Blogs from Middle East - page 1201

Further inquieries showed (re-met some friends of buissnes;-) that I should rather try to apply for the chinese and the pakistanian visa in Ankara. It is just a 6 hour bus ride, so today I visited all the embassies in Ankara including the german one. Yes, I had to get two letters of recommendation from my own embassy! A letter of recommendation approves that I am a good guy who should be issued a visa as fast as possible. At the german embassy I could experience what the gateway to Germany in Turkey looks like. Very difficult to get in, many people waiting affirming that they have all the required documents this time, trying to make the guy behind the bars notice them. There were also some ( but comparably small) obstacles for me: No camera ... read more

Hello everybody.... here I finally am after a long trip from amman to Jerusalem. The trip was so tiring and like chewing gum. I left Amman at 8.30 in the morning and it took exactly 7 hours to get to Jerusalem which is not far at all (without borders it would be a one hour drive) I caught a service taxi to the Jordanian-palestinian border, after passing the jordanian controls (loong queues and waiting times) everybody had to get on a bus that would bring everybody over the king hussein bridge to the israeli border controls, from there right into the luggage check and passport control. It was so ridiculous!!! They treated everybody as a potential state enemy. We were 2 big bus loads of palestinians and a hand full of tourists and diplomats, we went ... read more

this is the first diary entry from israel... read more

I returned once more to Istanbul to collect my Iranian visa. And I got it! Exactly one week after I applied, I walked out of the Iranian consulate, smiling at the door guard who knew me already... It is not bad to return to Istanbul. It is a very charming city, especially in Sultanahmed. I went to the same hostel again, this time asking for a place on the roof terrace (half price). You have fresh air there, a bunch of travelers around you, and only the stars above you. If it doesn't rain! Two hours after I arrived it started raining very heavily. The roof terrace was flooded 10 cm with water and my raincover for the backpack proved to be usefull for the first time. But in the night the water was gone again ... read more

Up early for my 4 day cruise around the coast of Turkey. I walked down to the Olympos yachting office and waited with some others to walk down to the harbour to board our boat. Our captain came into the office with a bandana, a gold ringed earring and a missing hand, all that was missing was a parrot on his shoulder. Thinking he could be joking about the missing hand, he wasn't. We walked down to his Gulet Mr Hook I and net up with the other people on board. There was 17 plus 4 crew on board. 6 Australian, 2 Czechs, 2 New Zealanders, 2 Spanish, 2 Turkish, 1 Brazilian, 1 American and 1 English of course! Captain Hook was a little sleazy. He always wanted to be the centre of attention and spent ... read more