Category Archives: Travel

Travel

Mt. Etna, Catania, Sicily, Italy

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Namaste,

This was my first visit to a LIVE volcano. Thanks to my husband he asked me to select one location for trip. Undoubtedly I would say, it will be seeing a volcano. There is small reason behind selecting volcano. While studying geology once in our class our professor mentioned his historic quote “Unfortunately India has no Volcano” Except for a mud volcano. SO, for a moment we all were looking at each other in class. When we were thinking oh since we never had volcano we can never make a field trip to learn volcano and learn it. Before someone jump to a judgmental mode. The statement was made for educational purpose and nothing else. I have taken geology subject as  I love to go to field and our teachers really made us love the subject. Since  I belong to western region of India, from Maharashtra. This area is a Deccan Basalt from fissure eruption so I have seen enough of Igneous rocks. First we thought of Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii region but eventually made it to Mt. Etna. This trip was quick vacation trip for our first wedding anniversary.

Our hotel was very near to Aci Castello. We landed early so we just kept our bags and took a walk along this Italian coastline. It has amazing huge villas. Very expensive place. Highly sophisticated. Calm and quite and very less people around to be seen. This castle was amazing place some 4 bucks entry fees per person. We had a nice sea view enjoyed the place. I had already taken glimpses of huge Mt. Etna from flight and road journey as it is high relief. It is huge and massive structure.

Next day we had a trip booked online to visit Mt. Etna Volcano. There was a lady guide who picked us from the hotel. We were worried as she came little late and there was no communication from the online service provider. We just made online payment. There was another British couple with us on this trip. Bit older age couple. The guy was worried and kept making sarcastic comments on the lady driver if she had appeared driving license and stuff like that. He was worried for speeding and lane changing issues. We reached at the foot hill of volcano. From here we were taken into a bus a sturdy bus that took us uphill on volacno. The entire view was amazing.  I was trilled for my visit. Also remembered my teacher on the day. The huge gigantic black giant. Who remains silent for a while. Just few weeks ago before our visit, volcano was active. All we can see is continuous gases oozing out with dust. While climbing uphill in bus, we stopped at a place where they showed us an old remains of a building that was gone under volcanic erruption. In my picture you can see the place where we are standing is roof and it is 3 floors down submurged.

vol

 

The place was little chilled in morning. At places we could see some melting ice. The entire volcano appears like sand dune in black colour.  As the new guide from bus took our group to  crater where we could see fumes coming from ground. Also you can smell Sulphur fumes with little bit of burning sensation to eyes. Nothing much to worry about. It is worth taking such an experience.

Expectation Vs Reality: We had fun while discussing about how volcanoes are formed and and stuff like that. My husband wanted to see lava flow. So I had to explain that if there is lava flow active we won’t be allowed to visit this place. Everything will be closed and braced for evacuation and stuff like that. It is not his fault. Its very facinatig to see how volcano erupts in videos. Those are made by people who escape and reach such regions to capture the magic of nature. So if you are plannig to visit volcano keep in mind that you will not see active lava eruptions. Just for your information, there are different stages of volcanoes. Active, dormant and dead. Active are those where activity is noticed, dormant which are dangerous those have not shown any activity in recent years, but can erupt any time and dead are those which are just remnants of crater now. The time of activeness is geologic time that is counted in millions of years and not few decades or centuries. So even if a volcano has erupted few centuries ago. Its status will be active. There are certain places in Hawaii where they have excursions that has boat trips and chopper trips to places where lava flows can be seen.

There is a cable car which is bit expensive roughly 40 euros per person that takes you up to a crater of 2012 eruption. If you love nature you will spend extra money and get to and see this view. This information will help you to be prepared for additional cost. There are special tours that take you to actual crate opening. Those are special licensed guides they are prepared for special situations. The sand on the volcano is coarse and not fine sand. It is not compacted but loose. It is basically ash that keeps flying out. All the active volcanoes are monitored for slightest tremors or activities with the help of satellite. Mostly eruption is seen with changes in regular eruption of gasses and dust frequencies. SO if you are planning there is nothing to worry about it. This regular ash that flies to longer distances. Finer sand/ash is reported to be found settled in southern African continents. This bring highly enriched nutrition to soil and also to the oceanic waters. The crater that we visited was newly formed crater at 2012. Initially when the main crater was fully active the lava spread in all directions. Now there is a natural boundary created so even if there is a proper flow of lava it will be in a channel along south south east as mentioned by our guide. Its only if you go up hill you get to experience how are these natural forces working and it is so huge.

As we travelled down our next location was Lava Tube. Now what is Lava tube. when the lava is flowing underneath its channel is like a hollow tube. where surface is dried crust and hot molten lava can flow inside these tubes. These lava tubes can extend from few meters to few kilometers to few miles. Our guide mentioned there are lava tubes that are deep underground and extend from Catania to Malta Islands. going south. The Lava Tube that we visited was same and not shown any activity in geologic recent times. We walked till roughly 20 minutes. We were given helmet and torch. The ground was not flat surface but it was uneven and she even showed us certain features inside those were amazing. Like walls of the volcanic tube flakes out as lava is cooling inside. I will cover that part in my video.

As the volcanic land is most fertile land we took an opportunity and had a local winery visit and a semi precious stones store factory.

 

 

 

 

General, Health, Travel

The reason behind…

Leave a comment

Dear all readers,

Namaste!

If you want to express something it all comes in your mind, when you are tired exhausted want to just go to sleep or do nothing. I mean with the subjects, topics or ideas. An an idea just enters wild in your brain and keeps you up always.

I am having a storm of thoughts in mind while I am writing this article. Reality is not a subject that is well scripted, well organized or neat and clean. Before you read this I am trying to put an idea that I am sharing an experience and trying to give you a idea for reasoning something. There is this misconception of India that people follow old rituals or superstitious beliefs. On which there are certain things that needs to be seen and considered. After spending time out of India I realize that no one can really understand how amazing were the beliefs and how well they were incorporated in a society to be a better place to live. There are so many examples that can be given. In old days there were no LPG gas for domestic cooking purpose. SO, the cooking used to be done on traditional chulha made out of mud and cow dung.

The fuel for this chullha was also dried cow dung discs, those are gathered and preserved in the form of dried discs. 

Entire flooring in house was also made of mud and cow dung. This was considered to be most hygienic way of living. It was in all houses rich or poor all. For every coming festivals there will be new layer of mud and cow dung mixture. It is still practiced in few part of India in rural areas. I have had an opportunity to live with my grand mom during my childhood in such house. Roof were not single roof but tiles fitted layer above layer in a rows and columns overlapping with each other. This not only kept house cool and pleasant but also well ventilated. If you get an opportunity to stay in a place like this. Stay there and see it is the best way of living I have experienced it.  I am sure those who had this experience of living in such place would absolutely agree in this. I also believe that since we are moving in the new age of urban jungles, we or next few generations will be the last to experience or know about this kind of lifestyle. In those days when there were no toothpaste and tooth brush, people used to clean their teeth by using fine powder of Charcoal mixed with salt in it or green stem of Neem tree was chewed. Indians were strongly criticized for this kind of ‘considered unhygienic lifestyle’ practices. Today toothpaste companies sale their product for having salt and neem in it. While market is full of cosmetics made from Charcoal which are hot sales today. I am sure many companies are making packages from part of Indian lifestyle and making huge fortune out of it.

Menstruation is yet another myth that has a different understanding in India till now. Following are some beliefs that are still followed:

  • 5 days no touching god idol or enter inside premises of temples.
  • Head bath on 4th and 5th day of cycle.
  • In some houses ladies are asked to sit in one place in the house and not allowed to do any work or touch anything, they are provided food and water in one place.
  • Cannot participate in holy or auspicious celebrations in the group.

I am sure there must be many more beliefs and customs that might have been followed or practiced in different parts of India. I believe these practices were always misinterpreted and never were given a scientific outlook on it.

To understand this aspect one must know that in India there are few things done differently than rest of the world. For example Everyday early morning yoga then shower then offering prayers and then have a breakfast. Some parts of India even practice of entering kitchen only after taking shower and tied hair. The house is cleaned everyday dusting, broom your entire house and surrounding premises, watering plants and washing and drying clothes. These activities are covered mostly by a lady of the house which also includes preparation of breakfast fresh lunch box that goes with people stepping out for work or school by 07:45a.m. or even early. Let me add one a point to the daily activities that, India is the only place who has more than 100 vegetarian dishes that can be made for breakfast. Rest all parts of world has egg to support this aspect. Of course with added roles and responsibilities, pattern of executing morning work is shuffled for working-out mornings task and breakfast with more ready to make options also added egg option with supplements. The point is not to compare India with rest of the world its to see the work load that early morning Indians practice. Now let’s go back in the time, may be 30-40 years. In this case you can add up a joint family system but same work load. Actually, I would say more amount of work load. Water was fetched from near by wells. There were not many mixer grinder, blenders or food processors, for mixing masalas or day in day out activities. Scale of cooking  food is huge due to joint family system that goes from  breakfast, 5 meal lunch to snacks, and then end with 5 meal dinner. There is no pattern of leftover foods or same food in entire day. It was all freshly cooked food different twice a day and different every day. In the staple there is Chpati/bhakri item compulsory. so there was regular need of flour approximately 20-40kg per month for 6 people family. This has to be brought from market along with other lentils and spices. They will sit and clean them manually. Take it in a flour mill and bring it back that is roughly 10kg tin box. During summer ladies will take-up a joint tasks of preparing papads, pickles, jams and other items that were tedious and compulsory. These items are prepared during summer from March end to June. These needs really hard work as it is done during day time at peak sunlight and bright sunny day.

It used to be a joint task that will be planned by ladies in neighboring areas considering their menstrual cycles they will plan and make these products at home. This needs to be prepared spread under sunlight dried and stored in right methods. The food that is cooked daily will be offered to god first as neivadyam and then to entire family. Also during festivals there are special food being made also with this papad and pickle offerings in food plate to god. SO a menstruating women will not even touch this food items kept in house. During festivals there are some other items those are home made items prepare more. Sweets and Namkeen’s. More of work added to the lady. So it is my understanding that practice of making lady sit in one place during her menstruation is not to make her feel that she is dirty or untouchable.

It is for her to take off from the non stop work and relax and gather energy for work in next cycle. This is one of the reason I see that a lady is allowed to completely rest while she is menstruating. Add few more years, may be 20 years. There were no sophisticated equipment that could help  for a lady in kitchen or cooking room. There were no flour mills but a huge and heavy cut rocks for making flour. Preparing milk and milk products were yet another manual tasks. Also, in those times there were no disposable sanitary napkins available. Its the old worn off cotton sarees those were torn and folded and used instead of pads. These clothes were then washed and reused and dried in sunlight. The smell of these clothes were too bad in such times travelling or walking was too difficult. As there used to be scars on legs till you bleed. Bathrooms were not well equipped with running tap water but it was stored limited water that used to be available for cleanliness and hygiene that we enjoy today.

In my view all the pilgrimage or old temples in India were located in far of distance places for which you need to travel from difficult terrains and even some time jungles. Suppose if a lady is menstruating and she is travelling from jungle with basic bullock cart or so, possibility of wild animal attack due to open smell of blood is very high. Secondly the places are not having any well equipped water supply and bathrooms for lady to take care of her hygiene and sanitation. Later all the temples are always having busy areas in the surrounding where there is a crowded markets, lots of noise and also there are lots of chanting’s bell sounds dhol or other instruments being played to invoke god. I am sure many of the ladies can actually understand their menstruating phases some times lots of sound becomes unbearable. Due to hormonal changes a lady experience lots of excitement, anxiety and different mood swings. Getting control over thoughts and feeling is very difficult. Many ladies have wired behavior which they realize but do not understand how can they bring control over it. This a natural phenomenon. In Indian culture women only is suggested to rest during menstruation and not do anything. The ritual of not going to sacred places is only a scientific approach of people from olden days who wanted to give full comfort to the menstruating lady who needs to rest and relax.  This is the only reason  I can understand that a girl who is not menstruating is called ‘Kumari’ and a lady post her menstruation is over can visit some sacred places. If a lady is menstruating in house it will not be discussed it will be understood that she goes in resting for 5 days. The cults those were meant to follow are having a scientific reasons or implications and not a blind faiths. To understand those we must travel back in time when those were made. Today there are much improved sanitization in most parts of world. We have all the advance equipment that help in cooking or daily household work. Challenges that ladies in olden days faced were of course difficult, but I feel that modern world challenges are different but they do exist in different ways or forms. Its an individuals choice to interpret things in your own way.  Any of the ritual followed during menstrual phase just think on these story line and you will get your answers. Its all about body, mind and soul. If your body, mind and soul is perfectly fit only then you can have a better vison on seeing things and that is nothing but ‘Divya Drishti – Powerful Divine Vision’.

General, Health, Travel

The reason behind…

Leave a comment

Dear all readers,

Namaste!

If you want to express something it all comes in your mind, when you are tired exhausted want to just go to sleep or do nothing. I mean with the subjects, topics or ideas. An an idea just enters wild in your brain and keeps you up always.

I am having a storm of thoughts in mind while I am writing this article. Reality is not a subject that is well scripted, well organized or neat and clean. Before you read this I am trying to put an idea that I am sharing an experience and trying to give you a idea for reasoning something. There is this misconception of India that people follow old rituals or superstitious beliefs. On which there are certain things that needs to be seen and considered. After spending time out of India I realize that no one can really understand how amazing were the beliefs and how well they were incorporated in a society to be a better place to live. There are so many examples that can be given. In old days there were no LPG gas for domestic cooking purpose. SO, the cooking used to be done on traditional chulha made out of mud and cow dung.

The fuel for this chullha was also dried cow dung discs, those are gathered and preserved in the form of dried discs. 

  •  

Entire flooring in house was also made of mud and cow dung. This was considered to be most hygienic way of living. It was in all houses rich or poor all. For every coming festivals there will be new layer of mud and cow dung mixture. It is still practiced in few part of India in rural areas. I have had an opportunity to live with my grand mom during my childhood in such house. Roof were not single roof but tiles fitted layer above layer in a rows and columns overlapping with each other. This not only kept house cool and pleasant but also well ventilated. If you get an opportunity to stay in a place like this. Stay there and see it is the best way of living I have experienced it.  I am sure those who had this experience of living in such place would absolutely agree in this. I also believe that since we are moving in the new age of urban jungles, we or next few generations will be the last to experience or know about this kind of lifestyle. In those days when there were no toothpaste and tooth brush, people used to clean their teeth by using fine powder of Charcoal mixed with salt in it or green stem of Neem tree was chewed. Indians were strongly criticized for this kind of ‘considered unhygienic lifestyle’ practices. Today toothpaste companies sale their product for having salt and neem in it. While market is full of cosmetics made from Charcoal which are hot sales today. I am sure many companies are making packages from part of Indian lifestyle and making huge fortune out of it.

Menstruation is yet another myth that has a different understanding in India till now. Following are some beliefs that are still followed:

  • 5 days no touching god idol or enter inside premises of temples.
  • Head bath on 4th and 5th day of cycle.
  • In some houses ladies are asked to sit in one place in the house and not allowed to do any work or touch anything, they are provided food and water in one place.
  • Cannot participate in holy or auspicious celebrations in the group.

I am sure there must be many more beliefs and customs that might have been followed or practiced in different parts of India. I believe these practices were always misinterpreted and never were given a scientific outlook on it.

To understand this aspect one must know that in India there are few things done differently than rest of the world. For example Everyday early morning yoga then shower then offering prayers and then have a breakfast. Some parts of India even practice of entering kitchen only after taking shower and tied hair. The house is cleaned everyday dusting, broom your entire house and surrounding premises, watering plants and washing and drying clothes. These activities are covered mostly by a lady of the house which also includes preparation of breakfast fresh lunch box that goes with people stepping out for work or school by 07:45a.m. or even early. Let me add one a point to the daily activities that, India is the only place who has more than 100 vegetarian dishes that can be made for breakfast. Rest all parts of world has egg to support this aspect. Of course with added roles and responsibilities, pattern of executing morning work is shuffled for working-out mornings task and breakfast with more ready to make options also added egg option with supplements. The point is not to compare India with rest of the world its to see the work load that early morning Indians practice. Now let’s go back in the time, may be 30-40 years. In this case you can add up a joint family system but same work load. Actually, I would say more amount of work load. Water was fetched from near by wells. There were not many mixer grinder, blenders or food processors, for mixing masalas or day in day out activities. Scale of cooking  food is huge due to joint family system that goes from  breakfast, 5 meal lunch to snacks, and then end with 5 meal dinner. There is no pattern of leftover foods or same food in entire day. It was all freshly cooked food different twice a day and different every day. In the staple there is Chpati/bhakri item compulsory. so there was regular need of flour approximately 20-40kg per month for 6 people family. This has to be brought from market along with other lentils and spices. They will sit and clean them manually. Take it in a flour mill and bring it back that is roughly 10kg tin box. During summer ladies will take-up a joint tasks of preparing papads, pickles, jams and other items that were tedious and compulsory. These items are prepared during summer from March end to June. These needs really hard work as it is done during day time at peak sunlight and bright sunny day.

  • Fetching water
  • Home flour mill – made of heavy rocks!
  • Before mixer grinder
  • Sources of grinding before mixer and food processor.

It used to be a joint task that will be planned by ladies in neighboring areas considering their menstrual cycles they will plan and make these products at home. This needs to be prepared spread under sunlight dried and stored in right methods. The food that is cooked daily will be offered to god first as neivadyam and then to entire family. Also during festivals there are special food being made also with this papad and pickle offerings in food plate to god. SO a menstruating women will not even touch this food items kept in house. During festivals there are some other items those are home made items prepare more. Sweets and Namkeen’s. More of work added to the lady. So it is my understanding that practice of making lady sit in one place during her menstruation is not to make her feel that she is dirty or untouchable.

It is for her to take off from the non stop work and relax and gather energy for work in next cycle. This is one of the reason I see that a lady is allowed to completely rest while she is menstruating. Add few more years, may be 20 years. There were no sophisticated equipment that could help  for a lady in kitchen or cooking room. There were no flour mills but a huge and heavy cut rocks for making flour. Preparing milk and milk products were yet another manual tasks. Also, in those times there were no disposable sanitary napkins available. Its the old worn off cotton sarees those were torn and folded and used instead of pads. These clothes were then washed and reused and dried in sunlight. The smell of these clothes were too bad in such times travelling or walking was too difficult. As there used to be scars on legs till you bleed. Bathrooms were not well equipped with running tap water but it was stored limited water that used to be available for cleanliness and hygiene that we enjoy today.

In my view all the pilgrimage or old temples in India were located in far of distance places for which you need to travel from difficult terrains and even some time jungles. Suppose if a lady is menstruating and she is travelling from jungle with basic bullock cart or so, possibility of wild animal attack due to open smell of blood is very high. Secondly the places are not having any well equipped water supply and bathrooms for lady to take care of her hygiene and sanitation. Later all the temples are always having busy areas in the surrounding where there is a crowded markets, lots of noise and also there are lots of chanting’s bell sounds dhol or other instruments being played to invoke god. I am sure many of the ladies can actually understand their menstruating phases some times lots of sound becomes unbearable. Due to hormonal changes a lady experience lots of excitement, anxiety and different mood swings. Getting control over thoughts and feeling is very difficult. Many ladies have wired behavior which they realize but do not understand how can they bring control over it. This a natural phenomenon. In Indian culture women only is suggested to rest during menstruation and not do anything. The ritual of not going to sacred places is only a scientific approach of people from olden days who wanted to give full comfort to the menstruating lady who needs to rest and relax.  This is the only reason  I can understand that a girl who is not menstruating is called ‘Kumari’ and a lady post her menstruation is over can visit some sacred places. If a lady is menstruating in house it will not be discussed it will be understood that she goes in resting for 5 days. The cults those were meant to follow are having a scientific reasons or implications and not a blind faiths. To understand those we must travel back in time when those were made. Today there are much improved sanitization in most parts of world. We have all the advance equipment that help in cooking or daily household work. Challenges that ladies in olden days faced were of course difficult, but I feel that modern world challenges are different but they do exist in different ways or forms. Its an individuals choice to interpret things in your own way.  Any of the ritual followed during menstrual phase just think on these story line and you will get your answers. Its all about body, mind and soul. If your body, mind and soul is perfectly fit only then you can have a better vison on seeing things and that is nothing but ‘Divya Drishti – Powerful Divine Vision’.

Travel

Pamukkale

Leave a comment

Namaste!

Welcome to my yet another travel blog. This is one of the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen. This is a Geo-Tourism site and on the top of the Wishlist of all the world travellers. The places is only visited because of its beautiful landscape a hill of travertine deposits. Pamuk means Cotton and Kale means Castle in Turkish language. Pamukkale is name of a place in Turkey. This place is located in western part of Turkey. One of the places after Cappadocia, that people visit. It is naturally occurring hill with mineral rich thermal water which gets deposited while flowing over the slopes. It is amazing landform with Travertine terraces. with its pure white appearances of travertine deposits it has naturally occurring terraces pockets that accumulate this oozing mineral rich water. In the premises there are Roman ruins of Hierapolis which has a spectacular amphitheater well preserved here. Also there is this thermal pool named as Cleopatra pool. You can take a dip in this medicinal pool rich in minerals. If you visit this place or if you are going to visit this place, please let me know, why this place is in your Wishlist? Is it for the beautiful photos or videos that you have seen or historic reason? If you are going to see the natural beauty of this landscape that means it is nature that has attracted you to spend one day of your entire lifetime in this place.

We visited this place around month of May. Weather is still cold here at that time of the year. I got to see this Pamukkale exposure in 3 different ways. Read full blog to find out how I did this. Here most of the hotels have Thermal Hotel in their suffix. Meanwhile if you are looking for cost effective options I would recommend you to club it with some other location. You can reach this place in morning and finish all the activity in one full day and travel to next location from here. You can either take over night bus option or fly from Denizli airport. Most of the hotels have shuttle service or they provide transfer facility.

As we reached early to this places we left our bags at hotel and left for our activity for the day. We had some snacks n the restaurant just bang opposite to the entrance of the hill. First we went to see the lake. We had a guide and a Mercedes Vito van hired with a guide for our full day trip with us for the reason. You can do that without guide. Lake is at the foot hill. It is very beautiful as you have background of hill and white lake with transparent waters. Here you get to see the entire exposure standing at its foot hills. It appears nice white waterfall and very peaceful to see fishes and ducks swimming in the lake. We spent roughly one hour here. There was not much crowd here. Just calm and peaceful. From here we could see people walking up on the exposures. I remembered my beautiful Khopoli and we used to keep watching all the vehicles travelling on the ghat (up hill road) section.

From here we were picked up by the paragliding company. We had taken paragliding adventure activity. My husband was bit worried as he kept saying that he had a fear for height, acrophobia. He was not fully convinced to do this activity. As we went in the van on the uneven hill it was more scary and thrilling. They took us to a spot and started putting our glider and harnesses. This is a tandem paragliding. Here you are flying with a pilot. More than my husband I was feeling scared. If you go for such activity with doubt in mind then it is not good. All you have to do is, you are standing in front of your pilot wearing full harness and helmate at an angular slope. Behind, your glider is slowly catching air in it. Once the wind blows in the glider the pilot will ask you to start running. There is little bit of run you need to do, down the slope. All the while I was just thinking that my glider is not going to go up and we will keep running till slope has ended. Just a stupid thought. These are licenced companies and pilots who take you on this activity. So, you just need to follow the instructions carefully and be extra careful to check yourself your own harnesses wisely. First they took my husband. As they started flying, I was so worried that my husband will be scared and now he is going to be angry on me to force in such activity. Keeping all that in one corner of my mind we were ready and my mind was still with my husband’s flight. Now I was more scared then my husband looked. If you have seen my video or photos you would realise that I am extra prepared for cold. I am already wearing full sleeves thick T-shirt and also wrapped a scarf. Just in case if it is cold I can tie my scarf. It was thrilling experience as there is no machinery taking you to fly its just natural wind and you are up in the air. As we were in air. I saw my husband smiling and had a sigh of relief. Finally I was up in the air. The pilot then adjusts your seat. You are in sitting position on the paragliding flight. Then he also removes your helmate and hangs it in the side. Then comes the fun of Go-Pro. It is attached and with your harnesses so no worries. I had mentioned this guy that I want full continuous video and not photos. He kept switching photo and videos. Also we felt that flight was really for small time. So when I wrote this on TripAdvisor.com They replied saying it is not having any machinery and it fly based on only wind conditions so they got us landed early. SO here I took what they say must be right. I was sure that they are also going to charge me for this photos and videos from both of our flights captured in GO-Pro camera.. There is a trick to bargain here. Do write to me in comment section ad I will mention how to get those clicks in cheaper cost. This will be exclusive for my readers only. If you want to visit Pamukkale and admire its beauty. This paragliding activity is must. You can see full landscape of Hierapolis ruins. It really appears beautiful. I was screaming so badly form up that people walking in the ruins are waving me hand. Finally I was flying over the main Pamukkale exposure and trust me it is like you are seeing a heaven. Its all white and glittery with water flowing over it. The exposure is really huge and maintained well as so many tourists visit here. Flying over it you can realise that we can create many marvels with the help of construction techniques but what natures serves us or shows is yet a mystery. We cannot master that art of creation but all we can do is see it and enjoy its beauty. Some places on Earth like this are must to visit and experience in a lifetime. It is beautiful expression of mother Earth. You may take lots of photos videos, but the memories of this visits will remain fresh and young in your mind. The most important part of this paragliding activity is landing. once your flight is done they put your helmate again on you. and mention you that you have to STAND and run. Do not sit as you are still moving ahead in wind direction with glider in action. You need to be really careful about your knees here. Mostly the glider has slowed down and then you slowly land and run. That was fun and thrill. As my husband had landed first. He managed to click pictures of my lading and he was happy. SO finally I mentioned him that the phobia never exist it is just theoretical expression. When you are young and have your body in good state. Please do this activity. It is not at all scary. Finally my huby agreed to what I said and was very happy.

After this we went to hotel for checked-in and post check-in we were informed to keep changing clothes, wear sports shoes and carry swim wear. We stayed at Richmond Pamukkale Thermal hotel for one night. Later now  I realised if I just clubbed my stay with some other location visit.  I would not have required to stay in hotel I would have spent my full day and then returned to next destination. By flight fairly 2-3 hours I would be in nearby next destination. Or even take a night bus and heed towards next destination. Hopefully my readers benefit from this. Post hotel check-in our guide and van took us up hill and then they parked the van and we carried our bags with us. There is a little bit of walk from the ruins. The surface is not even here. As we moved towards main Pamukkale exposure it was little crowded. If you are around April to May season in this area do not forget to see the wild Tulips in the region. I have some pictures of wild Tulips. You can definitely have a look at it.  I really wanted to see this Antique Cleopatra pool. While researching to go I was confused if these all are different places. It is one and the same place. There are some huge pillars those are broken and fallen. Also there is a small water inlet where you can stand below it.  Here there is a restaurant, some souvenir shops, if you have not bought towel, swimwear and stuff, that also you can buy here. There is per person entry fees  for this Antique Cleopatra pool. In the extreme corner, There are lockers where you can keep your clothes and bags along the changing room. The pool water was pretty hot. Initially I was finding excited to enter this antique pool but those antiques are bit annoying as your movements are not free, It is slippery. There a part behind the rope that is bit deep and with no antiques there you can swim in it. We spent nice good time dipping in the pool. The water is really heavy and full of mineral content. It is known to cure skin diseases and rheumatism. Mostly these thermal pools get water feeding from the near by natural source of geo-thermal heat. As we travel towards the core of Earth first layer is  hard crust that we live on. Second is mantle which is partly molten in state. The temperature gradient increases 35 degree Celsius per km towards the centre of the earth. As places where the crust is thin and there is some action, active between plate boundaries. The water from the near source of geo thermal gradient that comes up is hot water. At time temperature can go as high as 60 degree Celsius. This water has lots of dissolved minerals in it. SO taking a dip in such type of mineral rich water gives good effect on your body. As I tried to step out of pool I was pulled back. I felt my body became heavy and I had to wait for 2 minutes to understand that it is due to heavy water dip I am unable to stand. So then I slowly stepped out.

Post swimming we had nice food and then were on adventure trip. We then went to the main exposure of Pamukkale travertines. Here water is also hot water. Many people who do not want to pay and take a dip in Cleopatra pool do some adventure dress changing and soak themselves in this part. You have to remove shoes here. You are supposed to walk bare foot here. SO that formations (travertine deposits) won’t get spoiled. These pools have hot water but eventually as it flows it becomes cold. All the photos and videos that you see on internet are majority from this region. The stretch is quite long and most beautiful part of nature that you get to experience. This is the third mode that  I got to see Pamukkale.

Later we headed for the adventure of the day. The adventure was none of the people, driver, guide or both of us we did not know where we are going. I just put google maps and was guiding driver to drive. Our guide was really a funny guy. He kept on telling some part of history and about local ruins and some unacceptable knowledge Through the day. He kept telling us stories of other tourists how they were happy about travelling with him. We were not really into the history that he was trying to tell us. At the same time  he did not allow me to talk to driver on where I wanted to go next. He took name of places from me and started guiding driver verbally. My husband insisted on returning. The guide kept, driver taking us in all different locations. Then I was pretty angry and mentioned him look I don’t want to give up going this place just because you are not able to find it. Then I spoke to driver mentioned him the name Kaklik caves and then showed him map directions to drive. It was roughly 1 hour 50minutes drive from Pamukkale. Since we were not finding it  I used google maps. Google map shows correct location of this Kaklik cave. You can follow that. As a landmark you see a metallic dooms on a cami or a mosque that is along D320 main road. You have to take exact opposite turn to the mosque and follow a uneven road. In the vicinity you will see lots of Marble mining activity going on in the inner road. The exact point has this Kaklik cave exposure. The exact spot of Pamukkale that you saw. It is same exposure but it is totally underground. Though it is underground you can walk properly. There was entry fees of roughly 6TL per person. I have not searched if there is any public transportation available to go here. There is wooden deck to walk inside. As you are at the entrance. There is a small volcano like structure that is oozing water and though it was open space there was lots of sulphur smell. You don’t have to walk much inside but need to be careful of slippery surfaces and some places your shoes might get wet. The place is really well maintained for tourists to visit. Not many people know about this place. You see exact same terraces exposure that you see in Pamukkale but in underground cave. There is light arrangement here for seeing this site. Also there was one pool like structure that seems to be man made and there is place to sit and take this hot water dips. I have some nice photos and videos of this place. You can have a look at it on my Facebook Page “Vari – The Divine Journey” or wait for video updates to be posted on Instagram  #03kanchan account. Finally our funny tour guide was happy and he mentioned us that he had never knew about this place existed. He was working as tour guide in same area since past 25 years. You can see our driver becoming happy to visit this place with us in the upcoming video. This happens when a Geologists go on a vacation to see the natural marvels.

From here we went back to hotel. Here all hotels have there own thermal pool inside. If you see them you may have  dicey mind whether to seriously enter that. As it is turbid green colour and you cannot see anything in it. Comparatively Cleopatra is much better and water is transparent enough. So it is up to you if you wish to take a dip where Cleopatra made herself beautiful or small exposures to help you.

Hope my blogs on geo-tourism sites are providing you some insightful information. What all is available for you to do in this region? What is the importance of the place? If you have any queries or some additional information please do write me.  I would love to read from my readers. Till my next travel and next blog. See you all. Keep travelling. We are living on heaven called Earth. Explore it to the fullest!

Travel

Trabzon and Rize

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Namaste,

Dear friends welcome to my another journey of geo-tourism sites. I am travelling and writing about my experiences. Where, how and when? You must be here with several reasons. Either you read all my blogs or you are planning to take a trip to the title place or you are planning your trip to this region. Simply you may also like to just read about different places. Let me tell you, pack your bag and just get out of house. It is a journey called Vari. You just have to experience the heaven that we leave on. You cannot just sit in one place. Just pack your basic bag and start going out. This is one life, to experience the forces of nature. Your mind will stagnate if you sit in one place and do same routine monotonous activity. Leave all the ties behind and just take your travel partner with you. You will see how people in different part of the world they leave. What the eat and so on. You will get whole new world for yourself. I really write to motivate people to feel the nature’s beauty from my words and step out of house. If out of all my blogs even one blogs inspires you to step out of your comfort zone and enjoy. I have won a success of life time my divine journey is successful and complete. If you do not have travel partner, just share my blog to them and they will understand on why you are sharing my blogs to them and see the magic.

While I was researching on my Trabzon and Rize plan  I read lots of information on this place. There was one blogger who mentioned this in the review ” Living in Turkey for 25 years, I loved this country for its natural beauty, but after 25 years when I visited Artvin I felt I was un aware about this most beautiful place existed till now” As I was seeing photos I felt the words of that traveller. Artvin is in the same area of Trabzon and Rize. SO I made up that yes we are going to this place. Generally my husband gives me dates and asks me to make a plan. I do all basic selecting an area and do all the research, finding hotels comparing costs. SO, I get an benefit to choose all geo-tourism sites. Later we sit together and discuss with all different aspects of the place and see all the logistics and finalise the place. Discussion is best part as we find all the loop holes in the travel plan and fix them much before.

We stayed in Trabzon for one night at Zorlu hotel in the middle of the city center. The city center was very nice place just can finish over s small walk around. There was some museum and stuff like that. We just skipped and enjoyed the cold weather.  There is not much for us to see in this area. SO, We earlier thought of visiting Summela monastery which was under construction and closed for tourists to enter. So we had hired a tour guide and a Mercedes Vito Van as this area is hilly. There was a family who had visited this place earlier and rented a car for drive. Which got stuck in middle of no where. Also, they were with kids. Driving conditions were not very great. The roads are narrow and need to have bit of good hands on driving.

We wanted basically to stay by the Black Sea where obviously we wanted to eat some fish from black sea. We were there around early  November. As we visited this area, they mentioned it is non touristic season and there is not much fish available during this season. Initially I had checked some hotels in Rize area. I read some reviews and over that we choose to live in Babillion Hotel, Spa and Restaurant. Though the hotel was empty later I discovered this was a right decision that we made. Once you read the blog you would realise that was right decision to do that. SO far you must have got really low impression on my this trip but here is the turn of the actual trip Our day 1 was in Trabzon where we did not find much activity to do. On second day we went to a valley. It was so cold here we had some beautiful pictures. In India I have not visited the paradise called Kashmir but trust me every step every picture that I clicked here kept telling me inside, this is very similar to Kashmir As I see in pictures. I am going to have Kashmir as my topmost visit will wait for that lifetime experience. Again the reason behind that is our professor for Geology in my college. While studying Geology, he used to mention Leh, Ladakh is a book of Structural Geology. All the stories of their filed trip are still part of my Wishlist to go and see Kashmir valley. So now you know that how excited and happy I was visiting this place. We were on a very beautiful setup. We clicked some nice photos here. Here we just had a backdrop of Summela Monastery but the valley and flowing river stream between the rocks was such a beautiful treat to watch. Here there was a small tea stall, which was very traditional Turkish one. It was very cold out here roughly 2 degree Celsius.  There was this typical Turkish Chay glass kept in hot water and then tea is filled from the tap. The valley was such a beautiful view. It was across the flowing river. If you have some understanding over how the uplifted mountain that undergoes enormous stress and stain. Also the rocks break along the weaker zones and river flows along this cracks or weaker zones eventually keep cutting the pathway. At the same time the places where it is freezing cold and also experience summer. Rocks keep breaking due to this alternate hot and cold weather conditions and you can see uneven rocks broken and carried in this water channel. At the same time when this broken rock fragments undergo transportation in flow they start getting rounded. Different rocks exhibit different phase of roundness. It says about its transportation history and also the transportation medium can be found out with certain analysis on sediments. So basically this area has high to medium grad of metamorphosed (origin – sedimentary  rocks) also it places yo can see overlying basaltic rock. The area Trabzon is named due to its exposures of columnar basaltic rock in the area.

From here we travelled towards Rize area. Here we mentioned our guide, that we just want to see some beautiful places over historical places. As we just shifted to next hotel we had only half a day to travel here. I have more video of this valley than to write about this valley. This region is know for its Tea plantation. Here at places we could see some advertising for White river water rafting. just incase if you are interested you can refer to my videos. As the weather was pretty cold and our drive was along the valley we stopped nearly after 2 hours to a next spot. Here also it was a Turkish Tea just to get refreshed again. For me it was fine I was not finding it much cold. I just kept enjoying the nature and beautiful valley drive and seeing the phases of rocks. At places you can see really huge Columnar basalt structure. This tea house was by the river and there was this first bridge that we came across. You can refer to my pictures on my Facebook page “Vari – The Divine journey” or also follow me on Instagram #03kanchan Here I was wondering why did we wait. As we were sitting there were school picnic children who had just come and was very noisy over there. At the same time there came the owner of the places, who was also the owner of the tea plantation in the area. The guide introduced us and the moment he came to know that we are Indian we got really very special treatment over there. We were offered Turkish chai  I preferred Turkish coffee. As I said Orta the owner was on top of the world. How can a foreigner like Turkish coffee and ask orta sheker? Mena while me and my husband was confused why he started giving us VIP treatment. Then as I started to talk in little bit of Turkish that I know. He said, Indian tea, Darjeeling tea is number one in the world.  I told him that we are from Mumbai area. Still he treated us like we were some owner of Tea plantation in India. Then he said our tea is also good tea. Initially we were thinking he wanted to sell his tea to us. At the best we could have bought 1kg Tea. SO then we realised with association with his business he had great respect due to Indian quality of tea. We had a small river trolley activity here and then moved ahead across the valley. On the slopes of tree plantation we could see some manual trolleys were attached to sent grocery or daily material up hill. This day was just seeing tea plantation and valley.

Our next day was yet another beautiful location. It was Uzungöl. Basically Göl means lake. This is a long drive and uphill. As our car was climbing we could see the place is at certain altitude and has had snow fall in the recent time. As we moved ahead temperature was dropping gradually. This was something I was experiencing for first time in my life. A half frozen lake. I never had seen such a beautiful view in my life before. In India only northern and north eastern part has cold climate and that too  at high altitude paces it snows. Also its a border areas so less of touristic spots to visit. Entire year India experiences only monsoon and summer. There is winter for few weeks that you do not need much of winter wear in that week. It just becomes dry. I have seen snow fall but this valley view is amazing. Surprisingly this valley had snow fall for a whole week before our visit. Here on hill we could see there were some wooden hotels. Seeing them I realised that I had read review hotels of this area. As houses and view is beautiful but you need to carry your bags uphill from the snow and also in the houses you need to carry them or the local staff helps you in this. I am getting bit filmy here. I am posting a link for a Indian movie song with amazing music. The song is filmed in Kashmir valley. My ultimate dream destination. Put your earphones and listen to this  This is the exact feel that was running in my mind at this spot. I played like a child here. Not much people but there were some Arab tourists here. I can’t wait to post my videos here. You will fall in love with the beauty of this place. Since the snow as just one week fresh there were lots of locals who had come to play in the fresh snow. I did a stunt here. Please if you are visiting such place please , please do not attempt such adventure. Specially if this kind of environment is new for you. I have a perfect video of what I did. Near the review hotels, there was this steep slope and all were playing slide- slide. At first place we were not prepared for this snow clad mountains. You can make out from the dress up that I am wearing. Just a skirt and simple jacket over T-shirt. As I saw people got some nice tyre tubes and were sliding with this over the slope. I borrowed tyre tube from visitors there. Then I convinced my husband it is a huge tyre, lets go to some height and slide together on it. See how deadly ideas I get. Somehow my husband was not convinced with the idea also his shoes were new and sole was still hard so they were not gripping. Somehow I took him at a height. Gave my camera to our guide before climbing. Then I felt bit scary as the slope was vertical. Just my clothes should not become wet I borrowed tyre. Else  I would have just slide over the ice. I sat on tyre, but I was more scared to do it now. Guide shouted READY, COME! After that what happened I am not aware of it.  I did not see or remember anything. All I remember is I did not know how to stop while sliding. As it was huge tyre,  I could feel my spine bouncing in the hollow space of huge tyre. I just lay down and had a terrible slide. Worst part was,  I did not know where I am going and how to control it. I  dashed a group of girls and somewhere ahead I was thrown badly. My husband calmly came walking down and guide reached me first and picked me up. I was still in trauma, not understanding what has happend. Cammera was on till now. You can see those girls getting up while the guide was walking to pick me up. Then I did not allow my husband and never will do this kind of wild stunts in my life again. I did apologise and enquire those girls, if they were fine? I really wonder how people were doing all this fun activity. It is really dangerous. After some time guide took is to some nice places where we walked on a snow cover area. This place was having no public and just few of us. I will post this all captured in my video. Though it was snow covered I did not felt it was cold. As the ice was melting which had fallen a week ago so the place was getting warmer. As we were walking I got scolding to keep the selfie camera and walk carefully As I may trip and fall. My husband was wearing new shoes and was finding it tough to walk as the shoes were not offering good grip so our guide helped him hold and walk. We visited a restaurant. Where I got to see yet again best view of my lifetime. The snow was half my height in the backyard of hotel. Here there was a waterfall that was half frozen and half melting and falling from good height. We had nice food and then we returned from the different route. At some places  I spotted some fish farms . This is something that my husband likes. We stopped by a fish farm to visit. Animal interation makes my husband feel very happy. SO, we spent around an hour at this huge fish farm. These were trout from fresh water or river water farm. Since the river water was ice melted water it was clean and fishes must also be of good quality. If you are nature lover. You must see the place once in life time. Even if you open pictures on internet of this place. You would  find that all season this place is perfectly beautiful. Next time I would go ahead and complete the Artvin patch.

 Hope you liked my this geo-tourism blog and are excited to watch my videos for this area. Wish me keep travelling so I can keep posting my travel experiences and get you more stuff to read and inspire for your journey. Also you must have by now realised how stupid adventurous I am and how bad things could have been. So please please you can learn from my mistakes. Wherever you go enjoy safe holiday. Se you all in the next location for my next travel, till then keep reading and need lots of love from all the readers out there.

Travel

Untold story of Capadocia/Katpatukya/Kapadocia

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Dear readers,

Namaste!

Introduction

I am writing my first blog from various travel experiences. As mentioned in my bio, I prefer to write about natural places that I visit and share my experience in detail, with all the readers. This will help you to have a virtual view of my experiences and may inspire you to plan a trip to Cappadocia, Turkey. I will ensure to include information about local cuisines, culture and heritage as well. One thing I would like to tell you about Turkey is, any place any time of the year you visit you cannot resist clicking pictures. May it be a sea side or a köy/village or beautiful houses around the city or cats and yes people greeting you, Merheba! Hoshgeldeniz! Your visit here will always be full of beautiful memories of soothing scenic views in your mind, cameras will be full of beautiful pictures that will cherish with you through your lifetime. Value to money, always worth it!

Activities that can be done here…

Cappadocia is one of the most famous tourist destinations not only in Turkey but also in the world. Depending on your interests you can visit this place. If you like to see beautiful valleys, yes it can be visited, if you like to visit archaeological sites yes Cappadocia is famous for its amazing huge underground cities which is also in the list of UNESCO world heritage sites, if you want to see extinct volcano and its amazing past geological activities, yes you can visit this place, if you are fond of seeing varied flora, fauna, collecting crude semi-precious gemstones you are in the perfect destination. This place is well known for its extraordinarily fascinating landscapes, hills mountains, river cutting valleys with of course association of rich history with it. This is the reason that the place is always in the wish list of geologists, archaeologists, historians, nature enthusiasts, photographers and travelers.

The name Cappadocia is derived from its ancient Persian origin as ‘Katpatukya’ meaning “Land of Beautiful Horses” as mentioned by our tour guide. The area has experienced various civilizations in different phase of time. I visited this place in the month of October, 2016. As you can see in pictures it had both the shades, green and yellow. If you research on internet about capadoccia what do you find?

Location

Geographically Cappadocia is falls in three different provinces in central Anatolian region. Largely spread in Nevşehir province, partly in Kayseri province and partly in Aksaray province.

Connectivity

The location is very well connected with different options of air transport, rail transport and road transport. For saving time of our journey we took Turkish Airlines flight from TAV Istanbul Ataturk Airport to Nevşehir Kapadokya Airport. We started at 06:15 hours and landed at 07:35 hours. Similarly, for return journey we took same airlines and airports we started at 19:35 hours and landed by 20:45 hours. There is an optional airport at Kayseri, connected to Cappadocia region. The one we took is nearest to the actual cave area. As we have hired a tour company for guidance, we were provided with pick and drop facility for airport transport. For adventure people also take a road trip from Istanbul and cover multiple locations.

Time / Climate

If you have doubt in mind about when to visit this place. This place can be visited anytime of the year as it has beautiful natural setup. If you consider activity wise, summer should be better option. Between May to October. Otherwise its quite chilled during winter. In our group of tours, few of the tourists who were actually having their transit flight via Turkey and they just decided to cover the Cappadocia visit. As you check on available online options, there are various activities that you can do in and around these areas. Few of the activities are aerial view of Cappadocia in hot air balloon, walk through beautiful, calm and quite river valleys, take a horse ride, quad biking and can visit well maintained underground cities and many more. Our visit was during start of autumn and end of summer. We could see greenery as well as autumn all the shades of brown. The temperature was quite chilled in mornings and evenings. You can always have your weather forecast helping you to guide in this aspect. For us it was the best weather to visit.

Geological setup of the area…

I feel as if I am writing my field trip report in Geology. Without this information it wont be geo-tourism site. It has a natural setup. Just going and clicking photos and spending time is not the only purpose. There are studies that reveal the story of natural forces acting here and creating an amazing natural marvels! A lay man who has never studied geology but visit these places would like to read this information. I am sure most of the blogs or any online sources will only give insight on stay, food, culture, its heritage and activity related information. I am sure you will find this place more interesting once you read here about how, this beautiful land-form is formed.

To understand the tectonic setup of the region we need to have a broader look on the movement of plates. As seen in the reference image (education purpose only) the country Turkey is located on active faults of colliding plates. Arabian plate, Eurasian plate and Anatolian plates have collided in the geologic past (millions of years ago). This collision of continental plates gave rise to a subduction zone (plate subsides down the other plate) and also uplifting mountains (plate slides over other plate) and deformed folds and fault structures, which can be widely observed while travelling across the Turkey via road journey. . Subduction along the plate margins is still active in the Mediterranean Sea region which can be very well noticed by the number seismic activities along the fault zones.

Dear readers,

Namaste!

Introduction

I am writing my first blog from various travel experiences. As mentioned in my bio, I prefer to write about natural places that I visit and share my experience in detail, with all the readers. This will help you to have a virtual view of my experiences and may inspire you to plan a trip to Cappadocia, Turkey. I will ensure to include information about local cuisines, culture and heritage as well. One thing I would like to tell you about Turkey is, any place any time of the year you visit you cannot resist clicking pictures. May it be a sea side or a köy/village or beautiful houses around the city or cats and yes people greeting you, Merheba! Hoshgeldeniz! Your visit here will always be full of beautiful memories of soothing scenic views in your mind, cameras will be full of beautiful pictures that will cherish with you through your lifetime. Value to money, always worth it!

Activities that can be done here…

Cappadocia is one of the most famous tourist destinations not only in Turkey but also in the world. Depending on your interests you can visit this place. If you like to see beautiful valleys, yes it can be visited, if you like to visit archaeological sites yes Cappadocia is famous for its amazing huge underground cities which is also in the list of UNESCO world heritage sites, if you want to see extinct volcano and its amazing past geological activities, yes you can visit this place, if you are fond of seeing varied flora, fauna, collecting crude semi-precious gemstones you are in the perfect destination. This place is well known for its extraordinarily fascinating landscapes, hills mountains, river cutting valleys with of course association of rich history with it. This is the reason that the place is always in the wish list of geologists, archaeologists, historians, nature enthusiasts, photographers and travelers.

The name Cappadocia is derived from its ancient Persian origin as ‘Katpatukya’ meaning “Land of Beautiful Horses” as mentioned by our tour guide. The area has experienced various civilizations in different phase of time. I visited this place in the month of October, 2016. As you can see in pictures it had both the shades, green and yellow. If you research on internet about capadoccia what do you find?

Location

Geographically Cappadocia is falls in three different provinces in central Anatolian region. Largely spread in Nevşehir province, partly in Kayseri province and partly in Aksaray province.

Connectivity

The location is very well connected with different options of air transport, rail transport and road transport. For saving time of our journey we took Turkish Airlines flight from TAV Istanbul Ataturk Airport to Nevşehir Kapadokya Airport. We started at 06:15 hours and landed at 07:35 hours. Similarly, for return journey we took same airlines and airports we started at 19:35 hours and landed by 20:45 hours. There is an optional airport at Kayseri, connected to Cappadocia region. The one we took is nearest to the actual cave area. As we have hired a tour company for guidance, we were provided with pick and drop facility for airport transport. For adventure people also take a road trip from Istanbul and cover multiple locations.

Time / Climate

If you have doubt in mind about when to visit this place. This place can be visited anytime of the year as it has beautiful natural setup. If you consider activity wise, summer should be better option. Between May to October. Otherwise its quite chilled during winter. In our group of tours, few of the tourists who were actually having their transit flight via Turkey and they just decided to cover the Cappadocia visit. As you check on available online options, there are various activities that you can do in and around these areas. Few of the activities are aerial view of Cappadocia in hot air balloon, walk through beautiful, calm and quite river valleys, take a horse ride, quad biking and can visit well maintained underground cities and many more. Our visit was during start of autumn and end of summer. We could see greenery as well as autumn all the shades of brown. The temperature was quite chilled in mornings and evenings. You can always have your weather forecast helping you to guide in this aspect. For us it was the best weather to visit.

Geological setup of the area…

I feel as if I am writing my field trip report in Geology. Without this information it wont be geo-tourism site. It has a natural setup. Just going and clicking photos and spending time is not the only purpose. There are studies that reveal the story of natural forces acting here and creating an amazing natural marvels! A lay man who has never studied geology but visit these places would like to read this information. I am sure most of the blogs or any online sources will only give insight on stay, food, culture, its heritage and activity related information. I am sure you will find this place more interesting once you read here about how, this beautiful land-form is formed.

To understand the tectonic setup of the region we need to have a broader look on the movement of plates. As seen in the reference image (education purpose only) the country Turkey is located on active faults of colliding plates. Arabian plate, Eurasian plate and Anatolian plates have collided in the geologic past (millions of years ago). This collision of continental plates gave rise to a subduction zone (plate subsides down the other plate) and also uplifting mountains (plate slides over other plate) and deformed folds and fault structures, which can be widely observed while travelling across the Turkey via road journey. . Subduction along the plate margins is still active in the Mediterranean Sea region which can be very well noticed by the number seismic activities along the fault zones.

Dear readers,

Namaste!

Introduction

I am writing my first blog from various travel experiences. As mentioned in my bio, I prefer to write about natural places that I visit and share my experience in detail, with all the readers. This will help you to have a virtual view of my experiences and may inspire you to plan a trip to Cappadocia, Turkey. I will ensure to include information about local cuisines, culture and heritage as well. One thing I would like to tell you about Turkey is, any place any time of the year you visit you cannot resist clicking pictures. May it be a sea side or a köy/village or beautiful houses around the city or cats and yes people greeting you, Merheba! Hoshgeldeniz! Your visit here will always be full of beautiful memories of soothing scenic views in your mind, cameras will be full of beautiful pictures that will cherish with you through your lifetime. Value to money, always worth it!

Activities that can be done here…

Cappadocia is one of the most famous tourist destinations not only in Turkey but also in the world. Depending on your interests you can visit this place. If you like to see beautiful valleys, yes it can be visited, if you like to visit archaeological sites yes Cappadocia is famous for its amazing huge underground cities which is also in the list of UNESCO world heritage sites, if you want to see extinct volcano and its amazing past geological activities, yes you can visit this place, if you are fond of seeing varied flora, fauna, collecting crude semi-precious gemstones you are in the perfect destination. This place is well known for its extraordinarily fascinating landscapes, hills mountains, river cutting valleys with of course association of rich history with it. This is the reason that the place is always in the wish list of geologists, archaeologists, historians, nature enthusiasts, photographers and travelers.

The name Cappadocia is derived from its ancient Persian origin as ‘Katpatukya’ meaning “Land of Beautiful Horses” as mentioned by our tour guide. The area has experienced various civilizations in different phase of time. I visited this place in the month of October, 2016. As you can see in pictures it had both the shades, green and yellow. If you research on internet about capadoccia what do you find?

Location

Geographically Cappadocia is falls in three different provinces in central Anatolian region. Largely spread in Nevşehir province, partly in Kayseri province and partly in Aksaray province.

Connectivity

The location is very well connected with different options of air transport, rail transport and road transport. For saving time of our journey we took Turkish Airlines flight from TAV Istanbul Ataturk Airport to Nevşehir Kapadokya Airport. We started at 06:15 hours and landed at 07:35 hours. Similarly, for return journey we took same airlines and airports we started at 19:35 hours and landed by 20:45 hours. There is an optional airport at Kayseri, connected to Cappadocia region. The one we took is nearest to the actual cave area. As we have hired a tour company for guidance, we were provided with pick and drop facility for airport transport. For adventure people also take a road trip from Istanbul and cover multiple locations.

Time / Climate

If you have doubt in mind about when to visit this place. This place can be visited anytime of the year as it has beautiful natural setup. If you consider activity wise, summer should be better option. Between May to October. Otherwise its quite chilled during winter. In our group of tours, few of the tourists who were actually having their transit flight via Turkey and they just decided to cover the Cappadocia visit. As you check on available online options, there are various activities that you can do in and around these areas. Few of the activities are aerial view of Cappadocia in hot air balloon, walk through beautiful, calm and quite river valleys, take a horse ride, quad biking and can visit well maintained underground cities and many more. Our visit was during start of autumn and end of summer. We could see greenery as well as autumn all the shades of brown. The temperature was quite chilled in mornings and evenings. You can always have your weather forecast helping you to guide in this aspect. For us it was the best weather to visit.

Geological setup of the area…

I feel as if I am writing my field trip report in Geology. Without this information it wont be geo-tourism site. It has a natural setup. Just going and clicking photos and spending time is not the only purpose. There are studies that reveal the story of natural forces acting here and creating an amazing natural marvels! A lay man who has never studied geology but visit these places would like to read this information. I am sure most of the blogs or any online sources will only give insight on stay, food, culture, its heritage and activity related information. I am sure you will find this place more interesting once you read here about how, this beautiful land-form is formed.

To understand the tectonic setup of the region we need to have a broader look on the movement of plates. As seen in the reference image (education purpose only) the country Turkey is located on active faults of colliding plates. Arabian plate, Eurasian plate and Anatolian plates have collided in the geologic past (millions of years ago). This collision of continental plates gave rise to a subduction zone (plate subsides down the other plate) and also uplifting mountains (plate slides over other plate) and deformed folds and fault structures, which can be widely observed while travelling across the Turkey via road journey. . Subduction along the plate margins is still active in the Mediterranean Sea region which can be very well noticed by the number seismic activities along the fault zones.

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