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Sultanahmet is the tourist and backpacker centre of Istanbul. Ideally located in the historical centre of Istanbul, between Haghia Sofia and the Blue Mosque. I was amazed at just how tourist-modern it was; it initially reminded me of Gringolandia in Quito. It was quite a surreal experience walking home one evening listening to the call for prayer from the Blue Mosque; as I turned into the main tourist street the sound became intermingled and then literally drowned out by the sounds of Robbie Williams pumping from a local bar.
My first night in Istanbul I was roped into the local nightclub experience, for this you have to leave the fantasia of Gringolandia and head out to Taksim, the throbbing heart of the cities nightlife. As an all male group of six we were turned away from most clubs. Fair enough you’d think; but when we were allowed in, the place would contain 95% males?? If you were then brave enough to seek out ‘the five percent’ you were given the distinct impression by hostile onlookers that it would be wise not to get too well acquainted. A unique experience nonetheless; ‘the sound of men dancing’; an experience that
View from the Bosphorous
The Blue mosque(left) and Haghia Sophia(right) I hope will remain unique for some time to come. (The next night we decided to stick with the ‘Downunder Bar’).
My partners in crime were all in their early twenties and made me feel older than my years - since I was quickly designated CEO of the group. The poor lads had been comically cheated before I arrived, buying bottles of perfume containing water, and pipe tobacco that bore all the hallmarks of puke! On our first few hours together in Istanbul they saw all my worldly wisdom, confidence and experience manifest in a vast array of challenging situations 😉 Although to be honest, all I’d done was get them a cup of tea for 8 pence instead of 80, some cheap Kebabs, and successfully persuaded a few hawkers to fuck off! But anyhow, as chief negotiator we entered the infamous Grand Bazaar of Istanbul; 4500 shops, many more salesman and countless scams. It was a great experience (as always) buying things with other peoples money - it gave me an edge over the seller since I couldn’t have cared less about the items I was buying (and a genuine indifferent attitude always works magic). However
Haghia Sophia
keeping cool in the summer heat the Bazaar was disappointing in its shining modernity - like the myth of an old bazaar crossed with the Whitgift Shopping Centre in Croydon.
When my girlfriend returned from Bulgaria she was pretty pissed off since she’d been harassed by three guys and grabbed by one of the vermin on her way to the hostel. I was livid! I could write 20,000 words on why I think this happens - but I’ll keep my rant short-sweet-n-controversial: Western women have a certain reputation in the well visited parts of Turkey. Whether this reputation is justified is open to debate, but things do happen when women come here on holiday - behaviour which even in a secular Islamic country like Turkey doesn’t rank them very highly on the social scale. These pigs would never dare grope a local woman - they would be lynched! It’s not western movies, porn or MTV that corrupts their fragile little minds into thinking western women are easy, since they watch that crap all over the Islamic world - this shit only happens in touristy areas. It’s a reputation that has been formed by actual experiences and most profoundly these experiences are exaggerated by
hearsay which perpetuates amongst a sexually repressed local population. In certain places in the world cultures clash and become fault lines of ideology.
The top sight in Istanbul is Haghia Sophia (Church of the Divine Wisdom) which was built 1500 yrs ago to restore greatness to the failing Roman Empire. It was the greatest church ever built and remained so for a thousand yrs until it became the greatest mosque. From the outside it looks a little clumsy; faded red with large right angled buttresses clashing with the huge central dome. Inside it is truly breathtaking. The sense of space is amazing; the Dome itself is enormous and seems almost excessively high - creating the feeling of humble-little-human in the house of God. 1500yrs ago I cannot imagine what people felt; I never felt the presence of any God; but was totally overwhelmed by the ingenuity of man all those years ago. When the Ottomans took control of Turkey, and Islam became the religion of choice it was converted into a mosque, adding four tall minarets and Islamic scripture. For the last 75yrs it has been a museum, and the golden calligraphy of Islam sits side-by-side with
old mosaics of Christ and The Virgin Mary. It is in need of some serious restoration, but for me this all adds to the atmosphere - Five Stars!
The Blue Mosque just opposite, was built a thousand years after to surpass the achievements of Haghia Sophia. The huge domed roof supported by smaller domed and half-domed almost organic structures overlapping their way down to the solid base; make it seem like an alien life form with six tall scud-like minarets rising from its base contrasting perfectly with the mosques wonderful curvature. It has clearly copied the basis of Haghia Sophia’s external design and bettered it. Inside however it is a lot smaller and less imposing, and although the interior is in better condition it totally lacks the grandeur of its Grandfather across the way.
The main reason for our coming to Istanbul, was to sort out practical things like visas for the trip ahead. We even managed to find the rarest drug on the streets (Vivitof Tyfosi) for my girlfriends typhoid jab. We hunted high and low for almost two days and when we finally entered the darkened back room of a local hospital the doctor smiled and told my girlfriend to be seated. He then opened a small box and pulled out a syringe… “Animal?” he said.
“Ugh?” …
“Cat or Dog?”
“What!?”…
“Rabies!”
As the penny dropped I nearly died on the spot (the needle poised for action!).
I refused to shake the doctor’s hand in case of infection; humour he’d obviously never experienced before because he joined me in laughing manically as well.
Apart from my girlfriends experience in Sultanahmet, the vast majority of people we met in Istanbul were extremely polite, helpful and courteous - more so in fact than you would find in London or Copenhagen. I liked Istanbul, but probably for all the wrong reasons. I was actually pleased that the people weren’t as terrible as I had been led to believe they would be. You can of course find people that do live up to this hype, but they operate in a very compact area of the city - the same area of the city that unfortunately exuded an air of plastic authenticity, a shame because I naively expected something a little more eastern and exotic.
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