Monday, June 8, 2009

Trail of St Paul (Part 4)


A Sabah pilgrim washing her hands with water drawn from St Paul's well.


Turkish chef preparing minced lamb meat for the Kebab.


Mrs Juliet Lui (left) of Faith Tours of Singapore. On the right is Selahattin, our tour guide. Looking on is our tour bus driver.

Don't leave us out lah!


Rev Fr Fundes (right) sure seems to have enjoyed his Turkish meal. On the left is Mr Linus Tokuzip, organiser of the pilgrimage from the Sabah end.

"Take your time and hurry up!", as our tour guide was very fond of saying.


Ini baru lah, smile for the camera! Kebab kambing sedap agaknya?


Why so serious, Sr Anna Dolores? Don't like Kebab?


OK I'm done...Sr Colette seems to be saying.


Family affair...Pilgrim Thomas with his family members.


Sabah pilgrims enjoying the Kebab. In the middle is Sr Rita.

Minced lamb meat, the main ingredient for the Kebab. However, by the time I remembered to take this pix, the rest of the food was gone. I was hungry. Lamb meat is served either minced or sliced in Turkey. The minced version is spicy while for the sliced version you select your own spices.

Turkish boys peddling delicacies to locals and tourists alike at Tarsus.


Selahhattin, our Turkish tour guide who speaks good English. Despite being a Muslim, he knows more about the Bible than me. It didn't take him long to learn Sabah words like Aramaiti!

Sabah Times on sale in Turkey? No, sabah means morning (paper) there. However, in most Arab countries Sabah is a common surname. e.g. Al-Sabah. Just google sabah and you will know what I mean.


Muslim ladies from Indonesia on the same plane with us from Singapore to Istanbul. They were also on a pilgrimage to Turkey. They were on an Umrah (minor Haj) by visiting places like Haran (Abraham the Patriach's place before he moved to Canaan) and Mt Ararat where Noah's Ark is believed to have rested. They might also be visiting Mother Mary's house in Ephesus. Surprised? Well, according to our Muslim tourist guide, they also believe in the above. Mother Mary would be Mariam in the Quran, Abraham is Ibrahim, and so on.

More Pix From Tarsus

We have been in Turkey for more than a week now and I know I have so far blogged only about Day 1 (Tarsus). Despite so, before going to Day 2 (Antakya), I still have more photos from Tarsus to post. There are two reasons for this. First, it will serve as a pictorial record of our pilgrimage and trip to Turkey - least I accidentally delete any of those pix in my memory card or, worse still, have my camera lost. Second, it's to make things easier for everybody - so that all my fellow pilgrims got to do when they return home is to download or save the pics from my blog and print the pix themselves.

I know I'm behind time in filing my posts. We have in fact reached the 2nd last leg of our trip and will be home in a few days' time. However, as I have said, it's better late than never. Much as I would like to blog everyday (that was why I brought along my Netbook), circumstances prevented me from doing so. As they say, man proposes God disposes. Either I was too tired by the time we got back to the hotel or there would be a technical hitch when I tried to blog. Those who have experience traveling with tour groups will appreciate my situation - you only get to sleep for a few hours before you have to wake up, wash, have breakfast, check-out and move on.

OK, enough excuses. Here are the rest of the Tarsus pix. Please bear in mind that I'm not a professional pixman and that being a traveller, I can only take a certain pix at a certain time at a certain place from a certain angle and in a certain weather condition. I didn't have much choice. Besides, the camera I'm using for this trip is only a compact-sized digital cam. So if you want to see more professionally-taken or more exotic pix of Turkey, just google it. Just type the names of the places we visit until the end of our trip. For example, just type Tarsus or Images of Tarsus in the Google or Yahoo serach boxes and you'll get hundreds if not thousands of pictures.

Till the next part, see you. Thank you for visiting. May God bless you.

1 comment:

SJDisimon said...

Convey my best wishes and regards to my neighbour (staying just opposite my house at kg. Sombiing, Bahah), Thomas Jimulis and his family. And also to Sr. Anna Dolores, my cousin.