Kathmandu 1990. And can I blame the earthquake.

First time I went to Nepal was 1990. After a truly arduous journey through India, I was ready for the peace, calm and beauty everyone talked to me about in Nepal. I took the bus up to Srinagar, and then to Kathmandu. I never forget the moment I opened up my eyes in the bus after my dozing off for few hours of sleep; bus climbing the conic shaped Himalayas and hundreds shades of green shaping these enormous heights we were climbing. It felt like we were going into some land so taken away from rest of the world, so impossible to reach. When I got to Kathmandu, I felt like I found exactly what I came here for. The calm. The quiet and reserved but kind people of Nepal; beautiful small ‘village’ of Kathmandu with small streets. It was so easy to get around that I rented a bicycle and ventured out into nearby towns. Buildings were two story tall, the temples stood out. The summer of 1990 was also a very strange time, country almost quiet after the turmoil of many protests and demonstrations which turned deadly within the year but the king finally lifting the ban on political parties. At the time Kathmandu was almost the only ‘city’ in the country, rest pretty much small village like towns, and most of country largely with rural populations.

Next time I went to Nepal was 2004. I desperately needed ‘the calm’, and it was the only place I knew which would stop the train in my brain running millions of miles an hour. When I arrived to Kathmandu, the peace has left. The city became a city with multi story apartments and probably grew ten fold in size. I was sitting at the rooftop of my newly built five story hotel and could see the town stretched to the mountains; populated with slums starting at the edges.  The leftist front guerrillas and the civil war almost coming to an end and country making a decision to go back to peaceful times. I remember people with guns in their commando outfits coming down on the rural roads walking towards to Kathmandu in most unexpected places; and also trucks full of people waving Maoist flags at the outskirts of the overblown city. The long fought battle left people with so much emotion that they were demonstrating everywhere; but also the rural people tired of the fighting already left for the cities and the huge population explosion with new buildings.

As I read about the temple in Danbar square, built in sixteen hundreds, destroyed this morning; I remember all the many more peaceful cities I cherished in me, and how many of them will be no more lands of tranquillity and beauty, like what we saw in Damascus and Aleppo or Sarajevo. It is not earthquakes or the nature to blame. It is us who create oppression, poverty, forced immigrations, disruption to nature causing power struggles and wars. I am counting and list keeps growing.

Hiding in the crowd - Venice Bienalle: Architectural Spaces - www.veneziaubc.com

Unfurling by van Brandenburg at Museo Diocesano, Venice

İstanbul’dan kalanlar

SALT Beyoğlu’nda ‘Yazlık: şehirlinin kolonisi’

What being home means.

Take one. The wind.
Take two. Long way down dreams with the best crew.

Take three. Catching up a million years in sixty minutes.

Take four. Bumping into adventurers.

Take five. Saying goodbye over and over.

Expedition into the wilderness ---of self and others

How I dealt with ‘years of myself’ in the Gobi desert

I am just back from a week in the Mongolian steppes and Gobi desert. With 12 countrymen, twelve motorbikes, and a Kazakh woman. Being a chronic solo traveller, this expedition had presented huge risks with thirteen people whom I knew almost none, had no idea on their experience of travel or life for that matter. I been immersed into creating a completely new business past eight  months in a new continent with a new team, probably eating up every ounce of risk taking, creativity, persistence, ambition and perseverance that existed in my veins. I been flooded with an adrenaline rush since November last year, getting up to a new day every day where every second every move every player had to be contemplated and executed from scratch. So how did this physical strenuous activity in mongolia that involved people I didn’t know and extreme conditions fit to that state of mind?

Güneri Civaoğlu Ile Sohbet

Güneri Civaoğlu ile keyifli bir yemek sohbeti gerçekleştirdik.

Online haberi buradan da okuyabilirsiniz.

‘Al ahwal’ in Cairo

by Farghali

To empathize with a city, best way is to get to know a diversified range of local people. I got to see a different glimpse of Cairo again, the artistic side of the city in my visit this week. Last time I did this, it was few months after revolution and streets of Cairo was not a safe place to walk around. So we confined ourselves with a co-worker who played my guide to the busy and small streets of Zamalek; and sat and had several conversations with art gallery owners. They were apprehensive two years ago; joyful of the movement yet again very concerned on potential self censorship, impact on artists freedom, and of course loss of business. One lady speculated on Turkey versus new Egypt and eventual fate of women; another gallery owner talked about his top clientele being in jail. Yet again we looked through fantastic paintings and sculptures awaiting to be purchased in small rooms piled.

This is where I met Farghali’s and several other contemporary Egyptian artists’ paintings. What provoked me to take the art journey at the first place was the fascinating Khaled Sourour exhibit at the Nile City Fairmont, ‘al ahwal’—(I wonder if it would mean state of the world as we would call it in Turkish?) which struck me as fiercely local yet with a cartoonish vividness screaming.

Marrakech Things

 

Cusco Treni Bulutların Üstüne Gider

Hürriyet Seyahat'ten Serhan Yedig ile Lima gezimin detaylarını paylaştım. Yazının tamamına buradan ulaşabilirsiniz.                                 

Teknolojinin Evliya Çelebi'si

Milliyet Gazetesi'nden Menderes Özel ile çok keyifli bir röportaj gerçekleştirdik.

Röportajın tamamını buradan okuyabilirsiniz.

And the board meets at Legoland!

 Lego headquarters is in Billund, Denmark. A real cold, cold piece of land on the mainland of Denmark, I actually think it is close to Arctic but I was warned by my European colleagues that it was only close to the north sea. Out of our two days business meetings we actually had few hours to combine the amazing innovative Lego approach to the discussions we had and  actually had FUN.

Little Paris Things

              

Journey in the Magical Kingdom of the Andes

Cuzco Town

Peru has been in the plans for me for two years now; and despite the altitude risk; enormous distance and hours of air travel—I was determined to go up to Machu Picchu before end of February. And boy, was it worth it. Long trip from Las Vegas to Lima and on to Cuzco where 3400 meters altitude hit you like a rock. I spent sometime in modern Peru, doing the museums, seaside and the famous food of Lima. On to Cuzco, the capital of the Incas for hundreds of years and the main point where roads in south America met.

Waving The Flag at the Dig, the pirate one this time :)

On digging strenuous inspirations for self.

My friend Peter is the only person I know in the corporate world besides myself who is interested in archeology, especially the living part of archeology, i.e. the digs. We had a discussion at the dig he works in today. Folks around us are amazed why one would be interested in digging up dirt alongside whatever comes in it, pieces of pottery, seeds, and all that is good for carbon reading. We are amazed to their disinterest. How can humans be so interested in today or tomorrow when they have no perspective on the past? 

Nairobi - Conveying the Naked Truth

Places of Interest: Innovation Hub, Nairobi Fairmont Hotel, Nakuru National Park

Third trip in past six months to Africa, this time brought the whole gang, my colleagues with me to Kenya. It is a different feeling. Normally when I talked about Africa, or anyone else for that matter, one keeps talking about opportunities, sharing observations, convey excitement, uncertainties and issues only through own eyes; own rhetoric in the context of whatever is being discussed. And you never can be sure how it is perceived. Whether people around you think you are like a news reporter talking on this far away land where only wars and famine or coups happen. Or they think you are talking about an exotic land where man hasn’t taken over the animal kingdom yet; or specially concocted for a movie set-but for sure somewhere on a planet not within today’s world.

Visiting a South African township

Self-sustaining community center meets technology

First ever place I landed in Sub-Sahara Africa is Johannesburg. It was late 90’s. I remember exactly how it felt: I was stunned and kept on trying to register why I knew so well this was the tip of Africa. It was warm with green beautiful trees I never saw before; and had this amazing color of a sunset falling on the thousands of people walking from work to their townships. The city has gotten much more advanced and crowded since.

Learning to like London

And how to cope with wanting to know everything…

Destinations: Foyles bookstore, Charing Cross. Red Fort Indian Restaurant, Dean Street in Soho.

  

I feel like a carnivorous tonight. Well—technically I am a carnivorous. I am talking about emotional hunger to buy books and learn much deeper about the places I visited in past couple of months. Finally I died and am in book heaven called Foyles.

Ethiopian journey; how change in Africa is happening now..

I went to Ethiopia for my vacation in November, a dream place for any archeology buff, but also a great eye opener for someone who contends to run Africa for a technology company.

         

Yes, I have seen Lucy, a hundred twenty centimer tall lady in the museum. I went to see Lake Tana, the beginning of the amazing Blue Nile which

gives life to east Africa. And I did see Gonder, its palaces from which Ethiopian empire was run, so sophisticated and ahead of its time when they were built.I went up to Simian Mountains national park, stayed at the highest lodge in Africa at 3650 meters and dined together with the baboons. I shopped in the art galleries of Adis Ababa and got myself two contemporary Ethiopian paintings.