Markets around the world share common characteristics that gathers locals and tourists alike to spend their time and money. They have a simple feature: the pleasures of life.
Travel
Mystical Nepal – A Trekker Haven
From my window seat, I looked out at the glacier melt streaming down from the Himalayas, running through Nepal’s natural colour palette: crystal-bluish ice and sparkling white snow on grey rock, descending into the brown, dusty land and vibrant green jungles on the border of India.
If you’re lucky your plane will circle above the Kathmandu Valley a second time before landing. Mine did, and it allowed me to absorb the landscape, but also to try and identify Mount Everest among the endlessly sprawling and majestic Himalayan summits.
Propagating Kurdish Nationalist Influence (Sanliurfa, Turkey)
The perfect symmetry of the yellow stoned arches mirrored in Balikligöl pond only lasts a second. It is broken by the chaotic splashing of a few holy fish crowd surfing over the thousands more with mouths babbling ready for the feeding frenzy. They’re here because of a legend dating back millennia.
Sitting in the shade of a large tree outside the Cave of Ibrahim, I watch my hot çay tea sweat in the agonizing heat that is summer in Şanlıurfa. Reflecting on the historic significance of what I just witnessed is feverishly difficult. This is the cave where Abraham, the very same Abraham from the Old Testament, was born.
Literary Reportage 