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Published: July 19th 2011
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The Sultan Hostel
We appear to have landed at backpacker central, through the luck of an internet choice. Istanbul is my Panama
When our older son Sky was a little boy he had a series of tiny books in which the main character—a bear??—was always striving to get to Panama, it was the land of his dreams. For some time now, Istanbul has been my “Panama”, enough so that I’ve even studied Turkish for the last 20 weeks (thanks to Beryl for that suggestion, and thanks to Namik for teaching me!) and the time finally came for us to board the plane and head for “the land of my dreams”.
The substantial part of the dream is for us to live in Istanbul for a year, while I teach ESL (English as a Second Language) and this is our location reccy, so to speak.
First a fourteen hour flight to Doha in Qatar, where thousands of people, with colour coded stickers on their carry-on luggage, are antiseptically herded into buses from their jumbo planes, shuttled to the transfers processing hall and then loaded directly back onto buses to different planes on different patches of tarmac. Then another 4 hours to Istanbul.
I was delighted that I could understand some of the signs in the Ataturk
Outdoor dining in style
The tables at the Sultan Hostel were covered with red and gold tapestries and seats all padded. Airport, even a bit surprised, but I have to admit that the English signs were helping. Nonetheless, Phil and I soon formed a little reef of incomprehension when we got to the ticket machines for the Metro and tram, and immediately a young man named Wai from Hong Kong, and a mystified Turkish woman, returning from her life in Germany, washed up against us as well. Rescue came in the form of a helpful Turkish man who guided us all through the process, accompanied us to the Metro, showed us which track to use and advised us about which station to change from train to tram. So the 4 of us became instant co-travellers, collectively peering through the crush of locals for the signs we needed.
By Sultanahmet station, some 15 or so stops later, 3 of us yanked our luggage off the tram and stood gasping at the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. Fortunately Wai had a local map and it turned out our hostels were actually side by side.
Dragging the rolling suitcase across the stonework of the open public space, and down the narrow cobblestone streets, Phil was less than enchanted with the situation.
Breakast at the hostel
The food was great and it came with the overnight fee. Once we got to our hostel, “The Sultan”, and signed in, we found that our room was on the 4th floor. As Phil hauled the suitcase up three flights of spiral staircase, I couldn’t help remembering the scene from Utz when the Baron is trying to make it up the stairs to his apartment, clutching his heart and collapsing against the wall.
But Phil only slowed and kept going. Eventually we were on the purple 4th floor and into our room, with a view over the Marmara Sea if you stood at the window and looked sideways.
After shedding our Sydney winter clothes, and dressing for the hot summer day, we had a rendezvous with Wai at the outdoor dining area in front of our hostel. The tables were covered with red and gold tapestries, the chairs were cushioned, with extra decorative pillows, and there was also an area where you could lie back on pillows on an elevated floor and enjoy a water pipe.
Here we experienced our first cup of free apple tea, which came with being a customer of the hostel. Then we set out together, wandering along, following any whim, through the Arasta Bazaar,
Oz cafe
Right across from the Sultan Hostel is the Oz Cafe--small wonder when so many Australians love travelling to Turkey. downhill till we came to the Kucuk Hagia Sofia (ah yes, I could recognize that word as meaning ‘Little”) and heard the call to prayer for the first time. We also discovered that the mosque was not only a place of worship but had a large courtyard garden abloom with many hydrangea bushes, and around which various craftsmen had little shops (jewelry, printmaking, books, etc) and a tiny outdoor café where we all had our first cup of genuine Turkish coffee (kahve).
Eventually we found our way through a maze of streets to the sea, and walked along it for ages, rounding the large peninsula. Lots of men were fishing or swimming off the rocks, but it
didn’t seem to be a place women went to. There was a major road along the sea, called the Kennedy Caddesi (street), interestingly enough, and no way to safely cross it. So we walked and walked till we got to the docks for the ferries that take people over to the Asian side of the city, or on tours of the Bosphorus. There we found a pedestrian bridge which allowed us passage and the long winding uphill walk back to the hostel
Friend Wai shares lunch with us
Time for a doner kebab in the shade! area.
We weren’t sure what we would do the next day, but we were certain that sleep was the next thing for us!
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Azadeh
non-member comment
Thank you Martha for sending us your weblog's link. I enjoyed reading your first post and It was very very imaginable . wish you and Phil the best