Look at all the pretty tiles! - Istanbul - Days 191-194
Taous and I had a sad farewell at 6am at Malta airport before I took my place on the coffee shop couch to wait for my flight to Istanbul. After a whole week of being separated, Emilia and I were to be reunited in a set of bunk beds in Istanbul. This, however, meant actually finding this hostel. I got off the plane in Istanbul and had some issues getting a train ticket as I only had large notes and ended up getting the Istanbul version of an Opal card with about AU$50 for the whole... three days we were going to be there. Great. I got myself to Taksim and noticed that while my directions said “take the main pedestrian street” there seemed to be three pedestrian streets. This was going to end well. After asking one of the crazy turkish ice cream men the way I finally ended up on the right street before getting very confused about where to turn and which way to go. After trying to steal internet from more than three places and finding a small market, I eventually found our home for the next three days. I armed myself with some turkish delight and decided to call it a night early. By the time Emilia got in, I was sound asleep.
The next morning we were up and ready to be tourists. We had three days to take on Istanbul and many more things than we could fit into that time that we wanted to do. A lot of it, as always, revolved around eating, and the rest of it revolved around seeing pretty tiles. We headed out with my cashed up Istanbul Card to visit the Blue Mosque. However, by the time we got up, had breakfast and organised ourselves (i.e. Emilia organised herself), we pretty much missed the morning opening hours and it was closing when we got there. So we headed down to the Grand Bazaar to overwhelm our senses with tea, carpets, towels, lamps and other trinkets. We watched as people rushed through the corridors with massive trays of teas and repeatedly told people we did not want to buy a handbag. The main thing we wanted to pick up in Turkey was another towel, as the turkish towel I brought with me from home was definitely the best thing I packed. I am in love with it and I needed another. Once we’d finished searching for towels, we headed down to the spice market and tried to buy two pieces of turkish delight, only to be looked at like we were crazy. Had we learnt NOTHING from our time in Greece? You can’t buy two pieces of turkish delight, you need to buy a minimum of 200 grams. So we did that instead. Armed with our turkish delight we emerged from the market, only to discover a storm was brewing. Must be lunch time. After walking around and being very confused about where to eat (somehow, we walked past a lot of cool looking restaurants when we weren’t hungry and then as soon as we got hungry they disappeared), we found a restaurant and sat down for some pide. I was so happy to be in Turkey. Turkish food is the best.
We finally made it to the blue mosque after it reopened for the afternoon, armed with our headscarves and appropriate dress. I’m already obsessed with tiles, I somehow always ended up in the Islamic Art section of all the American museums so I could look at all the tiles, and Istanbul certainly delivered. The Blue Mosque was incredible, and we followed it up with a visit to the Hagia Sofia and Topkapi Palace. Topkapi definitely wins the award for best tiles, that place was decked out, particularly the circumcision room. Standing in there I couldn’t quite figure out what was more impressive: the fact that this palace had a whole gazebo-like room just for circumcisions or the insane tiling that was going on in this room.
I found Istanbul an amazing city for two main reasons: firstly, it’s so old. The history here is insane and I knew hardly any of it before arriving. And while Istanbul was the first European city we’d been to that wasn’t inundated with churches (and is instead filled with mosques), it is home to what is thought to be the first church of the Byzantine Empire i.e. pretty much the first church to ever be a church. That’s pretty impressive. The second reason Istanbul was so impressive to me was that it covers two continents. Most of the touristy stuff is in Europe, but catch a ferry a mere 20 minutes and you’ve made it to Asia. This was going to be my only stop in Asia (aside from HK airport on my way home) and so we made the most of it by hanging out there for a grand total of about 3 hours. Trip summary: 2 months North America, 1 month Central America, 4 Months Europe, 3 hours Asia. But in all seriousness, I can confirm it is actually really freaky to stand in Asia and take a photo of Europe. Even weirder than catching the train for two hours and ending up in a different country, an experience I still haven’t got over months later.
By this point I’d been travelling for about 5 months full time. When you’re travelling, the one thing you learn very quickly is that it’s pretty much impossible to get properly clean in hostels. I wasn’t smelly or anything but it had been a while since I’d done a real proper scrub down. Istanbul was the perfect city to solve this problem in. After a long day of walking around we headed down to some Turkish baths to get a proper clean. What followed was the most weirdly satisfying hour of my life. They took us into a tiny dressing room/locker where we changed into our swim suits before being led into a room that is pretty much what you would picture a turkish bath to be - a big marble slab in the middle with little taps and basins around the outside. Some guy poured water all over us before telling us to wash ourselves. So we did that, and then headed into the hottest sauna I’ve ever been in. They told us to stay in there for 15 minutes but I think we managed five before I started hallucinating and we needed to get out. Then, I lay out on that marble slab while Emilia went into the ladies room to get scrubbed. And so I just waited and waited and waited until eventually it was my turn. They look my into this little room where two topless ladies were waiting. They lay me down on another marble bench, pulled out an exfoliating glove, and scrubbed the hell out of me. Being violently scrubbed by a half naked stranger that doesn’t speak your language is an experience I will never forget. Any time she wanted me to turn, she would hit me on the butt. Typing it out, it sounds weirder than it was. I’ll also never forget the sight when I got up from being scrubbed down: 5 months of dead travel skin peeling off me. So satisfyingly disgusting. She then proceeded to wash my hair and face, which essentially meant just rubbing suds all over my head and getting in my ears, nose and mouth. That was uncomfortable. After that weird 15 minutes, I was given towels and taken out for some apple tea. Not a bad experience, Turkey. And I’ve never felt that clean in my entire life.
Right near where we were staying we found an unusual sight. Some of you might be familiar with the American fast food chain Shake Shack. Shake Shack only exists in upper North East of the USA, mainly in New York. It’s essentially just burgers and shakes but in a way only Americans can get excited about fast food, it’s got an amazing reputation and people love it. Part of it’s appeal is that it only exists in this tiny part of the states, so imagine our surprise when we found a massive Shake Shack right around the corner from us in Istanbul. Every time we walked past it, which was about twice a day, I ended up in stitches laughing because it just didn’t make any sense to me. Why the hell is there a Shake Shack in Istanbul?? We had to go.
And with our trip to Asia and our Shake Shack experience, our brief time in Istanbul came to an end. But not before the most *controversial* Amazing Race challenge of my trip (can you tell I’m back in TV land now? I know how to advertise). We’re attempting a very rare type of challenge here called an Intersection. This is where two teams have to join together for the challenge, creating a team of four for the challenge. The airport is on the Asian side of Istanbul, so from the airport head to the ferry terminal and catch the ferry from Asia to Europe. This could be a trick though, because there are three ferry terminals and two different types of ferries: a tourist ferry that takes two hours and does a bit of a tour of the Strait, and a commuter ferry that takes 20 minutes. Get the tourist ferry and you’ve made a time consuming mistake. Once you get to Europe, wait for the next team to arrive and team up with them for your next challenge. Head to the Turkish Baths and swap your team members around, so you are in couples made up of one team member from each team. Then, wash each other. You just know someone is going to end up teamed up with the enemy and be extremely uncomfortable with the half naked scrubbing that’s going to have to happen. Once all four team members have been adequately washed, sauna-ed (good luck spending the whole 15 mins in that sauna), and scrubbed down, you will receive a cup of tea and your next clue.
Good luck, don’t get too uncomfortable, and we’ll see you in Cappadoccia for some hiking and Ballooning.
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