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turkishraf - Farhat Jah

Farhat Jah Swahili Divers and the Kervan Saray Beach are my home. They are located in Pemba a small and remote island off Tanzania. This blog was created to give you an idea of what life is like on our small island, and to keep you in touch with the small green island. But niow as the rains hit Pemba we too start to travel. So have fun "leafing" through our pages; you will find stories from underwater and around the world. The photo is a rather bedraggled me in South East Asia.
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Joined on: March 6th 2008
Last Login: June 7th 2008

Blog Entries: 14
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Blogs & Travel Journals

by turkishraf, order by Date newest first.

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The View point at Mei Shi.
The View point at Mei Shi.
NB Approx 80% of the photos on this page and the previous pages are by Francisca Jah, using a Nikon D80 with sigma and Nikon VR lenses. My images are all film.
We walked across the bridge into China and I marvelled that people could still walk into a protected country in 2008. I do not count crossing Europe¡¯s non borders where customs officers have become a rarity and the fences have been taken down. This was the People¡¯s Republic of China. The largest Communist country in the world, with a controlled economy and a state that ¡°likes to make sure that things go smoothly¡±. This is as far as I will go at this stage, not because I am typing this up in High Yunnan on the boundaries of Tibet, but because [View Full Entry]

turkishraf - Farhat Jah | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 12 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 4013 words | [diary=279166] | 2008-05-23 03:08:54

The Sum Tsleling monastery
Bhudist monks seen from accross the valley
Tibetan Tablets. Sorry I mean ethnic High Chinese tablets.

You buy now?
You buy now?
The wonderful thing about Dong Sat Vietnam is that if you forget your toothbrush (like I did) you can purchase a new one at many of the stations.
(Roof Top Room Elizabeth Hotel Hanoi North Vietnam. The re-unification express was immediately re-named the re-fornication express by me for our video production “good god there is a wog on the train”.(outraged people please note that I am the wog). Our Spaniards are interesting enough and the night passes with some conversation and lots of sleep. It soon becomes apparent that the reunification express is the star attraction of Vietnam. Travelling by train in the daytime is the way to travel in this long and strange country. The Vietnamese have a patent inability to build beautiful with concrete, and through development [View Full Entry]

turkishraf - Farhat Jah | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 1 Comment(s) | 8 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 4315 words | [diary=278186] | 2008-05-20 08:20:04

Room for 20 more inside. Our cabins are quite spacious. Well some of them!
As soon as we enter we start packing our stuff away!
Hoi An. A beautiful town, full of nothing but tourists.

Hotel Ten Xian Hoi Ann Central Vietnam I am writing these notes on the first real desk that I have come across on our travel. Our room is large, cool airy and has french windows that are thrown wide open. Hence the airiness. It overlooks a deep green paddy field,; this being Vietnam, I can not tell whether it is a faux paddy field or a working one. The test, one suspects is to note whether a water buffalo comes along at some stage, chewing things, or pulling a plough. We are in the middle of Vietnam, halfway through the country [View Full Entry]

turkishraf - Farhat Jah | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 8 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 4740 words | [diary=274350] | 2008-05-09 05:08:45

The Office of M. Diem.
Made in the USSR!
Welcome aboard the 30 year old Soviet Rocket

Phnom Penh Central Market
Phnom Penh Central Market
Photo (like many on this blog) by Francisca Jah. We are sad to leave PP but also rather excited. Vietnam is a new country for both of us, and whatever awaits us will be fascinating.
We left the Okay Guesthouse a little late. Our hosts had organised a river ticket for a slightly overpriced ferry ticket to Chau Doc and the Socialist republic of Vietnam. The ferry turned out to be a 30 foot fibreglass boat with an inboard yanmar diesel engine, a Vietnamese Captain and a cool box half full of cokes and beer. We all climbed on board and Capt "Nguyen" started the engine. After offering us beer, he stuck his earphones in, tuned to radio Hanoi and we chugged down the river at a respectable 15knots. The Mekong was brown and the banks [View Full Entry]

turkishraf - Farhat Jah | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 1 Comment(s) | 7 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1976 words | [diary=272183] | 2008-05-02 15:29:36

Our start point. The wahrf on the Mekong opposite the kiwi bakery
Our super ferry down the mekong to Chau Doc (vietnam) on the outbound sector
A rather despondent Cisca contemplates her chances of ever getting into Vietnam

Angkor Wat. What a disaster, and yet how good for Cambodia. Angkor wat is full of foreign tourists. The heat is intense. The humidity fills up the courtyards like fog. You sweat, you drink, you stop sweating, you worry. The rains are coming, but they have not come. You have to record what you see but the sweat runs into your eyes, you keep shooting, frame after frame, teh Nikon motor drive whirring and whining as your eyes fog over. You drink more, you enter another courtyard. The Japanese barge you out of the way while taking their “special photo”. You [View Full Entry]

turkishraf - Farhat Jah | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 1 Comment(s) | 8 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1760 words | [diary=271689] | 2008-05-01 04:07:44

The Jungle temple
Floating Shop keepers
A vietnamese floating house in Cambodia

To explain our time in Bangkok, I must go to India. In 2000, in a fog bound Darjeeling, I met a man called Alan Horowitz. A buddhist, a former jew, (can you ever be former?) a thinker, a resident of Taipei, (Taiwan-China) a thoroughly clever man, but most importantly a kind and decent man. He was accompanied by his partner PeiYen, a beautiful quiet lady and who carried an ancient Nikon. Very rarely she would use it; but only with black and white film. She was a photographer in the true sense of the word. I was in Darjeeling to see [View Full Entry]

turkishraf - Farhat Jah | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 2 Comment(s) | 6 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1490 words | [diary=271377] | 2008-04-30 05:07:53

Inside one of bangkok
Chaos at bangkok Airways check in.
The entire DC9-(90) sleeps as we spend a good hour on the ground.

Our Man in Bangkok
Our Man in Bangkok
Well perhaps not, but I feel as bedraggled as I look
Eight years ago, I came to Bangkok, I wandered the streets, lookedat some huge Bhudda, bought a horrible shirt, met some people, and got stuck wondering where to go. Eventually I managed to make a decision and bought a ticket to Cambodia; the next day flew out. We boarded the ancient Royal Air Cambodge 737 at 0700hrs. I had only had one hour of sleep, but I had made the flight. At the front of the plane was I met a youngish Englishman, who happened to be a dive master. We got to talking. "I Got stuck in Bangkok mate" He [View Full Entry]

turkishraf - Farhat Jah | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 4 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 279 words | [diary=269823] | 2008-04-25 05:30:07

Longtails on the Bankgok River
Thai Cafe Culture with Wat Alun in the background
Wat Alun

The Let 410 in Dar es Salaam
The Let 410 in Dar es Salaam
We have definately left the Zanzibar Islands and Pemba. Now we are in Africa again, and need to get out fast!
This is by no means my finest post. In fact its mundane. It is a catalogue of stress. But if you are sitting at home or work and you are numbingly bored, then please do read on. This may brighten your day slightly. R ----------- Thailand, Bangkok, Banglampoo district, 23.04.2007 Sitting here in Rambutri street with the thunder booming over my head I realise that Bangkok has changed little since 2000. The water is pouring off the roof and the street is uncharacteristically deserted. Of the city course has changed slightly, but I don't really notice the difference. The new airport [View Full Entry]

turkishraf - Farhat Jah | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 11 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1701 words | [diary=269245] | 2008-04-23 13:19:23

Lam closer
Watch out for the plant as you wander around the apron at Dar International Airport
Air Tanzania

A Zanzibar Door Seller
A Zanzibar Door Seller
This gentleman could not care less about my visa situation, he just wants to sit at the base of his doors selling doors to the great and the good.
17.04.2008 Pemba to Zanzibar Yesterday, was a day of waiting. We packed our final personal items, packed our stuff, and waited for the minibus to take us to the airport. There is a major fuel shortage in Pemba and so we all had to go into one minibus. Stuart and Emma, (our managers) were flying out first, so the rest of us waited in the Old Mission Lodge. We ate some chapatis and strange spring rolls while waiting for our flights. The Zanair let410 landed gracefully but late, on 5000ft long runway and rolled out. The sun was low in the [View Full Entry]

turkishraf - Farhat Jah | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 2 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 729 words | [diary=267692] | 2008-04-18 13:37:18

IN ZANZIBAR

By turkishraf
April 15th 2008

Off to Asia

 Africa » Tanzania » Pemba » Wete
Glorious Peking
Glorious Peking
The red army in tip top ceremonial form. Sorry, I mean PLA.
The rains have come to Pemba, but not quite to us. Thunder booms and rumbles to our south. The sky is filled with heavy clouds but the sun beats down on us relentlessly. We have officially closed. Our last guests, a splendid pair of birdwatchers from Canada departed this morning. We have started packing up and the dive centre and kayaks are all inside the building. Stuart has been pulling gearboxes off engines, in the hope that we can find out what has gone wrong with the cooling systems of all our 60 horse power Yamaha engines. Eventually the last hidden [View Full Entry]

turkishraf - Farhat Jah | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 3 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 593 words | [diary=266752] | 2008-04-15 15:57:11

shopping in Peking, our destination.
Cambodia in the rains



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