A night cruise on the Bosphorus strait - Istanbul

The previous post in this series is here..

After visiting the Topkapi place on our second afternoon in Istanbul, we got back to the hotel to catch up with the little one who was busy studying. Did a quick shower, change into nicer clothes and off we went on an Uber to the docks. We had booked a Viator cruise on the Bosphorus strait which included a vegetarian dinner and live entertainment.

We were flanked on either side by a group of desi boys who had all started working recently after graduating and a family from Germany with two little kids. We were chit chatting and before we knew it, there was some really good entertainment. We even got a visual of the swirling dervishes. Not posting pictures as it is all in the video.

Between the food and entertainment, we went out to the deck to get pictures. The iconic golden gate looking bridge that shows up in every Turkish serial that San watches was there in front of us! It is really as beautiful to see the coastline as it is in the serials!

There was a photographer who took shots of all of us and obviously sold the nice pictures to us at the end of the cruise. It was more of a memorabilia for me. My girls are always pretty in my eyes, but to see them from another persons lens made me smile.

The gallery of lights as seen from the cruise..

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A few other pictures from this cruise and on our way back to the hotel.. where the mosques light up the place.

A video highlights reel of the cruise and the entertainment..

Strongly recommend this cruise if you visit Istanbul. Given my allergies and food restrictions, they gave me enough to eat to keep me going for the two plus hours on the cruise. We found a nice driver called Mustafa who took us from the hotel to the place and he told us “god willing, I will get to take you back when you return as my house is close to your hotel”.. and sure enough, god willed for him. We hailed for an Uber in the crowd and Mustafa shows up!

We had a really great time as a family on this cruise. It was chilly when we got out. We were going to wake up and go for one last interesting experience the following morning before leaving the city.. god willing, will write that post tonight.

An evening in Baixa

The previous post in this series is here..

After our guide dropped us off in Baixa, our first stop was the Elevator. San told me that standing in line to go up that elevator was not worth it. So we walked up the steps to the streets above and got pictures.. when we walked back down it was early evening and there was an intense craving for chai and desi food. We did not get a good read of the map. So we ate at the first indian food we could find. It was decent food but we simply could not sit inside the restaurant as it had a weird smell. Later we learned that there are places with nicer seating and less smoke.

Then we decided to walk all the way to the other end of the main road to the water front. I had a tough time catching up to my wife as she was running everywhere and my ability to follow was limited by the number of butter naans that had been consumed. It was an amazing evening with the sky putting on a show for us at the waterfront.

After spending an hour or so taking pictures and watching the street performers, we walked back to our hotel.

A video highlight reel ..

We were going on an all day packaged tour the following day. So we went to sleep early. My local tourguide had already visited two of the three places we were going to see and had already started describing it to me!

Our first day in Portugal was a hit !

A sound and light show - Karnak temple

We left the Luxor temple and went straight to the Karnak temple by van. 

The previous post in this series is here..

Walid told us exactly where to go, where to sit and how to come out of the show as fast as we can to get ahead of the returning crowd so we could be at our boat before dinner time closed.

This is my first sound and light show. Apparently a lot of historic venues do this thing. 

it was an interesting experience. We go as a group and walk through the temple at night with things being projected on the walls. 

Somehow the lighting was not optimal and the sound was all garbled for a third of the walking show.

There was also a dog that kept sittiing at my foot and walked with me the entire time. San was freaking out about the dog. It was dark and an animal at your feet is not exactly comforting if you are scared. 

Still we enjoyed the show given we could see the stars in the night sky. You can see orion in this picture right above the temple!

from a distance I thought this was a row of sphinxes.. turned out to be Ram's! 

a few more pictures.. 

that part where we sit on a gallery watching things light up randomly over the lake was not that great. It was more like something from Disney and more American than ancient Egyptian. Shakespearean voices don't set the right tone for this show. 

A video highlight of the walk through show..

We raced out to Walid's surprise. We were the first ones out to the parking lot. Have never seen a guide be so proud of his group! We went back to the boat. Was trying to shop for magnets in the shops when Walid said "don't bother. We come back here first thing in the morning. You are here at a special time. There are only two days in the year when the sun shines through the line at the Karnak temple to make it look like it is rising from the sea! Tomorrow is one of those days! you can shop then"

we were dropped off at the dock and we had to walk a block towards our boat. The walkway along the dock in Luxor is well lit in night and looked even more beautiful. 

We were back in the boat and the group was already having dinner. We joined in. The dining room team was very nice and wished us well. It was going to be our last night in the boat. 

The next morning we were to be in the reception area with our bags packed by 5AM. We told them there was no need for wake up calls. We had been up before 4:30 almost every day! Our original van was going to be back. We were going to cover a lot of places in the van and head out of Luxor.

We were given guidelines on what to tip and how. Having had local currency helped. It was interesting how they expected a larger tip when in dollars than in local currency. 

It was time to hit the bed early one more time!