port town called Mocha,. And thus came about the term "mocha."

Today, coffee is very much a part of Turkish everyday life and traditions. It is also a part of traditional Turkish wedding customs. Before the wedding, when the groom and his parents visit the girl's family, the bride must prepare and serve them coffee. And the fun part - for the groom's coffee, the bride use salt instead of sugar to gauge his character. If he drinks his coffee without any sign of displeasure, the bride assumes the groom is good-tempered and patient.

And the Turks use coffee for fortune-telling or kahve falı - the sediment left after drinking is turned over onto a saucer. They believe that the patterns of coffee grounds can predict your fortune!

But who cares about the future, when you have excellent kahvesi this very moment. And I fully agree with this old Turkish proverb that says “Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love”.

Mysterious Ancient Habitations Of Çavuşin...

As we headed towards Kayseri Airport, we briefly stopped by at Çavuşin village, which is on the road between Uçhisar and Avanos.

Çavuşin is a small village which houses rock cut churches and homes from the Byzantine era. It also houses underground habitations that date back to the pre-historic era, some of which were later occupied by the Christian settlers.

Çavuşin village...

Quiet and a bit sleepy, Çavuşin is how it should be, but some ugly modern developments have taken over the village in the recent years...

There are 38 known underground cities in the Cappadocia area, the famous ones being Kaymakli and Derinkuyu. Other smaller ones dot the landscape around the region. Many people there are are more than the 38 known cities...

As we head deeper, we are told that there are lots of myths surrounding these cities. There are some who firmly believe that these habitations date back to the time of the Old Testament and Noah. They also believe that the locals took refuge here during the time of the great flood...

This region, especially Turkey, has rich pickings for Biblical treasure hunters - there has been a lot of speculation that the Noah's Ark is somewhere in this region - modern Anatolia or around the Mount Ararat, that we had seen our flight to Paris, last month. In my view one cannot discount the speculation that these structures have a Bibilical connection...

Ancient drainage system...

A granary...

A winery...

Grain storage area...

The soot on the walls tells us this was a cooking area...

A porthole for ventilation...

A circular stone door...

It is indeed debatable to the point of speculation whether there is a Biblical connection to this place, a connection to the Ark, but one thing is for sure, the ingenuity of humans is indeed appreciable - they have historically made the best out of what nature had to offer!