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.