Istanbul to Bali

Tuesday and Wednesday, July 8-9: Well, that's a title I never thought that I'd use - Istanbul to Bali - wow! Our flight from Istanbul - or rather series of flights, didn't leave until 7:30pm, so we spent the day packing for our flight, walking around Istanbul, doing some shopping, and visiting a museum. I've even started to read some of the words in Turkish, but I have no idea what they mean! 

We packed our suitcases and used our handy-dandy travel scale to make sure that they weren't overweight. We have been successful with the weight so far but we did a fair amount of shopping in Istanbul. However, we planned ahead, and thus we had a small carry-on duffel bag in our suitcase and just deployed it for the overage. Considering that it weighed about 7 kilos or 15 pounds, I guess those spices and teas that we bought added up! 

We visited the Mosaic Museum which is an area where they "accidentally" discovered some large mosaic floors while excavating for something else. These date to Roman times of 500BC and the colors and workmanship were amazing. 

We then walked through the central area of town, between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, which reminds us of walking through Florence, Italy. In Florence every time you walk past the Duomo you have to take a picture. The light is different or the angle, etc. Well, in Istanbul, the same is true of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia - you just have to take a picture. Luckily in this age of digital photography and iphones, it doesn't have to be the best picture because unlike slide film - some people still know what that is - you don't have to worry about the cost of film and developing - so you just keep shooting! However that creates another problem and that is that you have to be careful that you don't spend all of your time just taking pictures and thus you don't experience that which you are photographing. I think that the iPhone helps with this potential problem because you are not dragging around a big camera. You just take the iphone out of your pocket, shoot, and put it back in your pocket. We were amazed to see so many people using ipads as cameras - admittedly it has a larger screen but it is fairly obtrusive!

Istanbul does feel like a melting pot - you hear so many languages and see so many cultures. We even had a couple of Turkish high school students who are interning as tourist guides, ask us if they could practice their English on us. We went to the Cozy Cafe for lunch and had a great pizza, that we found out was made by an Italian chef on their wood-burning oven in Istanbul. You see - melting pot!

We left Istanbul on Qatar Air - that's either Cutter or Ka-tah, depending on who is saying it. It is supposed to be a great airline and it didn't disappoint. Three and a half-hours to Doha, Qatar, a two and a half-hour layover and then eight hours to Singapore. In Singapore we had to disembark and be scanned by their temperature scanners - to make sure we weren't sick - and then get back on the same plane, which they had cleaned, for our two and a half-hour flight to Denpasar, Bali. We slept about five hours on the major leg, and arrived in Bali none the worse for wear. All of the flights have an interactive map as part of the entertainment package on the seat back in front of you. One of the planes flew, at 39,000 feet, between Baghdad and Tehran - that was a bit sobering!

The total travel time was about 19 hours, although, by the clock, it was 24 hours (5 hour time difference). We were picked up by our driver, Day-wa - that's what it sounds like, I have no idea how it is written - for our one hour drive, at night to the Ubud Village Resort and Spa. The cold towels and drinks that he provided on the ride were greatly appreciated.

Although our room was very amazing, I am going to save that description for tomorrow when it is daylight and I can include pictures. While not jet-lagged, we were tired and passed out quickly.