Part 2

MAINLY MEDITERRANEAN

Turkey, Greece, Italy

TURKEY

31^ST March - 23^RD April

 

ISTANBUL

 

We woke up in room 410 of the Otel Klas on Harikzedeler Street. This was a good thing because it meant we weren’t dead. We’d survived about ten hours in Turkey without being robbed, beaten up, thrown in prison by corrupt cops or murdered. We’d seen the movie Midnight Express so we were experts on this violent, repressive state with a justice system modelled on the Inquisition. Despite fearing our time here might be brief and brutal, Turkey was the logical stepping stone from Israel to Greece so we were prepared to take our chances. Experience would prove how accurately Hollywood had captured this vast country and its people.

The in-flight entertainment for the hundred and fifteen minutes aboard the A320 from Tel Aviv last night came courtesy of the four boyos across the aisle from us who were all pretty wired. Togged out in loud shirts and chunky bling, they behaved as though they’d just stitched up the deal of the century for jock straps in Lower Magnitogorsk and that OHY 403 was their private jet. They pointedly ignored the instruction to fasten their seatbelts and lit up as soon as the No Smoking sign dinged on for our descent into Istanbul. When the hostess roared down the aisle and gave them a verbal clip under the ear they stubbed out and cowered like little boys lashed by their long-suffering mother.

It was after 10pm when we touched down to spontaneous applause on the rain-slicked runway at Atatürk Airport. The stringent security checks we’d trained ourselves to expect turned out to be little more than a nod and a wink. The immigration official swiftly stamped our passports and a couple of casually dressed customs guys with big moustaches waved us through with equally big smiles. We barely broke stride before we were in a taxi bound for the heart of the city.

With its slime-stained walls the Klas looked less than classy when we climbed out of the cab and hauled our packs from the boot. The first impression that “klas” might be Turkish for “dump” was quickly dispelled however when a liveried doorman appeared, loaded our gear onto a luggage trolley and ushered us inside to reception. The young guy on the desk was scandalised when we asked for a room with a double bed.

“I’m sorry sir, but we do not have French beds!” he announced, in a tone which left us in no doubt that the Otel Klas was a respectable establishment thank you very much.

410 may not have stacked up against the room in Tiberias but it was warm, carpeted, had a shower/sit-up bath with a curtain that actually functioned properly, the water was hot and we slept soundly in single beds of indeterminate nationality. This morning’s view from the narrow balcony gave out on a grimy streetscape all the more bleak for its being a grey and very wet late winter in Istanbul.

The Klas’s main attraction was its central location in the Laleli district, within easy walking distance of most of the places we planned to visit. We descended to the dimly-lit basement dining room for a breakfast of hard boiled eggs, bread, jam, cucumber, tomato, anaemic cheese the consistency of pig skin and dense, gritty coffee then strode out for the ancient quarter of Sultanahmet and the Topkapi Palace.

The walk took us along a busy arterial boulevard sliced along its length by tramlines. It drizzled steadily the whole way but we kept mostly dry by awning hopping. For a city looming so large in history’s eye and with its location on the cusp of Asia and Europe the buildings were of a surprisingly human scale. All those classic images of Istanbul shimmering in its trademark golden haze, its skyline dominated by domes and minarets, present the city as irresistibly exotic and exciting, like a seedy spaceport in a remote corner of the solar system, but they also suggest an alienating monumentality and gridlock traffic. This, like much of Turkey’s international face, is an illusion.

We’d psyched ourselves for Cairo II but Istanbul was relatively easy to negotiate on foot. Traffic was heavy but moving, the compact trams rattled to and fro, the footpaths flowed with well-dressed Istanbulites, their faces set against the dreary weather. Most of the older women wore fashionable headscarves, the only sartorial evidence we might have been in a Muslim country. The rain made the scene look cold, but it was just wet. The wind-chill factor was zero, the air strangely still, and while their bare branches cracked the sky like brittle glass it was mild enough for the gothic-looking deciduous trees erupting through holes in the sidewalk every few metres to be breaking into bud. Still, for the locals this was not a morning for strolling or window shopping, it was a morning for business. It was also a morning for hustling, just like every morning in every city.

If Turkey belongs to the carpet sellers then its largest city belongs to the shoeshiners and the younger lads are brash and talented. They cruise the streets for custom, their wooden boxes slung from their shoulders on leather straps. Their favourite tactic is to flick a dollop of raw polish onto your shoe, and they can hit a moving target on a crowded footpath at five paces. The target has two choices; they can take the bait and demand the shoeshiner buff it off, in which case they can then be legally charged for the service and threatening to call the cops is futile, or they can wipe it off themselves and leave a stain.

I went for plan C with the young guy who tried it on me on the way to Sultanahmet. Using a silver spoon he slung a blob of chicory polish onto the toe of my right boot from about six feet away. I wasn’t going to let him get the first word in.

“Gidin!” I made “go away” sound like “Piss off!” He waved his arms and abused me in Turkish. I waved my arms back and swore “Polisi” at him. I flung the blob of polish off my boot as we passed, missing him from about six inches away. The whole exchange lasted a nanosecond. My next encounter with a shoeshiner would last much longer and be a bit more expensive.

As we approached the Bosphorous the Blue Mosque, which is actually grey, appeared on our right while Topkapi loomed to the left. For the first time the student cards we bought in Cairo earned a serious discount – 50%. The palace is basically an extensive museum dedicated to the Ottoman Empire and the opulence of the Sultans. The gold and silver artifacts, the gobstopping gemstones and the fine costumes are all very fascinating, but as someone who’s spent many years renovating several houses what impressed me most were the fancy hand-wrought plaster cornices and the intricate tile work. While everyone else gawped at the display cases I stood off to the side staring up at the high ceilings.

We burned off three hours admiring the artisanal gyprocking and dazzling mosaics in the various halls and wandering around the numerous courtyards before deciding what we needed to see more than another bone from John the Baptist’s hand, and the guy had a prodigiously bony hand if you believe all the claims to possess said relic, was a shot of caffeine and something to eat. Out on the street we found a kiosk (yep, a Turkish word) selling steaming coffee and lahmacun, a tasty snack of mince, tomatoes, mild peppers and assorted herbs on a soft, warm pitta rolled in butcher’s paper. We’re quickly learning to like it here in spite of the cheerless weather; everything is very cheap by our very cheap standards and the basics like beer and kebabs are a virtual giveaway, eg: 1ltr orange juice + 1 bag of chips + 1.5ltrs of water + 4x500ml Efes beers = A$5.20.

In the afternoon we took a lazy stroll through the backstreets around the Klas. Mostly steep and rubbish-strewn and humming with the sound of sewing machines issuing from almost every building, this warren of narrow alleyways felt like a centre of sweatshop industry turning out cheap garments for sale at the various bazaars. The definitive image was the care-worn face of a middle-aged woman dimly glimpsed through a smeared window. We wandered in the gathering gloom under the Roman aquaduct slicing through the city and found ourselves accidentally at the Süliemaniye, the tomb of Sülieman the Magnificent and the mosque dedicated to him. It was the call to prayer and, despite its religious significance, I realised I quite liked hearing the muezzin again.

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Random observation from the Quirky Turkey file: a moustachioed street worker shovelling gravel in a three piece suit and tie.

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Next time: The Grand Bazaar and Snap! Crackle! Pop! in a Turkish bath...