Istanbul, September, 2105

Entering any city with a population said to be 14 million is a prodigious exercise.  The quite new Metro, which is part subway, part surface, is packed solid even originating at the airport.  Only a sparrow could hope to board without physical contact with many (smelly) people we have yet to be introduced to.  Mouth breathing must quickly replace customary nasal efforts.  Well, the temp. was 30 C. (86 f.).  Yet, these suddenly are not the dour, grim, scowling crowds of Bucharest or Toronto.  These were mainly clearly happy people even if there physical size had been squeezed by half.

A change to a Tram was required along the way.  Their trams are new, handsome, long and run in four car trains.  I estimated that they required a 145 feet long platform - which is a lot of platform.  Yet they were also packed.  So great is the fear of being left behind when the doors inexorably close, the boarding passengers aggressively push in as the exiting passengers are attempting to depart.

By and by, we arrive at my desired stop of Sultanahmed (Sultan acchh med).  Once there I can see the Aya Sophia, and my hotel, the Hagia Sophia is within a block, but the spaces are huge and I have no idea which way to start.  Each platform has guards to be sure passengers all pay their fares.  A well dressed old man is speaking casually to one guard when I ask if they know the way to Hagia Sophia.  Well, let's see now, and I can feel the hustle coming, maybe, yes, maybe, and we go off two blocks.

The Hagia is not Four Seasons or Shangri la, but one of the best in town and famous, so old man could have said, next street left and 1.5 blocks.  On the way, nice old man says he was a large truck driver in Finland for 15 years.  One year, on a whim, he flew to Edmonton for a 10 day holiday (poor man is nuts).

We enter the hotel and as I have not yet changed money, and have only large bills in four other currencies than Turkish lira, I had old man U.S. $2.00.  He says that is not much and don't I have Euro or Lira?  No.  Somehow he leaves.  I am portered to my room.

The room is large, beautiful, has two wonderful beds and one of those current high end bathrooms with such complexity you almost need a plumbing certificate to avoid fast freezing or boiling various sensitive regions of the body.  One wall is mostly (a two-way) mirror framed over a nice desk.  The large screen tv is actually behind the vast mirror and only when you finally find a small and invisible spot on the mirror to aim the remote at, does the mirror suddenly turn into a tv.  Unfortunately, the speakers also seem to be behind the mirror, so that BBC for example, which traditionally is sound-incompetent, becomes "mummph d eawfvd e pitrvchdf" etc.  Still one can find plenty of stations in order to hear of the horrible refugee, war, and PKK news to feel like a bum for living so comfortably.

By and by, it is 5:50 a.m. and the giant speakers of 2,500 mosques in the city come roaring on with the so-called Call to prayer."  I know it well from Indonesia and Malaysia, but oh Og, the volume here is insane - as tho 14 million people must be close to stone deaf.  And bad, that wretched, grunting, wailing is most unwelcome to the Western ears three times daily. Still,it is an alarm clock.  Time to tour.

Top is Sultanahmed tram stop with tram in station, usual well-cared for stray dog in the hot sun,
Next is Aya Sophia exterior and interior.  It was a christian church for centuries, then a mosque for many more, and in 1930 turned into a museum. I thought it was more beautiful than the famous Blue Mosque. Bottom Sophia dome nearest, and Blue Mosque in distance.

You cannot help but be surprised that there are far less women covered in hijabs or chadors than in Toronto.  I think most of the ones that are covered are tourists from nearby Arab states.  We  constantly hear that Turkey is a secular state.  For the moment, it still is, all thanks to Ataturk.  In 1928, he wished to move Turkey closer to the West, and removed Islam as the state religion, made wearing the Fez unlawful, abolished polygamy, the caliphate and Sharia law, closed religious schools, and established equality for women in all matters.

You will ask why the tree minarets of the Sophia are leaning to the right, and I do not know.  It must have been the time of day or a change in gravity as it could to have been me or my fine camera. The tow middle pix are both Blue Mosque.  Curiously, the "Cat's house" is right in front of the Pierre Loti hotel, one of the nicest in the city.  It is an indication of the benign attitude of Istanbulians to animals.

You have all seen the interior of the Blue Mosque many times, so I will show you only these two shots.  The only reason I went inside was because on all the tv shots, I never was sure what supported the giant domes. In the bottom photo, you can see the huge pillars  The whole place has been renovated over the past decade and the fresco work is pretty.  It is all rather smaller than it appears on documentaries because they all use the widest angle lenses. Still, it is large.  But I think almost any major European cathedral is far more handsome.

Above, the Topkapi palace is - to me - the jewel of all the sights in Istanbul.  It is so huge as to be impossible to photograph.  At the first gate (below), some select people could enter.  But there are three more major gates, which only ambassadors and important guests were allowed in to, then even few and more rare types into the next (although executions were held at that gate and many heads were lopped off there). Finally at the last garden and gate, it was the private palace area of the Sultan(s).  It overlooked the Bosphorous and was very beautiful. Like the excessively rich of today, it had a room for everything including one for circumcision.  I didn't bother to visit it as I am horrified of ghosts from that particular region.

They city is a madhouse of commercial activity.  You have all heard of the Grand Bazaar.  It is by far the largest covered bazaar in the world.  But there are also many streets nearby that are kind of wholesalers and manufacturers doing business on the streets. Several streets are devoted to electronics (altho oddly, many man were selling Viagara and Cialis there on the streets).  One section is all leather; jackets, dresses, blocks of just belts (at 90% less than we pay here), tens of thousands of running and leather shoes stacked high on sidewalks.  Many more categories.  Big wholesale buyers from the region come in and buy, but the public also can purchase.

Food is such a big deal.  For the most part, the fresh vegetables that actually taste like the should, and the really fine cooking make almost every meal wonderful.  Then there is spectacular pastry everywhere with excellent coffee and teas.  I had a pistachio baklava which was so wonderful that I regretted eating it - it should have been kept as a treasure ! But it was also $10., which surprised me.

I like Penne aribiata sometimes as it is not too much food, but just enough.  It is always uneventful in 3rd world Toronto.  But the best I ever tasted was in Bucharest.  It was just spectacular twice and not so good at the 3rd restaurant.  In Istanbul, on the Bosphorus cruise, there was a buffet lunch, which I did not look forward to.  But I was hungry.  The chicken served ever at a buffet was the best of many chicken meals I ate - really memorable.  Lunch never seemed to cost less than $15.  But it was always good food and a lot of food.

Istanbul is great. But the Hustle is so tiresome and exhausting.  You have merchants, restaurants, beggars, and so many others howling at you every moment without respite until you can get inside a room or back to your hotel.  One beggar asked me for money for breakfast.  I knew this one I could not get rid of, so I gave him about $2.00.  He handed it back and said that was not nearly enough, he needed $15 at least.  When after several tries, I would not relent, he left shouting loudly F*** *** all the way down the block.  I thought probably $15 was the price of a heroin dose. Of the many times I was approached for money, that particular loud act happened three times.

All restaurants have a person out front loudly hawking customers in. One lunch time, I was at the intersection of three restaurants and the hawkers were absolutely each hollering at me.  It was so bad, I covered my ears and shouted to them to shut up.

Things I learned; Any person who is amused or somehow attracted to Marxist-Leninism, communism, or true, and pure socialism, is either young, unfamiliar with history, has not travelled much, or is stupid.  My trips to China, Russia, Yugoslavia (under Tito), Czechoslovakia, and the rest of the East Bloc have profoundly showed me the wreckage, the plunder, the evisceration of the human brain, spirit and creativity, all so that a man who never held employment in his lifetime (Karl Marx) and Monomaniacs like Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Castro and a long list of other mad dictators with little or no education and no economic knowledge, could tinker with national economies leading to hunger, starvation in the millions, human abuses of every sort, and decades of insufferable misery for innocent humans.

Hungary is not as bad as Romania and Bulgaria, but all the East bloc nations are about 40 years behind the rest of the world and largely unprepared for commerce and absolutely Saharas of any form of creativity.  They have the 18th and 19th centuries under their belts and nothing else to refer to in music, art, design etc. And I do mean Nothing (unless as in China, "shopping" and "eating" are somehow cultural achievements).

Second, the motor vehicle is king.  Anything with an engine dominates our lives and will probably bring life on this planet to an end sooner rather than later.  that includes jet engines unfortunately.

Third, Advertising is insanely out of control.  It is so ubiquitous and tiresome and assaults the senses relentlessly.  There is no escape from it other than finding a forest asap.

This may sound selfish as I have had the gift of visiting more than 50 countries now.  But I think no matter about the temptation to travel far away, try to find a nice car trip.  Avoid the insane airports, crowded planes, the rental cars and the costs and at least most of the time, go back to the great old car trip.

The giant cruise ships, the Bosphorous, the half-built bridge at the Black sea

Some things are impossible to stop looking at.  The massive wind turbines that have shown up so many places are impossible to ignore while revolving.  Unfortunately, messages on t-shirts are difficult for me to not read.  I was absolutely exhausted of reading them this trip - as there were so many, and they were so utterly meaningless and often idiotic - and I had to force my tempted eyes to swerve away from them.  Ships of every sort while active demand to be watched, but none more than the modern cruise ships - and they demand attention still or in motion.

Istanbul is a major terminal point for Euro cruises to begin and end.  Many start in several Spanish ports as well as Italian ports and all seem to visit Istanbul  There are parking spaces for them within sight of all of the bridges and ferries and much of the land.  Passengers I met said they all carried between 3,000 and 4,000 with at least 800 staff.

In the top two images, you can squint and see the little tiny people along the top and rear enjoying the fine day as they begin their cruise.  The Istanbul Modern, the city's contemporary art institute is a  former port warehouse converted into a museum.  The ships are about 20' from the window as you can see above.  In the street scene, you can see the rear of one, and the front of another.

This is a new bridge right at the entrance to the Black sea (No, it is not black). It will be the first long bridge in Europe to handle cars and truck as well as trains.  The sea freight business is immense.  I counted 150 large cargo vessels in port as I passed and I think there were another 100 as well.  It must equal Singapore and Hong Kong in size.  I asked where most of the freight was headed and the response was "Russia."

I took a four hour cruise out to the Black sea and was surprised as were all the others on board at the old palaces, grand hotels and the endless fine houses way up the hills for the entire trip.  All the time we were hearing the P.M. of Turkey saying it was a poor country, and what we saw of Istanbul and the coast looked really prosperous.  The locals said there were poor sections of the cities and the country was quite poor.

The beautiful feral dogs and cats of Istanbul

I have learned from international travel, that nothing makes your people, city, region or nation look more polite or civilized than the simple act of giving up your seat on public transit for a person who might need it. Despite my fitness and obvious mobility, I am always amazed at how often some transit passenger will stand up and insist I take their seat on some crowded transit.  In China, they often made me laugh as they would sometimes not take no, thanks for an answer.  In Budapest, I saw a kind woman get up to offer her seat to a woman who appeared to be pregnant.  But apparently, she was just dreadfully fat around her equator and did not take kindly to the kind gesture.

But another thing that will make any place seem truly civilized is feral cats and dogs that are well cared for instead of being diseased, sick and starving.  There are some dogs all through the city which are homeless, and thousands of cats.  One sees dry and wet catfood in trays constantly, and men sharing their food with cats and even being gentle and affectionate with them

I am not sure whether this dog was homeless or not. It was in a small village on the Bosphorus (at Amara sea) right at the entrance to the Black sea.  It was just photogenic, so I shot it.

This man was the god of many cats - more than shown in the photograph. They fought to sit in his lap on this sunny morning near Taksim square.  There are five shown here: an orange one to the right of the old man, just below another giving itself a good chin-scratch, two lounging on the right, and the black cat who thought it should walk right over and visit me.  But in front of the man, is a cat actually lying stretched and comfortably on the man's glass bathroom scale.  For some reason, in Turkey, people will pay to be weighed as they walk along the street, and the cat is impeding the man'c commercial aspirations.

Each time I passed the entrance to the wonderful Topkapi palace, this shepherd was always guarding the guard.

There are even cat families down among the huge granite boulders placed along the coast of the Amara sea. If you look closely at the bottom right of the sea/ship photo, you will see this family of kitten just sticking out from the rocks.  There is a fast coastal highway between these rocks and the city. I don't know how the cats can cross it.  But there are a lot of homeless men actually living on top of these rocks, and fishermen who seem to feed the cats something.

The great Aya Sophia was a church, then a mosque, and since 1930 is classed as a museum.  It is inhabited by cats as well.  Over at the grand Blue Mosque, I saw various dogs casually strolling through the grounds without a care.

Why Canadians love to hate Air Canada

I planned to fly Turkish air which has a good reputation.  But the schedules just did not work.  I decided to use Lufthansa to Frankfurt, then on to Budapest.  I would have to return from Istanbul on Air Canada.   But, being tired of cramped seats and no respect for knees,I intended to use business class for these two 10 hour flights.  I thought I would get the extra  room on Air Canada business and better food.
For reasons I still do not understand, my reservation with Lufthansa was converted to Air Canada (its partner) both directions.  This may have worked out in my favour as Lufthansa's now two-years of ongoing labour problems did cancel some flights out of Toronto when I was about to travel.

The renting of extra real estate did work out nicely.  AC's lie-flat seats in a so-called pod shape, have 14 positions and all the room necessary for a much more comfortable flight.  The seat reclines to 180 degrees.  The flight outbound was a newer B-777 and for the extra money, the crew treats passengers as humans, much as they did on the entire flight decades ago.

But the food was inedible.  Just awful junk.  Even the bread was old and tough.

The return flight from Istanbul was on an older 767, but still with the pod format.  In the 777, there are two bzns class bathrooms which are larger than coach and nicer.  On the 767 there are also two, but small and cramped like coach.  But on this flight, both sinks in both bathrooms were taped shut with a metal tape.  I asked the stewardess if this was common, and she said that she has seen it, but it is not really common.  She did tell me that there were indications that the sinks had not been closed recently; that it appeared that this craft had been flying several days with no functioning sinks at least in Bzns class.

The food was even worse on the return trip.  The food on the entire ground trip had been exceptionally good and particularly in Istanbul  Therefore, it was more offensive to sit down to a meal with a white tablecloth, metal table ware, many choices of wine and ghastly food.  Honestly, not one item was edible.

However, these bzns class lounges are large and nice.  None compare with the newly enlarged and renovated Turkish airlines one in Istanbul.  I estimated that each of the two floors, was at least 12,000 sq. ft., and maybe closer to 15,000.  The format is breathtaking - like entering the biggest restaurant and lounge anywhere, ever.  

There were at least four kitchens preparing omelettes to order (it was early a.m.), six pastry stations serving the very finest morning pastries, which switches to desserts mid-morning, many fresh fruit and I mean excellent fruit and really fresh.  There were bottled sodas and fruit drinks in cold refrigerators of every kind plus many kinds of great coffee and tea.

There were two pool tables, a cinema, a play area for children, a kind of faux-library, piles of morning newspapers and magazines in all languages, two self-playing grand pianos - one on each floor -playing absurd non-music.  There was a golf swinging game and other diversions, plus a several hundred big and comfy chairs and sofas.  I believe there were probably 500 or more people in there (it is shared by many airlines in their group).  A rather funny aspect was that for all the grand design and vast space, they had only one attractive, but small bathroom for me.  Incredibly, the only line-up in the whole place was for the men's bathroom.

That kind of lounge is a blessing where you can try to eat as much as possible for your high fare and hope it keeps you going for the next 10 hour flight on AC.

But if I thought 500+ in the bzns lounge was a lot, it did not mentally prepare me for what I would face near mid-day (for an 11 flight) going back into the main terminal. Every inch, every step, walking the length of the terminal to my gate, was like leaving a packed stadium.  Oddly, the Ist. terminal is quite new, but has an odd feature.  In between each regular gate,there is at least one or more gates for busses to also haul passengers out a mile or more to craft parked away from the terminal.  This really packs a huge number of people into any space.  When I got to the gate, there was not one seat anywhere and the standing room only did not even leave an uncrowded square foot. Of course, the babied bzns class passengers were put directly through a narrow passengers so we would not have to suffer for a moment.

I must add that paying for bzns class does not avoid slobs and screaming babies.  I cannot believe or comprehend fat men with extra hairy legs, showing up for a flight wearing too-short and  rough Levi shorts and a wretched t-shirt.  Others were just dressed as though they were going to slop the hogs just before and right after their flights and did not want to bother with more appropriate clothing.

I think their mentality is Mommy never made me do it, so I don't; anyway, you can't force me to dress like a gentleman, so why should I ?  One seemingly otherwise almost civilized Turkish bzns man, took off his shoes and socks and sat with his ugly bare feet up, facing right into the aisle, in the face of those eating (or trying to) and the stews going back and forth - despite the fact that every seat gets a gift pack including socks to prevent this from happening.

Bucharest, Romania September 2015; Banality vs. bizarre + no concern for travellers

Romanians like all of Europe were forced to pay attention to the daily horror stories of refugees in numbers not known for many decades. But while I was there, the Mayor of Bucharest was arrested on charge of corruption (oh no, not that) and the Prime Minister was on trial for tax evasion among other charges (who could imagine ??).  Those are only two matters I was aware of and I was admittedly not very  aware as a kind of cork floating on top of a rapid stream.

Still, did that or anything else ever even slightly impact my comfortable travel?  No.  I  initially stayed at a nice Novotel in the city centre, but as they were sold out additional nights, I moved to another four star hotel, highly recommended in Trip advisor, called K+K.  It was also in the city centre, was a boutique hotel and had the most delicious and attractive breakfast - included - of any place on my trip.

The main reason I went to Romania, was that there are two beautiful old cities in the Carpathian mountains I intended to visit.  There are tours that will take you out for the day, or overnight, but every one of them spends much time at Dracula's castle.  I had no intention of wasting time on that.  But, the train schedules and available hotels just did not work out, and I had to spend four + days in Bucharest - which was not terrible.

The only thing most of us know about Romania after Dracula's great fame, is that the dictator Nikolai Ceausescu built his so-called palace.  It employed 700 architects to create a building of 1,100 rooms, which is 810' x 720' and was essentially complete in 1989 when dear Nikolai and his (not) lovely wife were taken out back, shot to death, and their bodies burned, which I need not mention did in fact, end their regime.

I walked to the right front side of the massive walls that protects the place, foolishly thinking I might enter it.  I knew that fairly expensive tours are required.  But I only wanted to go to the National Museum of contemporary art which is located somewhere in that warehouse made of marble. The reason I did not want to enter the Palace on a guided tour is that while 30% of the building is occupied by the Parliament of the nation, the rest is mainly empty rooms and there is little to see but decay and decline.

  An auto show blocked all of the front and a tour guide there said "Oh the entrance is a 2.5 kilometre walk from here around the building.  No taxi will take you such a short distance, and there is a bus, but we do not know the number or when and where it goes exactly." 

I walked.  I examined the non-stop concrete wall all around the property.  It is 25 years or less in age and is crumbling, like everything else I would soon see. On the way, I looked into an open gate where there was a receiving gate for freight items going into the property.  A guard with a gun furiously sent me on my way.  I went by another open gate with a (sleeping) guard, but his two mutts were sprawled out in the fine sunshine.

Here we see one of the sections of the wall still in o.k. condition next to a pedestrian and bike path with a lovely tree in the middle of it.  I do admire them for not sacrificing the tree and there are few cyclists anyway.

As I arrived through the guarded gate to the rear entrance, and walked down a street partially submerged in undrainable water and broken pavement, I saw there was a pro photographer shooting a wedding party.  I always love to join in photographing these.

But I encountered one of the most bizarre scenes ever.

There was garbage everywhere, plus an overflowing dumpster (bottom pic.).  This was not some new garbage; there were indications that ti had been there a long time.  My photos do not nearly show the huge amount and variety of trash involved.  I think I have seldom seen in my 72 years, a public scene as bizarre as the Men of the party looking serenely down at the trash.  I mounted the marble stairs to be sure I could include the the massive new cathedral being built on the property and the lovely green dumpster.  A guard ran up to me and demanded that I not be on the precious stairs.

I went into the National contemporary through airport-level security.  I started at the 5th - top- floor. Roof leaks had massively wrecked the wood floors and they were still wet despite the fact that the rain the previous night was not much heavier than mist. Because they cannot afford to heat the place in winter, it is all crumbling.
  As they have no "art" for the top floor, they allowed school children to make paper houses to form a village.  Cute, but...  Things did not improve on lower floors.  It was utterly depressing.  I swear to you that there was not one single item even worth $10 in the entire place.  In fact, everything together was not worth $10.  There was not much.  The walls did have some hideous junk piece about every 20 feet.  They were so pressed for something to exhibit that they pasted sheets of newspaper on the walls and put a name next to it as though it was art.  And, for this, they had two guards on airport-like security. Away from the walls was nothing - just empty space in these huge rooms with ruined floors. I completely wasted $1.50 on admission.  Damn those post-commies.

I asked the polite employee of some sort walking around, who had told me how to approach their gallery and collection, if there was some section of Bucharesti with commercial galleries.  Her reply "no."  But Ms., is there any commercial gallery I ought to see?  "No, I just told you there are none at all."  Well, that was all such a success !

I have not the slightest idea of what the above three photos mean, if anything.  Notice her lovely and powerful shoes which do compliment the graffitti so perfectly.  In the middle photo, where they are - of course, what else - both studying their phones, you can see the boy is nice looking, and wonder whether he is escorting his lost sister to some brothel?  Oh, no it could not be that.  But one is always amazed at how many carrot-haired women do love to wear PINK.

Of a Sunday afternoon, I happened upon a nice park with a small lake and many people and pigeons.  There was a dad who tossed bird food ever closer to his own feet, so that he could seize a pigeon - many times - for his truly lovely child to admire.

Among all the turmoil of the region, there is serenity and nature, somewhere.

The two ghostly images are my favourites of the whole trip.  They are pigeons prancing around on a translucent awning over a sidewalk cafe where I was having lunch.

A disturbing feature of Bucharest are the vast number of abandoned and collapsing building in every part of the city.  From the top photos, you can see that the city has a beautiful style which dates to around 1900. The surviving, well-renovated buildings are handsome.  But there are also a huge number of obviously failed renos.  You can tell by the trees growing out of them that the attempted reno failed at least 20 years ago.

In the bottom photo, on the left is one common example.  The vacant spot is where one building just collapsed entirely, To the right of that is a nice building, in good condition, but that barely visible to the right of it is crumbling so badly that there are industrial nets all over to catch falling material. 

Near this spot was an abandoned 18 storey glass tower, one of the tallest in the entire city.  Glass and metal panels had fallen out at various levels.  All the perimeter and walks were closed and a guard on watch as the falling materials were so large and constant.

You will think by now, that I have a bad opinion of the whole place.  Not so.  The people were helpful (if not pleasant), the food was wonderful, absolutely every meal better than I could get in Toronto in a mid-range restaurant. I think I ate every meal there at a sidewalk cafe.

They have an Old town district which is attractive,  really crowded and lively  The subway is efficient and modern, although the streetcars look at least 60 years or more of age.  I have never seen such old ones operational anywhere. 

There was a month long music festival which was mainly high-level classical music, although some modern and jazz too. I saw a Strauss Elektra as an opera in concert (no scenery or costumes), which was excellent.

 But in a world of choices, I would be hard pressed to suggest spending vacation time and money in Bucharesti.