Mission: Istaanbul

Just 8 months ago i was in a dingy Delhi guesthouse room suffering from (appropriately enough) Delhi belly flipping through some glossy magazines - and this caught my eye. Suave. =) I wished i could go to Istanbul - just the name itself sounded magical, exotic, faraway.

And its barely 3 months now before Istanbul. Mission begins 8 May 2009.

I will be doing the classic Istanbul to Cairo route, and then back again, in about 7 weeks. And i have circumvented my Israeli problem - apparently there is a ferry from Aqaba in Jordan to Egypt, Nuweiba, where i will make my way through the Sinai to Cairo, and then take a looong ferry ride to Cyprus and then on to Turkey. Or as my friend suggests, do the long way round by flying to Germany for a coffee (and free lodge) with some friends and then flying back to Istanbul, inexplicably cheaper at 150 euros or less than to fly direct for 20. Weird. And the best part: I just realised i don't need a schengen visa!!! How cool is that? I mean, the whole application can take up to months, even a full year, so i realise how lucky i am. (and how lucky us Malaysians are not to be slapped with a visa requirement for the UK even though we are not exactly a rich "first world" country...)

Oh and as an aside i really want to get Rory McLean's Magic Bus to relive the "magic" (in more ways than one) journeys in the 70s that started in Istanbul all the way to paradise in Nepal, but i don't think it's available yet here. Oh well, i might just have to get it online. Check out the journey here.

Current things to do:

1. Get a (real) ISIC card. I had wanted to get one in Bangkok (Oxford law faculty) along with a false passport to placate those dodgy guesthouse owners who insist on safekeeping your passport in case you do a runner (who probably have a lucrative sideline forging "books")...

2. That tetanus jab that has been postponed for years owing to my very manly fear of needles.

3. Renew passport - darn lucky i checked and found that Turkey has recently imposed a 1 year validity requirement for all visitors. Wouldn't want to end up with a Pasport Kecemasan (emergency passport) and pissed off embassy staff.