Lessons from Turkey

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Travelling in the post pandemic world is full of stress and uncertainty- cancellations, staff shortages, queues. It is, then, a miracle to behold that two travelling parties, their origins on two separate continents can agree to meet on a third continent and arrive within 30 people in the passport queue. Particularly when one of those parties can answer with genuine ignorance when he’s asked upon boarding his flight from Tanzania what his onward travelling arrangements from Turkey are.

So, we have arrived in Istanbul, pleasantly stress-free compared to the last trip, but not lacking in vomit. After settling in to our apartment and admiring the view, we had a wander around Sultanahmet, refuelled the tanks, rekindled our love for Efes and enjoyed some warmth. A Turkish feast in a beautiful garden before the whinging about fatigue became too much and we retreated to bed.

But two things we’ve learned so far - my command of the Turkish language is woefully insufficient to be able to tell the difference between milk and yoghurt. And yoghurt does not go well in tea. Also that jet lag apparently caused deafness - we have what sounds like about 1,600 mosques within a 100m radius of our apartment and both the 10.30pm the 4.30am call to prayer could not be louder if we had our own amp and speaker set up inside. Unless of course you’re 13 and 10 and sleep peacefully through the whole thing. Let’s see how long they manage to keep that up!!

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