Caliban – Opinion and Righteous Anger

Our sixth and final day in the tireless metropolis of Istanbul draws to an end. Fireworks were exploding in the sky overhead a few minutes ago, but they were probably not for our benefit, although benefit, we did.

We were somewhat thwarted in our plans for today.

Firstly, we set off for Topkapı Palace, only to discover that it is closed on Tuesdays. That was stupid of us, because the opening hours are there in black and white in our Lonely Planet guidebook.

Since we were in the area, anyway, we opted for a walk through Gülhane Park, where Eloïse was happy to discover a playground with a slide and swings. She played there while her parents rested on a bench.

Lunch was a delicious pide (covered Turkish pita, the local variant of pizza) at the Karadeniz Aile Pide Ve Kebap Salonu, followed by dessert around the corner at Çiğdem Pastanesi. I had the Tavuk göğsü, which, for the uninitiated, is a sweet pudding made from chicken breast, milk, sugar and cinnamon. Possibly an acquired taste, I’ve almost acquired it, but not quite.

Our next stop for the day was the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum.

We’re usually not keen on museums, especially with fidgety young children, but given how Eloïse has patiently sat with us in carpet shops over the last few days, as one piece after the other was rolled out for us to look at, we realised that she probably does actually have the patience to walk around a museum with us without throwing a tantrum.

The museum turned out to be just the right size, too, so that we could make our way around it in about an hour. By the end, she was getting bored, so that hour turned out to be roughly her limit. It was a good museum, and I was particular struck by some of the — here comes that word again — carpets, which are anywhere up to seven hundred years old and in incredibly good condition, considering.

After that, we decided to round off the day with a visit to the Süleymaniye Mosque, but when we finally got there, it was undergoing major renovation and only a tiny, relatively uninteresting section of the mosque was open for visiting and prayer.

Dinner at Hamdi Et Lokantasi Friday night was so good that we decided to put the seal on our trip by going back again this evening. On the way, we stopped off at the Ali Muhiddin Hacı Bekir confectionery shop, which has been selling Turkish Delight since 1777, and then picked up some apple tea in the nearby spice bazaar. Sarah’s folks are flying over at the end of the week, so it’ll be nice to have these at hand to offer them.

I took some photos from the rooftop terrace of Hamdi after our meal. They really do have a spectacular view from up there. As usual, I’ll vow to have the photos on-line quickly after our return and try not to allow myself to fail in this regard, as I so often do.

A crammed tram ride brought us back to Sultanahmet.

Six days in Istanbul and we’ve really only scratched the surface. What a place; this is definitely one of my favourite cities anywhere in the world.

We’ve spent altogether too much time looking at carpets on this trip. Well, you can’t come to Turkey and not go looking for a Turkish carpet, can you?

It seems as if every third shop in this city is a carpet shop. Many, if not most, employ people to stand in the street and lure tourists inside. Those who resist, due to lack of interest or time, are assured that it will only take a few minutes to view just a couple of pieces. Hours later, the same tourists will frequently emerge cross-eyed and dazed, their wallets considerably lighter than on the way in.

They’re not all sharks, of course. There are reputable shops, too, but it can be very hard to tell the honest dealers from the wide boys. They often give conflicting, but convincing information, so it can be hard to know who’s telling the truth or even whether anyone is.

New carpets are presented as old; old carpets are presented as even older. Poor quality is presented as high quality. Afghan and Chinese carpets are presented as Turkish. Chemical dyes are presented as natural. Mass production is presented as unique. And you’ll get many different stories regarding the legality of exporting a national treasure, which is what a carpet that is more than a hundred years old is deemed to be.

We, too, must navigate this minefield, and have therefore spent, as I noted above, far too much time in the company of a motley collection of spivs and wheeler-dealers.

Somewhere amongst them, we managed to find people we felt we could trust and today finally committed GBH of our credit card to splurge on two lovely Turkish carpets.

Rather than return with them in the empty suitcase we brought along for this express purpose, we’ve opted to have the shop send them to us via courier. My initial fears about inevitable import duties were allayed by a convincing explanation of how the shop first minimises their potential and then arranges for any charges imposed to be incurred by the sender rather than the recipient. Of course, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, and we hope to know by the end of the week whether the dealer’s story holds water.

Tomorrow is our last day in Istanbul. I’m itching to see more of the country, but that will have to wait for a second trip. And considering that Turkey borders Bulgaria to the north-west, Greece to the west, Georgia to the north-east, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran to the east, and Iraq and Syria to the south-east — all of which we’ve never visited — the desire to keep on travelling is strong.

So much world, so little time.

Yesterday, we awoke to pouring rain, and it would remain that way most of the day.

We’d anticipated this, however, and decided to head straight for the Kapalıçarşı, better known as the Grand Bazaar. It’s one of the largest covered markets in the world, with more than 58 streets, over 1200 shops, and anywhere between 250,000 and 400,000 daily visitors.

It should come as no surprise, then, that we managed to spend the entire day at this one market. Busy doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was like Koninginnedag in the Jordaan, but with a roof overhead.

By the end of the day, my head was spinning and my legs were coming off. I couldn’t begin to estimate how far we must have walked, but I still feel as if we saw only a small part of it.

What an amazing place. We bought very little — next to nothing, actually — but it was still a lot of fun to see. It was very reminiscent of the souqs of Dubai and Muscat, only much bigger.

The weather was much better today: glorious sunshine.

We started off at the subterranean Basilica Cistern, which was cool (literally) and then caught a tram across the Galata Bridge, which spans the Golden Horn, and continued all the way down to the end of the line at Kabataş.

From there, we took the funicular railway to Taksim Square for a look at a very different part of the city, in the district of Beyoğlu.

We walked down the very wide and incredibly busy İstiklal Caddesi (Independence Avenue).

Dinner was delicious, consisting mostly of mezes (basically Turkish tapas), at the bustling meyhane, Krependeki İmroz, in the incredibly busy alley of Nevizade Sokak. The terrific food was washed down by some potent rakı.

For dessert, we headed back around the corner to İstiklal Caddesi and went to İnci Pastanesi. What we were led to believe were profiteroles turned out to bear only a superficial resemblance to the French dessert. Nevertheless, if you could put the taste mismatch out of your head, the Turkish equivalent was also very tasty, although very different.

I picked up a few CDs today, which I’m looking forward to ripping and listening to on the Sonos when we get home. CDs are very cheap here, generally just YTL 10 – 12, which is around €5 for a brand new, full length album. At that price, I can afford to take a few risks, because I’ve never heard of any of the artists, so I have no idea what anything I see will sound like.

We’ve been here for four full days now and there’s not even the slightest hint of running out of things to do. The city is huge (one of the world’s largest) and you’d need at least a year here to get to know it intimately. Unfortunately for us, we have just a couple more days in which to cram it all in, but I’m sure they’ll be memorable days, whatever we do.

After the hum of Istanbul, Amsterdam is likely to feel like the most sober city on Earth. People here are so different to those in northern Europe.

As we’re walking around Istanbul, for example, a man or a woman will invariably stop us every couple of minutes or so to kiss or hug Eloïse or Lucas. They’re such a hit with their pale complexion and red hair; especially Lucas, of course, because he’s still a baby.

Sometimes, we don’t even notice that this is happening. We’ll have stopped to look at something, then we turn around and find Eloïse or Lucas enveloped in someone’s arms, being showered with kisses and cuddles, and not infrequently being plied with chocolate and sweets.

Turkish people are so friendly and warm. A few days here really highlight what we’re all missing back home, where we’re so much more distant and unapproachable than the people here. As warm and friendly as they seem to me, how cold and strange we must seem to them.

The Islamic call to prayer, the adhan, is hammered out five times a day by the muezzin. With a mosque just around the corner from our hotel, this tuneless ditty — you’ll have to excuse my irreverence –comes crashing through our windows like a sonic tsunami.

It therefore serves not only to beckon the faithful, but also does a bloody good job of waking sleeping babies; in particular, Lukie. Sarah is trying to get him back to sleep even as I type this.

I actually like the adhan. When you’re not used to it, it’s very atmospheric and instils one with a sense of undiscovered humanity. I’m sure it would get on my tits, though, if I lived across the road from a set of those massive, tinny, minaret-mounted megaphones.

Anyway, yesterday was a gorgeous sunny day and we spent it at Aya Sofya and the Sultan Ahmet Mosque a.k.a. the Blue Mosque, both very impressive sights.

Today started with a clear sky, too.

We took the tram from Sultanahmet to Eminönü and purchased tickets for a passenger boat up the Bosphorus. With rain predicted for the rest of the trip, it had seemed wise to make today our boating day, and Sarah had moved mountains to get us all out of the hotel and down to the boat on time.

By the time we boarded, which was just a few minutes prior to departure, the boat was packed. There was nowhere to sit, so we took up position by some railings. I then wandered off to find some decent vantage points for taking photos from the water.

The journey got under way and within about five minutes I had raised the ire of a hot-headed American, as belligerent as he was diminutive.

I had taken up position at some railings, from where I had begun to take a few photos. Within no time, this man was telling me to move, because I was blocking his view. Now, you have to understand that the boat was packed to the gills with people and it was standing room only for many.

My fellow passenger’s apparent belief that he had purchased a ticket that entitled him not only to fare up the river, but also to a seat with a guaranteed unobstructed view, seemed a bit rich to me, so I informed him that I had as much right to the view from the boat as he did.

At this point, his wife entered the fray, informing me that they had come early to secure seats with a view. If I desired such a view, I, too, should have come earlier. Such was her reasoning, at any rate.

Well, clearly the rest of mother Earth’s population had been put on the planet to serve at the pleasure of these two self-important little upstarts. Of course, I wasn’t having any of it, so I asserted my right to stay exactly where I was.

By now, things were becoming a bit heated and our little tête-à-tête was beginning to attract attention.

Out of the blue, the irksome little man threatened to throw me overboard; or perhaps it was my camera bag that he threatened to toss into the drink; I can’t quite remember now.

With many eyes now gazing in our direction, I reasoned that responding in kind was unlikely to yield anything constructive and may even result in other parties getting involved. My pocket-size adversary was many years my senior and his Napoleonic stature was dwarfed by my bulk, so any pushing and shoving between us would have had me looking like a thug, regardless of who had started it.

So, I told the man to shut up and behave himself. Those were literally my words, I think. His wife berated me, but then added a few words of caution in her husband’s direction and that was pretty much the end of the exchange.

Throughout the rest of the voyage, however, I observed on several occasions the overbearing, self-righteous attitude of a handful of pathetic tourists towards their fellow sightseers. Occasionally, one of these hapless souls would shuffle into the field of vision of somone with over-developed sense of entitlement.

How dare they block their line of sight to the outside world? This was a view for which they had set an alarm clock and got up at sparrow’s fart, god damn it. No-one, but no-one had the right to get between the lens of their video camera and the buildings lining the banks of the Bosphoros.

Silly fuckers.

I’ve never been on a boat-trip quite like it. I’ve been on a lot of tourist boats in my time and there has always been a good amount of give and take. No-one behaves as if they have more rights than anyone else and if someone gets in your way, you just stand up and move around them. I’ve never experienced anyone telling me where I could or couldn’t stand and I’ve certainly never had the audacity to suggest the same to another passenger.

Enough time spent on that anecdote.

We got off the boat at Sarıyer, the northernmost district of Istanbul on the European side of the city.. Almost 90 minutes had passed on the boat and we still weren’t even out of Istanbul: this is a huge city.

We had a look around Sarıyer and stopped for lunch, consisting of börek in both meat and cheese varieties. I’d forgotten how tasty it could be and resolved on the spot to get some from a Turkish bakery when we get back to Amsterdam.

After walking along the seafront, we found a playground, where Eloïse played happily on the climbing frame and swings. That left us just enough time for a coffee at a local hang-out, where I was served possibly the world’s worst ever cappuccino. As far as I could tell, the hot beverage that I was served contained no coffee. I’m not even sure the hot white liquid it did contain was milk.

It was then time to catch the boat for the return journey, which turned out to be a far more relaxed affair than the outward one. Yoghurt with a spoonful of sugar was served on board and went down a treat.

Back on the quay, there was just enough time to visit the Mısır Çarşısı, more commonly known as the Egyptian or Spice Bazaar. That was a feast for the eyes and nose, but not ones to neglect the taste buds, we took the opportunity to purchase what the Turks call lokum, better known in the English-speaking world as Turkish delight.

Dinner was the highlight of the day, at the delicious Hamdi Et Lokantasi restaurant. The food here was mouth-watering and the rooftop views across the Bosphoros and of the surrounding mosques were second to none. A delicious main dish was complemented by Turkish coffee and baklava.

In the meantime, the weather outside had turned against us and it was now pouring down. We got very, very wet on our return to Sultanahmet, but that could hardly dampen our spirits after the meal we’d just had.

It’s fair to say at this point that we love Istanbul. It’s a vibrant city with a pulse that makes one’s blood quicken. It’s partly European, partly Asian, with a slight Arabic overtone. There’s a joie de vivre here that it’s hard not to fall for. I hadn’t expected to like the city this much, but it’s really quite irresistible.

Better late than never, we’re in Istanbul.

Our flight from Amsterdam was delayed, due to one of the airline staff opening the door of the gangway down to the plane. Evidently, only airport security staff are allowed to do that these days. This effectively tainted the entire G2 gate area, causing the plane to have to be evacuated, after which everyone had to pass through the security check a second time. As you can imagine, this took quite some time.

The flight itself was uneventful. Once on the ground in Turkey, we purchased visas, cleared passport control, retrieved our bags and met up with the man sent by our hotel to collect us.

The traffic was manic and it must have taken us a good hour and forty-five minutes to get from the airport into the heart of Istanbul. I was very glad I hadn’t had to drive it myself.

Our hotel is quite lovely and situated in the Sultanahmet area of the city, close to many of the sights of historic interest.

We spent only a couple of minutes in the room after checking in, before venturing out for dinner. The hour was late and it must have been close to 22:00 EEST.

The walk through the cobbled streets to a local restaurant was a lovely one, as was the meal that ensued. I’m in my element with Turkish cuisine and I have no doubt that the next few days are going to hold a lot of tasty treats for all of us.

Anyway, the exploring starts tomorrow and I need a good night’s sleep. Eloïse and Lucas didn’t hit the sack until around 23:30, but they were little troopers at dinner, so hopefully they’ll awake in good humour tomorrow.