Turkey - Day 1
Turkey – Day 1
Photos are here: http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd238/nickwalls/Turkey%20Day%201/
Rudely awakened after three hours of uncomfortable air bed sleep, I got up and stumbled into my clothes. To get to the airport at 5am for an 6am flight, we needed to catch a bus at 3am, then another bus from… somewhere else. I’m not 100% sure – my brain is not at its razor sharp best at that time of the morning…
Getting to the second bus station at god knows where at some awful hour of the morning, we met up with Richard, an Australian workmate of Gareth’s, who will be featuring extensively for the rest of this sordid tale. I’ll not bore you with awful tales of airport boredom, just suffice to say that I didn’t think that I’d ever spend that much on a sandwich…
Touching down at Sabiha Gokcen airport (without a Turkish keyboard, that’s the closest I can come. Don’t even ASK me to pronounce it…), the first thing that I noticed was that the place is dry. The second thing I noticed, as I stepped out of the plane, was the oppressive heat. I’m not going to say that it stuck like a hammer, or hit me like a wave, because those are not only clichés but are also inaccurate; a more accurate description would be “unrelenting.” Getting to our accommodation was a little interesting – taxi drivers trying to capitalize on their command of English and our lack of knowledge of local currency values tried to persuade us to take a taxi for an off-the-meter rate, but we decided to take a bus instead. After much to-ing and fro-ing and a lot of wondering, we eventually made it onto a bus, then a ferry (which was cool – I’ve sailed on the Bosporos!), then a tram, and finally made it to the centre of tourist-ville Istanbul. On our way to our accommodation, we passed between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia – quite the welcome to the country!
Dumping our bags, and having a quick lunch, we headed out to see the city. After a little wandering around, we discovered two things – the first being the entrance to the great Roman cistern (and more on this later), the second being one of the many methods that are used to prey upon tourists by the less scrupulous of the Turks.
Before I go into this, let me say that once you get away from tourist areas, Turkish people are generally lovely (or so I felt, anyway), but in tourist areas, 2 out of every three are sharks.
Anyway, we were wandering along a narrow, cobbled street, just generally looking around and sweating lightly, when a guy walking past us carrying a shoe-polishing kit dropped his brush. Naïve as we were, Richard bent down to pick it up, saying “Excuse me, you dropped your brush!” Unoriginal, maybe, but it was to the point. The shoe-polishing guy turned around, thanked him profusely, and then said “Let me polish your shoes.” Richard, wearing sandals, should really have cottoned on to what was going on at this point, but he just stood there, looking embarrassed. After smearing some polish over Richard’s sandals, he charged him about NZ$30. Richard paid up. Gareth and I, of course, mocked him for this mercilessly for the remainder of our trip. When, on our second time through Istanbul, some creep tried the exact same trick on us, I was sorely tempted to pick up the brush and throw it over a nearby wall.
Anyway, on to the cistern. The entrance to these is rather less than prepossessing, but as you walk down some rickety walkway to the cistern floor, the first sight of it really takes your breath away. Lit from below, rows of columns stretch out into the distance, evoking imaginings of Moria and Pier Gynt. I’ve seen some incredible stuff in the last month, but I think that this first view of tangible antiquity was what struck me most.
I don’t think that anything that I say will do it justice, so I’ll leave you to look at the pictures, courtesy of Gareth’s awesome photography. I may have framed one or two…
Afterwards, having spent an awful lot of time in the cool of the cisterns, we came out, drank cold beer (hurrah for secular societies!), and talked, and ate, and drank in the ambience of Istanbul in the evening.
I was finally on my adventure…
Photos are here: http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd238/nickwalls/Turkey%20Day%201/
Rudely awakened after three hours of uncomfortable air bed sleep, I got up and stumbled into my clothes. To get to the airport at 5am for an 6am flight, we needed to catch a bus at 3am, then another bus from… somewhere else. I’m not 100% sure – my brain is not at its razor sharp best at that time of the morning…
Getting to the second bus station at god knows where at some awful hour of the morning, we met up with Richard, an Australian workmate of Gareth’s, who will be featuring extensively for the rest of this sordid tale. I’ll not bore you with awful tales of airport boredom, just suffice to say that I didn’t think that I’d ever spend that much on a sandwich…
Touching down at Sabiha Gokcen airport (without a Turkish keyboard, that’s the closest I can come. Don’t even ASK me to pronounce it…), the first thing that I noticed was that the place is dry. The second thing I noticed, as I stepped out of the plane, was the oppressive heat. I’m not going to say that it stuck like a hammer, or hit me like a wave, because those are not only clichés but are also inaccurate; a more accurate description would be “unrelenting.” Getting to our accommodation was a little interesting – taxi drivers trying to capitalize on their command of English and our lack of knowledge of local currency values tried to persuade us to take a taxi for an off-the-meter rate, but we decided to take a bus instead. After much to-ing and fro-ing and a lot of wondering, we eventually made it onto a bus, then a ferry (which was cool – I’ve sailed on the Bosporos!), then a tram, and finally made it to the centre of tourist-ville Istanbul. On our way to our accommodation, we passed between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia – quite the welcome to the country!
Dumping our bags, and having a quick lunch, we headed out to see the city. After a little wandering around, we discovered two things – the first being the entrance to the great Roman cistern (and more on this later), the second being one of the many methods that are used to prey upon tourists by the less scrupulous of the Turks.
Before I go into this, let me say that once you get away from tourist areas, Turkish people are generally lovely (or so I felt, anyway), but in tourist areas, 2 out of every three are sharks.
Anyway, we were wandering along a narrow, cobbled street, just generally looking around and sweating lightly, when a guy walking past us carrying a shoe-polishing kit dropped his brush. Naïve as we were, Richard bent down to pick it up, saying “Excuse me, you dropped your brush!” Unoriginal, maybe, but it was to the point. The shoe-polishing guy turned around, thanked him profusely, and then said “Let me polish your shoes.” Richard, wearing sandals, should really have cottoned on to what was going on at this point, but he just stood there, looking embarrassed. After smearing some polish over Richard’s sandals, he charged him about NZ$30. Richard paid up. Gareth and I, of course, mocked him for this mercilessly for the remainder of our trip. When, on our second time through Istanbul, some creep tried the exact same trick on us, I was sorely tempted to pick up the brush and throw it over a nearby wall.
Anyway, on to the cistern. The entrance to these is rather less than prepossessing, but as you walk down some rickety walkway to the cistern floor, the first sight of it really takes your breath away. Lit from below, rows of columns stretch out into the distance, evoking imaginings of Moria and Pier Gynt. I’ve seen some incredible stuff in the last month, but I think that this first view of tangible antiquity was what struck me most.
I don’t think that anything that I say will do it justice, so I’ll leave you to look at the pictures, courtesy of Gareth’s awesome photography. I may have framed one or two…
Afterwards, having spent an awful lot of time in the cool of the cisterns, we came out, drank cold beer (hurrah for secular societies!), and talked, and ate, and drank in the ambience of Istanbul in the evening.
I was finally on my adventure…
posted by Not My Former at 5:32 AM
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