Middle East 2009

A few weeks ago I had no idea what I would be doing this summer. For a reason unknown to me, my eyes turned to the Middle East. Probably it was a news article, a random web site or something that made me think of it. I played around for a while with the idea, and started liking it.

One day I had an online chat with Don, a friend who I have previously been travelling with. Don was also thinking of heading to the Middle East in the summer, so we ended up combining our plans.

Countless hours of googling were spent to get to know the countries a bit and work out a decent route plan, and at least the same amount of work was required to find reasonable priced flights to the area and back. Two days ago we finally made up our minds, and booked Air Baltic flights from Helsinki to Istanbul via Riga, and the return trip from Tel Aviv to Helsinki. Also, a flight from Istanbul to Diyarbakir in Turkey was booked. That way we would get a few days to spend meeting friends in Istanbul, then fly to Diyarbakir and start our journey through the Middle East countries.

It's about 2 months to the beginning of the journey now, so get back here in July for some fresh travel stories from the cradle of the civilization :)