Istanbul, Day 2

Istanbul, Turkey

 

On Friday, I enjoyed a basic Turkish breakfast (bread, fruit and jam) at the hostel, then setup to explore some more of the city. First order of business was to get a real Turkish shave. I hadn't shaved in over a week and was waiting to get an authentic Turkish facial shave. The night before I had spotted a barber shop not far from Divan Yolu so I headed over there. It was a small shop, maybe only 3-4 chairs and very narrow, but it felt Turkish, for whatever that means. I sat down in the chair, told the guy to give me a shave and the experience began...

 

First he spends about 3-5 minutes applying warm shaving cream, using that brush to lather it into your skin. From there, he takes out a straight razor blade and begins shaving. I have to admit that for the first few strokes (and anytime he was around my Adam's Apple) I was a little nervous, but quickly settled down because you could tell this guy was a pro... So he does a first pass with the blade, then re-applies a second coat of shaving cream and does a full second pass. Next up he rubs some kind of cream into my face, using a sort of facial massaging technique to work it into the skin. After that gets applied, he takes what looks like a cutip, presumably soaked in some alcohol, lights it on fire, then begins to tap that all over your face (while it's on fire). Not exactly sure what that is supposed to do, but it looked cool. Next up was a full face, neck and shoulder massage. He got a little laugh out of me squirming in the chair (I hate massages). He finished things off by applying an alcohol based cream to my face, which kind of stung in that refreshing sort of way, splashed my face with cold water, then doused me in some Turkish cologne, which I probably could have done without but since this entire shave took place in a smoke filled room, I figured a little cologne wouldn't hurt. In the end, I had the smoothest face I've ever had... I'll never look at my Mach 3 results the same way again...

 

Ready to attack Istanbul with my re-energized self, I headed over to the Basilica Cistern, which is a huge underground chamber supported by hundreds of Roman style columns and filled with water. The inside is pretty cool as they have a walk away over the water that meanders through the columns. The cistern is light with soft red lights at the bottom of each column and with water dripping from the ceiling, the whole place has an eerie feel to it. You really need to see some pictures to get an idea of it.

 

From the cistern chamber, I headed back along Divan Yolu to another grand mosque in Istanbul called the Suleiman Mosque (Suleymaniye), which many consider to be the "best" mosque in Istanbul. You can visit this one for free as well and while it was beautiful, I couldn't tell a huge difference between it and the Blue Mosque. The mosque lies behind both the Grand Bazaar and Istanbul University. I would have liked to walk along the grounds of the university, but there was a security check point at the main gate entrance and it looked like everyone was presenting an ID card and passing through a metal detector before entering the campus, so I skipped that.

 

From the Suleiman Mosque, I just started wandering north towards the water without much of a plan or map. This turned out to be rather rewarding as I ended up walking through some very non-touristy neighborhoods. Sadly, right behind the mosque, and on a rather nice hill overlooking the water, is a really run down neighborhood. Lots of buildings in rubble and in serious disrepair. However, it was a nice change from the very touristy Devan Yolu street. As I got closer the water, I came across a great little commercial street that was definitely not touristy at all. The vibe was completely different the on Devan Yolu. Mostly food merchants with open air stores, lots of basic "cheap eat" restaurants with kebab's for half the price that I was paying before and not a single person trying to sell me a carpet or leather jacket. I wandered around there, following the water east towards a district of Istanbul called Eminonu.

 

Eminonu is another commercial area of Istanbul, but with a decidedly more locals feel to it then Sultanahment. Istanbul's second main bazaar, the Egyptian Bazaar  is located down there and I had a great time wandering around that bazaar. In contrast to the Grand Bazaar, which seems to cater mostly to the tourists, the Egyptian Bazaar sells just about everything else. I was amazed walking down the streets to see everything for sale. The odd thing is that stalls tend to be grouped somewhat by product, which can lead to interesting streets. In one case, I rounded a corner and came across an entire street/alley of vendors that just sold scales. Everything from basic bathroom scales to large industrial strength scales were represented. It was crazy, I've never seen anything like that. Stall after stall of just scales. But it gets better as around yet another corner I came across the alley of vendors selling safes. These safes were right out of the movies. Coming in all shapes and sizes, they had that basic look to them of a rectangular block with a simple rotating combination lock on the left side of the door. What amazed me was the sizes that some of these safes came in. How you would get one home after purchasing it is beyond me, because one would think that if it was easy to move the safe, then it's probably not the best safe in the world. I don't think a safe that advertises itself as being lightweight and easy to move is the safe you want to be purchasing...

 

I could have spent more time in the Egyptian Bazaar, but after awhile of constantly getting bumped into, narrowly getting run over by cars that squeeze through the crowd and just the general visual stimulus overload, I decided to make my way back towards the hostel to start thinking about dinner.

 

The hostel was again really quiet and while there was a couple now in the room that I was in, they didn't seem all that interested in being social, so I headed back out to Devan Yolu and found a much cheaper place then the night before to have some kebab dinner. On the way back, I stopped off at another hostel just down the road from mine with at least looked like it had some life to it in their top floor bar. I spent some time talking to an Australian named Nick before heading back to the hostel, this time to be greeted by the social version of the couple that I had met earlier. Turns out the girl was at the hospital all day trying to figure out what flew/virus she picked up while they were traveling in India, so she wasn't feeling all that great. (Ironically, she was from San Jose, not far from San Francisco while he was from Germany.) I ended up talking with them for awhile, before heading back to the Orient Hostel, this time to see some apparent "don't miss" belly dancer show. Well, turns out the show wasn't really much since the place was pretty empty. I walked downstairs to the bar, but after just a few minutes in the incredibly smoked filled room with a bunch of shirtless guys dancing around the belly dancer, I decided to head back to the hostel and get some sleep.

 

Sadly, as great as Istanbul is, I'm definitely a month or so late as far as the social scene goes. The hostels are all pretty empty right now, and walking around Sultanahmet, while touristy during the day with tour groups and buses, is really dead at night. There are dozens of restaurants that are completely empty and you really get that "Uh, where did everyone go?" feel when you walk around. I guess things really shutdown around the end of October, with the summer months and into September being the time to be here. All the roof deck restaurants and patios are pretty much closed up, which is too bad because with Sultanahmet being on a hill, there are some awesome views of the Bosphorus Sea to be had.

 

I've also learned that much of the Mediterranean coast is now too cold to go swimming in and that many, if not all of the famous boat trips that you can take along the coast have closed down for the off-season. Because of this, I'll probably speed through Turkey faster then I had originally planned and try and get down south towards warmer weather and warmer water.

 

With the Antique Hostel as dead as it is, I've decided to head down the street to check out another hostel, the Bahaus Guesthouse, which seems somewhat more lively though really I just wasn't "feeling it" at the Antique Hostel and wanted a change.

 

Kenny