The trip started out pretty well. Gordon, Dusty, Greg and I left Sofia around nine at night. Our bus turned out to be not very crowded at all. Soon Greg was up front with the driver speaking lousy Turkish and smoking cigarettes. All the other passengers rallied up front to see what the action was – gave someone a good opportunity to rifle through my backpack’s top pocket and nab my sunglasses.
Eventually, things quieted down. All the smoking had driven Dusty and Gordon to the back of the bus. By the time we made it back there they had passed out. We promptly joined them. I myself crashed out on the aisle floor. Getting thought the border took a good several hours with little problems other than the waiting.
Next thing I knew the driver was nudging me as we all woke up somewhere in Istanbul. Good thing Greg knew some things about the city (he stayed there over the summer taking drum lessons) because the bus had neglected to go the main terminal. After gathering our things we tried to shake out the cobwebs by walking to the nearest tram terminal. We crowded on and got a little train tour of the city as it carried us through the touristy areas. Istanbul is a huge city, rumored to have about 20 million residents. We planned on staying on the European end of the Bophorus Straight, in the part of the city across the river from the Golden Horn – the area that contains all of the city's most famous mosques and bazaars. If you look at the map it was right behind the big tower where the two bridges look like they might intersect.
We eventually found a suitable hotel nestled into skinny streets atop a hill. One thing we were to find out about Istanbul is they have an interesting habit of clustering similar businesses around each other. We were staying in the same area that Greg had stayed before, in the musician’s district.
After a bit of sleep I finally let myself be dragged from bed and accompanied Gordon and Dusty across the bridge over the Halic into the oldest part of the city. We spent the day moving through the intense crowds of the bazaars, taking many a picture. As might be expected I eventually got separated from the couple and found myself wandering back down towards the water. The sun was setting and once again I found myself chasing the light. As it turns out I was mere meters from the entrance to the Grand Bazaar – the most famous of all markets in Europe. I never did make it in during my stay, for better or worse.
Eventually we all hooked back up together and found ourselves some dinner. Cat and Kathryn from school had traveled down on the train and we met up with them just in time to eat. Long story short – Greg ate sheep’s brain, I had some mystery meat stew thing and Dusty nearly vomited over her plate of raw jumbo shrimp. Interesting…
Next stop involved finding beers, which was a lot harder than in Bulgaria. Turkey claims to be a secular nation but with 90% of the population practicing some form of Islam, beer consumption is a little more subdued. Not in the club we hoped, which is were Greg, Dusty and I were headed next. Earlier that morning we had bought tickets for the reggae show that night. Turned out to be just a couple of DJs spinning some good tunes but no live music. Still gotta dance ya’know…
The following morning we rallied once again across the bridge. Unfortunately I neglected to recharge my camera so I had to be selective on what I shot. Gordon was on the hunt for some quality Persian carpet so we checked out several shops. The owners are pretty good salesmen, giving you a glass of hot apple tea so you have to stay at least until it cools down…
Next we checked out the Aya Sofiya, one of the biggest mosques in the whole city. It was originally built by one of the emperors of the Eastern Holy Roman Empire as a Christian church. When the Persians conquered they converted the cathedral to a mosque rather haphazardly. Many frescoes were simply painted over, however some, mostly on the ceilings, were too high to reach so they were left untouched. I have one shot of the virgin Mary with baby Jesus over a Muslim shrine. It was an interesting juxtaposition of opposing faiths represented in the same building.
Came out after spending at least an hour and caught the sunset behind the city. I shot the last of my camera's battery shooting silhouettes of the Blue Mosque across the street.
Once again we found Cat and Kathryn wandering on the street close to their hotel, (actually they found us, poking around yet another rug shop.) I left with them and headed back to our side of the city to meet Greg for dinner. This one was a little better, cheap street meat doners.
After the girls left Greg and I made plans to go to a jazz club to see one of Turkey’s internationally famous percussionists play. I still wanted to head up the tower that dotted the skyline of our hill, thought I could get some good night shots of the city. After returning to the hotel to grab my now-charged battery and tripod I tried to get up in the tower only to find that it was closed, open only to elite business men paying 100 euro to eat a fancy meal and watch belly dancing. They also mentioned that tripods were forbidden.
Oh, well. Didn’t want to pay ten lira to go up your stinking tower anyhow. So after taking some night shots of the surrounding streets I joined Greg in the jazz club. Standing room only inside, eventually I managed to stake out a side table and get some slow motion shots of the musicians by balancing my camera on my coat. Pretty good music, although definitely not jazz. It was kind of a funky fusion of world styles. The percussionist must have played a dozen different instruments throughout the night. Inspiring.
Wanting to get out of the crowded city I had decided to meet Cat and Kathryn the following for a boat tour of the Bosphorus Strait, the strip of water connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, separating Europe from Asia. Even though it was extremely hazy with high pressure and smog it was still a very worthwhile trip. Got a chance to see so much more of the city and let me tell you, it definitely has to be the biggest city I’ve ever been in. The whole Seattle sprawl area is like only five million. Istanbul is over three times that!
Eventually we found ourselves nearing the end of the straight, we could actually see the Black Sea at the end. Our boat pulled into the Asian side at a little tourist town. After cramming an expensive fish lunch I bounded out into the country side trying to find my up to an ancient castle perched on top of the hill over looking the entrance to the strait. Felt good to get out of the city and see some grass, even some trees. I think I might have took the road less traveled because I had to skip through a horse pasture and cemetery to get up to the main trail leading to the ruins.
Right about the time I got to the top a huge fog bank settled in, completely shrouding all views. The castle, or what was left of it, had been built by Romans and came out of the fog eerily. There were a fair number of Turkish tourists around the base and I conversed with one of them for awhile before scampering all over the grounds, shooting a lot of pics through the fog. Reminded me of my earlier trip up to Malyovitsa. I was disappointed in the amount of trash and graffiti around the ruins. Blows me away how people can treat their own land so poorly.
The fog hung close to the water slowing our return back down the straight. Eventually we broke out and since the current flows down from the Black Sea we made pretty good time heading back.
After saying goodbye to Cat and Kathryn I made my way across the bridge and killed some time by once again heading through the local fish market, this time in the evening. I ended up venturing further down the water line, and thanks to Greg on insisting that I bring my tripod, got some great shots of the city skyline at night.
After meeting up with Greg for some food we gathered up our backpacks and made a long trek by foot to the bus station on the other side of the city. On the way we passed under an ancient aqueduct also built by the Romans. We had booked another night bus which would put us into Sofia early the next morning, giving us all of Sunday to recover before having to work on Monday. No drama this time on the bus, we grabbed the back seats and all passed out, waking only to surrender our passports at the border before crashing again. It was surprising how much Sofia felt like home-sweet-home after our whirlwind tour of Istanbul.
No comments:
Post a Comment