ISTANBUL

And so we have arrived in the land of the cock… TURKEY. We got picked up from the airport by our hostel ‘Bada Bing’ and received a private transfer to our accommodation. There was a lot of traffic coming into the city but that gave us the chance to see some pretty cool stuff! There were men walking down the middle of the road selling all sorts of things – from pretzels to iphone chargers to bottles of water. The most amazing thing by far that we saw however, was dolphins! There were whole pods of them swimming in the local harbour, ‘The Bosphorus’, amongst fishermen and boats. We even saw one of them do a flip out of the water. A pretty rad welcome to Istanbul I thought.

Once at our hostel we settled in and discovered we were in an 8-bed dorm full of boys. Most of them were really nice – Australians and Scottish. However, it is now time to introduce you to shit people you meet in hostels #3 – Saudi Arabian dude. We don’t know his name, only that he was an absolute weirdo. He had perfect English, even a slight American accent, but still spoke at a shout the entire time to make sure he was understood. He had the same conversation with us every day (‘where are you guys from?’, ‘where are you going?’, ‘how are you getting there?’, ‘can I come?’ – jokes on the last one but ahhhh dear). The weirdest thing he did though, was have a conversation with Rosie in the shower. The showers were mixed and he decided it would be a good idea to get in the shower right next to Rosie and have a full on conversation about her favourite movies and books. He even said “HOW COOL IS IT THAT WE CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION IN THE SHOWER! AWESOME RIGHT!!!!!!!!”. We were pretty stoked to be shot of him. Our first night we went out to dinner and had an amazing self service meal of traditional dips and stuffed vegetables for only $5 each. Amazing!! We had a pretty early night because we were exhausted from our travels and knew that there would be a lot to do the next day.

For our first full day in Istanbul we of course decided to shop! The most famous shopping place in Istanbul is called the Grand Bazaar, so we wanted to go there first. The bazaar was absolutely stunning with lanterns, shisha pipes, jewellery and beautiful clothes hanging off every surface. This, teemed with spices and Turkish delight displays, made for a massive eye orgasm. Lots of shopping was done here today, and we got lost several times because the bazaar is huge and has so many exits and entries. We celebrated our shopping expedition with a traditional Turkish pide – my kind of food! So good. On our way home we stopped by a Turkish delight store and picked out some yum flavours including chocolate, hazelnut and almond. We went to our hostel’s rooftop terrace, which was a cool atmosphere with beanbags and Turkish murals, and demolished them. The boys in our room were going out for a pub crawl, but we were meant to be having an overnight bus the next night and had a lot to see before that, so we called it an early night.

 Laterns at the Grand Bazaar

 Our rooftop terrace

 Turkish Delight

The next day we went to the spice market! Smaller than the Grand Bazaar but similar in concept, the Spice Market was a large hall filled with small shops selling all types of spices, sweets, teas and soaps. Whilst walking through we were greeted by shop assistants with ‘angels! Angels!’, and ‘THE SPICE GIRLS!’. We didn’t get anything here as we weren’t sure how legit it would be to take it back into Australia but the displays were great to see nonetheless. On our way to the next destination we again went with our tradition and stopped for sweets, this time getting baklava – which tastes 100 times better in Turkey than it does in Aus! 

 

The Spice Markets

Delicious Baklava

Our next and final destination on our Istanbul trip was the Blue Mosque! It was so huge and detailed and definitely a sight to see. We didn’t go in however, as it was during prayer that we were there and you also had to wear headscarves, which we didn’t own. We later found out that you could hire them at the door but oh well! The outside was beautiful to see – that was enough for me. You see a lot of religious buildings in Europe and to be honest they all kind of blend into one in the end… as long as I see the outside it’s checked off the list…is that bad of me to say??

 

The Blue Mosque

That night we were supposed to catch and overnight bus into Fethiye, where we were to start our Turkey sail. HOWEVER…the stupid transfer was late so we missed our bus and were not reimbursed for it whatsoever, so had to book a flight and stay the night at the airport. NOT IMPRESSED with the bus company whatsoever, and would highly recommend to anyone travelling around Turkey to JUST FLY (because it’s not that expensive), or make sure you book with a reliable source and have your transfer come a lot earlier than intended just in case. Istanbul was a very beautiful city with lots to see, however, we did have to cover up a lot more than in other places we had been simply to avoid being stared at. I realise this is the culture that we were intruding on, but for that reason I did feel slightly less safe in Istanbul than other cities and would prefer to go with a larger group/males if I were ever to go again!  Next stop was our Turkey Sail, which I will post about in the next week.

- Andie