In A Passage to India, E.M. Forster continually makes the point that India is an indescribable place; there are 100 Indias, each with their own feeling and indefinable except through experience. I think there might be 100 Istanbuls, or even 1000, each slightly more strange and wonderful and indefinable than the rest; I think Ari and Meredith – my wonderful travel companions – would agree as well. So I’m going to start my blogging on the Istanbul adventure (and I think adventure is a pretty apt noun) with, in homage to David Letterman and The Flying Squirrel, an attempt to name simply ten Istanbuls.
Top Ten Istanbul Moments
10) Getting scammed at the 360° Bar. Our second night, we went to Istiklal Caddesi, in Beyoglu – the new city; across the Golden Horn from the old city, but still on the European side of the Bospherous – which is the main strip of restaurants, stores, movie theaters, pubs, bars, and clubs. It was a happening place. Our dinner consisted of Ari people watching while Meredith and I gorged ourselves on faux (yet still strangely delicious) Chinese food at FastWok. Then we went to 360° Bar, a recommendation of Ari’s sister’s friend. It’s at the top of a building and had a fantastic night, almost panoramic, view of the city (hence its name). It was very sleek, very Western, lots of shiny surfaces and smartly dressed waiters. We asked for a menu; they didn’t have one. So we ordered, received pretty weak drinks but enjoyed them and the view. When we left, the bill was outrageous. I kept thinking bars in Israel are expensive, but this really took the cake. So, never again order with out a menu.
Istiklal Caddesi at night
The bar itself
Views of the city from the bar.
9) Meredith getting hit on in the Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar is pretty bizarre. It’s like a huge, cavernous shuk-style mall, with every vendor selling pretty similar ware. We went on Saturday to get lots of pashminas, which was a bargaining story in and of itself. Meredith wanted to get Turkish hookah tobacco for her brothers, and was bargaining with a guy, and it was took expensive, even after the bargaining, so we left. Then the guy comes running after us, yelling, “Pretty lady! Wait!” He comes up to Meredith and says she can have the tobacco for free if she’ll have dinner with him. Meredith grabs Ari and says, “Well, he’s my boyfriend so I don’t think I can do that.” Ari looks a little befuddled, and says, “Yes, of course.” And so we quietly, and quickly, back away.
The (book) bazaar
8) Using hand gestures to communicate. Never before have I felt so totally unable to converse. Very few people spoke English, and when they did, it was the storekeepers in the Grand Bazaar or the people who worked the touristy locations. Never the cab drivers, the hotel workers, or the police (see below). So we got very good at mimicking words – especially numbers for cab fares – with our fingers. We even had a whole silent conversation on the bus, trying to figure out and pay the bus fare. The whole lack of verbal communication experience made all three of us appreciative our level of Hebrew, and I think gave us all a renewed zest of using, despite whatever embarrassments encountered, our Hebrew.
7) Ari’s “free” shoeshine. On our last afternoon, we’re walking from the Orient Express train station to the Suleiman Mosque, and we pass a shoe-shiner walking in the opposite direction. The shoe-shiner drops a brush, and Ari picks it up, calls back to the guy, and gives it to him. The shoe-shiner is very grateful, and, through very, very broken English, offers a thank-you shoe shine. He starts shining Ari’s shoes. A friend of his walks by, and with some prompting starts giving Meredith a shine. (I have on sandals, so a shoe shine wasn’t really in the cars for me). During the shine, the guys are giving us some cock-and-bull story about cataract surgery and their family and gifts to friends. I don’t know. After the shine, they start hassling us for money. They made it pretty clear that the shine was a thank you for picking up the brush, but of course they wanted to be paid for it.
Ari and his shoeshiner
6) The old city at night. Our first evening started out very eventfully (see below) but ended on a wonderfully serene and beautiful note. We were staying at a hotel about 2 km away from the center of the old city (Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Hippodrome, etc) and so we walked down there to see it, before going inside these places the next day. It was beautiful. The Turks really know how to take care of their historical monuments (and how to modernize their city while keeping the ancient parts intact) and these monuments are the biggest, more important, and arguably the most beautiful. It was astounding. We were blown away by the human accomplishments that went into the construction – and this was just the exteriors.
The Blue Mosque
Hagia Sophia
Tune in tomorrow for 1-5!
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