Namaste,

All my reader friends. I wish you all are doing well! Here is a quick blog of my Bodrum visit. As you all know very well Bodrum is one of the Turkey’s hot destination for holidays. Almost all the Turkish people living in big cities have a second home in Bodrum. Summer time Istanbul is empty with locals and full with Tourists from all around the globe. Let me tell you this one thing entire southern coast of Turkey is amazingly beautiful. There are lots of holiday options that you may like to choose. Either book a hotel along the coast by the seas and just relax or take a boat/gullet trip or get on to a luxurious cruise and cover beautiful destinations. All the places you go you will get to see blue Mediterranean coast.

Why Turkey?

Compared to other European destinations Turkey is really a cost effective destination and is worth its beauty spending your holiday in exploring Turkish history, culture, food and of course beautiful places which are well connected around.

Today with the help of multiple resources our life is much better with all the facilities and choices to make. To travel you can take flight from Istanbul with multiple options like Anadolu Jet Atlas Global  Pegasus  Turkish Airlines  and many more. Either you can choose cheapest rate or fastest journey or a luxurious journey as per your choices. You also have a cheapest choices over taking a public road transportation Obilet Bus app and site  or may be if you are found of driving long destinations, rent a car and drive yourself through all the beautiful corners of Turkey. Only thing is use multiple map options and verify if the destination in Map is showing correct location. On the way fuel and maintenance options. As few of my friends used to rented a car and drove in alternate turns and share the cost of fuel on the way. Most of the times these rented car used to get some technical maintenance issues. Make sure you are aware of this aspect to fix some basic problems yourself if stuck in middle of no were!  At the same time you have multiple options to stay in an  Air Bnb  Pansion hotel,  Couch surfing from 2 star to 5 star hotels to stay. All you need is just to make a plan, fix a budget, fix your travel dates, bring your friends who like to go with you on holiday and just pack your bag and step out.

If you makeup a plan much earlier then life is lot more easy for you. You may get to book hotels in cheaper rates get flight tickets on cheaper rate and mostly everything will be available. During the holiday season everything is pretty expensive. Ordinary holes will ask you for 5 star hotel rates where you would not have any option than booking it. At the same time if you are making pre bookings all you need to do is get a room specifications mentioned e-mail with number of people what all is included and everything about your stay with proper dates mentioned on it. Some of the hotels they do make some errors where you my end up having problem. Now a days hotel make bookings on just your credit card details. Also if you have booked hotel in foreign currency make sure to fix the exchange rate and the cost to pay at the time of your stay. Most of the hotels they provide lavish breakfast, lunch and dinner with all inclusive packages. If you do not get such hotels no need to worry about this as there are lots of restaurants and cafes that operated in almost all the areas and provide good food through. For those who are vegetarian and are looking for understanding on what to eat and what not to eat. Soon I will be posting a detailed blog as well as a small video for education to give information. In short, you have lots of variety of options on food to choose so you have absolutely no need to worry about this.

My holiday was just a relaxing holiday with a short escape from Istanbul city. We stayed at Le Blanche Island Bodrum Website of hotel we stayed. which is a lavish hotel to stay. We had booked a pick and drop facility form airport. We got a nice Mercedes Vito van that was very cozy and luxurious too. Bodrum is full of hotels of your choice. Mostly people stay in the area near marina but there are lot more other areas in the Bodrum which are calm quite and secluded. This entire hotel is a huge island which has all its facilities and self sufficient. You don out need to go out for anything. As you enter the hotel it has huge lobby that gives you a touch of turquoise and blend of elegance. This hotel has seven different restaurants which keeps your taste buds and stomach busy and happy switching between times.  There are four and half outdoor swimming pools which is my favorite part and one indoor pool. You can literally play in any of the pool. The landscape is well designed in such a way that with the back drop of seas you have blue pools to enjoy. They have well maintained lawn tennis court, table tennis disco hall for entertainment in the evening. Thought the day after breakfast there are continuous activities that keep you busy every time. Starts with some Yoga session.  There is entertainment team that keeps you engaging in all the activities like water volley ball, pétanque game, also some surf board games to be played in swimming pool which is fun to be part of it. I used to swim, eat and take a nice sleep besides the pool or beach, which is best part of the holiday. Once you get bored with this activity then you are actually refreshed to do more. There is a full perimeter walk on the entire island which is best in early morning. You need to be careful as all the flowering plants are full of honey bees. I felt really happy in filming them and had best time. During month of May Turkey is still bit cold. If you want the early summer holiday before crowd starts gathering take a holiday break before summer starts or after summer is ending around November.  Food and drinks served were pretty good. hotel staff is always around you and they take good care of premises. Around every premises there is a washroom and changing room. You can sped good vacation in this type of hotels. The one best part was giant slides on the pool that was thrill and good exercise to climb and slide into water. I am still scared to do that.

Bodrum holiday is not a activity holiday. It is just to eat, drink, swim sleep and make new friends and get refreshed from your routine activities. Soon I am planning a holiday which will be updated in fresh new blog. If you liked my blog, do let me know. If you have any suggestion questions or any feedback please feel free to write to me. I will be more than happy if my information is helpful in some way or the other.

Follow me on Instagram #03kanchan and Facebook page “Vari-The Divine Journey” to be updated on when I will be adding more photos and videos of my visit.

My this trip was combined with Pamukkale trip. So first we visited Pamukkale and then planned to rest in Bodrum. Stay tuned to my blog posts updates. With my research on my travel trips,  I got to visit yet another Pamukkale exposure which is same terraces but underground. To know about it keep reading all my blogs.

Namaste,

Just few weeks ago I was fortunate to visit my 6th country, Spain. In weather report I always see a sun shine in this entire country when rest of them are in minus during the winters. The vibe that Spanish territory has is different from other parts of European nations.  In my career as  a G.I.S. professional, I had done lots of road mapping around western European regions so  I always used to be surprised with Spain. The navigation system is densely populated in places like Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona yet highly organised. I was truly impressed then. It was just with the available toposheets and google data. Now I was visiting this country. I was really excited about visiting Spain. Me and my husband like to travel, but we prefer to visit less crowded places around so we made a plan to visit northern region of Spain. Also, weather should be pleasant, so not much difficulty in outdoor visits. We stayed for 4 days in Bilbao. We took a direct flight from Istanbul, new airport to Bilbao. Here we had booked day trips to visit regions around. We stayed at Mercure Bilbao Jardines de Albia hotel.

Tourism industry is really good here. We had planned 2 days local trip on Viator.com. I have done one trip few years back from this site. First one was visiting The Basque country region and other was to winery. Since we were living in the area in the city centre we did Guggenheim Museum Bilbao on our own. The day we landed we just picked up a taxi and went to our hotel. We had some snacks – food and got some rest. Later we planned to visit the Guggenheim Museum. We just used map and walked. The museum was crowded but we could easily buy the entry tickets. In the pictures on the social media you will find these few things. A giant spider along the river side, colorful Tulips, A bridge, A dog with  flowers and metal ball stacked of course the metallic exposure of the museum itself. The Museum is shaped out of titanium metal sheets. All these exhibits mentioned are outside the museum, can be viewed while walking around the museum premises, except Tulips. It is a fine art museum and is very large.  I would recommend to visit this museum only if you have understanding and liking for art. Else you may not really like it. As  I mentioned in my previous blog of Luxembourg – Paris that with the boom in graphics designing, connecting to the exhibits placed in art museum is very difficult. The exhibit which I liked most was huge sheets of curved steel. The moment I saw first sight or few of them  I mentioned my husband, it appears like projections system that we used in mapping industry. Just to understand in a lay man language shape of earth is irregular curved sphere. To create a map from 3-dimensional structure to 2-dimensional map you need to project the curved surface on the planar objects. This helps to spread curved objects surface on a flat surface. More simpler explanation would be, you have full map drawn on a globe, now to make a 2D planar map of it, you will cut the globe in certain places that it remains properly placed with respect to latitude and longitude lines, where all the calculations and directions of travel matches while using any two points on your map. SO, the cuts are very important without your map getting distorted or without any ambiguity. If you find this topic is interesting you can see some YouTube videos on this topic to have a cleared idea. Later as we were moving in between these metal sheets I read the spatial arrangements. SO, I was right on the concept on which the artist was playing with the curved surfaces and arrangements. I have more pictures from the museum exhibits You may like to take a look on my Facebook page “Vari – The divine journey”. There were some of the exhibits which I really wondered as what was the purpose of exhibits and so on. There is a café inside where you get some basic snacks and soft and hard drinks.

As we lived here  I was finding it as a culture shock as there were lots of café or pubs which had little snacks and drinks. The people were sitting with kids, family and friends in it. Water was expensive than hard drinks. Almost every street people were sitting with beer mugs. Very less restaurants with proper food but there several Michelin-Starred restaurants in Bilbao. Here I have one confession to make but it has a reason to it. I searched for Indian food restaurant here in Bilbao. I always wonder why would an Indian who eats Indian food at home would go for a tour and search for Indian food. The reason was, food in cafes that we ate was not sufficient for my appetites. So, we did search and visit an Indian restaurant here in Bilbao. The food was not really great also it was not an authentic India restaurant. It’s a common thing that most of the restaurants in Europe are mostly North Indian food, out of which few are just named as Indian food restaurants but they belong to our neighboring countries. Also, sometimes the chefs are not Indian. That was not a great decision as we cannot eat hot, spicy, gravy food. Besides, later we did find some good restaurants, which served freshly cooked nice food. For me I always want warm food. I cannot eat assembled sandwich or a sandwich from fridge. I need it to be grilled. Even not a big fan of cold sweet dishes. Very rarely I eat ice cream. I am still wondering how people can drink cold water or other beverages. I need to eat good portion of meal in my breakfast, lunch and dinner. I do not keep munching things in rest of the empty hours. This food topic is just to understand the food and type of place that I visit must match my requirement. I have reviewed few places in my TripAdvisor which I really found good places here to eat. Good portion – warm – fresh. In future I may add links to those places in my blog.

As we did this day with walk, we were bit exhausted we walked really for long distances. There are few nicer restaurants in the Bilbao city center area which are pretty good, so I would recommend by any means either you go there early in the evening or book your table. As the restaurants get really full in the night time. We saw many of the people had to return as the tables were pre booked. Luckily, we always went there on time. First day our legs were totally gone. I have motioned this in my other blogs as well. Mostly to visit European countries, make a habit to walk a lot. You will find lots interesting things on each lane to see and admire. You will really walk for almost 20k footsteps a day. SO, before you plan for European holiday, make yourself prepared for long walks also if you are visiting during summer, it is really very hot. They call it Indian summer! Bilbao is place of rich people. You can easily see stretch limo while you are walking around the city. What I could see was there was more tourists in elderly ages between 50s to 60s. Also, the city had a greater number of elderly local population who were managing the kids of the family. Cost of living is bit higher. All the transactions that you do are in euros.

Next two days we did a buffet breakfast at hotel. There were really very less options to eat, but could manage with cornflakes, bread options, eggs, Spanish omelette, fruits, fruit juice and some salad options. it was 13 euro per person. Since we had to step out pretty early, we managed with in-house hotel breakfast. Our day trip booked on Viator was 171.10 USD for 2 people. They pick you from a nearby center location and drop you at your hotel. The van is nice and there is a multilingual guide. The fun part is until the day of travel you do not know who is coming to pick you, car number, driver’s number or even guide’s number and so on, there is simple confirmation on your communication e-mail. Where they keep connecting with you. Also, they ask you for name of hotel you are staying, if you have not given this information earlier over the e-mail conversation. In our trip to Catania in Italy, we booked a trip on Viator.com it was same method, we did not know anyone from the tour company till they arrive to pick us at Sheraton hotel that time. Not even any phone number other than some helpline numbers. So now we can trust the trips on the site. Timings are better matched, vehicle is neat and clean with air conditioning, wearing seat belt for all the passengers is compulsory. As they take you to all the points and ask you to return at the point at given time which is well followed. We had co passengers in the trip who had booked the same trip form the hotel they were staying.  The cost was also roughly same.

Our first trip was to the Basque country. In our online itinerary it was mentioned to carry a passport. I am such a dumb person. I was discussing with my husband that I will not carry a passport, I have a photo copy of it. Luckily, I carried it after my husband insisted me to carry it. Our visit was on following places Biarritz, Saint Jean de Luz, Hondarribia and San Sebastian. The bus moved while picking up all the people on the tour from different pickup points or hotels. The Basque country language, Euskara is the oldest know language of Europe. Few of the places are in French territory and few of Basque regions lie in Spanish territory. First location that we had to visit of the day was Biarritz. We traveled in the mini bus and as we crossed the border, we were stopped by French border police. All our passports were checked. Luckily, I carried my passport and not the photo copy.

Don’t make the mistake of saying you’re going out for tapas while in the Basque Country – they do pintxos instead. Pintxos are essentially small pieces of bread topped with a variety of ingredients, though some don’t come with bread at all. Pintxos differ from tapas in that they are smaller, are not served on a sharing plate and are eaten by just one person in a few mouthfuls. They are also laid out along the bar and you can help yourself to what you like, as opposed to ordering from a menu. Each pintxo will have a stick through the middle holding it together. Make sure to keep these sticks on your plate so that at the end of your meal, the person tending the bar can count them up and give you your bill. We traveled to a sea side area. This was amazingly beautiful place. We both just loved the beauty of this place. If you see this place in my photos and videos you will realise that you have seen this French beauty in lots of Hollywood movies. Right from old classic movies to latest movies. There are huge vertical cliffs and shore with gushing waves. This place is visited by most of the surfers around the world. The waves here go really high. Before I would discuss more about this place anybody who want to associate this place with any history or Hollywood stories, I would mention this is a Geo-tourism site. There are inclined beds where you can see sea arches, staffs, cliffs and beautiful exposures in this entire area. There is a hill top where you can go up hill with funicular or by your vehicle and see the entire beaches and sea stretching to long horizons. The rock formations are metamorphosed bedding planes those are inclined and uplifted in one direction. At places you can see igneous intrusions as well. Along with sea, all you see is photos with inclined rocks behind. Today it may be a highly visited touristic spot but it is only attracted by its natural beauty. Whatever you might want to associate with it, for me it is one of the naturally beautiful place, located in France. We walked along the coast and I really felt that we could have been given more time to spend on this place to explore or play in the beautiful beach. The place was pretty crowded here but yet it carried a class with it. I have small videos which I am editing to post it and create a YouTube channel “Vari-The divine journey”. It will have the same name as my Facebook page, so to keep updated follow me on Instagram #03kanchan to stay updated and connected with me.

Our next stop for the day was, Saint-Jean-De-Luz this location is also in the French territory. This is an old fisherman’s town located on the river banks of the Nivelle river that opens in the sea along the Bay of Biscay. All the houses here are still the old-style houses that you can see in my photos or videos. There is an old Saint-Jean-Baptise church where King Louis XIV got married. The place is open for tourists to visit. On the day we visited there was some street carnival which we got to see and enjoy. This place is known for its Foie gras – made out of duck liver. We bought some Foie gras. We were given roughly 45 minutes to take a walk-in alley, or watch the church or play around the sea beach, which was really beautiful. I must admit the French coast line is really very beautiful than I imagined watching movies, photos or seen in travel videos and classier. Post this we were supposed to go back to other locations in Spanish territory. I was wondering why was our guide rushing us at different locations and not allowing us to spend more time here. Here most of the places people managed some English. As it was very hot climate, we were thinking whether to have ice-cream or not, but eventually we had the ice-cream. From here we headed back to the border and were back in to Spain. If you are a nature lover or a Geologists, please do not miss to see out all the amazing folded rocks along the road cuttings during the journey. At places I could see Chevron folds in older sedimentary rocks as well. I just missed that spot to take pictures. There are amazing phases of different folding’s through the journey.

As we headed towards our next location, Hondarribia in Spain. By the time we reached here it was almost lunch time and we all were very hungry. Here our guide mentioned us that everything in France was very expensive so many people turn to Spanish regions for food and other activities. So now I realised why were we rushed. Our first half was supposed to be finished in France so that we go to less expensive places and enjoy the food. The Ice-Cream was bit expensive, but never had a thought in my mind that we were saving our money on the tour. I love to find a cost-effective option, always! Hondarribia, is yet another fisherman’s village mostly converted to a tourist’s town now. You can find lots of cafes and pubs around the street. The normal food at these busy cafes was pretty expensive as well. The sea food was really amazing, we really loved it! The day was growing very hot, hotter and hottest! Looking at the menu I thought even the Spanish places in this region were expensive too!

Our final destination for the day was San Sebastian. Here we were allowed to spent time at Motoras Isla Santa Clara. It was beautiful sea side place. Bit crowded at this time of day  around 17:00 hours. You have lots of regular options to eat and also some castles to roam around. We just spent time in walking around and seeing the place and clicking pictures with green backgrounds. With this we ended our tour for the day and were driven back to our respective hotels.

Next day we had a tour to Vitoria and wine region of La Rioja. We had bit bigger bus today. Few of the people were repeat same from our previous day’s trip. The guide Stephen was also same. This day we started our visit with the Vitoria Gasteiz. This place has some historical importance. We were dropped by our bus at Cathedral Santa Maria de Vitoria. From outside it looks like Fort, from inside it is a Cathedral. This was supposed to be very big monument, similar to Notre Dame cathedral in Amsterdam. This Santa Maria cathedral was built 100 years after Notre Dame cathedral. Santa Maria cathedral was never completed due to lack of funds. At the moment there is lots of construction work going on at the structure. Later we walked to the main monument of this Capital of Basque country. In the square of Plaza de la Virgen Blanca there is a war memorial built in the center named La Batalla de Vitoria. This is an important part of history where Spanish people connect with this war memorial with pride. Later we were given 20 minutes to explore the place. As I am not much interested in historical parts, I went to click pictures. Once we were done with this place, we were now going to visit the winery.

Cost of this tour was 170 USD for two people. Same facilities, pickup from center location, drop at hotel. Air-conditioned minibus with driver and guide. Here the cost included entry for the winery and two wine tasting. We visited winery at La Guardia. Here on the way we saw, grapes plantation through the drive. There are lots of wineries in this region. The place where we visited was Pureta de San Juan Church. It as big castle now it is open for tourists to visit, it has municipal swimming pools, to sports center, hospital, tower-fortress, to star Michelin restaurants, tourist information center, lots of souvenir shops and a winery at the basement. This place was nice and not too crowded. Here there was an exhibition in the central region where they were selling lots of vines, cheese and lots of stuff in this region. You can get tourist map from the tourist information center and visit the place at is bit confusing and too many internal lanes to keep you puzzled. Visiting winery was fun, but our tour guide just left us and said another guide will take you in. At the same time, we waited for around about 40 – 50 minutes in sun just kept seeing group of tourists coming out of the door. So, finally we inquired and made our group enter. Here they showed us a huge cubical chamber like well but lined walls and in square/rectangular shape. Here they pour or dump all the grapes de skinned black grapes for red wine. The people crush them with their feet. The grapes are covered and kept for few weeks. Later when it gets naturally fermented (along with wine yeast). The grapes start releasing its juices that is collected from lower vents/pipes. This is actually wine, this is bit young wine. which has less alcohol content in it and bit sweet in taste. As they keep grapes for more days the juices released are more acidic and more bitter with more alcohol content in it. There is next a cellulose filtration process done on the extracted juices and stored in wooden barrels in the dark basements. These barrels are mostly made of Oak tree wood. The barrels are sampled and filled in to 5 different bottles and are sent for quality testing to different labs. Out of this one bottle sample is kept in case of any other requirement of samples. For us there was arrangement of wine glasses made here in the basement. First glass was for young wine, it was less bitter and comparatively less deep red in colour. The second glass was of old wine. Here we were asked to do gargle with the wine before gulping or swallowing it also the glass as we turned, we were trying to take the aroma of it. The old wine must give you a feel of layer inside mouth and also give little bitter feel in the end of the tongue. Hope I have remembered the correct process. More than anything I was worried that we are having it empty stomach. I just pulled out some nuts from my bag. This came very handy option. If you are visiting winery you can keep pieces of cheese and some nuts in your bag. I am a typical person who considers all possible ways of troubles on the journey and preparatory measures or precautionary measures everything will be available in my bag. Once I finished my college, I kept my geometry box properly managed. People were surprised when I give them things from my geometry box. Now, I feel uncomfortable to not have geometry box in my bag. In makeup pouch and geometry box. I will always choose geometry box.

Post winery we had our lunch. Here all the restaurants are having Spanish menu. So, you can always order for known options and give a trial of single portion. Since the place was crowded, we made quick picks in the menu and gave the order and also ensured that count was known correct by the Garson. We had a lady on the same tour from China. She was giving us company for lunch. Her sister was working in Bilbao. She had an online boyfriend from the same area since past years. So, she was on visit to her sister and boyfriend. As they were working, she asked hotel to make her a custom tour to spend here day. Luckily our orders came on time and we had nice fish meal. We finished with the day and were dropped back to hotel.

I really wished to visit Zumia region. Which is little away from the Bilbao region. It had half day tours on Viator.com but the pick-up and drop were not feasible. So, this is in my Wishlist’s to visit next. I definitely have reasons to visit Spain again. If you want to do tour in Bilbao you also have train options from Madrid. As Madrid will be having most of the international connecting flights. You can check available number of days for holiday and plan Madrid have less crowded yet beautiful regions, you may visit Bilbao and surroundings.

Vari The Divine Journey!

03kanchan 

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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!

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.