The alarm went off at 4:10! but we managed to get back to sleep and wake up at a more reasonable time. After breakfast we met up with our guide and the rest of our tour party which consisted of 3 women. Two of the women were from the USA – Chicago and Seattle, with the other, also an American now living in Lichtenstein. Our guides name is Asil and although he has only just started with the tour company he has 15 years of experience and demonstrated good kno...

Have now finished the second of our long flights having flown Turkish Airlines from Singapore to Istanbul arriving at 0530am, about 40 minutes early, and a cool 13°C. The 40 minutes was quickly eaten up by queueing for immigration and customs – there were no hassles just a lot of people from flights that all seemed to arrive at 0530. Unfortunately we somehow missed the person from the tour company who was supposed to pick us up and deliver us to the ho...

We are off and the first of our four 10+ hour flights is now behind us. Had a good flight on Thursday with Singapore airlines. Upon arrival at the hotel in Singapore there was a message waiting for us from an ex-colleague from the UK who was staying at the same hotel. Bruce met up with him that evening and invited him to join us and other ex-SE Asia colleagues the following night for a dinner which had been organised before we left home. The next morning (Frida...

Our original plan for this trip was to visit Singapore, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and then Canada on our way home. This was changed due to the unsettled state of Egypt and we changed our itinerary to visit Singapore, Turkey, Poland, the Baltic Countries, Russia, Belarus and then Canada. We will organise to visit Egypt and Jordan next year depending upon the political stability.