Savings and Planning always help! Our strength and perseverance are only tested when we face disappointment and adversity. Here's a #KhudKoKarBuland video that tells us how planning and saving in bad times help!


 Here are some instances where I felt that I battled adversities when things went haywire.

 When we travel, we often face adversities we are seldom prepared for, that is why it is always wise to carry money for anything unprepared. Take for example, my latest trip to Switzerland was chaotic. The flight which was booked was via Canada. The airlines never informed me of the Canadian Transit Visa and the moment I reached the transit airport at Canada, I was caught by immigration and not allowed to board further. On pleading and paying $200, I moved ahead on another flight. I didn’t even get my luggage at Zurich that meant that I had to incur extra expenses, rental clothes for my stay of 5 days. While returning back, I wasn’t allowed to board again. I had no choice but to book fresh tickets from my savings of $1200 dollars to get me back home safely. Had I not had planned and bought those dollars, imagine how things would have been.

 I remember a rare instance when I was traveling by an auto and it had a head on collision with the car. My whole world tumbled down in a matter of seconds, the auto had toppled badly. Before that moment, I was singing a song...and the next moment I see myself, dealing with three fainted people over me. My hand was badly bruised under the rod and when the auto was bought to position by people, I felt so dizzy that I uttered some words to the owner of the shop nearby, called up my mom from his phone before I partially fainted and asked for water on me. On gaining consciousness, I even braved to walk some distance and then take a lift. It was then the treatment started thanks to my parents and their savings, but adversities happen when you ain’t looking for one.

 So, whats the moral of these two stories? One- we can’t predict life’s uncertainties, two, we need to be prepared for any eventuality and three, when we face a problem head on, without fear- we can move ahead and tackle anything.

The grandeur of the Hoover Dam and the black canyons made us sit back and enjoy the magnum opus. Ask us, if we wanted to further drive down to Grand Canyon. Hell yes! But something in us, stopped us, and we thought why don’t for this time we just do Hoover Dam and surrounding areas. Doing Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon in a day would have been very hectic.




 Today was our second day in Vegas and we were longing for a drive. We had heard from friends that the drive is very scenic with boulders on both sides. Luckily renting a car in Vegas comes very cheap. As our eyes got hooked to convertible($75) we thought why not!



There wouldn’t be any other place we would have enjoyed the lovely weather plus the road side beauty that will take us to the destination. The Budget car rental at Fremont street gave us a sheet with the list of places nearby. One of which was Lake Mead. I googled it, but there were hardly any directions listed. Strange!


 I often end up using Google Maps, when GPS keeps asking for specific House Numbers! It seems it contains stored data and not everything is stored in there. Sometimes useful when Google maps don’t work, but most often confusing or may be the car we had hired was equipped with Old GPS. As we started driving down, it was a straight road without much twists and turns, and along the way we got to know that the roof of the convertible can only be opened at less than 30 miles/hour.

The scenery was worth driving to. In fact, in 3 days in Vegas, Hoover Dam was a pleasant distraction. We parked our car at the plaza where there was paid parking, and ate at the plaza.Then we started walking towards the bridge.There are two monuments in the form of 30 foot high bronze figures that honors men who died during its construction and represents physical strength used to create the dam, an engineering feat the sculptor compared to the construction of Egypt’s pyramids.




 Hoover Dam is as tall as a 60 storey building. And It protects southern California and Arizona from the disastrous floods for which the Colorado had been famous. It provides water to irrigate farm fields. It supplies water and power to Los Angeles and other growing cities in the Southwest. The bridge is on the border between Nevada and Arizona and hence you could see two time-zones there listed as Nevada Time and Arizona Time.



Once you cross the bridge, there are many free parking slots. In fact, we wondered why we did paid park at the first place and shots from each parking lot is beautiful. After we had a great time, it was a time for us to return. As we were returning back, I saw a sign board of Lake Overlook in between the canyons.We didn’t go there, instead we headed straight to Lake Mead which was really a very peaceful and quaint place.Lake Mead, when full, is the largest reservoir in the United States in terms of maximum water capacity.Lake Mead offers year-round recreational opportunities for boating, fishing, hiking, photography, picnicking and sightseeing.

Tip: An alternative to renting a car is packaged tours to Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon in a day by viator($79). They start pretty early in the day, and you reach late back to Vegas, but if you want to cover both in a day, its a good option.A lot of my friends have done it that way. We woke up late(thanks to late night partying) and we enjoyed our drive! Grand Canyon will be on our next visit..







 Let’s take you to a quick photo essay!

Now that's Crazy! We woke up this New Year, packed our bags, explored Las Vegas on buses, munched in the best budget food , zip lined through the streets, partied hard, played casinos, watched free shows. A complete guide to your weekend trip(2 days) to Las Vegas through our eyes.

               To know more information in detail, my blogpost on Vegas in 2 days says more..

Turkey is an ancient Jewel. The monuments, the palaces and the stories makes Turkey a blend of Greek, Roman, Egyptian and the world architecture and what amuses me that even after the revolts, break downs and conquest, the rich cultural heritage is preserved intact.




 Hagia Sophia 

 So our second stop was Hagia Sophia. Hagia Sophia was a church. After the conquest of Istanbul, the church was converted into a mosque and then in 1934 the mosque was converted into a museum. So now, Hagia Sophia is a museum.This ancient basilica, built by Constantine the Great in the 4th century and reconstructed by Justinian in the 6th century, is one of the architectural marvels of all time.






 The stories from Hagia Sophia talks about construction and reconstruction. The church was constructed thrice. First, it was constructed in 329 AD with wooden wall with sapphire in color. Then it was constructed in 115 AD and it was in Marble. Before the Byzantine empire, it was roman empire and before the roman empire was the earliest Greek who arrived in 6th century BC and they set their city, their temples everything.They used Marble and Red Brick. But by 532 AD with the revolt it collapsed. The current building that stands was constructed in between 532 and 537 AD on the orders of Byzantine Empire and was the third church. 10,000 people constructed the church in 5 years.After one year the center of dome collapsed because of heavy material they used. They had hired guys from Greek civilization from ancient part and they reconstructed again. And in the reconstruction the material they used was volcanic ash which was lighter but stronger.








 Famous in particular for its massive dome, It remained the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.This church initially was orthodox church with the crusaders and then changed to catholic church.When they constructed this church they used material from all over the world. They bought many columns from Egypt. They bought many columns from Greece and some from Temples in Ephesus. From different parts, the material they collected created different structures and in 1453 was converted into a mosque.And in a mosque you cannot have image of any other religion that’s why they covered all images with muslin. You can see Arabic Calligraphy at one end and visuals of virgin mary with Jesus at another.



 Tip1 : The best part is from two of the windows at Hagia Sophia you get the best blue mosque view.







Topkapi Palace

 The great palace of the Ottoman sultans from the 15th to the 19th centuries housing an exquisite collection of cyrstal, silver, and Chinese porcelain, robes worn by the sultans and their families, the famous jewels of the Imperial Treasury, miniatures, the Holy Mantle; enshrining relics of the Prophet Mohammed.








 Tip2: Robe yourself like a sultan at the place where they click pictures. 

Topkapi Palace is closed on Tuesday.

Tip 3: Get a museum pass if you want to visit Hagia Sophia and Topkapi Palace along with rest of the museums. The museum pass cost TL 85 for 5 days whereas separate entries to Hagia Sophia and Topkapi palace would itself cost TL 40 each.

If you want to taste Indian food there are two Indian restaurants near Hagia Sophia - Dubb and Swaad. We didn't eat at Indian restaurants but the rest of group did. There are lot of restaurants in Sultanahmet. We don't remember the names but we ate at the road side restaurants near Blue Mosque.




The trip to Turkey was in part collaboration with Travel Shop Turkey and part collaboration as a result of Skyscanner contest win. Namita Gupta was my companion in the trip.

'There are 83000 mosques in Turkey.Turkey can be another planet.Welcome all.'Our guide ‘Turguy’ from Travel Shop Turkey took us to bylines of Turkey where every corner is history.In fact, every place that I went to was grand and stories that come of it were etched in stone.



Group tour also has certain advantage to it.You see more in less time and it's sometimes good.We enjoyed the trip,the guides were well informed and friendly. Now as we boarded the bus and got ourselves introduced to Indians who were on board, the journey began.

Turkey:Hippodrome Square


 Our first stop was Hippodrome Square .Between Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia are remnants of Turkey’s past in the form of ancient Obelisks.The Hippodrome of Contantinopole(Sultanahmet) was the sporting and social center of Byzantine Empire. This used to be a place for chariot racing and 1,00,000 spectators are said to have watched the races during the Roman era.

The hippodrome had a building from where royal families would watch the races from their balcony.There were also monuments constructed dated as back as 10th century AD with 300 stones in bronze plates.In 1200’s first crusaders came and removed all bronze plates and melt it to make weapons.

Serpentine

 As we walked along , there were remnants of serpentine palace from Greek time from 5th century BC.Greek and Persians had war twice. The first time Persians won,the second time Greeks attacked on Persians and collected all the weapons and swords and melted them and these monuments were built in honor of their victory.

 The first column was constructed in bronze with Apollo temple in delphi in Greece because when they attacked the army they took the help of the Oracle.Oracle was the prophet of Apollo temple during Greek time.There are also visible 31 column names of Greek city written on the column.

They say Turkey has more history of Greece than Greece itself has.

Egyptian Column

 There is an Egyptian column from 15th century BC made of 3500 granite stones.When they brought the column from Egypt - they transported it by ship.And on the way they left 6 metres of the column - it took them 31 days to erect the column.So the basement is white marble.The column contains 3500 years old description in the form of eagle,bird etc like totems. Then,in the middle of the 6 th century AD,during byzantine time they had a riot between two powerful groups.And at the end of the riot they couldn’t decide who won and they fought amongst themselves.

They attacked Grand palace and Hagia sophia and they collected a lot and 50,000 people were killed here.

Blue Mosque:Sultan Ahmed Mosque



Best way to see the architecture of Blue Mosque is to approach it from the Hippodrome.Blue mosque is one of the mosque by Ottoman Empire.They started the construction in 1609 AD and it took about 7.5 years to complete this mosque.The capacity of the Durban is 10000 that means 10000 people can pray in the court at the same time.During the month of Ramdan the capacity is almost full.






Why is Blue Mosque called Blue?It's because of the blue tiles present in the interior of Mosque.There are 24000 handmade ceramic tiles in mosque of size (20*20) 



In Islam,before praying,you have to have a clean body.Washing your feet,arms,ears and neck.Both ladies and men can pray in the mosque.The upper galleries were for ladies.But many of the ladies pray at home because they look out for their kids.Men go out. Men and women do not pray at same place,Another obligation is to have a clean mind.To have to pray you have to have a clean body and soul.They pray 5 times a day.


So you need to cover your head,carry your shoes in a plastic bag from the counter and can enter inside.The entry is free but there are long queues. Turguy helped us be ahead in the queue.

Mosque traditionally have one,two or four minerats. There are 6 minerates in this mosque.And why 6 is because our guide told that the architect of the mosque made mistake as he overheard Gold Minerats as six minerats because the word Gold in Turkish is Altin and 6 in turkish is Alti.He was then sent to Mecca for the construction of 7 minerats.


On the back of the Mosque is the marketplace and the income that they get from there is used for reconstruction and restoration of the mosque.

During the Ottomen Empire some of the tiles got damaged because of the earthquake and hence some were replaced with Ceramic tiles as the knowledge of the Turkish Tiles couldn't be transferred.

The main Building has 4 pillars.Behind the pillar is sultan lodge,In Ottoman time,the Sultan can’t pray because of the security.So they created special place for him. As every mosque,we see a lot of Arabic Calligraphy on the walls.On the right side was written 'Allah' and on the left 'Mohammed'.

On the chandeliers, ostrich eggs are found that where meant to avoid cobwebs inside the mosque by repelling spiders.