Istanbul and the Dardanelles

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I have not worn a seatbelt for a month.

I realized this right after crossing the border into Turkey. I probably spent about thirty minutes thinking about this statement. For non-Americans this is a rather easy achievement to garner, but for "us" automobile bound travellers, I rather like the sense of freedom that it denotes.

ISTANBUL: the multi-continental city, capital, religious site, and transportation hub. Sure didn't seem like much when I arrived at 3 am at the bus station. The views were much more reminiscent of scenes from archeological digs at night in the desert -- tiered plateaus along a hillside with sunken lights emanating from the lower halves of each terrace. I know that description is a bit vague, but needless to say I did not feel as though I was in the monstrous city that I had read so much about beforehand.

Of course, I probably would have felt much more comfortable had I been on the correct side of the city. Turns out that I slept through my bus stop and had to back track via a combination of a minibus and railcar to get to Sultahnamet, the main tourist area where all of the hostels were located. Thus, I ended up arriving at my hostel around five in the morning, but luckily got away with not having to pay for that night after sitting on the porch until the early check-in at six.

Slept for a few hours and then grabbed an excellent breakfast spread consisting of the (now) standard tomatoes, cucumbers, bread, yogurt/sour cream concoction/ olives, hard-boiled eggs and cereal. Tea might as well have been mandatory, and while I had experienced its proliferation on bus rides through the more recent southern parts of my journey, my time in Istanbul truly introduced this supposedly posh British tradition into my everyrday life. Breakfast, lunch, visits to rug shops, visits to museums, river cruises, random encounters with new folks at sheesha bars... every activity in this region centers around sipping as the locals call it, chai.

I digress. After breakfast I went and walked around the top of the hill, which consists of (from east to west) the Blue Mosque, the Hagia (or Aya as they say here... the difference still confuses me) Sophia, and Topkapi Palace. The middle of the three was closed, so I managed to wander through the Blue Mosque and Topkapi for most of the afternoon. The former marked my first visit to a true mosque, so it was wild to have to cover my legs with a blue shawl and remove my shoes before entering the fully carpeted Muslim monstrosity. Topkapi also was extremely cool, for within its museums laid the supposed teeth, pieces of hair, and a footprint of the Prophet Muhammad. After spending a fair amount of money at the museum cafe, mostly because I confused my exchange rates (around 3 foreign dollars to 1US... as it was in most places vs., in Turkey, 1.6 TL to 1 US), I wandered along the Bosporus before sending off a box back home to save weight in the warmer regions. The coastline was very nice, and I decided to take a swim in the strait solely to be able to claim that I had swam in the Bosporus.

I would not recommend it. Still too frigid for my pansy taste and the current moved surprisingly quickly. However, the view on the coast line was rather humorous, as there were seemingly hundreds of overly tanned, cumbersome men bathing amongst the company of.. more almost nude, circularly shaped XY's. Not a woman in sight. Not that this was to be expected in a predominantly Muslim country, but it still was interesting to see such a ridiculous contradiction to the coastlines/ pool decks of the US, where the other sex litters the scenery and men are generally less likely to be found.

As the hostel was unfortunately relatively empty, and I actually had a ten bed dorm to myself, I spent the night coordinating my travels on the ridiculous terrace that sat on the roof of my hostel and offered an incredible view of the Bosporus/Sea of Marmara and two large Sultahnamet mosques at sunset and into the night. I ended up being accompanied by two American newlyweds on their month long honeymoon on the roof, along with a new litter of kittens.

These kittens were not my first experience with loose and possibly rabies infested animals within an urban environment on this trip. While Romania and Bulgaria seemed to be flooded with stray dogs, Istanbul, and as I later learned most of Turkey/ parts of the Middle East, experience absurd amounts of loose felines. On the roof there lived one mother cat with a new batch of six babies, and she spent the majority of her time annoying all customers with an extremely repetitive meow that sounded nothing like the meows I am used to back home. Feeling rather intrigued by the prospect of experiencing a new cat "language", the couple along with myself spent a great amount of time attempting to "meow" with a different tone so as to "speak" to the cats. Our research showed, and thus allowed me to forever believe that, in fact, they do speak a separate language from what we once believed to be their overseas relatives/our domestic couch potatoes.

After being woken up by the 5 am prayer call which reverberated off of EVERY SINGLE wall of this MASSIVE city, I woke up again fairly early to head to see the Hagia Sophia, which was a bit disappointing after all of the buildup. Then I meandered back to the river to catch a boat cruise along the Bosporus which traveled all the way up to the mouth of the Black Sea. Hopped on board next to three rather normal looking Turks, who immediately began to exchange whispered words before breaking out with an oddly synchronised "Hello". Answering back, I asked them if they spoke English, to which they replied with anxious looks at each other. Realizing that we would be unable to communicate, I decided to open my book and start reading, but after a few minutes one of them started to tap me on the knee and speak to me in Turkish. He did this a few times, but after each attempt I more and more emphatically muttered out a "no Turkish" and went back to reading. After about the 4th or 5th time one of them disappeared only to return a second later with some tea... just for me. Having just been screwed over in Bulgaria I, possibly rudely, declined the offer, only to see the tea dumped overboard without being touched by any of them. Then, a few minutes later, one of them returned with a brownie on a plate, this time accompanied by a few others, which they again offered me for free. Hoping to beat their trick, I reached for one of the ones that was closer to them, but they pulled the plate away and instead handed me a specific one on a napkin. At this point I decided to get the hell away, and said that I had to use the toilet where I went to toss the brownie and find another seat. While I would hope that they were actually trying to be friendly, I rather prefer the memory that I avoided being drugged by a bunch of Turkish thieves.

Views and whatnot were incredible, and when we arrived at the last stop we were given two hours to explore the city and, if we chose, to hike up to the castle which would purportedly grant excellent views of both downtown Istanbul along with the Black Sea. I chose. (Note, hopping off of the ferry on this side marked my first steps in ASIA) It was pouring down rain but the view was absolutely worth it. Downtown Istanbul was idyllic but could not hold a candle to the sight of the mouth of the Bosporus at the Black Sea. Plus, I managed to stumble into two Americans who had spent the last year working in Israel (Joseph and, I think, Jeffery). We decided to hike around the less visited areas of the castle, and unfortunately (sort of) managed to stumble upon a hidden slope which led down to an opening that appeared to offer another view of the Black Sea. Being typical Americans, we hopped over the warning tape and slowly trudged about half of the way down the slope, at which point we started to hear slew of sounds which almost appeared to mimic the repetition of the meowing I had experienced the night before. Hearing these conspicuous noises, we picked up the volume of our conversation, to the point that we were forcing screams at each other amidst laughs, and moved mucchhh more trepidatiously down the rest of the slop towards the opening. Almost to the bottom, we ran into a somewhat frazzled couple who scampered past us in the opposite direction. Our laughing continued.

After a scary trip down the hill amidst the downpour we made it to the boat, where we met two more Americans, older ladies from NYC and the San Francisco area, who made for such interesting conversation that the hour and a half ride back to the main port flew by very quickly. Then I went with the two guys through the spice bazaar and grand bazaar of the city, where we encountered everything from freshly caught leeches to an oddly colored blue and white Chicago Bulls Michael Jordan jersey. After a quick stop at a baklava shop, we parted ways and I decided to visit the old Basilica Cistern and the nearby Hamam. While the former was surprisingly interesting, the latter deserves a paragraph of its own.

I somehow managed to get corralled into a cheaper "local" hamam (aka: a turkish bath). Having already experienced the bath system in Moscow, I felt no real need to attempt another one, but the two Americans did a swell job of convincing me otherwise. Thus I found myself out of pocket 20 US and donning only a towel and flip flops in an empty sauna chamber once more. Whereas the majority of the northern parts of the "bath" countries seem to opt for self service, the turkish way is to have someone do the work for you. Thus after a quick steam I was led into another room for a soap massage. I literally closed my eyes and spent the entirety of the short walk between rooms praying that my masseuse/bather of sorts would not be a large hairy Turkish man of the stature I had experienced in great volume along the Bosporus coast the day before. Luckily it appeared that my prayers had been heard.

Unfortunately these same prayers had not in any way, shape, or godhelpme form been answered. Standing before me was a smiling Anatolian who could not have been less than twice my size, and it was quite possible that the great majority of his weight could have been due to his... torso hair. Wonderful. Deciding to make the best of an unfavorable situation, I let Attaturk the Great scrub my back, but I made sure that our large towels remained securely wrapped around our respective waists. Needless to say, when I left this room and was offered an oil massage, I opted to count my blessings and get the heck out of there.

Rested up and feeling almost too clean, I woke up early the next morning to catch a bus to Gallipoli/ Cannakale (about five hours west at the Aegean side of the Dardanelles). Decided on the way to the station to opt to instead catch something to the outskirts of the city and attempt to catch a free ride via hitch hiking. As I had only ever done this over short distances before, I did not really know what to expect. However, within about ten minutes of standing a small Mercedes pulled over and the driver let me ride with her to Tekirdag (about half of the way). Then I asked her to drop me off outside the city and this time it took a bit longer, about thirty minutes or so, to find someone who could take me to Cannakale.

Slept most of the way, but managed to be woken by a hearty blast of Turkish water induced "poisoning", upon which time we luckily stopped for an hour long lunch break on the coast. After this we finished up the stint to Gallipoli, and I found a guide service to take me on a not so interesting tour of the WWI battlefield. While it was interesting to see the location and experience my first trenches/WWI lived scenes, it was hard to identify with the actual battle since there were no Americans involved. I did respect the emotions of my fellow tourists, most of which were from the ANZAC region, but I severely struggled to keep focus during the many stops in the area. Luckily the tour did not last too long, and I was able to get a ride to the ferry across the Dardanelles to Cannakale for the night. I decided to skip the tourist areas and walk into the supposed "ghetto" of the city, as it was described to me by some by hostel's attendants, but had a great time immersing myself in the vastly poorer, native culture.

The next morning I woke up to shuttle to Troy, and on the bus I sat with a interesting Australian who had spent the past two months biking south from Munich. Easily between sixty and seventy years of age, she and a friend had opted for the non-guided trek on a whim. It was very inspiring, and her company helped to ease the desperately imaginative tour at Troy (the ruins are somewhat meager and yet they managed to stretch it into an hour long extravaganza). I then spent the rest of the day swimming with one of the younger Turkish tour guides and his friends in the strait before sitting for a while amongst a slew of younger locals. The kids who I have pictures of were obsessed with American wrestling, or WWE, and spent the majority of the time quizzing me about my knowledge of various wrestlers. When I said my name was Logan they absolutely went nutso because it was so close to Hulk Hogan. Left there in the afternoon and caught the 5-6 hour bus back to Istanbul.

(I will take this time to note that unless you are from Australian or New Zealand, or have some deep personal/emotional tie to Gallipoli and/or the city of Troy, I do not recommend spending the money to visit the area). Back in Istanbul I chilled for a bit and then woke up to catch my flight to Diyarbakir, the capital of Kurdish Turkey.

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Photos

most ridiculous duty free in the world
bus stopped for 15 minutes so everyone could run in an grab their two cartons of cigarettes