Hmm..kalau nak start entri ni dengan "it has been a while" walaupun memang dah lama..memang tiap2 entri lah "it has been a while" starting nye.. hhahahaa. Lama tak blogging. Ni tengah menganggur kita try lah isikan masa yang takde la banyak mana pun bila ko jaga anak kat umah untuk jimat lagi RM400 kan..tapi sis cuba ye. Ni pun masa nak start, baru prasan ada entri dalam draft pasal short vacation Pulau Perhentian dengan my family bulan 10 hari tu.hahaha.
So, this Winter Turkey Vacation was definitely not my plan to begin with. Pak Mertua ku yang berpencen rasa nak berjalan after the last UK Autumn trip 4 years ago. so dia jadi automatik la kat bini aku nak follow. I originally said I wont be going...like sternly saying it to my wife's face because I was thinking 2018 would be the last year of my project and my contract is until end of November so I dont think it's wise to spend thousands like almost 10K for a trip and once you got back from it, you are jobless!! So I keep telling I wont go and I thought my wife understood me.
Turned out after a while, after she had paid the booking fee of the agent..yep..they were planning to go with agent!! Coz they just wana go and dont want the headache to research about the accommodation, transport, itinerary bla bla bla...so they just let the agent does it. And I was so sure I wont be going. But suddenly during one of the dinner my wife asked "ayah awak..ok ke amek bilik double bed..ayah awak dengan xiyad..bla bla". I was like the fart? rupanya diam2 dia letak juga nama aku on the booking. Mulanya aku meghudul juga tak nak pergi (meghudul = berkeras), tapi fikir2, 4 tahun sekali and maybe happykan isteri akan mengundang rezeki walaupun I was so sure the trip will just mengundang sesalan secara financially, in the end ku turutkan jua...BUT, with a condition, flight anak2 wife ku tanggung...and dia sanggup bebbb..tuddia punya komited nak jalan oversea.
So pejam celik akhirnya sampai lah masa. I have changed some ringgit to Turkish Lira..700 Lira when I tought 8.4 was the best rate. Turned out it went down to 7.4 and we changed thousand of ringgit for the whole family. It was the best rate sebab after that I'm not sure whether Lira is getting stronger or ringgit is going weaker, it was just around 8.3.
My in-law family rendezvous at my place a day before and I just work from home on Friday 14th Dec because my project team were all going to Avani Sepang that same day for the project closure day-out..yah..I missed it. We already booked 3 taxis from Pakcik Dollah, our offical taxi whenever we need a ride to the airport. We checked everything every luggage and when we had already reached the airport, then it struck me "I LEFT MY WHOLE 700 LIRA IN MY DRAWER AT HOME!!!!". Argghhh!! Thats the price you paid when you over-prepared, changed your money so early..you just left it..I almost wana follow the taxi back to my home and paid again to drive me back to the airport, but I just dont wana think about it too much, I just let the bygone be bygone. Palat!!
So there I go, going to Turkey without any Lira. I didn't change it at KLIA nor in Istanbul Airport coz I thought I would get better exchange rate at the money changer around the places we gonna go. But nope!! Ringgit Malaysia is not a currency they wanna have. ye la..ingat macam malaysia kan..rugi tukar airport..mahal, tukar je kt lowyat ke atau kat money changer area2 bandar ni lagi ok..rupanya idakkkk.
So back to the story, our agent is Maghfirah Travel. One of the agent was already waiting in KLIA and she checked all of our luggages for us. We fly by Saudia Airlines to Jeddah first then to Istanbul Airport. Why Saudia Arabia and the transit? what kind of question laa..of course the cheapest they could get. And again, for this trip..I didn't give a damn about the itinerary, the airlines, I just let my wife do the planning. I just want her to take up the task of planning the travel. alah...yang lain semua ejen handle kot. The itinerary pun tak tengok pergi mana..I follow je. Our departure was 7:30 PM.
Transit at Jeddah is awful. Even sampai2 airport jeddah, you got this vibe that they are not really welcoming you. The waiting arena is so small, its like 2 rows of check-in counters of KLIA je, Sebab they dont have specific waiting area for each gate. Its one farting waiting area for the whole gates. Once you know which gate is your flight, every flight went into the same gate and you went by the shuttle bus. Mujur Xiyad ada bakat macam aku...tido je atas lantai tu..We prayed jamak maghrib and isyak and also subuh at Jeddah Airport.
Oh and this time so easy because Xiyad was so happy with the flight entertainment. 8 hours flight, he just played the video games. It's different when you reached Istanbul Airport. You feel welcomed, we have like 5 counters for foreigners and another 5 for Turkish Passport. But when the staff realized not many Turkish is entering, they opened those 5 counters to the foreigners. So it was a smooth immigration check for us. After we rounded up all of our luggages and rent the trolley for 1 Lira, tak macam KLIA, ko amek le berapa banyak troli free aje. memang le lepas pulang dapat balik 1 lira..tapi satu hal nak dapat kan syiling tau dak..kena beli something lah hape.
We emerged out around 11A.M Turkey time. Our tourist guide has already waited for us with "maghfirah" sign and so there he was, our tourist guide for 10 days of travel - Ahmed. Blue eyes, white hair and pro Attaturk. hahaha. Our ride was a 17-seater mercedes benz, mind you. drove by an old so turkishly figured Mr. Irfan whom doesn't speak english. The van, I think gonna call it van is extended..macam rumah kau..the back of the van was attached with an extended space for luggages which I think around one and a half feets wide which has all the taillight plate number and such looking like just the original rear of the van. It was a very convenient van with usb port at the back of each seats!!
So we headed to our first place of visit without further ado. Ahmed is a really particular with time. Everything needs to follow his time. But I understand why. He already estimated the best time for each places, the journey, not to get stuck in the traffic and everything. And he is talkative. Well he supposed to though. He tried his best to give stories about places or landmarks that we saw along the way. One of his rule is not to take picture while walking but I said to him "I'd catch up..no worries".
He brought us for lunch first. We had our first Turkish cuisine - kebab. Then we went to the blue mosque and the places nearby. The first place was the Hipodrome Square where it used to hold a carriage races. He gave a very long story of each places which most of us did not care to listen, but to earn a respect, you need to give respect first. So I just listen to it while the chilliness embraced me.
We asked to perform our prayer and it was zuhur time when we performed our prayers in the Blue Mosque. I learnt about how you can perform ablution, wudhu' without taking off your stocking. You just need to tap2 your stocking with your wet, but doesnt need to be that wet hands. And it comes in handy when the ablution area is outside the mosque and you wear a boots. Alhamdulillah ruhsoh yang aku gunakan sepenuhnya. Air dia time wudhu n buang air takyah cerita la...sejuk ya rabbi.
And I think most of you guys already knew, turki ni nama je negara islam, majoritinya islam sekular. Ahmed tak semayang pun. My FIL already had some talks with him which I overheard after I finished my prayer. For Ahmed, he met a lot of fucked-up Muslims, so he just be a Muslim the way he chose and entirely up to his own understanding. May Allah lead him back to the right way of islam.
After prayer, we visited Hagia Sofia before we had a loong drive to our hotel which we arrived around 6PM. The good thing about Ahmed strict timing, he always ensure that we arrived at our hotel around 6PM. So we could checked-in and then head for dinner. Every single day.
We stopped one time a rest-area called PAUSE. In Turkey the rest area is not under one same company like we have PLUS or LPT RnR. Every rest area belongs to independence company. Some locals asked me to take their pictures after looking at my dslr and asked me to straight send it to his instagram. My dlsr doesnt have wifi feature so I just snapped a selfie with my phone and send it to his instagram. I took some pictures while waiting for the rest to finish their washroom businesses. The view behind the rest area is quite nice as well.
After hours of driving, we finally reached our first hotel - Soylu Otel. We checked in, the staff took our luggage to our doorsteps and we just had our dinner with a mineral water as drink. Turned out, im not sure its because of the winter marketing where they can get more money when people started ordering hot drinks, they don't provide hot drinks during the dinner buffet. Even when we lunched outside, they only provide mineral water. We need to pay 5 Lira to fill up the tumbler for Fiya's milk. But Ahmed always the one asking on behalf of us so we did not have to pay any. Luckily unlike UK where during the cold walk you could see coffee shop everywhere around you, Turki isn't like that. So I did not have a strong desire to get a cup of coffee all the time. Ahmed said they are not a coffee producer country but they have their own Turkish Coffee that they are so proud of and suggested me to try it.
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