Sunday, March 28, 2010

From Halfway Around the World And Back to Malaysia

Tired. I'm sorry if the first word of my first post of my new blog sounds a little bit on the negative side. But i really am.

Aegean Sea Sunset

Hello readers. I just got back from Aliaga, Turkey. Consists mainly of ports for the Liner vessels and oil & gas ships, Aliaga is a small town by the sea located about 300 kilometers away from Istanbul and 500 kilometers from the capital city of Turkey, Ankara. Our 5 days journey from Egypt had us traveling through scattered islands before entering the Aegean Sea to Aliaga.


The weather was cold of temperatures ranging from 10 to 15 degrees. As i was about to go home, weather such as this doesn't bother me much. Malaysia was by then just hours away (literally).

The terminal, far left with two big white tanks

LNG cargo from the ship goes right into the big white tanks

The Tugboat, it helps in berthing the ship safely to the port

It was partly disappointing signing off here in Turkey, without being able to roam the streets and brush shoulders with the Turks. I had to wake up early in the morning, packed in a little bit of clothes left out of the luggage and went straight to van, which after a few minutes of arranging our 30 kilos plus plus bag in the boot, sped of to the airport.

And this guy was doing about 140 km/h all the way (thank god there weren't any honks as how it was in Egypt last time). What i initially thought was funny about stories where seafarers get 'land sick' after months on board ships with seasickness, did really happened to me after all. Add in 10minutes from the 1st gear at the front of the port's gate, i was already leaning my head to the window, totally ignoring the bumps and humps of the car.

Typical Turkish mosque

There were a lot of typical Ottoman mosques, but i am not really sure if they have suraus, as what we have here in Malaysia. In heavily dense housing settlements along the highway, you can see a lot of these type of Mosques. Influenced by the Byzantines, these type of mosques comes with the Ottoman styled Cupolas.

In one of the many tunnels along the way

Nice paved Highways

To get back to Malaysia, we need to board our first plane in Izmir, about and hour drive from the port. We had a minor scare before entering the airport because the agents refused to follow us inside to check us in.

Our bags, mine in particular, was above 30 kilos. For our domestic flights, which is from Izmir to Istanbul, the limit was 20 kilos. And for international flights, Istanbul to Singapore and then to Malaysia, seafarers are entitled for 40 kilos. Luckily at the counter, the stewardess checked us all in as international flights, and my 30 over kilo bag was spared.

We had a bumpless flight from Izmir, and we only had about an hour of transiting time in Istanbul's Attaturk Airport. It was disappointing too when the four of us havent had enough time to browse around the free duty shopping zones. i can only look at the gift shops from afar during customs checking (which took us almost hafl an hour! damn slow!) .

Our Wau is flying everywhere. Proud to be Malaysian :)

Our twelve hours flight from Istanbul got us arriving in Malaysia at around 930am Malaysian time. It was very tiring, but nonetheless, all the tiredness is gone with my loved ones waiting at the gate. My parents, Kal and Haneem. I wish i had snapped the pictures of us together but i was busy finishing up my KFC.

I am sorry if this first post of mine is a bit boring and the pictures are not that great. I guess there's still room for improvements in the future, InsyaAllah.

I hope there will be more journeys in store for me. Taggers?

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