Home Again

The journey home was pleasant and uneventful, even the flight was only 5 minutes late taking off. I must admit I was a little reticent leaving Istanbul, having got quite fond of the city and the life there. 
So, as a farewell and an end to an enjoyable brief stay in a fascinating place I have made a short movie from some of the evening video clips. There was nearly always something going on as I was making my way back to the hostel. 

In this clip there is a very decent swing band concert, some dancers putting on a show and of course an ever popular Turkish Whirling Dervish doing his dizzying spinning dance. Also the spectacular Ottoman band beating the drums of war was a sight and sound to remember. Here's to the next time, and there will be, I'm sure. D

The Bazaar and the Galata Bridge

Didn't get around to a blog yesterday so here goes today. 
Went on a mission on Monday morning to find out about the ferries to some islands, and to get some decent chili spice from the spice market. But first here's a view I see every night on my way back to the hostel. 

The Blue Mosque from a park full of people.

The Galata Bridge is mostly built like 2 causeways jutting out into the waterway except joined by a bridge to allow boats to go up the Golden Horn. Lots of tourist cruises do this trip. It also serves as a useful place for restaurants to accumulate. It is a never ending succession of waterside eating places. 

Restaurants along the Galata Bridge

I had already gone down through the corridors of the Grand Bazaar which is an experience not to be missed. So after the bridge and the ferry docks I headed back, beginning with the spice bazaar. Got quite impressed with the apple tea, like I once did with mint tea in Morocco,  and so as well as some promising chili I bought some apple tea. It came as quite a surprise when both purchases were put into vacuum packs done by a machine under his stall. The result 2 rock hard compressed packages. Bad picture in difficult lighting. 

A good natured spice salesman in the spice bazaar

The colours and atmosphere are incredible, once you get accustomed to huge numbers of people moving relentlessly through the bazaar. 

Just a couple of the extravagant displays in the Grand Bazaar 

Just about anything is bought or sold in this massive market, including gold and currency trading. In my wanderings I came across a couple of very noisy groups of guys, some with a mobile phone on each ear, shouting to each other just as used to happen on the stock market trading floors before the electronic age changed everything. Apparently, these are unofficial stock market traders.

The bullion market traders in the grand bazaar

Even though Istanbul is a city of 20 million, I still think that it is just a bit over endowed with those large distinctive multi domed mosques. When calling to prayers, the Blue Mosque and its neighbour seem to be having a conversation as they take over from each other creating a long continuous chant, from alternating directions. 

Multiple domes in the 'New' mosque near the Galata Bridge

Istanbul is holding a cultural week and various events are taking place on a stage near here. Last night, there was a large group of young people acting out a story, from Turkish history no doubt, with a series of dances. I couldn't help thinking that the dance style was not all together very authentic. It looked more as though they were having an aerobics session to music not uncommon to that sort of thing. Anyway, free show and big crowds on a very warm night below the walls of the Blue Mosque; just to say the setting was perfect. 

1 - 2 - 3 - 4, bend your knees and leave the floor!

Wi-fi is everywhere here. I have noticed that most of the town centre restaurants provide it as a free service. A bit surprising really, not to mention the name of the hotel below.

Subterranian Blues

Needed a quiet day today which started with a long chat with a Scottish carpet layer outside the hostel. He had nothing to do with Turkish variety of carpets, just travelling with a few friends in a large ex Scottish police van. 
Anyway, dumped my one piece of baggage in the new abode just down the road and headed for the underground. I have decided that a change is as good as ......
Not feeling particularly lively, I decided to head for the ancient cistern cavern, underground water storage, which goes back for centuries. The eerie  lighting is great for atmosphere but hellish difficult for photography.

Istanbul Cistern using one camera setting

The cistern with another setting

Thats about all for today so far except for the obligatory refreshment stops for some apple tea, which is incredibly refreshing, and a pudding in the Pudding Shop.  If you want to know what the weather is like, the image on the first blog says it all. Temps well into the 30s during the day. Luvly

Apple tea stop, just before the pudding stop

No guesses for what this is, but the pudding was excellent. Bon Appetit

A GRAND BIZARRE DAY OUT

Its getting a bit late now and feeling the effects of a long day out. So, to make it faster I'll just upload some pictures from the day.

This is from last night and the Whirling Dervish doing his stuff. The music was good but not sure  about ..........

Doing the Bosphorus thing 

A bus doing a high wire act over the Bosphorus 

A new Istanbul is rising


Shortly after leaving the boat I stumbled into the bazaar. Quite a shock after the comparative peace of the cruise.

The underpass leading to the Grand Bazaar 

Just one of the many hallways full of colour, smells and people 

A beautiful arrangement of spices in the Spice Bazaar

Not sure what he's saying, but no doubt it involved 'good price for you' or  'ship it home for you madam' 

Finally, near the top of the bazaar area, just before I escaped back to sanity.

There is just one other thing I happened upon on my way back towards the Blue Mosque. It was a traditional performance of an Ottoman band. I have some good video of it but I omitted to take some stills. Very rousing stuff which they did to make the boys go to war. Never mind, I'll put a video up when I get back to the big computer.  

Bon Appetit

In The Heat of the Day

Staggered off to bed in the early hours after sitting on the steps of a hostel 20 mts down the road. An ex Swede had the foresight to bring out a full bottle of gin and a large amount of tonic. So between about 6 people both bottles expired in a couple of hours. An international group of Koreans, British, Swedish, Turkish and one Canadian who disappeared after two large gins in quick succession. Carl, the Swede, has been running a diving business in the Pacific Islands. Lucky man.

Koreans, Swedish, Turk and Brit (English teacher)

Before, in the evening, the Blue Mosque was almost devoid of tourists so I took the opportunity to take a look. Its unimaginably huge inside with a subtle pervading blueness about it. 

The central dome

Dark blue night sky above the illuminated Blue Mosque

The low level lighting obscures the walls and domes above.

Another event last night was an open air concert in the wide boulevard which runs by the mosque. Only movies of that but there was a full size swing orchestra with a large number of violins doing a lot of that swirling string sound which identifies Turkish music. Oh, and also saw a Dervish whirling. 

Ferries between East and West Istanbul

Bosphorus bridges 

I chose the 'meat ball' on the right side for 12 TL

The food is great

In the heat of the day, and armed with a slight headache, I managed to get to the Topkapi Palace. Not sure it was worth the effort but there are some super views of the Bosphorus. The more palaces, cathedrals, castles and mosques I see, the more it takes to impress me. The Blue one is impressive. 
Love the food here and its marginally cheaper than in most of the places I've been to in the last year. So, once again, bon appetit. D

Strange Night

My good first impressions were temporarily shattered about an hour after I'd gone to bed when someone took one of the beds in the dormitory. As it turned out, he was the brother of the boss but that didn't make much difference when he began to snore. I soon realized the guy was drunk and nothing could be done to stop him from creating minor earth tremors every minute or so. The guy on night duty offered to let me have another room which I accepted, only to find this in the bathroom. 

This is the bird in the bathroom which I ejected from the window, complete with nest.  Hope the poor creature wasn't too traumatized and has found another residence. It has crossed my mind as to how long ago that room was last used.

But however the breakfast, included in the 10 euro price of staying here was excellent, on the top floor terrace with a great view of the Marmara Sea. 
On the left is the Cem Sultan Hotel which even though a disastrous night was had, I think its not going to give me any more surprises - hopefully. 

So on with the day in which I had a ramble around the vicinity which includes the Blue Mosque. I think it was a bit too late to go inside with the crush of probably thousands of tourists. In wandering around it is obvious that tourism is Istanbul's big earner.


The legendary carpet shops abound everywhere with the customary offers of big reductions and free shipping to anywhere you want. Maybe I'll test them out and ask someone to knock off the shipping after a lengthy haggle and see what happens. On the other hand I dont think I've got the patients for that.

Women of course have to cover their shoulders because they are women!!!!

This rather reminded me of the queue waiting to get into the cathedral  in Santiago de Compost Heap.

Lots of feral cats here. This one likes the mosque.

Me and the mosque

I didn't feel to much like anything very adventurous so I stayed fairly near the hostel. Some Roman artifacts still remain, and also the remains of prominent Sultans. 

An obelisk and the Serpent Column in the foreground from around the  3rd  century.

And so for lunch, or dinner, whatever you want to call it, I had a superb one at this restaurant very  close to the Cem Sultan. bon appetit. 

Hot and Sultry

Just arrived at the Cam Sultan Hotel after a pretty long day of travelling. When I stepped out of the plane into the hot humidity at around 11.30pm, I knew I was in Asia. It was almost the same feeling as landing at Delhi. This hostel is only a few hundred metres from the Blue Mosque, perfectly central and pleasant people running it.

I had been worrying about the metro and public transport stopping at such a late hour but after finding the airport metro station full of people, my fears rapidly evaporated. The token system was a bit difficult to sort out but eventually armed with 2 of these plastic disks I was on my way to the old city of Istanbul. I needed to use a train and a tram to arrive here, passing just about all the sights along the way. Couldn't miss them because of the superb illumination in the hot night air. Cant wait to get out tomorrow and see something of the city.

So, first impressions are that I'm going to enjoy this place which really has a distinct similarity and atmosphere to some of the Indian cities I have washed up in over the years.

That's it for now. Sorry no pictures yet - knackered and going to bed in the basement of the hotel where its pleasantly cool. D