Author: Sarah Northway

A Lesurely Sip of Tea
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Our first last day in Istabul has arrived. Tomorrow we leave for a 10 day road trip down the coast from Izmir to Antalya and back. There and back is like 1000km by road and we have 10 days to do it in. Should make for a nice ten days. After that we come back to Istanbul and stay in the Bond House for a week. We took this first last chance to see our apartments from the water.

Everyone has been saying that the Princess’ Islands are great and that we should visit them. Who are we to fly in the face of everyone’s advice? Time to catch a ferry. After some initial confusion with the ferry website we just rolled down there and found a schedule posted to a board. Indeed there was a ferry leaving for the islands in 20 minutes. First leg: smooth. Istanbul really knows how to run a ferry business. Everything is right on time, confusion is to a minimum and there is hot tea and cold bread hawked on board. Also a live infomercial for a cucumber slicer! Exiting!

The ferry visits four islands. Lonely Planet says the small two aren’t worth visiting, everyone says the big one is the one to see. Everyone also says that the islands are crazy packed becuase they are where everyone in Istanbul goes to get away from it all and there are 20 million people in Istanbul. Anyway, when the ferry butted up against Heybeliada, the smaller of the two main islands, we leapt off hoping to avoid crowds.

Before getting on the ferry we packed a backpack with sausage and beer and we bought some bread and pastries. Our plan was to find a little stretch of beach and make it our own. That didn’t really happen. We walked from the ferry into the park and it was exactly like walking onto Newcastle Island (which is a little island that everyone takes the ferry to to get away from it all in Nanaimo). People and picknick benches everywhere, well trod trails and well tromped grass. Not a super interesting place and no sign of any beach. Let alone our little personal bit of beach. The one big difference was packs of wild dogs.

I am not shitting you. There was a pack of wild dogs that came and started growling menacingly at us as soon as we got there. Which scared me! I had a pair of sandles on and no stick handy, I had no usable weapons in this standoff! A horse drawn carriage interupted the standoff long enough for us back our way to some barbequing Istanbullers who took little to no notice. Although the dogs mellowed out as we got ourselves safely surrounded by members of our fellow species. We eventually managed to lose them when one of the picknickers started throwing leftovers for the dogs (this is why we don’t feed wild dogs in Canada).

Dogs lost, we decided to wander beyond the park and see if there was a bit of unclaimed seafront elsewhere on the island. We ended up wandering around the outskirts of the town and then up into a pleasent looking grove of pines. Coming down from the grove we realised we had circled the entire half of the island and were back in the park (although from this point on I was carrying a big rock around with me in case of dogs). The circular route had given us a good view of the accessable side of the island and we decided to bite the bullet and find a nice place to sit down sans private waterfront. The spot we did find was downright idylic. Under a tree surrounded by a small meadow of wildflowers with a view of the blue Marmaris sea we ate our fill of delicious Turkish food. We drank our beer and chatted about Turkey. It was, in the end, incredibly pleasent.

After we finished we decided to explore the town some. It is a small town. There is almost no reason for it to exist and aparently in the winter months it almost doesn’t. But they have one thing going for them. One fantastic thing: they have banned cars and combustion engines! Heybeliada means “saddle island” and the city is right in the saddle stretching up both sides. The main side is quite steep. That means poorer people live higher up because it’s more work to walk up and down to your house every day. This is an interesting inversion I have read about but never seen. San Francisco had this in spades. Nob Hill was a poor neighborhood until the cablecar went in. Then it was upscale all the way. Heybeliada is still cheap on the hillsides despite the fan-Tastic view.

We ended up walking all the way up to the top of the city and the 2nd mountain (hill, whatever, it was steep and much higher than the first). Where we found some actual peace and quiet in the form of a dirt road across the top of the island. This was really nice. We could just walk and chat about the island and how it has no cars and an amazing view and probably costs nothing to build on. But time was ticking and we had to catch a ferry home.

Down down we walked and when we got to the bottom there was a ferry loading up right there! About to leave! I am a sucker for this situation so I just ran us to the ticketer and then on to the boat. I was succesfully very fast about it. So fast, in fact, that we didn’t have time to discover that this particular ferry wasn’t going where we wanted to go. A fact we didn’t actually discover until it docked where we didn’t want to be and everyone got off. Actually Sarah had guessed earlier but I held out in vain hope until the end.

So now we were in… I don’t even know the name of the place. But luckily it was a major ferry port and an attendant at the wrong ferry dock helpfully told us how to find the ferry home to Kabatash. Which we did and here we are. Sun baked and preparing for our first last night in Istanbul and the flight to Izmir. At least that’s the hope. If we get to the airport and a plane is just about to leave we could end up anywhere.

In the Bastion
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Yesterday was pretty rad. I got to pee out of a hole 20 meters in the air!

We got wind of an old fort built into the city walls on the city’s Marmara coast. It is supposed to have spectacular views and it’s a commuter train ride away so we decided to check it out. First mission: get on the train. Well I suppose the first mission is get to the train, but we’re pretty good at getting to the old city by now. Although we are still evolving a better and better route through the windey streets.

We knew right where the train station is becuase it was the terminus of the Orient Exppress and kind of sticks out. We didn’t realise that the old entrance is no longer in use so we wandered up to it only to find a crowd of men busting and talking to eachother and their cell phones. It looked a lot like the bazaar currency market. But I can’t find it them on google so the mystery will live forever.

We eventually did find the entrance, figured out how to pay, and hopped on a train to Yedikule. The train ride was so nice, zipping past Marmara, the green ruins of the old city wall and old neighbourhoods of decrepit buildings. It’s the 3rd mode of public transportation we’ve taken here. it’s always fun to try new modes of public transportatoin. When we arrived at Yedikule I was amazed to find so many disused buildings and such a calmness. This is a neighbourhood well inside the outskirts of one of the biggest, denesest, cities in the world and it was calm and slowly reveling in the fresh sea air. We breathed deep, enjoying the change of pace, and strolled the few blocks to the old fort. Which was soo coool.

Embracing the relaxed atmosphere there was less a ticketing system as a sign politely asking you to find someone to pay 5 lira to. Inside there was almost noone. We had this giant fort all to ourselves. The only thing better was that they had decided to skip making the fort tourist friendly and just open the sucker up. It was like we were archeologists who had found it in the desert.

The entire inside had been gutted. You could tell there were buildings inside but they had all burned down. Only part of the Mosque’s minarette still existed so the fort consisted of the seven walls and three big bastions. The oldest wall has quite a story. Around 500ad a huge marble triumphal arch was erected by… I forget, you could look it up if you want to know. Some emperor. Then his son built the arch into the city walls as a major entrance to Istanbul and later Mehmet II (the Ottoman who took and restored the luster of Istanbul) built the inner walls and bastions, making it into a fort. The Ottoman’s continued to use it for victorious parades into the city.

The point is, there is a giant marble triumphal arch built into this fort and holy god is it giant and marble. You can’t really see it from the inside but when you walk outside you realise you just walked through it and, turning around, your head explodes. The fort is mostly unfinished red stone. The arch stands out like a Frank Gehry building in the middle of the suburbs. You can walk around inside the walls to get on top of the wall that contains the arch. The top is also marble and at this point you’re 30 meters in the air with a view unobstructed by railings or saftey features. It’s so easy to imagine the procession of an Ottoman king, rich with looted spoils, marching through the gate underneath you.

The lack of safety features was a wonderful plus. We got to walk around everywhere. On top of crumbling stone walls, up and down 30 meter stone staircases built into the walls that had no railings, even up some rickety wooden scaffolding. It was just great being able to see the buildings as they were and experience them as a soldier might.

The bastions were also very very cool. They had stairs running up the inside with the occasional dank room and poorly appointed toilet. Yes the toilets were still there and in working order. I mean it would be hard to break them as they were just a hole with a short sluice leading to outside the walls. Although I lied. I didn’t actually make use of one (even though one of them had a supply of toilet paper on the ground). I posed for a few pictures as if I was using them but that’s it. Still very cool.

At the very top Sarah and I had an amazing view of the ruined city walls receding back into the city on one side and ending at the Marmara sea at the other. It was certainly the most fun I’ve ever had visiting a fort before. I wish there was more of an effort to just give you the run of a place.

On the way back we finally used the old Funicular pulling people up from the Galata bridge to Istiklal street. It is the 2nd oldest underground people mover in Europe. Second only to the london underground.

Sunset over Golden Horn
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Leah and Pete headed back to Seattle a few days ago, so now it is just Colin and I for the rest of the month in Turkey. Before they left, we got in more of old city, starting with Topkap? palace.

We had walked through the gardens surrounding Topkap? palace before, filled with tulips, herons and large green parrots (yes, parrots!), but that was just a drop in the bucket. Inside the pay-wall is an expanse of buildings including multiple mosques and an iconic tower which I can see from the window in our new apartment. We paid the extra lira to see the harem, but I warn you it is overrated – you see one spectacularly painted ceiling dome, you’ve seen them all. However, it was neat to imagine life there as a chosen concubine, with a dozen eunuchs at your beck and call and the powerful queen mother to fear and flatter. We also saw some ridiculously large jewels in the imperial treasury, including the Spoonmaker’s Diamond which legend says was once sold for three spoons by a poor man who found it in a garbage heap.

Next day we visited the archeology museum, which had a very impressive collection of statues and plunder from Egypt, Rome, and what is now Turkey. I have never seen so much marble in one place. I learned that most of it was originally painted in bright colors, as they had a partial full-color reproduction of the beautiful Alexander Sarcophagus. My favorite were the sarcophagi covered in drunken, frolicking cherubs who were engaged in such activities as spanking goats with sticks, riding other cherubs like horses, and amorously kissing cherub-sized but anatomically adult women. Whoever was buried in those must have known how to throw a party.

We finished that day by a quick peek inside the active Blue Mosque, then a quiet beer underneath Galata bridge where we watched the above sunset. There are a few places to get cheap beer in the city, but mostly we pay tourist prices and drink in touristy (and scenic) places like this. Many Turkish people don’t drink, so you can tell that you’re at one of the better restaurants in Istanbul if it doesn’t have a liquor license. For beer Efes is pretty much what you get. Colin is out on the deck right now with a can of Efes Extra (“strong beer”) which I think tastes like they spiked it with Raki, but he’s making do.

Now that it’s just the two of us, Colin and I are taking it easy for a few days. We moved into a new apartment up the street from the old one, which is a little smaller but has a spectacular view of the old city including the palace and Hagia Sophia. Yesterday we spent half the day on the deck, but went out to buy groceries and check out the May Day rally in Taksim Square. They hadn’t allowed a rally there since 1977 when some right wing nutballs fired guns into the crowd and killed a bunch of people. This year the police force was impressive, and they blocked off all the side streets of ?stiklal as well as two major roads on either side. We didn’t go inside the fence but hung out with the water cannon / tear gas launching tanks, whose guns kept moving unnervingly back and forth across the crowds. Then we got Dürüm wraps with chicken and french fries inside. I’d call it the equivalent of the fast food burger except there was also a Burger King next door.

It’s the 4:57 call to prayer. I now know they vary the time because they are going by the sun’s position instead of by timezone, and each city does their own calculations (we got a pamphlet from the Blue Mosque). With the facing of our new apartment we get an impressive cacophony of songs from a dozen different mosques in the old city. Today we checked out the financial district and a modern mall shaped like the death star. Tomorrow we’re planning to take the tram way to the end and check out an old fort and the old city walls.

Turkish Indie Game Devs
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Stuff and People!

We’ve been doing stuff and meeting people. I was lucky enough to meet up with Ali a couple days ago and yesterday the local indie game devs organised an indie dinner! It was greeeat! The food and the company were both outstanding. I couldn’t believe the meal. Certainly the best we’ve had in Turkey. There were many courses of delicious food and they flew by way to quickly to eat it all. Not that there was any chance I could eat that much food. Good thing the Istanbul guys were there to put away all that food!

It was great to talk about games and how the industry works in Turkey and how we all hope it will work in the future. We were talking about how valuable local meetups are for indie crews to get together and share knowledge and enthusiasm. In fact it looks like the First Istanbul GameJam might be happening in the near future which will be rad!

The Indie dinner was definitely the hi-light of the last couple of days. Aside from that we seem to be striking out on our tourist missions. Topkapi Palace and the Whirling Dervishes were both way overpriced.

Wandering the streets just seems to get better and better though! We had another great meal in the fish market. And the maze of streets around our new apartment really rewards exploration. Overall we’re having a blast. Although hopefully we’ll get a little work done at some point in here ;)

Gecekondu
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Colin has been doing the talking until now, so let me give you my view on the chaotic and huge (5th largest city in the world) city of Istanbul. First: our neighborhood of Cihangir (Jee-han-yeer), Beyo?lu district. It’s on a hill overlooking the Bosphorus, about 30 minutes walk north of the start of the old city, and 10 minutes southeast of a major shopping district. Filled with artists and expats, winding roads, quaint cafes, and LOTS of stray cats. Let’s take a walk! :D

Up the quiet winding cobblestone street, past the Cihangir mosque is the local SOK! convenience store and a little fruit and veggie stand that may be overcharging us (but the strawberries are SO good). Turn left and you’ll reach the cafe where we had our first breakfast; a delicious array of bread, cream, honey, jam, olives, tomatoes, cucumber, feta, and other cheeses. I hope we go back soon. Continue past it for a few blocks and you’ll get to S?raselviler street with banks and major grocery stores and such. Wind your way north to ?stiklal Avenue, an absolutely mad busy shopping area (3 million people a day!). It’s pedestrian only except for a historic trolley car, so watching taxis try to cross this street in the evening is hilarious. At night it’s still decorated with snowmen and snowflake lights, very festive. Vendors sell rice-stuffed muscles and roasted chestnuts, and every alley is lined with bars and restaurants serving meze (tappas) and an anise flavored liqueur called raki. At the northeast end of ?stiklal is Taksim square and the metro, which we took today for the first time.

Today we were on a quest to find modern Istanbul, since we’ve seen so much of ancient old city already. We found it in ?i?li at the largest mall in Europe… which didn’t really seem that big to us, although it did have a roller coaster and bowling alley. There was a definite lack of headscarves, and except for the security guys xraying bags and checking for bombs under cars, it was pretty much the same as any mall. Colin bought some “Colin’s” brand pants, and I finally found sunscreen for less than 30 bucks. Next we explored the ?i?li area and checked out the construction on the Trump Towers Istanbul. There are very few skyscrapers in Istanbul so these stuck out to us when we saw them from the Galata tower yesterday. Not far north was the start of a decidedly different neighborhood, ramshackle and poor and foreign (Roma). Last night after days of trying I finally got my phone’s data plan working, so we weren’t afraid of getting lost – which you really could if you ended up down in a valley of these tiny twisty streets where everything looks the same. We wandered around, had lunch after a certain amount of translation difficulty, took some surreptitious photos (this was one of the better maintained streets) then skedaddled back home.

Now I’m staring out at our amazing view, watching the ships go past. I’m eating unripe plums and drinking fragrant orange tea we bought from the spice market. The bitter taste of the plums was surprising and took some getting used to; they usually dip them in salt but I think that just makes them worse. Our local mosques just started the 5pm call to prayer. 4:52 today.. it always seems to be give-or-take ten minutes. The stormy winds from last night have subsided and the sun has broken out over the Asian side. We’ll probably stay in again and have homemade meze and çi? köfte (spiced raw meat). The garbage guy should be ringing our doorbell soon, then Pete and Leah get back from Cappadocia late tonight. Hopefully there will be enough water pressure for a shower before bed (my only complaint about this beautiful apartment and ideal location).

Then tomorrow, who knows!