Myra and Simon's trip to Istanbul

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Planning

I wanted to go someplace warm and sunny over the holiday period. We found a place that had reasonably priced holidays (flights + hotel) and tried to get a holiday in Greece. They were all sold out, so we tried Spain. Gone too. There were still some left in Istanbul, so there we went. After we'd booked the holiday we went bought the Lonely Planet book on Turkey, only to find out that in the winter it's cold and wet. Oh, well. Everyone we spoke to said it was really interesting anyway, so we packed lots of warm waterproof clothes and looked forward to it.

30 Dec

We landed about 4pm on 30th December. I had looked at a map of the area while on the plane and found that our hotel wasn't anywhere near the center of town, but was about 10 miles out, between the airport and town. Well, we thought, that would make it easy to get to/from the airport, but not so easy to get into the center of town.

We asked how to get there and found that the airport bus stops near our hotel (Holiday Inn Atakoy Marina). So we paid our 7 million Turkish Lira (ie about $4.80) and got onto the airport bus. As it turns out, we might have gotten there cheaper using a taxi, but we didn't learn that until later. We always assume that taxis are expensive.

We got off at the bus stop recommended by the info guy at the airport but didn't see our hotel anywhere. We saw a huge Crowne Plaza, and I knew that Holiday Inn is often associated with Crowne Plaza, so we should have headed straight to it to ask if they knew where the Holiday Inn was. Well, we didn't, so we wandered around a fair bit, asked a few locals, and still not finding it we did exactly that. Of course the Crowne Plaza people sent us across a little garden straight to the Holiday Inn. Oh, well. First thing we found out was that the hotel runs a shuttle bus in and out of town, so getting into Istanbul would be easy.

For dinner we went to a local restaurant. The people there really didn't speak English, but there was English on the menu. Due to communications problems we ordered a strange meal -- no salads, and a side order of rice when the main courses come with rice! Oh, well, at least we left a decent tip. The meal, including everything, came to 40 million TL, about $27 for everything including beer, dessert, and tea.

31 Dec

The next morning (Dec 31st), after breakfast in the hotel (included in our holiday) we caught the 9:30 shuttle into town. Only one outher couple was on the shuttle. We saw the Topkapi Palace, about which the Istanbul tourism guide says "Tokapi was the first Ottoman palace to be built (1466-1478) in the newly conquered capital of the Empire. Located on the spot where the foundations of the city were first laid in ancient times by Megarian Chief Byzant in seventh century BC, the palace boasts one of the most beautiful views of Istanbul, incorporating the Bosphorus, the two shores and the sea of Marmara. Unlike the European palaces, Topkapi is not a single monumental structure but a more organic complex made up of various buildings, gardens and areas spread over the tip of the historical peninsula at the entry of the Golden Horn. It was turned into a museum in 1924 and has become one of the most attractive palace-museums in the world."

That took up almost the whole day, and we looked into a few souvenier shops on the way back to the coach stop, which was next to the Aya Sofya. We debated taking the 5pm coach back to our hotel, but then thought we may as well eat in town. So we wandered around a bit, seeing the Basilica Cistern ("Byzantine cistern from the 6th century. Features fine brick vaulting supported by 336 Corinthian columns. The Basilica now houses a fine restaurant and hosts musical and theatrical performances." say the Istanbul tourism Web pages) and looking at a few carpets, then chose a somewhat pricey place to eat. This proved to be a mistake. The dinner was 80 million TL (about $55 for both of us) and really wasn't all that great. We decided in future to eat next to our hotel, which was not a touristy area, so we could get a decent meal at sensible prices.

A side note on carpets: in Turkey what you really buy are rugs, not wall-to-wall types of carpets. You can buy two major kinds -- kilims, which are flat-woven floor coverings, or carpets, which have some pile. The carpets aren't usually that thick, maybe a little over 1cm, but the better ones are made out of a really soft, shiny wool that looks and feels great. After a quick look around, we decided that we would get a 6' x 4' carpet, either a decent quality Turkish one of geometrical design (floral patterns don't do much for us), or a Turkmen carpet. Turkmen carpets (from Turkmenistan) are distinguished by being hand made (as all the better carpets available in shops are) and having very good quality soft wool, a deep red wine color, and a fine pattern (lots of knots per square inch). To find out more about Turkmen carpets, look here.

We went to take the 9:30pm shuttle bus back to the hotel. We arrived at the stop at 9:25 and waited until 10pm, but no show. Annoyance. So we caught a taxi back, which turned out to be not very expensive after all ($8.25), and complained at the desk about the lack of the shuttle bus.

1 Jan

On the 1st of January we again took the shuttle into town. This time we told the guys at the hotel desk that we'd be coming back on the 7:30 shuttle, and could they please make sure it showed up? Once in town we saw the Aya Sofya aka Haghia Sophia ("The ancient Byzantine church, built in 535 AD, was later converted to a mosque with the addition of minarets. The remarkable structure with its immense dome is a museum today, and is no longer used as a place of worship.") and the Blue Mosque ("This 17th century mosque, near Haghia Sophia, is famous for the beautiful blue tilework ornamenting its walls. Its surrounding six slim minarets distinguish it from other mosques which normally have two or four minarets.")

The Aya Sofia, being about 1000 years older than the Blue Mosque, really shows its age. The paint is falling off in many places, and there is a huge mass of scaffolding going up to the dome. The Blue Mosque, on the other hand, is really beautifully kept, probably looking as good as the day it was made.

Then we wandered over to the Grand Bazaar ("Kapalicarsi, The Covered Bazaar: built in the 15th century as a complex of 4,000 shops selling raw materials to be used in clothes manufacturing, the Covered Bazaar fulfills a viable commercial function to this day. The Bazaar's fine shops and exotic atmosphere, mingling the ancient and new, make it a "must-see" in Istanbul.") The Grand Bazaar was very touristy. I suppose there were some products that locals might buy (wallets, tablecloths, carpets) but much of it is stuff only tourists would want (blue glass eyes to ward off evil spirits, engraved metal plates, decorative tiles, Turkish tea glasses, water pipes, oil lamps, overly decorated bowls, etc). Still, it was alot of fun to wander around and look at all the multicolored merchandise.

A note on Turkish shopkeepers. In the tourist parts of Turkey, there are people all over the place trying to sell you goods or services on the spot ("Look at these postcards, only 1 million per pack!") ("Shoe shine mister?") or to try to send you off to a shop, usually a carpet shop, as carpets are the most expensive tourist items. Also whenever you pass a shop or a restaurant, the owner or employee tries very hard to get you to come in and buy something. Sometimes this can be quite overwhelming. Simon tried the tactic of frowning and walking on, ignoring them. This worked OK with the random people on the street, but not well with the shopkeepers standing outside their shops. They would run after him, telling him "I'm not a bad person!", sometimes suggesting that he was thinking of all Muslims as terrorists. I tried a different tactic: smile and say "No thanks", or even "No thanks, we really don't want to buy any tiles", and this seemed to get better results.

Anyway, as we were leaving the Grand Bazaar, a guy came up to us who had earlier in the day accosted us to try to take us to his carpet shop, and tried again to get us into his shop. This time, as he had been helpful and had pointed out a toilet to Simon and had waited around with me making small talk until Simon came back, we felt we owed him something and we went to "his" shop. At the shop the owner welcomed us, invited us to sit down and started spreading carpets on the floor. In these shops there are very few carpets on display; they are all rolled up or folded up in the edge of the room, and they display them on the floor for you when you explain what sorts of carpets you like. We found a good quality Turkish carpet that Simon really liked, but I wasn't all that keen on. I asked "Do you have red Turkmen carpets?", because we had seen several of these that we'd liked.

So he pulled out several Turkmen carpets, and there was one we really liked. It was different in that it had a fair bit of open space on it; most of them have patterns filling most of the area of the carpet. We asked how much, and he measured it, and said "I'm not really into bargaining, so I'll offer you a good price on it. $600". We thought it was a nice carpet, but weren't certain that we wanted it at that price, so we started to go, saying that we'd think over the options of all the carpets we'd seen that evening at the hotel, and we'd buy one the next day. He asked "Well, at what price would you buy this right now?" Simon looked at it, and said "$500". This was about the price of similar Turkmen carpets we'd seen, although the guy claimed that this carpet was of better quality than the usual Turkmen carpet (we couldn't see the difference). The guy hummed and hawed, and asked us how we'd pay. We said "VISA", and he took a calculator and figured out that VISA would charge him $20 for the transation and asked us we'd be willing to pay him $500, plus and extra $20 to cover the VISA fee. We thought it over a bit, and decided, yes, we would. Deal done. So the guy wrapped the carpet up in paper, put it in a small zippered black nylon bag, sent us to the place in the market where VISA transations are carried out, and then we had our carpet.

It was now night, and the rain had begun to turn white. As we walked back to the Aya Sofya bus stop we discovered that all carpet salesman give out these black nylon bags, as a few of the carpet salesmen we passed made comments about it. One asked, "Excuse me, can you tell me how many carpets you bought?" Evidently they were going to try to convince us to buy one or two more. We said, simultanously, "Enough".

We stopped in a cafe by the Aya Sofya and had apple tea as we waited for the hotel shuttle. We were getting quite used to these cafe stops by now. The weather our first couple of days in Istanbul was cold and wet, so it was nice to go someplace warm and dry to get out of it. We soon discovered apple tea (a hot sweet appley beverage) and it became our usual cafe fare. We went several times to the Omar Cafe, which is a very short walk from the bus stop. It has a friendly atmosphere, cheap prices (tea is 1.2 million TL, less than 80 cents), and a nice selection of beverages (you can get lots of other fruit "teas" besides apple, including kiwi and orange). Then we caught the 7:30 shuttle, which was exactly on time.

Back at the hotel we rested a bit, then went to the local Gelik. Gelik is a chain restaurant that our taxi driver the previous night had recommended. It was very nice indeed. The food was good and inexpensive: we had starters, main course, dessert, beer, and tea, all for 30 million TL ($20) for both of us. Now this was more like it!

2 Jan

On the second of January we decided to treat ourselves to a Turkish bath. It was 25 million TL ($17) each for the deluxe treatment. We bath we chose was the Cemberlitas Hamam, which has separate sections for men and women, as I definitely didn't want to take a bath with strange men. As more men take baths than women, Simon got a more fancy setup than I did. Simon got a little cubicle all to himself, where he got changed and locked up his belongings while he was being bathed. I just changed in a common area with lots of other women and put my stuff in a locker. We wore a wrap, Simon's around his waist, mine covering my torso. A woman took me through another room and pointed me to a door, and I went inside and was immediately struck by the heat and humidity.

The room was large and pale, with light gray marble on the lower part and a light colored rock or plaster on the top part. The roof was a dome with loads of little windows in a nice pattern. The center part of the room was a marble platform a few meters wide and a bit less than a meter high. This platform was hot, but not uncomfortably so. The attendant (a woman in a bikini for me; Simon got a mustacioed guy in a wrap like he was wearing) motioned that I should take off my wrap, put it on the platform, and lie on it. So I did, so here I was, completely naked, lying on this heated platform. Simon kept his wrap on during the entire bath (Islamic modesty means that men shouldn't bare their genitals). I'd read in our book (Lonely Planet guide to Turkey) that in some hamams women are expected to keep their underpants on during the bath where in some nudity is allowed. In the changing room after I had put on my wrap I asked the nearest lady (with gestures) if I should take off my undies. She indicated that I should, so I did. Once in the hot room I discovered that about half the women kept thier undies on, while half took them off.

I lay on the marble and started to sweat, as it was very hot and humid. I don't know how long I lay there, but it was long enough that I wondered if I should be doing something, or should I just wait until someone came for me... Evenutally a lady came over to me and said "Alo!" and indicated that I should come over to a different part of the marble platform. So I did, and she proceeded to rub my skin very vigorously with a rough cloth. I could see little rolls of old dead skin coming off...

Then I got the soap massage. Oh, that was nice! It was the first massage I've ever gotten by someone other than a friend, boyfriend, or husband. It felt good, but it was fairly light, especially on my back. If I'd been seriously knotted, it wouldn't have been enough to loosen me up. But then, maybe if she had detected tight muscles she would have applied more pressure. Also, one thing I didn't like was that she rubbed me the wrong way. No, really! When doing massage, you're always supposed to rub towards the heart. The veins have little valves in them to help the blood get back to the heart (there's very little pressure in veins because by that time the blood has already been through the tiny capillaries). Rubbing towards the heart helps the blood make its return trip, while rubbing away from the heart, if you do it vigorously enough, you can damage the valves. She rubbed my thighs the wrong way, and I kept telling myself that it was light enough that it wouldn't do any damage. That prevented me from relaxing completely and enjoying the massage. Maybe this is a case where knowing less would have been better!

After the massage I was lead (fairly limp by now) over to the edge of the room where I was sat down on on a marble ledge and rinsed off, then shampooed. This included a fairly vigorous scalp massage, which was nice. Finally, I was rinsed again, my wrap (which the lady had brought to the edge of the room) again laid on the marble slab, and I was told to lie down. So I did, and stared at the ceiling, admiring the pattern of the windows... Eventually I began to wonder, again, if someone was going to lead me to the next step, or if I was expected to decide myself when I was going to leave. Finally, I thought that the latter was probably the case, so I put on my wrap again and left the hot room. I was steaming quite vigorously, so I quickly grabbed a towel and dried off, then headed back into the changing room and got my clothes back on. Coming out, I found Simon sitting in the reception room, drinking tea. He said he'd been there about 5 minutes. Now, this whole thing had taken something like 1.5 to 1.75 hours, and we finished within 5 minutes of each other! I had some tea too, and then we headed out into the cold winter sunshine suitably refreshed.

After that we went back to the Grand Bazaar, as we had neglected to take pictures of it the previous day. We took piccies and bought some goodies: a throw for Simon's couch in college, a nice wall hanging for me, a wallet for Simon, and a beautifully made (but quite simple) inlaid wood chess/checkers/backgammon set for Simon.

Then on to the Hippodrome ("Scene of chariot races and the center of Byzantine civic life", also the place where the Byzantines put all the monuments they stole from various places, including Greece and Egypt). Then to a cafe/bar for tea (we made the mistake of going a cafe that wasn't Omar and paid twice the price and found it very smoky), then back to the hotel to sort out our purchases. We liked the Gelik so much we went back there for dinner that evening.

3 Jan

On our last day (January 3rd) we decided to see a different area of town so after being dropped off we walked about a mile to get to the Eminonu sectionof town. We were heading for the Egyptian Bazaar aka Spice Bazaar ("Built in the 17th century, the Spice Bazaar is the second largest covered bazaar in Istanbul. Originally housing shops selling medicine and spices, the Spice Bazaar continues to fulfill its original function. This distinguished example of Ottoman architecture continues to sparkle with life even today.") . Once there we were quite pelased we'd come. The Grand Bazaar was nice and fun to look at, but it was all for tourists. This place had a few tourist shops, but also had plenty of shops serving the locals: spice shops, butchers, places selling cloth (unmade, the sort you'd buy if you were making a dress), etc. We were lured into a shop where Simon bought a bucketload of cheap saffron (well, 100 grams, which occupies a surprisingly large volume) for 6 million TL, and 8 grams of posh saffron for 8 million. We also got some Ceylon tea.

Also in the Egyptian Bazaar Simon got a new wedding ring. He lost (we hope not permanently) his wedding ring just before we left Cambridge, and as it turns out gold is very cheap in Turkey. He got an 18 caret gold ring with a nice pattern on it for $35.

After leaving the covered bazaar, we wandered around to the stalls set up outside under canopies, as they are in the Cambridge market. Now this part had no tourist shops whatsoever. Right next to the Egyptian Bazaar it was mostly food. Simon was amused to see trotters (pigs' feet) and included them in a photo. The further we went from the Egyptian Bazaar the more mundane the shops got. We saw shops selling a huge selection of knives (try to take that in your hand luggage!), one with ropes, one with flashlights, one shop with games, etc...

Finally we came out of the shops and headed down to the water, where we had out cheapest lunch yet. It was a two course affair. First course, Turkish style pizza which is a flat bread with some cheese and possibly meat in the middle. We got two for a grand total of 1.2 million (about 80 cents), then noticed that there was a guy on a boat with a grill full of fish, and people were buying these fish fillets in bread. So we got one for 1 million (about 70 cents) and shared it.

Then we wandered back toward the Egyptian Bazaar and discovered that a very active outdoor market had been set up in front of this. This was a very basic market, just tables on the plaza, no canopies. The items here were mostly clothing, underwear to jackets.

We wandered over to the shop that invented Turkish Delight, which was right nearby. Turkish delight (called "morsel" in Turkish) is a gummy confection with a coating of powdered sugar. We comtemplated buying something, but we were put off by the attitude of the shopkeepers, who basically ignored us. We were used to Turks being very enthusiastic in getting us into their shops and looking at the merchandise that we were confused by these people who seemed indifferent to us.

We ducked into a cafe for one last glass of apple tea, then caught a taxi. As luck would have it, we got one who spoke no more than about 2 or 3 words of English. We wanted to go first to our hotel (Holiday Inn Atakoy Marina) to pick up our bags, then to the airport. We said this to the driver, and he understood "Atakoy" and "airport" but seemed to forget the "Atakoy" part and drove right past the exit on the Istanbul-airport road. We pointed this out to him, so he backed up and took the exit. Luckily we'd been along here plenty of times in the hotel shuttle so we knew exactly how to get to our hotel (which isn't at all obvious) so we directed the driver by hand signals. I stayed in the taxi while Simon got our bags to make sure he knew that we still wanted his services, and then asked him to take us to the airport, and we got there with no further problems.

Myra's Travel Page