Istanbul II

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The Saturday was brilliant. First we went to the toy museum. It was biting cold, and rainy, so we were glad with the lift we got from Kemal's boss, a two door salon car with a stick shift gear and driven like a maniac. And there we were, aross the Bosphorus to the Asian side. As Kemal said, we had come home. Across a beautiful suspension bridge, one of the longets we have seen, and into the very residential quarters of the Asian side. The toy museum is a five floor house converted to a veritable toy gallery, surely almost one of its kind, founded by the Poet Sunay Akin in 2005. A quick search in the internet would get you the directions and if you are travelling with kids, try to make it for the weekend puppet show. Its also got a lovely cafe with live music!

Lunch at a small roadside bakery shop, with original turkish pies and cakes. Then a bus to Kodikoy and the Kodikoy market unfolds before you. A complete must see. The narrow streets crowded with fresh produce, fish, meat, and kofte and kebap places filled with locals. You can walk around an amazing amount of time, sampling the fruits - strawberries, grapes, dried fruits, nuts, sunflower seeds, picking up breads, sampling doner kebaps, or just soaking the amazing colours, textures, sounds and smells. We picked up some very good turkish delights - presents for back home as well as turkish chocolates from a shop much recommended by Kemal. He also guided us to a very special kind - the mastiki flavoured ones (the original chewing gum!), a truly unique and nuanced flavour. The bitter chocolates were also very good. Altogether for 1.5 kilos of lokums we paid 16 liras and for 500 gms of chocolates 18.30. A very good buy indeed.

Way back from Kodikoy was ferry to Besiktas and then a bus back to Sisli. We are really getting a hang of the public transport here, quite easy once you have someone to tell you how to go about it.

Okay we were researching where to go on from Istanbul, and the options were Ismir or Bursa. Names are dropping off my list fast because of the time anything takes with Sanaa. She has to have a tantrum in every museum, including the Toy museum. Its been quite tiring, especially since with the cold she often refuses to walk and then Anu had to haul her around. Big mistake - not carrying the Pram. I think we should not take chances with kids till they are 5 atleast! The pram would have changed our lives. I am still contemplating buying a real cheap one. It would save us half the time. And not get her (and us) so tired.

The Topkapi Palace on Sunday was a revelation. We had no idea that this place was so special holding jewellery worth millions of dollars including the Mughal peacock throne which Nadir Shah looted from India, and relics from the all the Jewish and Muslim prophets, including the keys and doors from Kabaa. Must be a really spiritual experience for Muslims and may be even at a stretch the Christians. The scale and the granduer of the place was also amazing though it was not decadentlu opulent like the European Palaces. The courtlife seemed mostly indoors, though large gatherings durinmg festive occasions would be held in the open air. But it still did not have the hughe halls and banquet rooms that characterise the European palaces. As usual I am impressed with the simplicity of the Asian mindset. They decided to remedy this fine exhibition of humility and taste in the Dolhambace which was supposed to have made up for the austereness of the Topkapi in true 'following the west' style. Kemal told me interesting things about the Sultan and how he was essentially a very lonely man as he was not supposed to have any friends or families. No marriage for him and he was supposed to kill his brothers when he ascended the throne. Even close friends were not supposed to be a good idea. The concept of political marriage, such an essential component of the Indian Mughal kingdom was absent. And so was any private space for the Sultan himself. Does not seem like a life I would fancy.

Now I revise what I wrote earlier. Of course there are places to have food in Sultanahmet. You just need a local to tell you were to eat. Right opposite the tramway stop is the Tahiri Sultanahmet Kofteci, running from 1964 and its packed with locals. Its not really cheap compared to the food we had later on, but it holds its day with fantastic food and very quick service. They did charge a 20% on our bill, i do not know what that was for. Communication has been a problem with very few people capable of conversing in English. My bad! I would have crammed essnetial words in Turkish. But I am getting there slowly. Food in Turkey is going to be a whole different section so hang on for that seperately.

Now the train system, though highly promoted by the Turkish government, and really the first choice to travel with kids (can you imagine being stuck in a bus for 4 hrs with a hyperactive 2 year old?), seems it needs to learn quite a few lessons from the Indian Railways. The system is supposed to be fully computerised, and you should by logic be able to buy tickets on the internet. Do try! All we could do is download the train names. Not even the times. And at the train station, they have no way to give you information about any trains other than their own zone, tickets from other station is done by the booking clerk over phones, and there is not a semblance of a time table you can buy! But again, the sheer helpfulness of Turkish people make up for all these shortcomings. Also see train ride from Eskesehir to Ismir.

So now first we went ahead and bought a ferry/ train combination ticket for Ismir for Wednesday, I am suddenly conscious as to how we have hardly seen anything else in turkey and our days are rushing past. So instead of waiting to reach ismir on wednesday, we decided to go to Bursa instead. Which meant figuring out a way to get there: the bus option seemed crazy - 4 hrs. The best bet seemed the ferry from Yanikapi ferryboat station to the Guzelali. Now if you ever try doing that, do know that the only place where you can get tickets for the ferryboat is AT the Yanikapi IDO ferryboat stop! Don't believe anybosy who says anything else. We took about 2 hrs to just get there because firstly we were trying to hunt down an IDO ticket booth in Eminonu, and then trekking our way to the trengar in Sercik to figure out if we could get tickets from there. Remember also that you get your tickets cancelled as early as possible.

The grand bazaar was the one place pending in our list in Sultanahmet area, and it was a must do. Anu and I had to take turns doing rounds of the bazaar as Sanaa promptly fell asleep. But the sheer scale of the bazaar was awe inspiring. Rows and rows of carpets, glass ware, lights, jewellery and every other kind of products you can think of. In fact the main avenue seemed to be cramped with designer show rooms. The products themselves - the carpets, their designs, the light shades, and the complexity of colours and sounds. Crowded by Japanese tourists, according to Kemal it is not still superbly overpriced as during the economic recession the shop keepers realised the need to not cheese of the local customers. The things I am eyeing from here are the quaint tea glasses which is quite a custom here (you would see boys ferrying around these glasses with a small spoon on a saucer holding a few cubes of sugar in really interesting trays. I would try and put in a pic sometime for that. The others were really interesting cut glass lamp shades and very geometric patterned carpets. There was one in cream and gold which was to die for.

I think it is supposed to be goodbye Istanbul for a while. We will miss you, you great city with a bleeding heart. There is so much to write about this city, its people, the impressions. The ferry rides and the great heart of the Istanbullus. The smile that everyone carries, the courtesy that everyone shows to each other, the space everyone has for children and elders in their hearts and their minds. For Sanaa it has been a dream run. She has been spoilt and petted and played with at every turn and corner. But it is easy to do that to a smiling 2 year old. Try that with a cranky, petulent, bawling one. But here also the Turkish people come up with full marks. And the surprising thing is that the child-friendliness is not confined only to the old men and women or the mothers and the fathers or at a stretch young girls. Even young men take to kids so easily signifying an ease developed throuhg colse interaction of close knit families, extended cousin and younger sibling networks, as it would translate into their behaviour towards the old. When a young man or a woman gets up and offers his/ her seat to a an elderly person, it is an extended gesture from the fondness and connection he must feel towards his own grandparents or great uncles. All important symbols of an inclusive, comfortable society which the Western world knows little of. And the East is at a peril to lose.

I look at my India and I see signs of that degeneration. Where family values and community thinking is fast getting replaced by individualistic selfishness. In our bid to copy the materialistic affluence of the west, the first thing we lose are attributes which are hardpressed to replicate and which has stood us in good stead over the last 5000 years. The 'huzun' that Pamuk talks about for the Istanbullus which is a melancholic shroud worn with pride and acceptance of the world's realities, that yes all great civilisation crumbles and falls on its knees, it is an essential part fo regenration and nothing ot be ashamed of, that sadness of a begone era is just a symbol of your connection with what is real and true in your culture, your understanding...not a shame, but a sigh..and to be accepted and resurrected for its values that are to you what makes you...I get that when I see my country. To love an 'all perfect' place is easy, where everything is picture perfect, where everything is efficient and works beautifully. To love something, someone, someplace despite, or probably because of its follies, because of its underbellies, the dirty lanes, the grey colours, the complexity, the tearing at seams as one world struggles with another, the contradictions, the flavour, the conundrums..now that is a visceral love, a love which agonises your stomache and makes you yearn for more of it. The more I see the world and its people, the more I love my country and its attributes, its people, the reasons why it ticks. And for all those who look at us and are incapable of seeing beyond our superficial veneer of poverty, so called human rights abuse, a corrupt system and a country stretched to its limits, what can I say other than that you might need a few thousand years to get us and where we come from :-)!

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