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travelling around the Indian Ocean

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  Without understanding how much money would be added on for inter-island flights (and for a single supplement as no-one else wanted to share), I booked a slot onto a birdwatching tour of some of the Indian Ocean islands: the Seychelles (Mahe, Praslin, La Digue and Cousin), Mauritius and Rodriques, Reunion and Mayotte, and the Comoros.   As seems to have become the norm on birding trips these days, the other tour participants were not only older than me, but also hard-core birders, holding endless conversations about different bird guides, bird books and their authors, and getting very concerned as to whether or not we might see various endemic sub-species of bird species we’d already seen on a different island. But I still enjoyed the trip, getting to see the beautiful scenery of the islands and the wildlife – giant tortoises, blue-tailed geckos, enormous palm spiders, and flying foxes (bats) as well as the birds – and learning snippets of information about the history and culture of
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and then on to Kazakhstan

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Well it would have been nice to go ‘on to Kazakhstan’, but actually I had to fly all the way back to Istanbul, transit for 14 hours in the airport (and despite what they advertise, Turkish Airlines did not provide hotel accommodation, merely two vouchers for the cheapest dishes on the menu at the cheapest eating establishments in the airport), and then fly back over Turkmenistan to get to Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city and former capital.  There my friend and I met our tour group, were given a tour of the city’s highlights, and finally were able to get some much-needed sleep. The next few days mostly focused on what for me were the highlights of this country – the spectacular mountains and canyons of its natural scenery.  We visited several different sites within the 4,600 km2 Altyn-Emel National Park, walking for several hours in both the stunning Charyn Canyon and the almost-as-stunning Katutau Coloured Mountains, and also visited the Black Canyon, a couple of lakes, and the Ak-Ta
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the strange but interesting Turkmenistan

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Turkmenistan wasn’t all that high on my wish list of countries to visit, but I’m glad that I accepted the suggestion of a friend that we visit last month.  All that came to mind was the famous gas crater burning methane for the last 50 years (the so-called Gateway to Hell), but it turns out to not only have some great ruins (Old Nisa, Konya Urgench and Merv all being UNESCO-listed sites) but also a fairly interesting modern culture. One of the most sparsely populated nations on the Asian continent, mostly desert, It became independent after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 (having also been under the Oghuz, the Seljuks, the Mongols … but with a largely nomadic population who never really kow-towed to anyone).).  I suppose you could call it a benign dictatorship; no-one except the president is allowed to stand in its rare elections, but a good share of the country’s very great wealth (from its oil and gas deposits) is shared with the population in its pretty centralised econo
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the other side of Syria

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 Around all of the great sights that one can see in Syria, however, is the awful legacy of the recent conflicts, with very visible war damage to homes and businesses.  Not to mention that the parts of the country around Idlib and Rojava are still subject to flare-ups.  It’s estimated that some 600,000 have been killed in the war, and millions have fled overseas.  I met several of the latter, on ‘home visits’ to their families – most of them very well-educated and now completing their studies overseas (eg one doing her masters in disaster prevention civil engineering, another looking for a place to continue her studies in genetics to doctorate level).  It made me feel rather guilty that I’d been so awestruck at all of the physical war damage, excitedly taking photos of the remains of apartment blocks without really thinking that those had been peoples’ homes, and that there might have been people inside when the rockets struck.  But when I expressed this to the people I met they were ve
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a week in Syria

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Although I did pass briefly through Syria in 1985 on the way between Turkey and Jordan, I stopped to visit only Damascus and Palmyra – so when I later heard about some of the other great places in the country – Krak des Chevaliers in particular – I was determined to go back.  Then earlier this year I saw a trip organised (the only way to get a visa currently is on a group tour, and that way you also have a knowledgeable local guide managing the security side) for a week in August when I had nothing else planned.  As there are no flights in and out of Syria currently, the tour started and ended in Beirut, so all the government warnings to leave Beirut immediately due to the threat of imminent Hezbollah-Israel conflict were rather concerning.  But thankfully my flight was not cancelled and there was no escalation of the tension before (or during) my trip.  Although I did hear sonic booms from Israeli aircraft over Beirut (a daily reminder to Hezbollah of their capabilities), and three
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more cats

My time at the cat sanctuary passed quite quickly, particularly since the owner returned as she drove here from the UK with piles of provisions (mostly cat toys and blankets…), all of which has had to be unpacked, washed, sorted through, etc.   I managed to get talked into coming back here for nine days in August, when I should have been seeing as-yet-unvisited bits of Turkey, but I suppose it will save me a little cash again. I think the biggest down-side of being there was the inability to get any exercise.  Whilst I wasn’t doing anything measurable for much of the day (when not cleaning litter trays, watering the plants, etc), I had to either lock the little kitten and one of the disabled cats in a bedroom, or allow them to enjoy the garden but watch the kitten constantly, as it was small enough to escape between the gate bars into the big outdoors where there were feral dogs (as well as the sheep, goats, donkeys and bulls that wandered the area).  After seven weeks of inactivity I’
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cats

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Whilst the first half of 2024 has generally been quite cheap (Vietnam and Laos mostly £3-4 a night for hostels), I have a few organised tours booked for the second half and the costs are going to really mount up, so I responded to an advert I saw looking for a volunteer in a Turkish cat sanctuary – seven weeks with no accommodation costs, just food to pay for … with what turns out to be something like 16 cats (many are feral, so they come and go), some with disabilities, in a small home down the bottom of a lane in a nameless village with just one shop that doesn’t even sell any fresh produce. I also felt that it would give me the ‘down time’ I’ve been needing – to reflect on where I’ve been, plan for where I’m going next, and maybe even take time out to read, listen to music and watch videos. Well there has been less time out than I’d expected, not so much because of the time spent putting out bowls, cleaning litter trays (and the house generally) and watering the garden, but because
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