I had a good 4 days in Istanbul.
It’s the biggest city I’ve been to; numbers are in the air at 16million.
I took in some of the sights, felt largely indifferent to the main tourist spots and spent time getting lost. Besides the numbers, no other city I’ve been to has the same feel to it. Maybe it’s the relentless efforts the people go to to persuade you go to their shop or cafe – sometimes standing in your path, asking where you’re from, then pointing you to a nearby table, all in the space of 6 seconds. The way they go about it is really friendly though.
Or, maybe it’s being able to buy pretty much anything under the sun from the street markets and I mean anything. Men’s boxer shorts, taps and watches share the same table. All this is going on most hours of the day.
There are so many districts that sometimes it feels like you’re in a different city altogether. On one of the days I ventured out to the Eyup area at the tip of the Golden Horn. Here there was a different air. There were still crowds of people, the difference was that I felt like I was the only Westerner there. It was also cheaper. After spending a good few hours in the area I headed back by way of a zigzagging ferry, that went all the way back to Kadikoy, stopping alternately between one side of the river to the other.
The Grand Bazaar felt overrated. In hindsight the one in Izmir was more genuine, cheaper and had less camera-toters blocking doorways. I’m glad I spent the time to wander around it though, even if the novelty didn’t last very long.
The Spice Bazaar was good, perhaps not as much spice as you’d imagine, but I still enjoyed taking in a few lungfuls of the exotic spices, that were presented in huge sacks with quotes by the kilo.
I had a look at a couple of mosques, can’t say I was too fussed about going inside any – I mainly appreciated the architectural side.
With a friendly invitation from a small group from the hostel, I also took in some culture in the form of a couple of modern art exhibitions (Bienal something). On the whole, I enjoyed the experience. There were of course some ridiculous pieces, I’m sure the artist could justify them with pages of pretentious jargon, but that didn’t matter.
There were some real thought provoking and emotional pieces that I was glad to give my time to, whereas the video installations, on the whole didn’t really grab me.
A favourite of mine was the first-person account of a Korean soldier’s life in the US army, in the 1950s. It was a large expanse of diary-like entries with pencil drawings. It contained some of the small differences in culture, the pettiness of war and some humour thrown in.
After leaving Istanbul for the second time, I set off going East – my favourite direction at the moment.
Before finding my night train, I experienced some overwhelming kindness from one Turk.
I’d set off with an hour to spare to get my overnight train from Istanbul to Ankara and was on the ferry to bus me to the Haydarpașa train station. I was just asking the guy sat next to me if the stop we were at was indeed the right one, and in the process missed the stop.
Another guy, who spoke English, offered his help (I’m finding this to be very common in Turkey. Whenever asking for directions somewhere, or where to get a certain bus from, a small group envelopes you. Passers-by get involved and sometimes they’ll summon someone who speaks English if there is one) and after examining my train ticket it was decided that guy #1 would take me to the station himself.
It was only a 10 minute walk, but the guy was pretty insistent that he’d accompany me, so I just went along with it. Next thing I know he’s set a speedy pace, as if my train were leaving in seconds, not an hour. Along the way we passed a sweetcorn stand / trolley and he bought him and myself one, of course I wasn’t going to reject and risk offending him.
We arrived at the train station and he was asking everyone we passed where to go. He took me to the information desk, found out the platform number, took me to the train, found my carriage, got onboard with me, found my seat, put my bag in the ceiling section for me, then shook my hand, kissed me on both cheeks and went outside and watched me sit down. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face and probably got more sustained stares than usual, but I didn’t care.
Unfortunately there were no sleeper carriages, so I was stuck in a bolt upright position all night, at least it was a single seat. I arrived in Ankara at 5am, had a walk around as the city woke up and decided I’d press on to Erzurum as I wasn’t fussed about spending the night there.
Another sleepless night and I was in Erzurum, where I was surprised at how cold it was. After walking around in search of a hotel for that night, I caught sight of some distant mountains and later on it started to snow.
Trains in Turkey are incredibly slow, getting overtaken by buses when the rails run next to the roads. Part of me appreciates this, however, as there is some spectacular scenery along the way, the other part sometimes wishes they’d clock up the miles a bit quicker.
The scenery varies vastly from grassy desolate plains to snow capped mountains. Sheep and cow herders along the way, men ploughing fields with a horse and odd clusters of men watching the day go by. Also, buying an InterRail ticket for Turkey was a waste, as besides being slow, the Turkish railways are also painfully cheap.
Along the way there were lots of tiny little settlements and villages. There were more than a few moments when I just wanted to get off the train in the middle of nowhere and walk towards one of these little villages, but I chickened out. They made me think of those old stories about a traveller in a foreign land seeking a roof for the night and finding a lonely inn in the middle of nowhere.
After spending one night in an Erzurum hotel I spent another in Kars, and from there it was the end of the Turkish rails, and onto the minibuses.
A bit of asking around the next morning and I was in a Ford Transit minibus on my way to the Turkish / Georgian border.
