Yesterday after a long, long day of travel, we arrived in Istanbul, Turkey where we are enjoying a day to chill before continuing on to Ghana on Wednesday.
The flight itself from KL to Istanbul is over 11 hours. It was made longer since we went to the airport way too early (based on advice from the hotel) made worse by the flight being late. Then to add insult to injury, the entertainment systems in our seats did not work.
This was a flight that left in the morning Malaysia time and arrived in the mid-afternoon, Turkey time (five hours difference in time zones between the two countries). I find these long, during the day flights the hardest for jet lag management. It's too early in the day to sleep. You don't want to sleep too much because you will be arriving fairly early in the day at your destination. These are good flights to break up as well, since if you continued on, you'd be flying right through your body clock sleep timing.
We were wiped out when we finally got to our Airbnb which is a very nice part of Istanbul, Beyoglu, near Taksim Square. The directions for getting there were a bit off and we were let off down a big hill, I had to lug our suitcases up to get to the building. A kind doorman took them up the rather steep stairs to get to the lobby. We were too tired to even eat.
But the next morning we were actually pretty well rested. And we had our sights set on heading into town, using the ferry system see a part of Istanbul we'd never visited, and do some photography. That all went swimmingly. We got a ton of pictures. We had a crazy Turkish breakfast experience. We were tricked a bit at the end when Google Maps said it was a 15 minute walk back to the apartment mostly flat. LIARS! It was steep as hell! Thankfully down hill. We were beat up again and both took naps as soon as we got to the apartment.
Tomorrow we're off to another continent, Africa. The last part of the adventure approaches.
3 comments:
I always find flights that extend the day, rather than shorten the night, better, which is the opposite of you. Isn't it interesting how bodies work?
Also, I have finally learned the phrase for "steep streets" in Spanish so I can complain more effectively :)
my goodness sounds like you guys got a ton packed in and everything you wanted despite all adversity. Nicely done! That is super lame about the travel. Sounds like the MUPGT was not to appease this time around
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