
Memorable things and miscelleous thoughts
- The Food: lokum (turkish delight), baklava, eggplant kebaps, the yogurt drink ayran, lamb and chicken doner (gyros), lahmacuna (pizza but with better toppings), simit (sesame seed bread rings), midye (fried mussels).
- Sights and sounds around town: men running back and forth between shops with trays of tea. Being called to prayer at 5 AM. Musty, cold drafts blasting from the rug seller's cellars.
- Oddly, elements of Istanbul remind me of Mexico. It's probably just the smell of diesel and burning wood, or maybe the well-utilized public squares and benches.
- The coins feel great in hand. I love the 1 YTL coin which feels and looks startling similar to a 1 euro coin. I really wish there wasn't such an aversion to the $1 coin. It's so handy -- and the value of a dollar so eroded -- that I wish they were in wider circulation.
- Making phonecalls from pay phones or hotels continues to be the most aggravating and expensive experience of traveling overseas.
- Where are all the trash cans? Normally when travelling, whenever I see I bathroom I stop in, never knowing if the next one is 8 minutes or 8 hours away. That isn't a problem in Turkey where there are W.C.s around every corner. But where are the trashcans? I'd gotten to the point where I avoided buying things because I didn't want to carry around a greasy fish sandwich wrapper all day.
- Battling Mosques. The adhan, beckoning muslims to come to prayer, echoes out over Istanbul five times a day. With all of the surrounding mosques, sometimes to me it sounds like a call-and-response akin to a Native American song. Other times, like they're not quite in sync and it sounds like they are battling for aural supremacy. I can say this: it's a tie.
- Crowds. Istanbul rightfully is a huge tourist destination. It has great mass transit but many sights are tightly clustered so you don't even need it. The food is awesome, varied, and reasonably priced. The scenery is stunning. And the markets just a joy to walk through.The tourist crowds did get me down. I hate being stuck in a huge mob of them but sometimes you can't avoid it. But because the city is so large, with so many attractions, the throngs tend to be dispersed. Expect to see them at any hour of the day along Diva Yolu, the Aya Sofya/Blue Mosque area, and Topkapi Palace. If you take a cruise up the Bosphorus, you'll be among a huge crush. But even the Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar don't feel too overrun. Just wander around in the warren of streets that separate the two. You'll feel miles off the beaten path. I had heard that Istanbul could be unsafe for tourists -- and I'm certain there are parts that are. But I walked through many areas including Taksim, Beyoglu, and Sultanahmet late at night and only felt a little dodgy in some of the Beyoglu backstreets. If you've visited any of the world's big cities, you'll be fine. It feels safer than New York, less safe than Tokyo 😉
All entries
- 28 March 2007: Istanbul, Turkey (20-28 Mar 2007)
- 28 March 2007: Istanbul musts
- 27 March 2007: Last manic day
- 26 March 2007: Monday: Hypothermic Bosphorus cruise
- 26 March 2007: Prinses vs. Kremalis: Who will win?
- 25 March 2007: Lazy Sunday
- 24 March 2007: Hitting the pavement: Topkapi, Taksim, Beyoglu
- 23 March 2007: Sultanahmet truncated circuit: Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya
- 23 March 2007: Sandwich-creme cookies
- 23 March 2007: Google Agenda in Turkish
- 22 March 2007: Hi. Hello. Excuse me. Where are you from?
- 22 March 2007: Travel can be boring
- 21 March 2007: Birth, the living, the dying
- 20 March 2007: Throwing myself back into the stream