Istanbul Wrapup

Goreme, Turkey

 

My updates seem to get ahead of themselves and today is no exception. While I'm currently in Goreme, Turkey, I figured I'd post an update on my last few days in Istanbul, which was back on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of this past week.

 

Last Sunday was an overcast rainy day in Istanbul. I had a late start after writing my last Istanbul update and didn't head out till early afternoon. The city was much quieter then any of the previous days. Most of the stores and shops outside of Sultanahment, the core touristy area, were closed. Since the streets were so dead, I decided to head down to both the Grand Bazaar and the Egyptian Bazaar to see if there was much life down there. While much more active then the streets, both bazaar's  were significantly less crowded then they had been the previous days.

 

What was interesting is that they had a completely different vibe to them. The vendors and the crowds were different. I'd say that maybe 30-50% of the stalls were open, but in front of the stalls that were closed, other vendors setup tables to flock their goods. I guess there's a sort-of nomadic group of vendors who setup shop outside of closed stalls on Sunday. They seemed to be selling lots more knock-off clothing because I'm sure none of them had official "Hugo Boss" distribution rights. The vendors were also much more vocal, making the bazaars seem almost louder. Not vocal towards customer, just in shouting out what they were selling. Just think of the last sports game you went to and picture the "Cold Beer, Cold Beer" guy and you get the idea... Only this time it was probably "Hugo Boss Socks, Hugo Boss Socks..." I spent a good amount of time wandering around both bazaar's, partly because it was raining and partly because I enjoyed watching all the action without being peppered with "Hello my friend." comments. (Seems the Sunday vendors aren't interested in attracting my attention the way the weekday vendors are.)

 

Beside the Egyptian Bazaar is a somewhat run down neighborhood that definitely has a more locals feel to it. I had "discovered" it a day or so before and decided to head back over there to find some cheap lunch, since earlier in the week I had managed to eat for about half of what I was paying in Sultanahment. Sunday proved to be no exception, and it didn't take long till I found a nice kebab stand. This vendor seemed genuinely friendly and invited me into his stall so that I could sit down to eat and presumably not get wet in the rain. The place was no bigger then maybe 8 feet by 10 feet, but somehow he managed to cram in a little table and a few short stools in there, so I took him up on his offer and headed inside. He didn't speak much English, but it was kind of cool to be eating inside a kebab stall while he kept serving passer-by's. (But what's with the super short table and stools that are present in so many cafes? I feel like a giant sitting there sipping my tea...) For 2.5 Lira (that's like 2.50$CDN or about 2$US), he hooked me up with a bowl of fries "Kebab Chips", a fullsize chicken kebab and some tea, all while keeping me dry. And I didn't have to purchase any Hugo Boss socks or carpets either! I've got a picture of the host so hopefully I can get that online soon... (USB supported cafes seem scarce in Turkey... /shrug)

 

One thing that I've started to like while traveling, especially in Turkey, is tea, or "cay" as they call it. I've never really liked tea and I definitely don't like coffee, but for some reason Turkish tea has grown on me. It could be that I drop in 3-4 sugar cubes or maybe it really is different from Lipton, but either way it's growing on me. So, with that in mind, I had a nice cup of tea at a somewhat touristy but ideally located tea house under the Galata Bridge, with a great view of the ferries pulling in and out of port. It was all kind of surreal to have a bunch of fisherman overhead fishing off the bridge with the ferries pulling in and out of port. Clearly there is some kind of agreement between the boat captains and the fisherman as to where the fisherman will cast their lines off the bridge so as not to interfere with the shipping lanes. However, every so often, a boat goes under the bridge and catches a dozen or so fishing lines and snaps them all. It's kind of comical because you see it happen in slow motion. Since these are all basic fishing lines you would use on a lake, the boat is completely unaffected by it and all that happens is a bunch of fisherman have to real in their lines and replace the hooks... Still, I got a good laugh out of it because in a least one case I'm pretty sure the boat captain was aiming for the lines...

 

Sunday night, back at the hostel, I joined up with some of the girls that work there. The hostel has a pretty cool lounge on the top floor and we all just hung out there trading stories with other travelers. There were several other Canadians traveling through, as well as the usual flock of Australian travelers. For the most part though, the hostel was fairly quiet. I ended up going out for dinner that night with Cassandra, who's trying to balance her time working at the hostel with her entrepreneurial side of starting an international nanny company called " Cosmopolitan Nannies". We found a really neat restaurant not far from the hostel that I would never have come across otherwise. With Cassandra's basic Turkish skills, we were able to negotiate a really great meal for only 5 Lira each... Score!

 

While the food was great, it was like a tapas meal in which the served us around 8 cold dishes, the, uh, "live entertainment" was suspect. It could have been the fact that it was only Cassandra, myself and this other group of locals in the bar, but for entertainment someone was just belting out Turkish at the top of their lungs. The table of locals seemed entertained, so maybe he was with them or something. Regardless, this guy has a LOUD voice, which combined with the harsher sounding Turkish language proved to make conversation at a normal volume level difficult. In the end, it was worth it because otherwise I probably would have just ended up at another kebab stand, so thanks Cassandra and good luck with the company! After dinner, a small group of us headed out to a local bar just around the corner from the hostel. I didn't stay long because I knew I had an early day ahead of me to get that Syrian visa, so I ducked out early and headed back to the hostel to get some sleep.

 

After spending all day on Monday getting my Syrian visa, I headed back to the hostel to dry off and relax. In the common room I spent a bunch of time talking to Igor, an Israeli business man traveling around with his wife (I think). He's got a bit of a tech background and is trying to setup a travel agency / consulting firm in Thailand, so we talked computers and business well into the evening before I again headed across the street to the local bar to have some drinks with the girls. The bar was fairly dead but that didn't stop some weird fight from happening. Not exactly sure what all happened (like most bar fights, it finished as quickly as it started) but most of the remaining people in the bar seemed a little spooked. When the police arrived, the girls (who all work in the area) indicated that it was time to leave since the police were there to pick up their bribe for the night. (Apparently you just pay off the police if you don't have a liquor license...) So, without any hesitation on my part, we all headed back to the hostel to chill in the lounge the rest of the night

 

Tuesday brought with it the first signs of sun since the previous week. While not an all out sunny day, the small amount that was present was welcome news. I decided to run out and see if I could finally get some shots of the mosques with a bit of blue sky and sun in the shots. I think I got a few, but for the most part the heavy clouds always seemed to be blocking the sun where I was, but not on the other side of town... /grr.

 

At 7pm, I got the shuttle bus outside my hostel which would take me to the bus station or "Otogar". After picking me up, the shuttle did about a half dozen or more stops in the area. In some cases, I think we drove like 50 meters before stopping to pick up more tourists and travelers. They really need to streamline that and pick just a few central areas for people to meet at. The shuttle trip to the bus station proved yet again to me that traffic in San Francisco really isn't all that bad. This was the first time I was outside the core part of Istanbul and oh my god the traffic was insane. Road after road and intersection after intersection of bumper to bumper traffic. And while Istanbul drivers have no fear of laying on the horn or making a third lane, I still give the drivers in Bucharest the award for most horn honking and poorest driving etiquette. In Istanbul, a city of over 15 million people, there is simply traffic, and plenty of it. After more then an hour you could tell our driver was getting a bit agitated because while I've never driven to the bus station before, I'm pretty sure you don't take as many side streets and residential streets as we did. In one case, I'm almost 100% certain that we went the wrong way down a one-way street.

 

The Istanbul bus station is immense. There are over 160 ticket counters, several levels and hundreds of buses coming and going. It's just insane. Luckily, our shuttle bus took us right to the proper ticket counter for the bus company I was with, where I quickly exchanged my ticket receipt for an actual ticker and boarded the bus just outside the ticket counter. 20 minutes later the main bus was pulling out bound for Goreme, Turkey...

 

Kenny