BasBasBas.com

Tag: animals

  • A Curious Cat!

    The other day I got up before dawn because I wanted to take some shots of Istanbul as the sun came up. The set went alright, but the best picture has nothing to do with Istanbul by dawn… It’s this curious cat I came across (you can click the pic for a bigger version). I’ll be posting other pictures from the set regularly soon… The lower quality, unedited versions are already online for a sneak peek. Have a look in my Picasa.

    Before I left I took another picture of the cat…

    Istanbul has a lot of street cats, which I don’t mind. The dogs can be a nuisance, especially at night, but they are generally clean, healthy and well-behaved, unlike the ones in Sofia, Bulgaria. In my neighbourhood here in Istanbul, people put rests of food outside their window or put special food for cats on the pavement. Every now and then you’ll hear a cat outside your building meowing really loudly. One look out of the window and you’ll find out your upstairs neighbour is throwing food down at the cat – so be careful with sticking your head out of the window. 😉

    In Holland, I have not once seen a street dog and I doubt I’ve ever seen a street cat, but it’s hard to tell as most people just let their cats outside during the day.

    Do you have a lot of street animals in your country? I see a lot of reactions from different parts of the world, so I’m especially interested in what type of animals? How do they behave? How does the general public feel about them?

    BasBasBas.com is about my life as a Dutch student living in Istanbul. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul and travels in the region. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.

  • Vegetarian Anniversary!

    As I was going through my blog archives, trying to figure out what I was doing exactly one year ago hoping it would inspire me for a new post, I discovered that today’s a special day.

    Exactly one year ago (to the hour), I was watching a film called Earthlings, somewhat horrified I should mention. I’ve always said I thought being a vegetarian was noble, but I simply loved meat too much to become one. I ate meat 2-3 times per day. I loved meat. All of that changed over the course of one documentary. One of the greatest documentaries I’ve ever seen, I should add, with a great soundtrack provided by Moby. I decided I could no longer be a hypocrite.

    Earthlings


    .

    After watching the film, I simply could not eat meat anymore, so I quit. For a while, I thought, not expecting myself to even last 2 months. I’ve exceeded my expectations by far… It has now been a year since I last ate meat (minus the grasshoppers).

    It was never my intention, but it turns out that becoming a vegetarian is actually easier than stopping to be a vegetarian. Who would have thought.

    Please take a moment to watch this documentary. I’ve heard many people say that they don’t really want to know where their meat comes from, or what happens to the animals before they eat them. This is a bs excuse. You are consuming them, so you are responsible. At least look at what you are doing. I’m not asking you to stop eating meat, but at least make yourself aware of what you’re doing.

    Saying that you don’t want to know what you are partly responsible for is like the 1930’s/40’s Germans ignoring what was being done onto the Jewish population during the second World War. Yes. Suffering is done upon animals in a massive scale, an inconceivable scale. Just imagine the number of turkeys killed for thanksgiving.

    I’m fine with people’s choice to eat meat. As long as it is a choice. Think about what you consume. You are responsible.

    If you wish the world was different, if you wish things were not this way… then change what you can. Start with yourself. The rest will follow. You cannot expect the world to change first. You take the first step.

    It all starts with informing yourself. Watch Earthlings.

  • PhotoHunt: Colourful

    I took this picture during my trip to Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria. I was having dinner on a terrace and this stray dog kept begging people for food, shoving its head through the fence and putting it on people’s tables. First time I really saw a stray dog like that, but during my five month stay in Bulgaria I saw many. It was also featured as photo of the day on the website of Radio Bulgaria (the international service of the Bulgarian National Radio).

    To see the whole album of the pictures I took in Veliko Turnovo, click here.

    Got a story to share about stray dogs? Your experiences in Bulgaria or Eastern Europe?

    If you have a colourful picture of your own to share and you’re a PhotoHunter, be sure to leave your name and link below! All PhotoHunt posts get Stumbled!

    Technorati: PhotoHunt

    Previous PhotoHunts.

  • Monkeys and grasshoppers!

    Last Thursday we decided to go to a park near Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, called “Apenheul“. Literally, this means “Monkeyhill”, but I like to refer to it as Monkeyland. Before I continue and tell you about the monkeys, I’d like to direct your attention to the pictures above.

    Yes, it is what it looks like. I ate grasshoppers. Since they were fried they mostly tasted like… fried stuff, but I have to say it wasn’t bad. For €4.- we got a portion of about 6 grasshoppers so I suppose they’re supposed to be eaten as a delicacy. I expected a lot more and when I saw the plate with just 6 grasshoppers I felt disappointed and relieved at the same time, as you can imagine.

    Time for some monkeys now. I went to the park with Tsvety, my girlfriend, and Petar, a Bulgarian student and friend of mine who lives here in The Netherlands.

    One of the first types of monkeys we came across is this beauty at the left. The monkeys in this park are not in cages, but instead have their own areas or, if they’re dangerous (like gorillas), their own island. So most of the monkeys you see can be just a meter away from you (3 feet), or less!

    On the Monkeyland map they write down the feeding times, which is a particularly special time to go and have a look. You’re not allowed to touch or play with the monkeys, because they want them to be as ‘wild’ as possible instead of them being used to human contact. Yet the most fascinating time to see them is when they’re in contact with people.

    This doesn’t go for all the monkeys though. They have a group of bonobo apes, which are, I believe, the lifeform that’s closest to human beings and watching them is just fascinating. They are so man-like in their behaviour and movements. It’s almost like it’s people dressed up as apes.

    I think we as human beings are very arrogant to think we are much more than these apes. Go to this park and have a look at the human behaviour in there. We act like animals, pushing each other to be able to see more, cutting in line at the food places, mimicking our fellow Earthlings. 😀

    I’d like to leave you with some more ‘family pictures’. Enjoy!

    And finally our decapitated delicassy 😉

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  • Pictures up now!

    The bird from our hotel (read here)

    The lizard on the mountain (read here)

    See the Bulgarian photos so far here and the ones from Strumica here.

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