Home Is Paradise...

And I am finally to be back home, back home after being on the road, in Morocco, for just about a week. And there's more relaxing like home...

Taking off from Istanbul earlier this morning, we flew north of the Black Sea coast of Turkey. And I hoped I would catch a glimpse of the Caspian Sea, as we headed into Kazakh airspace...

It was just about daybreak as we flew over the Caspian...

The disappointment of not seeing the Caspian Sea was more than made up by the breathtaking break of dawn...

We had already flown over Georgia and Azerbaijan by then... Both these are countries I would love to visit one day...

Time to rest as we zip across the Steppes of Kazakhstan...

And now here I am, at home, resting with some Moroccan sweets from Maymana's shop at Casablanca Airport, sipping a strong brew of Assam tea and watching the House of Cards! This is bliss...

Up In The Air .... Part 57

And here I am Up In The Air, onboard Selçuklu, Turkish Airlines' Airbus A330 operating as TK 618 today, from Casablanca !

A smooth liftoff from Casablanca powered by the two Rolls Royce Trent 600 engines...

The shadows of clouds on the ground are amazing!

Indeed this trip to Morocco will remain a memorable one for years to come... 

Setting course for Istanbul, heading towards Algerian airspace...

And soon we are over the desert...

The rugged hills of the Algerian Sahara Desert...

The flight plan consciously avoids overflying Libya...

We will fly over the city of Tunis (known for the world famous ruins of Carthage) and Sicily before the approach into Istanbul from the Balkans...

What a shot!

The glow of dusk filters into the cabin...

Approaching Sicily...

The approach into Istanbul...

Imagine the power packed inside this engine!

On finals...

Moments to touchdown...

Plane Spotting At CMN .... Part 2

The second edition of Plane Spotting at Casablanca's Mohammed V International Airport or CMN, as it is called by IATA...

Landing into Casablanca, it was immediately time to do some spotting, right away and the first one was Royal Air Maroc's Boeing 737...

Etihad's Airbus A330...

RAM's Boeing 737 fleet lined up at CMN...

Turning in into our gate...

Spotting through the terminal's dusty windows, I spot an Iberia Airbus A320...

RAM's Boeing 737...

...and the Iberian Airbus A320 behind it!

And an Emirates Boeing 777 comes in from Dubai - there's not a single airport (an international airport) I've been to that doesn't have an Emirates flight coming in. Perhaps, access to cheap fuel gives them quite a bit indeed, some call it hidden subsidies...

A journey begins for RAM's Boeing 737...

That's my flight into Istanbul today - Turkish Airlines' Airbus A330 called as Selçuklu, which is named after a town in the Konya Province of the Central Anatolia region of Turkey...

The lovely livery of an Egyptair Boeing 737, with the "Eye of Horus" on the tail!

RAM's Embraer E190...

Can't my eyes off the Eye of the Horus...

Air Arabia Maroc's Airbus A320 - the airline is a Moroccan low-cost airline, a joint venture between various Moroccan investors and Air Arabia of Sharjah...

Boarded and ready to fly!!!!

Istanbul, here I come!