Turkey

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.

Kiev - Sevastopol - Istanbul

Ok, where to start...

Well, first off, I missed the 1655 to Kiev, as I strangely assumed it would be at the same time the following day, instead it surprised me by being 10 minutes earlier.

It wasn't so bad though, but this is the second time I've missed a train in Warsaw, must be something to do with the streets being longer than you expect, from looking at a map. In the end I was glad to have a train going from very early in the morning the next day (only had to pay the reservation again) as there would have been little sleep anyway.

Which brings me onto the border crossing. 

The passport and Immigration checks, which I have to admit were a little unnerving took the best part of 2 hours. Perhaps it was that I didn't have a return address to give them for my departure from the Ukraine, or the fact that a guy in full military get-up would throw a glance in my room every few minutes. Maybe it was just being the sole English-speaker in the whole train that did it. Either way, I'm sure you get used to it. 

After you were stripped of your passport and the Arrival and Departure Immigration card, the train then went into a huge shed where the train's wheels were replaced from the standard European (4' 8½") gauge to Russian 5' gauge. This was a system implimented to cripple the movement of the Nazis, and hasn't been updated since. Still, it was quite cool being lifted inside the train, maybe a meter or so into the air, while a team of engineers changed the wheels. You understand now, why I was glad that I wasn't fighting to get some sleep while all this was all going on!

So, Kiev then.

When I arrived here, I was faced with lots of grey, beat up Ladas, Babushkas selling fruit and other foods on the corners and even more of the military. This is when it dawned on me that I should've taken the time to learn even a little bit of Cyrillic. In the end, after a lot of running around trying to find anyone who spoke English (and failing) I hesitantly made use of a taxi after a couldn't get a response to "Metro?". 

If you ever get to Kiev, you'll understand when I say it looks better at night. During the day you'll notice the horizons are all dominated with grey apartment blocks, and a very strong Russian influence (as you'd imagine). One thing that did disappoint me though, was how Western the place felt once I'd started to explore outside the doors of my hostel, after my first full night's sleep. There were McDonald's, Starbucks and lots of the other global giants. Funny then, that the only place where you could rely on someone being able to speak a few words of English were restaurants and cafes.

I suppose I was just hoping to find myself in a place with very few similarities at all with home. Maybe I'd have to go into the deepest parts of Russia to get away from all that.

I spent 3 days in Kiev, probably too much as by the end of the second day I felt like I'd seen most of the main sights. There were a good few churches dotted around, some topped with gold domes which looked all the better when the sun shone on them. On the 3rd day, as I was hanging around with a dude from Atlanta who spoke a little Russian, I went along to the Lavra monastery. 

This was all well and good on the surface - some impressive structures and a good view of the surrounding areas. The main attraction though, for me at least, were the catacombs, where you could look at loads of mummified monks. You had to go down with a special candle and the women had to cover their heads. It was quite an intense, almost claustrophobic experience and I felt out of place at times as people were crossing themselves above each monk, when I was just comparing which box of wrapped up bones was the largest. 

We also went to the nearby Museum of the Great Patriotic War, where the Mother Motherland monument dominated the skyline. Sounds a little dull, even to myself, but then Kiev didn't seem to have a mass of things to do. Probably, if I'd have had the same insider knowledge as in Warsaw, I'd have more interesting things to talk about.

From Kiev it was another overnighter train to Sevastopol, the Southern-most part of Ukraine, closed to the public as recently as 1996. This, aswell as being considerably warmer, was more interesting, but the language barriers still remained.

I went to the famous ex-submarine base in Balaklava (yeah, that knitted garment of the same name was first used here), witnessed open-air karaoke and got confused at how quickly it went from dusk to absolute pitch-black at 8 o'clock sharp. 

The submarine base could've been something straight out of James Bond. It was concealed within a mountain and submarines, submerged, would enter, completely undetected from the outside. There were also some amazing views of the port from atop the nearby hill, with the port on one side and the Black Sea on the other. 

As for the karaoke, I don't think I'll be forgetting that any time soon. Something about a woman with a greasy mullet singing Tatu songs in Ukrainian that tends to stick. Cheap beer definitely made it even pass as entertainment. 

After a two-day ferry from Sevastopol (handy having someone Ukraine book tickets for you. Was impossible to get anything more recent than 7 years ago on the Internet in the way of information) I am now in Istanbul. The ferry wasn't bad at all. Meals were included and there were at least some English-speakers to keep me company. 

I'm only going to be here for tonight, heading to Greece tomorrow with any luck on yet another overnight train, spending a week island hopping, then looking toward a solid month in and around Turkey.