Well it is time to once again start up the old blog. The beginning of the travel started off well enough,with the only notable thing happening was that Turkish Air doesn't fly to San Francisco, so I had to find who the partner airline was, Lufthansa, who was the airline carrier the last time I went to Europe. While checking my bag, the lady told me that my bag was actually too light to be checked as it was only 4 kilos (approx. 8.8 pounds), she had to add a weight to it in order to allow the computer to process the bag. I was pretty stoked to know I'd only be caring 4 kilos around with me. The flight was pretty uneventful, fortunately I had no one sitting in my aisle on the whole flight to Munich allowing for some nice spreading out of the legs. There was a call over the speaker of a need for a medical doctor, but I think someone just fainted, if it was anything more serious I'd imagine we would have had to of stopped. The second half of the flight I slept, watched Django, and once again was fortunate to not have anyone sitting next to me.
I arrived in Istanbul about 11:00 p.m. local time and had to hurry to make sure to get on the Metro before it closed for the evening. The metro was pretty straight forward as I had to take it to the last stop at Aksaray. Once getting off the metro I had to locate the tram in order to continue the second leg of the trip to my hostel. Unfortunately, I didn't grab a map at the information desk (mistake number one) and it was nearly 12:30 a.m., by the time I exited the metro. Due to the fact that the tram was closed, I couldn't find it anyways, and it was the middle of the night I was forced to get a taxi. Since I didn't know where I was (mistake number two) and it was so late, I really had no bargaining power with the taxi driver and ended up getting hosed. Once I arrived at the hostel I realized I was only two blocks away from the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque. After arrival I checked in and went to bed.
The next day was a pretty big blur do to the jet lag. It included a lot of walking and sleeping. I did make it to the Grand Bazaar, which is pretty big and surprisingly is one of the best places to exchange currency that I saw in Istanbul. The Grand Bazaar was created shortly after the Ottomans arrived in Istanbul, and by the seventeenth century the Bazaar had grown to its final shape, and was the center of trade and in some ways the world, due to the extent of the Ottoman control in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Due to controlling this important gateway, the Ottomans, Istanbul, and the grand Bazaar became the center of trade. Virtually all goods going from one of these continents to the others passed through this city and area. After walking around the Grand Bazaar I walked through a park by the Grand Palace, and then over to Taksim. That night I went out clubbing with some guys from Australia as Istanbul is known for it's night life, at least in this part of the world. It was an interesting experience to do this in a Middle Eastern country as doing this in the countries I had previously visited in this region would not be as highly accessible or quite frankly possible. There were some pretty good views and I was fortunate enough to meet some really cool Turkish individuals.
The next day I met Jean-Bautiste who would become my travelling buddy for the next few days. We basically did exactly the same thing as the day before but this time everything was more memorable as I wasn't jet lagged. Jean-Bautiste had spent the last ten months doing an around the world trip and this was his last stop before heading back to Bordeaux, France. We were able to have some pretty interesting conversations about our two trips and talking about the similarities and differences in our experiences. We did go to the Blue Mosque, which was pretty grand. Later in the day we headed to Taksim and on the way found a place to have a Turkish Tea, which overlooked the sea. After we went to the Galata Tower, which is a tower that was built in the 14th century to watch for fires in Istanbul, since Istanbul was prone to fires due to the climate of the region along with it being built mainly out of wood. After, we decided to head back towards our hostel and on the way began talking to this local Turkish man about French politics, he offered us a tea and we sat and talked for a while. After we went to the hostel and relaxed. Later that night we went to the Blue Mosque shortly after prayer, and while it was an amazing piece of architecture the large amount of crowds in the Mosque took away the feeling of being in a holy place.
The following day J.B. and I went to the Hagia Sophia, which was an interesting experience in being able to see a building that was originally constructed by the Christians as a church, and now serving as a Muslim Mosque. When you are inside you see old crosses painted on the walls next to Islamic text in Arabic. The basilica is a great representation of what Istanbul is, a city that has changed frequently throughout its history. The amazing thing about Istanbul is how European the city can feel as you are walking down a street that could be in Rome or Paris and then you hear the call to prayer and look up and see a great mosques doting the horizon. After going to the Hagia Sophia we went back to the hostel and met up with Beverly who was travelling in Istanbul from Scotland. The three of us walked around for a while, and then headed back to the Blue Mosque. Since it was already 7:00 p.m. at this point the Mosque was already closed for tourists, but was still open for prayer. Randomly we politely asked if we could enter and to our surprise they said yes. There were no tourists in the Mosque and only about 30 worshipers. It was a great experience as we were able to feel that sense of peace that occurs in a place like this. J.B. and I were even allowed to go into the prayer area, but to Beverly's chagrin she could not come as well. After that we had a couple of beers and called it a day.
On Friday May 31, the three of us decided to head to Taksim. Once arriving we saw the protests that were beginning to happen in Istanbul. At this point the protest size was relatively small and extremely peaceful. We watched for about 15 minutes before deciding to leave. About two blocks away we decided to sit and have lunch. Five minutes after a police officer runs into the restaurant screaming for water because he had gotten tear gas all over his face, although water makes tear gas worse. The waiter gave him water and as he ran off the tear gas began entering the restaurant. It began to make everyone sick and they had to close up the restaurant. Shortly after we left and ran to the end of the block where the air was clear. We had lunch farther away at a good place, where I had a pan kabab with chicken. After that we walked through lower Taksim and slowly made our way out of the area. That night we went out to a nice restaurant and had a few drinks as it was our last night together.
On Saturday the protests were getting pretty bad in Taksim, and they advised to not even go anywhere near the area as it was all covered in tear gas. Instead we walked to the Grand Bazaar since Beverly was looking for tea things, and after walked down to the bay. While sitting on the bay we were having tea and began talking to these young boys who were teaching us Turkish along with the owner of the little tea stand, it was nice to get away from the touristy area and have a nice conversation with the locals. After that we went back to the hostel and hung out there for a while before I departed for my overnight bus trip to Cappodocia. While departing for my bus I ran into the Australians who were going to Cappodocia as well and we were on the same shuttle to the bus station. While riding we all spoke about our journeys in Istanbul and shortly after arrived at the bus terminal.
While staying in Istanbul I stayed at the Istanbul Hostel, which was located in Sultanhamet and was very close to a Tram stop. It costed 29 Lira per night.
I will upload photos when I have better internet connection.
