This is one of the winning entries of the “My Trip of a Lifetime” contest by Kongkona Sarma

We are at the Sirkeçi train station, the destination of the once famed Orient Express. We are not waiting for the train though. We have come to experience the spiritual journey of the followers of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, the exalted Sufi saint.

Istanbuls Blue Mosque - Source Oberazzi

The Melveli order of the Dervish sect has a unique ritual which takes the form of the sema, a “whirling” dance where the positioning of the body, outstretched arms with one hand facing the heavens and the other facing the earth, symbolizes man as a bridge between the two spheres. A performance is held every night at Platform 1 of the station.

Whirling Dervishes - Source Flickr, earthmagnified

The Whirling Dervishes, in their white robes reminiscent of shrouds, left me completely mesmerized .It was as if within the last one hour I was transported to another place, another time in the distant past. Not unlike the rest of Istanbul, where the grandeur of the Blue Mosque and Ayasofya, opulence of Dolmabahçe Palace, echo of intrigue behind the walls of Topkapi and soulful wail of the muezzins call from the many graceful minarets towering over the city, all have the power to transfer you to another era and another way of living.

Turkey is rightly called the Cradle of Civilization. Here one is equally likely to find remnants of early Greek and Roman civilization, and the Persian, Selcuk, Byzantine and Ottoman Empire. This is the place where you can truly say the West met the East. Maybe that’s why the traveler from the West leaves with a feeling of having seen an eastern exotic city while for me it was the closest I had got to Europe- cobbled streets lined with coffee shops, the bright Mediterranean sun and the blue waters.

If Turkey was the crown of the ancient Islamic world ,Istanbul is the original jewel in the crown The city has one foot in Europe and one in Asia- the only place where a ferry can transport you to another continent every fifteen minutes. It is split down the middle by the Bosphorus Strait and to the east of the waterway is the Asian side, a predominantly residential retreat while the historic peninsula of the Old city occupy the European side separated by the picturesque Golden Horn estuary.

The 2500 year old history of Istanbul is most evident in the Old City known as Old Stamboul or Sultanahmet and this is where I made my base. Over the next six days as I strolled through this historic peninsula, one ancient structure after the other laid out like a museum, I had to remind myself often that this was after all a thriving modern city.

The Old city is dominated by the Ayasofya and the Blue Mosque two massive edifices challenging each other from the opposite ends of the Sultanahmet Park.

Ayasofya was originally a church, (infact the largest Christian church until the 16^th century), built by Emperor Justinian, and later on converted to a mosque by Mehmut II when he conquered the city. In accordance with the Islamic rule prohibiting representation of figures many of the frescoes and mosaics were defaced or destroyed.. Later restorations reveal some of the most striking mosaics of early Christianity.

The Blue Mosque or the Sultan Ahmet Camii was built not just as a desire by the Sultan to leave behind an imperial namesake but also to build a monument to rival the Ayasofya. The abundant use of the famed Iznik tile decorated with various hues of blues prompted the mosque to be named the Blue Mosque. The blue of the mosque changes to yellow, orange and red depending on the time of the day and the entrance you choose to use.

And around the corner lies the Topkapi Palace. Guidebooks had warned, quite rightly so, to keep aside one whole day just to marvel at the six hundred years of Ottoman history all behind the imperial gates. This was the administrative seat of the Ottoman Empire for almost 400 years. Among the display of the Sultans’ wealth, some gifted and some looted, was the Peacock Throne which was gifted to Mahmut I by Nadir Shah who picked it up in India during of his many raids. I had a good mind to pick it up and walk away it, my patriotic fervor only weighed down by the extreme security measure around.

However, amidst the splendor, what caught my interest was a room which housed the holy relics of the three major Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It has the staff of Moses, personal belongings of the Prophet Mohammed, including relics of his hair tooth and footprints and the first ever copy of the Koran documented on deerskin. The room also has the Mohammed Chamber in which an imam has been reciting passages from the Koran continually for the past 500 years.

The Harem, which is Arabic for “forbidden”, was the most luxurious part of the palace and also the most private as this was where the Sultan stayed with his concubines, slaves and wives. The Harem had three quarters, the outer one for the Black eunuchs, the inner courtyard for the concubines and the sea facing area reserved for the Sultan and his family. Though lapped in luxury the Harem was more of a gilded cages as the women were rarely allowed out.

We took Istanbul’s efficient tram to visit the Dolmabahçe Palace, probably the only structure influenced not by Islamic designs and motifs but by the more contemporary western style, so much so that the palace, complete with crystal banisters and chandeliers would have been more at place in France than in Istanbul. Sultan Abdulmecid III, built this palace, consisting of 285 rooms, four grand salons and six hamams, to give an illusion of prosperity as Turkey was fast gaining the moniker of Sick Man of Europe. Reality was that the empire by that time had already lost much of its past glory.

Not satisfied with the history on the streets, we also visited the Istanbul Archaeology Museum which houses over one million objects, the most extraordinary of which are the sarcophagi dating back to the 4^th century B.C.

But then it is not always about the history. Taking the Bosphorus cruise gave me a wide angle view of the city famously divided between two continents by the Bosphorus Strait. Along the shores were the Rumeli Fortress built, in vain, to keep out the invading Ottoman army.

In Turkey you cannot escape the blue eye (nazar boncugu) – represented in various forms like wall hangings, ceramics, key chains and bookmarks. I picked up quite a few at the Grand Bazaar, one of the largest covered markets in the world. The main attraction for the western tourist here is bargaining. For us Indians, it is shopping as usual. Infact the trick is to enter a shop when it is not crowded with other tourists and gently throw in that you are from India. The salesman will know he is in the company of a seasoned bargainer and will start the game at reasonable rates. When he turns away from you in disgust you know you have reached the absolute bottom price for the item. And all this will be conducted over Turkish black tea, which as a true blue Assamese, I could not refuse.

It is the same with the Spice Bazaar, a must do for all from the West of Istanbul. Most shops there display common Indian spices as some kind of exotic ware from the Orient .I stopped at the Spice Bazaar on the way to the Galata Bridge. We crossed the Bridge on foot in the evening when the city takes on a spectacularly romantic glow – when fishermen line the railings of the bridge and sea gulls hover over us.

In our hunt for the source of the authentic Lokum, the traditional sticky sweet, we land at Ali Muhiddin Hac? Bekir Confectioners, the original suppliers of the sweet to the Palace. The shop is in the fashionable district of Beyoglu, the centre of modern Istanbul’s night life.

By this time we have had our fill of kebaps and doners, dolmas (rice wrapped in grape leaves, my absolute favorite), pides (pizzas) and Koftes along with endless glasses of Ayran, the Turkish equivalent of our good old lassi and, Efes the omnipresent Turkish beer. The meal is not over till you have the Baklava, the Turkish dessert and Dondurma, the Turkish handmade ice-cream. For street food, there were hand carts all over selling roasted chestnuts and simits, a circular bread with sesame seeds, much preferred by the locals.

In Beyoglu we had the most authentic Turkish dinner experience in one of the many Meyhanes. This is where the residents of the city, far away from the tourists ridden parts gather to eat, drink and sing along with live bands playing Turkish songs, right next to your table and like a good Turk you are expected to join them. After a few glasses of Raki, the aniseed flavored national spirit, the party gets going and some even break plates, as a show of appreciation. Much to my distress, no one broke a plate that night. I would have, just to set the mood for the evening, were it not for the fact that I would be charged for every broken plate – a minute detail not mentioned in any of the guidebooks.

And of course no trip to Turkey can be complete without experiencing the hamam. We went to the almost 500 year old Cemberlitas Hamam and this is as authentic as it can get. But it is better not to expect a lavish spa like experience. The hamam rose more out of the Islamic requirement of cleanliness, than as a luxury. In olden times the Hamam was a social get together where instead of having coffee together, the townsfolk just happened to, well, take a bath together. Frankly I found the whole Hamam brouhaha a bit overrated as I could barely breathe inside the steaming hot room and my overtly delicate skin could well have done without the heavy handed scrubbing. But then each one to himself and many do come back for a second time.

As I stepped out, for one last stroll through the streets of Sultanahmet, the evening sun lent a dazzling brilliance to domes of Ayasofya and Blue Mosque. And the city of thousand minarets resonated with the voices of the evening prayer.

Thanks everybody. We’ve been overwhelmed with responses from the contest inspite of the short duration of the contest, and we’ve got some great submissions in the process.

My Trip of a Lifetime - the Travelogue Contest

The Results of the “My Trip of a Lifetime” contest are out!

Here are the winners, who win an all expenses paid trip to Mashobra (Shimla)!

1. Kanchuki Sarma

2. Radha Rangarajan

3. Kongkona S.

…and here are the consolation prize winners, who win a handy travel bag/laptop bag + 2 travel books (for e.g. African Diary by Bill Bryson and Teach yourself digital photography by Bargh Peter)

1. Zishaan Hayath

2. Ashish Mantri

3. Charukesi Ramadurai

4. Fabiola Jacob

5. Jyothi Shyamsunder

6. Sanjay Sivadas

7. Vamsee

All the winning posts will be put up on Clay in the weeks to come. Congratulations to the winners once again, and thank you all for the participation.

If you liked the snow white landscape you saw in the 2007 Horror Movie – 30 Days of Night, Alaska is the place to be. Nothing in Alaska is easy. The state is colossal. The distances from the towns to tourist attractions are time-consuming and grueling. The roads are hazardous and many are unpaved. Winters are resentfully cold, overcast and stretched, with only two hours of daylight. Summers are short and sometimes absent. Everything is bloody expensive. Travel is a bitch, and there are no major cosmopolitan cities to nourish with world-class restaurants, hotels, the arts or shopping after enduring nature’s punishing elements. Alaska is the only state in America where residents are actually paid a stipend to live there. But where there is challenge there is also an adventure. And this is exclusively mine.

In Alaska you take a bush plane like an urban dweller would take a public bus or a call taxi. There are more small planes in Alaska per capita than any other American state. As everything is complicated, everything becomes a mini adventure. So why do Alaskans do it? What’s the pay-off?

Courtesy - Alaska – Bruce McKay.jpg

The answer I got, from pilots to taxi drivers to musicians to road maintenance workers, was pretty much the same – after facing the immense challenges of nature’s elements each day, Alaskans feel they have conquered and triumphed by mere survival. Most of us feel we have a hard enough time getting through the exigencies of the day without a daily kick in the ass by Mother Nature but not sturdy Alaskans. There’s also a very strong sense that this is a restricted nonconformist realm where citizens can’t, won’t or have no desire to live in the undesirable outside. (The word “Outside” is always capitalized up there.)

So what’s in it for us Outsiders? Lots. Astounding panoramic beauty and superb wildlife, opportunities for both hard and soft adventures and a plethora of wintry sports. The Air is so pure you would want to bottle it and market it. And, most important, a true sense of mankind’s place in nature. Alaska’s sheer size, the cold silence and majesty is close to a true spiritual experience. You really get to know how minuscule you are in the scheme of it all, and the result is deeply overwhelming.

Courtesy – Alaska-nickso.jpg

An extraordinary treat for me was to clamber an observation tower to shoot the 11:30 p.m. sunsets. Autumn color starts to scream in late August along with one Alaska’s unique phenomena: the Aurora Borealis, the natural gods’ light show that defies any ordinary description. Denali, formerly Mt. McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America, reaching 20,320 feet above sea level, is in Alaska, but don’t expect to get a great shot with a point-and shoot camera; between the cloud cover, rain and haze, the stately mountain appears only about 25 percent of the time.

When I went to investigate Fairbanks, the base town from which tourists depart for the Alaskan good stuff, I found that one afternoon was more than enough. Most of its old-time architecture had been destroyed for parking lots and McDonald type Fast-food restaurants. Its bland streets teem with infinite and gaudy stores that sell the kind of cheap souvenirs that people buy at consumer fairs, take home, store in a drawer and eventually can’t sell at yard sales. Fairbanks has one shining jewel – its beautiful history museum. Skillfully and engagingly designed, lit and presented, the museum is captivating in how it brings alive the past while also maintaining the wild spirit of Alaskan life.

Quirky Coffee shops and rustic bars are many and excess in Fairbanks, people find a place to spin good music; the local military men, of whom there are many, hear about the music and move in; the local women follow; people move to another bar, taking the music…

Courtesy : Alaska – B.Mully.jpg

If your endurance fantasies or your tastes for adrenaline are highly developed, try the Haul Road to Prudhoe Bay. This 414 mile gravel road (really Dalton Highway, developed to bring supplies to the source of the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company) stretches from Fairbanks to the Arctic Ocean. You’ll be able to say you traveled an outwardly never-ending gravel road where food and gas stops are 115 miles apart. You’ll be able to see the Brooks Mountain Range, the stately and pompous king of Dalton Highway and you’ll be able to tell your friends you have been to the Arctic Circle.

However, there is a grueling 12-hour drudge of a road. And there are draconian lodgings at Prudhoe Bay, not to mention punishingly inedible “food”, which is a truly supercilious statement to Outsiders- “We’re the only restaurant in town. Eat it or beat it”.

Courtesy : Alaska – Noel Zia Lee.jpg

Real Beauty? Yes. A surrealistic landscape of ice-cold tundra and absolute desolation, the pipeline buildings in the misty distance, living facilities resembling correctional mental institutions, signs of humanity practically unreal, the only place in the world where you must have a permit to see the ocean-the Arctic Ocean, no less-frankly, all that fascinated me. And it was well worth the price of ticket. For those who require a level of comfort, however, this leg of the tour will not work.

The trip back down the Dalton Highway was highlighted by a stop in Wiseman, a peaceful settlement of log houses (there seems to be an unwritten law that all log houses in Alaska must have moose antlers the state icon) above the front door). Wiseman was established in the American gold rush and in 1898 it was a big boomtown with $200,000 worth of gold panned there. It’s reported that half the money was spend on booze and whores. And why not? What else was there to spend it on?

According to one very sexy local, the population swings “between 27 and 30 – depending who’s pregnant!” This place is so right in its place, in its feeling of a small community separate in sensibility but unified in case of crisis. The people here are kind, hushed and much attached to nature and to their heritage. Wiseman is a place that contains a real sense of serenity-holding from the last century to this one with loveliness and style.

I next took a bush plane to Paradise Valley Lodge, where true aficionados come from the four points of the earth to pan for gold, not in a tourist attraction, but where gold can really be found. If you have a big hankering for roughing it – this is the place. The cabins are spaced very far apart so you have a real sense of privacy. Essential amenities are almost absent: one room cabin, outhouse, mosquitoes, etc. You stay a half mile from the lodge and must bring your own food or make previous arrangements with the manager. And think about it, when was the last time you checked into a lodge and they gave you a can of bear mace?

My final stop took me right to the Canadian border. The small town of Eagle has 130 people or something like that, a flower-laden landing strip, four museums four, and a general store-motel-gas station all-in-one. That’s it. The museums are based on memorabilia from the remains of Fort Egbert, where the army first established law and order in a wild and woolly lawless territory run by power and guns. In the one cafe in town, four men, who look like they are from a movie casting call for grizzly 19th century trappers, meet every day to discuss in dramatic detail how they like to skin animals after they’ve trapped them. The former town mayor is a large sized woman with mighty arms and a tattoo on her neck who lives with her dainty friend in a log cabin with the only computer in town. The Princess cruise line buses passengers to Eagle from their ships docked downriver. They don’t allow them overnight stays. Good. That’s how Eagle maintains its purity.

If you are the brave and energetic kind, Alaska offers generous opportunity for real thrills, pristine wildlife and peaceful quietude. Once you take it in, you will never see your world the same. As I read it somewhere, “In life you are not really living. unless you take a chance”. Take a chance. Go to Alaska.

When you really want something, the whole universe conspires to help you realise your desire.

The surging crowd at the Mumbai airport the day immediately after the voting day was a stark contrast not only to the empty voting centres but also to the cloudless empty skies of the city. The smouldering heat of midsummer afternoon was stinging the eyes as we boarded the aircraft on the tarmac.

The air route from Mumbai to Trivandrum, specially for those sitting on the right side of the plane, is monotonous as the only features visible of the terra firma are: a shore line and the vast sea, made further hazy due to rising heat.

Closer to Trivandrum, the pre-monsoon clouds in the sky surrounding the aircraft, were the first welcome change in the sky while the huge pool of backwaters were changing the landscape . Soon, the aircraft glided with flaps readying for landing towards the land, the sea changed its colour, waves could be seen rocking over the beach seemingly golden with evening sun, and first sight of Trivandrum was a land thickly carpeted green with canopies of coconut plantations. An apt sight while landing in Kerala – the land of Kera (coconut), this sea of tranquility seen on arrival at Trivandrum was a perfect precursor to an idyllic holiday in which our first destination was Ashtamudi.

The random explorations of ours at Ashtamudi culminated in entire montage of memories – morning sunrays weaving their way through numerous Chinese fishing nets, Brahminy kites taking a flight at the break of dawn and intermittently wheeling overhead eyeing the catch of fishermen, small houses with thatched roofs on both sides of the lake using lake for regular transportation the way we use roads, a couple of ferries working late in the night – their reflection in dark waters resembling mumbai’s local trains on a day of heavy rains, bright eyed children with unbridled joy in the surroundings devoid of anything resembling comforts, a couple of fishermen fishing barehand after the dusk with the help of a petromax lamp submerged into the water, an old lady working on her coir making equipment converting a shade full of coconut husk into coir, another lady rowing a boat on her own making her own statement about women empowerment, sounds emerging of a choir singing in the church on one of the evenings, elephants decked up and readied for the procession of the temple festival at Chavara South or wonderful rendering of hindi movie songs – new as well as of yesteryears, by guest singer Mr. Shibu at the Resort.

As the weekend ended, we started the manic monday drive to Poovar – biding audieu to the lake & sea-shore of Kollam, with images of the lazy holiday– some my camera could capture while most of them remain captive to the memory. More of the images captured by camera during this part of our trip can be seen here