DAY 4 Had a great sleep and feel well prepared for the long bus trip towards Ankara, the capital city of Istanbul. Breakfast wasn't bad, but not as good a selection as in Istanbul. On the bus at 7:45 and we're good to go. The landscape quickly changed to something resembling a trip to Coober Pedy with large expanses of nothingness in the heart of the Anatolian Highland! Our first toilet stop was really lovely with wooden table settings indoors, clean facilit...

DAY 3 No sleep whatsoever for me and minimal for Aleisha, but there's no time to waste we move on...... 8am and we're on the bus on our way to the Grand Bazaar - located not far from Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque we visited yesterday. The Grand Bazaar is a major tourist attraction that all the tour companies show to their clients. It consists of a mall with alleyways branching off in different directions, housing over 4,000 tiny shops selling everything fr...

DAY 2 After a well deserved sleep of approx 10 hrs we were well prepared for a busy day.... It certainly didn't disappoint! We left at 8:30 and our first stop was Topkapi Seraglio which translates to Cannon Gate Palace. Wow, what a beautiful place - the residence of the Ottoman Sultans for 400 years, constructed in the mid 15th century. As well as a Royal residence it was a setting for state occasions and Royal entertainments. Today it's used as a museum. The ...

DAY 1 Spent a couple of hours sitting in a cafe at KL airport after eating yummy lasagne. Got chatting to a lovely lady from Washington DC who donated her japanese & malaysian coin collection to me when she saw how excited i was that i had finally got my first malaysian coin. Yeah you all know me by now, i get excited over tiny things :). She was quite obviously horrified when she found out our destination and wondered why we wanted to go there, at this pa...

On route to Kuala Lumpur: Hi everybody! Aleisha and I have begun our journey into the unknown (namely Turkey) on an adventure of a lifetime. Let me begin by saying that Adelaide Airport has never let me down! By that I mean, every single time (without any exaggeration) I have been pulled aside for a mandatory drug screening. Had I not had to go back to checkin because they made an error with my boarding pass I would have avoided the drama but no they got me aga...