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Published: September 4th 2005
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Eminönü Pier
The boats sell fish kebab from freshly catched fish. Very tasty! I returned once more to Istanbul to collect my Iranian visa. And I got it! Exactly one week after I applied, I walked out of the Iranian consulate, smiling at the door guard who knew me already...
It is not bad to return to Istanbul. It is a very charming city, especially in Sultanahmed. I went to the same hostel again, this time asking for a place on the roof terrace (half price). You have fresh air there, a bunch of travelers around you, and only the stars above you. If it doesn't rain! Two hours after I arrived it started raining very heavily. The roof terrace was flooded 10 cm with water and my raincover for the backpack proved to be usefull for the first time. But in the night the water was gone again and everybody slept well on the roof. :-)
I managed to sell my train ticket to Budapest finally. You may ask what train ticket to Budapest!?! The storie goes like this: When I bought my train ticket from Budapest to Istanbul it seemed very complicated. The guy from the hungarian railway was running up and down between different offices, asking different stuff and making reservations
Bosphorus Bridge
There are only two bridges over the Bosphorus, one is the large suspension bridge you see here, together with one of the big ships. for different parts. Finally he came back to show me the overall price. Compared to german railway it seemed quite cheap, so I accepted. He gave me a pile of tickets and I paid. Later, when I was on the train, I realized from all these sheets, that he had sold me a return ticked. Not the reservations for the return journey, but the basic ticket. And certainly this can only be refunded in Budapest. So the only possibility for me was to resell the ticket. Provided you find somebody this is not so bad, because one-way tickets cost more than half the price of a return ticket.
One evening I met Daniel from Czech Republic. He had lived in Mongolia for one year and was on his way back home. Besides spending some time with him talking about nano robots and quantum physics I sold him my ticket to Budapest for a nice price ;-).
I used the time in the evening once more to walk down from Sultanahmed to the pier of Eminönü at the Bosphorus. Here, fish kebab is sold directly from the boat, you can buy other food, for example fruits, and you can take a
Üsküdar
One of the places on the asian side of Istanbul. boat to the asian side. My fafourite destination was Üsküdar, afterwards along the asian side to Harem, passing the lighthouse, and back to Eminönü with the car ferry. The ferry boats always have to watch out for the big ships. Sometimes every 15 minutes one passes by on the way to the Black Sea or the Sea of Marmara. From the roof terrace you can see a neverending line of ships from the horizon right into the Bosphorus. And all the time you hear the deep sound when they blow their horn, mixed with the calling of the Imam sometimes.
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