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Published: December 11th 2010
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Dorm room
View from my bed at Mavi Guesthouse Istanbul came be a relatively tame introduction to Turkish men, who later become a defining feature of my trip. However, I was grateful I’d decided on Turkey over my original plan of going to Morocco after some of the tales I’d heard from western women who’d ‘escaped’ the country, for lack of a better phrase.
One of the first men I’d met in Istanbul proclaimed that his shop would “make pleasure for my eyes” and proceeded to drag me in, shortly followed by the mystical appearance of apple tea, a recurring feature. He then presented a series of pashminas which he rubbed gently on my cheeks and insisted on wrapping around my neck. Quick exit needed! I walked a short way down the road and, due to my ongoing illness from back home, had quite a bad coughing fit. Luckily, this is Turkey, and there seems always to be a man on hand. This particular one came up to me with (possibly feigned) concern and held my upper arm, suggesting that the best cure is to go to the coast, take off my top, and expose my chest to the sun. This would apparently “make cure” but I didn’t hang
Blue Mosque
Courtyard of the Blue Mosque around for his suggestion that he join me. I’d only been out of the hostel about 30 minutes and was already apprehensive. Partly due to my now hostile facial expressions and refusal to smile at anyone, I wasn’t harassed for the rest of the day and in fact met a few comic Turkish men. One man shouted, “Hello, you remember me!!”, until I explained that I had in fact been here less than an hour to which he replied, “Oh well, good to try! Want to see my shop?”. Another man proceeded to run through every language he knew until I responded – business savvy Turkish salesmen seem to know about 8 different languages conversationally and at least another 15 introductions to languages. Seeing as I missed the English introduction, it took a while to get through them all, but it was amusing all the same. This, I might point out, was all within the first hour of being out and about in Istanbul.
But, I of course don’t want to brand all Turkish men in the same bordering-on-sexual-harassment bracket. Back at the airport the night before, I was sat with a defeated look on my face, picking out
Blue Mosque roof
Patterns in the domes of the roof my favourite spot on the concourse to sleep. The man I had snapped at earlier, for teasing me about walking up and down the concourse at least 5 times trying to find an international phone, came over and asked what was wrong. He worked for a taxi company at the airport and put me in a shared taxi (which I think the other couple were paying for...) to Istanbul for free. He expected nothing in return and, shame on me, I don’t even remember his name! I made it to the city centre, admittedly a bit dishevelled by the airport experience, and to a nice little hostel, who thankfully didn’t need to be paid up front. I then had a fine feast with my remaining money and went to sleep feeling pretty fortuitous.
As on the rest of my trip, I slept through the daily 5am call to prayer and woke up to an empty dorm at about 11am – damn those early birds! I think there are five call to prayers every day, although I have heard there is sometimes a sixth one at 3am. They were pretty useful for time keeping as I didn’t have a watch.
My dorm bed overlooked the Aya Sofia, a former Orthodox basilica, turned imperial mosque, turned museum and tourist hot spot, and in the distance you could see the six minarets of the Blue Mosque, which stands boldly facing it just a short walk across Sultanahmet Park.
The Blue Mosque was the first, and one of my favourite, places that I visited in Istanbul and as such, I went back many times. Not just because it was free and I was being particularly frugal, but because of the atmosphere and the decorations. Turkey is famous for having these fantastically intricate tiles from a city called Izmir and they are beautiful! However, my photo collection has, embarrassingly, a large selection of these tiles, especially after visiting Topkapi Palace, the residence of the Ottoman Sultans, where there are some really nice examples. I also took a lot of pictures of buildings and ‘architectural details’ (door handles, windows, signposts etc) – partly a remnant of my Architecture days. This is hard to explain to people and usually I come across as some crazy English version of a Japanese tourist.
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