Hot air balloons of Kapadokya, Turkey

The previous post in this trip to Turkey and Italy is here..

After we finished the Hammam and lunch in Istanbul, we took a one our drive to Istanbul airport and after waiting there for a few hours flew into Nevshehir airport. We had arranged transport through the hotel (we were to pay per person and were told to pay in Turkish currency but the total was in Euro!). Had to have it ready when we we entered the van. The van guy waited till he could find some last minute unplanned passengers to fill and finally after 35 minutes started towards Kapadokya. A middle aged woman who was flirty decided to sit in the front set next to the driver. It was dark and windy roads with no lights and she kept showing him her phone and making conversation. The driver was obviously taken in with this and was not focusing on the road. The rest of us got very nervous after the driver swerved a few times. So as a collective we spoke up and asked her to stop talking to him or distracting him while driving. The rest of the ride was relatively uneventful. Finally after dropping off 80% of the folks we got our turn.

The staff at the cave hotels were nice. The manager gave us a crash course on what to expect and what to do in the morning. Will write a separate post on the cave hotels. The rooms are carved from the rocks. They are all on a hill. We were all tired but I decided to see the balloons rise at 5AM. Turns out they went up only closer to 6! It was beautiful to see. San joined me on the roof for some photos and decided to go dress up and come back for more photos!

Once the sunrise was done, we went back woke up the kids and had a nice breakfast wtih the view of the last few balloons coming down. Then it was time to go on our all day package tour of Kapadokya. There are a thousand odd photos of all the places we visited in the next 8 hours.. so will create mini blogs of each place over the next few days..

We were booked to go on the balloons the next morning and San, myself and Jr. did wake up really early and go to the balloon starting place. Heavy winds made them cancel the rides for the day. So balloon away while the sun shines , is the moral of the story. We were returned to our hotels after sitting in a van for an hour and our money refunded. If we want to be on the balloons, we have to make another trip! Decided that watching them with chai in hand was as good an experience.

A lot of those photos were taken before the balloons started.. (you will see it in the video). The night sky was so clear inspite of the lights from the cave hotels. Got to see so many constellations, planets with just the iPhone!

A video highlights reel including some time lapses, some slow motions…

Book every morning you are there… you never know which way the wind blows!

Red Tail trail to Arastradero Lake

This weekend we hiked to a place that we have missed all these years. Right here in Palo Alto there is the Enid Pearson Arastradero Preserve with 10+ miles of trails and a cute and beautiful lake in the middle of it.

We also happened to pick a beautiful morning to hike here. The skies were just lit yesterday!! The sunbeams and purple clouds were a treat to the eyes!

There were lots of benches in the park..

that is probably our most beautiful “bench photo” to date ! The rest from this trail are here.. including a few cheesy ones of us making a heart. I was upset with San on the way to the park.. so our friends were giving me a hard time for being so finicky.. At times my OCD tendencies get the better of me. She is my world and I cannot stay mad at her for more than 3 minutes tops. At this point I am pretty much her pet dog or something like that.. <vent>still one needs to fold all other fingers in when making the heart and it has to be presented parallel to the plane of the camera.. </vent"> (that should be a legit html tag!)

Not possible to be angry with this one..

A few vertical shots of this lake..

A gallery of pictures of the beautiful skies and landscapes from the days hike.. We hiked only 6 miles as I had to do some unplanned last minute singing with the local Smule group! It was a packed day of activities for a regular saturday!

Surprisingly did not take any videoclips on this hike!

We will definitely revisit this place and cover the few trails that we missed within this park. The bay area is just amazing. There are still a lot of trails we haven’t hiked, given we hike new trails all the time.

Every year there is a well planned long grand hike. Last years highlight was the grand canyon! Hoping this years grand hike will be something to write about!

Women rock!

The previous post in this series is here..

This day was going to be a busy one. We had been warned. There were three things to cover as part of the tour and two things we added to the list before being dropped at the airport.

We woke up at 4:30 and got ready. Our bags were packed and the porters got it to the van. The amount of offering to the porters was predetermined just like the offerings to various gods during temple visits. We complied. The porter gods smiled on us. The suitcase with the broken wheel had made it this far. 

It was a special day. One of two days the sunrise is smack dab in the middle of the square hole in Karnak temple. This used to be a big festival in olden days. The Egyptian locals made it a festival again for tourist purposes. We made it in through security and the German language tour was still wrapping up. 

there were a few hundred people blocking our view and I had no chance. Still held my camera up to take a timelapse and was hit in the ribs a few times by jostling tourists. Did what I could..(you can see it in the video)

The sun did its glorious thing without making a fuss. We started walking through the temple once it was up. 

Had to increase the shadow lighting to get this image. those stories on the walls with the sun rising between them is marketing genius. Makes it look like the Sun is approving the story!

The night tour with the sound and light show did not do justice to the magnificence of the temple. They also did not cover enough about Queen Hatshepsut and how she rebuilt this place and started lighting up the temple, brought the two gold tipped obelisks to Luxor, etc. etc. 

This women had done more good for Egypt's people than all those Pharoh's before her put together. It was not about the kings and gods.. It was about improving the lives of citizens. She got that!

However her step son who later became king worked hard to erase her from Egyptian memory. A female ruler blessed by Egyptian gods did not fit their narrative. So within a generation, it was erased in mainstream media of the time. However thanks to shifting sands and the Romans and others who didn't care who ruled what when, some of her legacy has been preserved.

Walid took us to a special spot where the sunbeams come down in a dark chamber..it was scary to walk to the center as we didn't know where the ground was. Should have been challenging for folks to build the place!

A candid shot of us trying to stop the photographer from continuous clicking. Walid was filling up my memory by taking 25 shots a minute!

This temple at Karnak used to be all color. There is still some color on the pillars that has survived millenia and it is just amazing. When we imagine non faded colors on pillars and ceilings this size, one can only wonder!

As a Mylapore kid who was awestuck by Kapaleeshwar temple when my mom or grandpa would take me there, it still holds a special place in my heart after 50 years. Now imagine what a walk through this temple in all its colored glory would have meant to kids in those days!

Maybe the Egyptian government should think about restoring at least a small section of this temple to the original colors (if they can figure out what pigments were used and how to color them in the past!) and let us get a true sense of this awesomeness!

This is yet another place that has to be seen to be believed. If you are making plans to visit Luxor, try to be there on the Winter solstice and watch the sunrise at Karnak! It is true the sun rises every day and keeps moving, but a temple built thousands of years ago to align the sunrise to the solitice is worth watchng! A lot of science and engineering went into this!

Granite is not an easy stone to carve or carry! 

A few HDR shots..

A video highlight of the Karnak temple visit..

The grand finale from the night's sound and light show was a focus on the statue around which people would walk counter clockwise 7 times for luck..

We enjoyed this temple complex thoroughly. After this on our way out we got some tea/ coffee at a restaurant / gift shop which was very nice.

Then we went back out to the van. It was time for the next stop which was supposed to be yet another highlight!