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Published: October 31st 2007
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Borders at anytime of the day aren't particularly fun, but when you start going through them at one in the morning and don't finish until four they are rather irritating. Only one positive thing can be said about the ludicrous crossing and that is that we got off the swelteringly hot bus.
We stopped for a toilet stop on the Bulgarian side and some people nipped over to the cash and carries. Then once we had been through the Bulgarian border they all went to the duty free shops. We had four different passport checks, one set of visas to buy and a hell of a long time sitting waiting in the bus. We didn't buy anything from the duty frees, but everyone else stocked up big time. Once we finally got through the paperwork and passport inspection parts we were dropped off at a kind of cattle market where we were instructed to line up with all our luggage open infront of us. A woman just down the row from us suffered heavily as the customs people went through every bit of her bags and caught her with way too much alcohol. Her son also had way too much
but had hidden some behind a pillar before the searches. They were escorted off someplace else whilst our backpacks were barely looked at.
Once through customs the bus pulled over and the girl came around with smelly oils for your hands to clean them with. We were given a slice of fruit loaf and a glass of coke and then the lights were turned off again.
We dozed until the sun began to rise and then we began to take notice of our surroundings. There are Mosques everywhere and they are easily distinguisble by their impressive minarets. Houses here are so different they are colourful and full of characteristic and the high rises of Eastern Europe pale massively in comparison. The sun rise was beautiful and the sky was so many unusual colours. Istanbul appears to stretch out for so many miles and it is located ever so beautifully on the water. From our bus the traffic became very noticeable and the amount of people moving around was phenomenal.
We arrived at the biggest bus station I could ever imagine. We spent fifteen minutes driving around it before getting to the final parking place. We got off
the bus and couldn't figure out how to leave because it was really that large and chaotic. We did leave and went to get money out of a cash machine. Due to our lack of up to date guidebook we were left somewhat in the dark about their currency and exchange rate. Our out of date "rough guide" quoted prices in the thousands which we figured must be an old currency. We figured out how much to withdraw by finding out that a metro ticket cost 1.30 and working out that 10 should be enough for two metro and two bus journeys.
The metro was simple to navigate however I have never felt so white skinned in my life. We got off at the last stop in Sultanahmet and attempted to get the bus. As I was waiting with the bags for Rob to get back from buying tokens, two backpackers said it was impossible to get on the bus and did we want to share a taxi. I refused because Rob had most likely just bought our tokens. As I continued to wait I saw how many people were forcing themselves into the buses and knew we couldn't
get on with our bags. Rob and I hastily discussed it and chased after the two backpackers and the four of us stood on the side of a massively busy road trying to hail a taxi which we eventually did. The girl with us skillfully bartered until we got a reasonable price and off we went. I had my window down and it was so fun to stick my head out of the window and watch all the shops and people whizz by. The other two had just come from Jordan and oh my God does it look fantastic. Our list of places we want to visit has trippled since we have been traveling.
The taxi stopped right infront of what we knew was either the Aya Sofia or the Blue Mosque. By the time we had figured out which was which by counting the minarets the two backpackers we shared the taxi with came to find us because they had found our hostel whilst searching for theirs.
Our room looks pretty good but the bed is pretty painful. We appear to keep on stretching our definition of "the worst bed in the world". We had to wait
till almost eleven before we could check into the room so when we got in, we gladly slept for a few hours.
We woke up pretty late in the day and we must have slept heavily because two separate calls to prayer hadn't woken us. It was raining when we left the hostel which was strange as neither of us had associated rain with Turkey. We spent a good couple of hours walking around the streets soaking up the atmosphere and change in culture. Around half seven we heard our first call to prayer which we stopped to listen to, it was loud and rang out across the city. The call to prayer is impressive because different mosques play it at slightly different times so you can hear echos of it from all around the city.
We had read in our not so great Rough Guide book that most of the best eateries and bars etc were across the water in Taksim. We decided to walk across the main bridge Galata which was slightly more difficult to get to than we anticipated. The boulevard has numerous ferry stations which are very busy and the ferries zoom in and
out ever so quickly. All along the boulevard and the bridge there are people fishing; rather successfully as well. A guy walked past us and dropped something which Rob stopped and picked up for him. To say thank you he gave Rob a rather lame shoe shine and whilst he was doing this his friend cornered me. He began by taking my hand and kissing it but then grabbed my wrist. His conversation quickly became sleazy so I grabbed my arm away and moved back over to Rob who was now being asked for payment for his "shoe clean". We gave the guy 1ytl and left before he could protest any louder than he already was. In retrospect we have decided that he definitely dropped the brush on purpose to get our attention. We walked the first half of the bridge on the lower tier which we thought was a good idea but we ended up rushing because we were acosted at every restaurant by people trying to get us to go in.
We were only in Beyoglu for a short amount of time because the rain had gotten much heavier, it was getting late and we hadn't eaten
a morsel all day. We headed back over the bridge and back to Sultanahmet where we knew there would still be restaurants open. Just before we found somewhere to eat a taxi went through a puddle next to us and added dirty splash marks to our already drenched clothes.
Our meal was not fantastic and cost a pretty penny however we used the opportunity to sit and chat and discuss our best strategy for dealing with Istanbul. On first impressions I love Istanbul but am aware that certain aspects of it can seem intimidating which was putting Rob off slightly. We decided that from now on we would turn the whole thing into a bit of a game and find different ways to ignore the restaurant owners. After falling for all the tricks in the book today, tommorow we will be hardened and wiser tourists.
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Ken
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Running off with women
1979, Istanbul. We drove there. Interestingly someone got hold of Diane and me in broad daylight and chatted but then started to direct her away from me. I just laughed but she got worried and shouted and then so did I and she got released. It clearly has not changed!