Hasankeyf wasn’t on our itinerary a week ago. We were in the southeastern Anatolia region of Turkey to check out Urfa and Van Lake, before heading further north. As Martin explained here, we got a last minute tip from a family staying in our guesthouse. They told us that the town was a bit of [...]
Most of the countries we’ve traveled through on this one-year trip have one thing in common: sad excuses for wine. While they certainly can be forgiven for this, the fact remains that we’ve missed wine on our diet. Beer is nice (as I’ve reported about in a number of posts), but good wine can really [...]
I’d heard about the existence of Hasankeyf before. I’d told myself that it was one of those places we’d just have to miss because there’s so much else to see in Turkey. Thankfully, we listened to advice from a nice Canadian family we encountered and spent a few days there. We loved it. There are [...]
If we were honest, we’d have to admit that the dig at Göbekli Tepe was what brought us to Turkey. Martin wrote up a great piece about the dig and it’s significance here. While I think he went into great detail describing the place, I think it’s also fun to see it on video. [...]
When looking at the map, it is pretty evident that we’re a stone’s throw away from Syria, Iraq and Iran, place names that have a dangerous ring to western ears. Indeed, friends and family have expressed a bit of concern over our current whereabouts. Well, we can all relax! Any misgivings we may have had [...]
Göbekli Tepe is a world sensation. The site has been called the Garden of Eden, an archeological miracle and the missing link between hunter gatherer societies and agricultural societies. It is a mind-boggling twelve thousand years old – the oldest temple ever found. I suspect that in twenty years, the site will no longer need [...]
Martin’s advice on buying a Kurdish carpet was simple: You can’t win. That’s it. Just one rule; one that drove the proverbial nail in the coffin for a competitive girl like myself. I can’t win, huh? He explained further: men have been selling carpets here for thousands of years. They are Carpet Selling Supermen and [...]
Believe it or not: these carp were once the glowing coals of a fire set to roast the prophet Abraham alive. God Almighty understandably did not like to have his prophet roasted by infidels, so he created a spring underneath the fire. The result was an eruption that turned the coals into fish and flung [...]
A guy walked up to us on the street. He offered to take us to a place where they ‘sing without instruments’. Wary that he’d instead take us to his uncle’s carpet shop, he assured us that this certain pleasure was free of charge. What next transpired must be one of the most magical [...]
Our friends over at No Place to Be recently asked us what the least used item in our backpack was. I think I answered that it was my Blackberry (haven’t turned the thing on since May 2009), but that was before we picked up the gem above. Yep, it’s a plaster model of a section of [...]
We decided to do the tried-and-true travel method of getting to know a new city: get lost. Today’s adventure was through the back streets of Diyarbakir’s old town. What we found was a confusing but surprisingly clean labyrinth of ancient culture and architecture. You can check them out in this screen or see them [...]
When planning our trip to Turkey we knew just a few things about the country. One: we wanted to go. Two: it’s the seat of civilization (translation: people have been here a long, long time). Because we are the type of travelers we are, seeing just Istanbul and the Aegean Coast wasn’t going to do [...]
Being ancient isn’t necessarily a sign of excellence. Some things that have been around since forever are kept alive for the sake of tradition and/or pity. So, when someone mentioned that England’s oldest pub was around the corner, I didn’t think it would be particularly nice. Perhaps one of those over-priced, touristy and gimmicky places [...]
Once upon a time I was a mother. No, I didn’t have my own kids. But for a year and a half I was a mother to two amazing girls. How might I have accomplished such a feat, you ask? I was an au pair. It was a job I took sort of on [...]
We’re poor backpackers. I’ll just say that up front. We’ve been traveling for a year now, slowly bleeding money from our bank accounts. We’ve spent most of our time in SE Asia, India and Nepal, which means we’ve been able to stretch our money quite well – until now. For whatever reason (Martin and [...]
You know the saying, “to fly by the seat of your pants?” Well, that's been our philosophy for most of our adult lives – before and after meeting, falling in love and marrying. We're now taking that idea on an extended round-the-world trip. Follow us as we share the good, the bad and the downright nasty of life on the road.
