Can I Help You Spend Your Money?

Can I Help You Spend Your Money?

Istanbul
Tuesday 7th July

We arrived spot on 7:30pm at Istanbul Otogar (Bus station). After helping an American lady find the metro station we began the journey out to Basecehir. This is where Toygun (who we met in Vienna) lives when he's not at Uni in Vienna. Its like a giant gated community with shopping malls and Starbucks. We met Toyguns mother who promptly started feeding us delicious Turkish food and didn't stop for the four days we were there.

Wednesday 8th July
First stop in Istanbul had to be The Grand Bazaar. It was big, busy, shiny and colourful. There were shops dripping with gold, carpets, piles of turkish delight, lamps, sheesha pipes, basically anything and everything you could imagine. We arrived pretty early in the day so it wasn't overly crowded. After a while though a cruise ship group arrived and bus loads of American tourists were unleashed. The stall owners amped up and one of them called out to a group of Americans "Can I Help You Spend Your Money?", turns out he did though. We overheard him selling some little cloth purses to an American lady for 10 Euro each... she had about 15 of them in her hands- any one could tell they were not worth 10 Euro... we saw the same purses for sale later in the day for 1 Euro :) Everything we wanted to buy was going to be a nightmare to carry or post so we restrained ourselves... for now.

Insıde the Grand Bazaar

Next stop was Sultan Ahmed Mosque (the Blue Mosque). Sultan Ahmed I built the Blue Mosque to be more magnificent than the Aya Sofia mosque (formerly a Byzantine church) across the road. It definitely comes close (probably because its in so much better condition) but the Aya Sofia is a much more interesting building. So we went into the six-spired Blue Mosque, covered from head to toe in blue wraps, to check out the interior. Strangely enough though they don't make you cover your hair if you're not Muslim. Inside they have beautiful big low-slung candelabra's that leave you with an intimate feeling despite the massive cavernous domed roof. There is intricate blue and gold patterns everywhere you look, around the arched windows and up the massive columns. They don't let tourists into the main floor where people pray but you can see everything. Outside two Turkish guys started on each other on the steps of the mosque! another guy separated them... this was already the second little spat we'd seen that day, and the third and fourth were still to come...

Insıde the Blue Mosque

The grand Aya Sofıa- as seen from the gardens of the Blue Mosque

Nıck ınsıde the Aya Sofıa

We headed off for some lunch and to look for what we though was a restaurant that our friend had suggested... when we spoke to him later it turned out it was actually something we were supposed to order, from any restaurant... but it wasn't a wasted expedition because we had a nice stroll around the Sultan Ahmed area. Eventually we tried our luck with the lines at the Aya Sofia (which means the Church of Holy Wisdom its not named after any St Sofia), they weren't too horrendous so we paid our 20 Lira and went in to see the old girl. Coming inside the first thing you see is these massive solid wood doors that (if you push hard enough... because they're heavy) still swing open in a perfectly balaced fashion. The next thing you notice are the 'muslimisation' of the old church, they at some point put up these massive circular panels with arabic writing on them (they also added the minarets later). The dome of the Aya Sofia (even covered in scaffholding) is amazing, it seems to hang there unsupported and it is an Architectural wonder in any age. The best thing about the building is that around every corner there seems to be some other interesting thing waiting to be discovered, even if its just noticing the unnatural slope of the marble floors! The highlight however, is definitely the christian mosaics. They are really phenomenal. They were damaged by both Latin Christians (when they sacked Constantinople) and much later on they were covered in plaster by the Sultans. Now whats left has been restored...

Mosaıcs

The Blue Mosque from the Aya Sofıa
After the Aya Sofia we hung out in the park drinking Limonata and people watching for a while. Then we headed back to the Grand Bazaar for another perusal before we went back to Toygun's. On the way there we were in Starbucks having another drink (it was really hot people!!) and an Australian woman and a Turkish woman got into a spat becauase (we think) they were both waiting for the loo and the Turkish lady was banging on the door- the Aussie lady told her not to do this, as someone was obviously in there, and the Turkish lady went off!! Screaming at the top of her lungs 'you're in my country you behave yourself' etc etc... it was really funny... The Australian lady said something and left. Also while we were waiting for the bus a cab driver threw a water bottle (with some water in it) at another cab driver and it hit him in the head... also funny...
Well Toyguns mother had cooked up a storm, naturally, and we were treated to delicious Turkish food til we could eat no more. We spent the evening hanging out with Toygun and his mum and watching TV :) :)

Nıck outsıde the Grand Bazaar

Gold dısplay ın the Grand Bazaar

Musıcal ınstruments- ıf ıts exotıc... ıts here.

Thursday 9th July
Today we decided to discover 'new Istanbul' (the Sultanahmet area is 'old Istanbul'). So we caught the bus to Taksim Square and walked through the massive pedestrianised main street... there were tons of great bookshops (with English books!!), art supplies shops, clothes, shoes, and then a whole neighbourhood at one end dedicated to music shops.

to say we were in window shopping heaven and spent all day until lunch time amusing ourselves and buying books to read and sketchbooks and bits and pieces we didn't really need but wanted. We had lunch at another Point & pay place (I love these places) the food was just as delicious as in Bulgaria but nowhere near as cheap!! Then it started raining so we went to Burger King and shared a small pepsi to use their shelter (cheapest shelter around!!!)

Eventually it was still drizzling but we'd finished the pepsi so we left Burger King and took the Furnicular down to the Bosphorus shore, then took a tram over the bridge (back to the old side) and headed for the 'Egyptian Spice Bazaar'. We promptly got lost and ended up at the main train station, asked for directions and eventually found the Spice Bazaar. We loved the Spice Bazaar even more than the Grand Bazaar. Its MUCH smaller but the air is full of delicious smells, roasted peanuts, honey, rose water and every spice you could possibly think of. There are massive piles of spices everywhere (along with Turkish delight of course) and everywhere you look there is something delicious or interesting. Its also a bit darker than the Grand Bazaar and has a more intimate feel (no fluro's here).

Spıce Vendors drınkıng Çay.

Mounds of Turkısh Delıght and nuts for sale.

Leeches for Sale at the Spıce Bazaar..... shudder....

Eventually we tore ourselves away and got the tram up the hill to Sultanahmet and hung out in the park reading and people watching for a while before heading back to Toygun's.
Yet again there was a feast waiting for us and we had a fabulous meal on Toyguns balcony overlooking sprawling Istanbul as the sun set.

Havıng a feast wıth Toygun and hıs mum (sorry ıts rather dark).

Friday 10th July
We had a desperately needed 'organising' day today... We needed to organise our Iran visa's, plan the rest of the Turkey trip and try to co-ordinate meeting Negin and Ali in Iran and flights etc...We discovered if we wanted to wait until they arrive in Tehran we will only have a week in Iran. This is what we plan to do though so we're with them the whole time, so we will be there from 24th August to the 1st September. We also looked into Syria and if we get in, we'll go there for about 13 days to see Damascus and Aleppo.

So after organising we had a better look around Toyguns local area and eventually headed back to his place. His brother was home for the weekend and joined us for dinner. Toygun's mum outdid herself yet again and gave us turkish coffee and cool presents! The Turkish people are not going to be outdone in hospitality by their Balkan neighbours, thats for sure!!!

Nıck lookıng a lıttle confounded... 'Explaın to me agaın why we're goıng to the Mıddle East ın Summer?'

Saturday 11th July

We headed to the main bus station about 11am but found out the buses were full until 3pm. So we found a shady spot and settled in to wait for our bus to Canakkale.