I guess two bombs went off in Istanbul yesterday, although we did not hear anything as it was in another area of the city. New York Times reports 3 killed and ten or so injured, scary as we were not that far away, everybody's okay though...
- posted by mark @ 11:06 AM (1) comments

 

Turkey, Istanbul

"Where you from?"
"Wanna buy Carpet?"
"I have good carpet for you!"

Istanbul is full of carpet salesman, they want to sell you a carpet, and they are willing to try just about any tactic to do so. Some of them are suble (like that Kurdish guy) and some of them are funny "How can I help you spend your money?" but they all want the same thing. Watch out for anybody who is pretending like they want to be your friend, they usually don't, they just want to sell you something (usually) or else scam you (thankfully not so common)

Some of the carpet salesman are really devious, they will talk to you for 15 minutes before even mentioning that they own a carpet shop, groooaaaannnn! Then you have to just walk away or go with them to their shop.

Other than that the citizens of Istanbul are very nice, it's a city of 13 million but it doesn't feel that big. It's also very beautiful, the mosques dot the skyline and the Golden Horn and Marmara Sea bank everything you see.

Day 1: Help from a local, The Grand Bazaar

Holding to tradition, we were lost when we got to the bus station in Istanbul, only knowing that we wanted to go to an area of the city called Sultahnamet. As usual, we got extremely lucky and happened to be on a dolmus where there was a college student who spoke English and was willing to help us out. He told us where to get out and even showed us where to get on the tram that headed for Sultahnamet, thank goodness for foreign hospitality...

Also holding to trip tradition we were solicited for a hostel when we got off the tram and went with it, turned out to not be a bad place, free breakfast, free internet, and friendly staff for about 15 million Turkish Lira ($11) a night. We dumped our bags and settled in and went out to explore...I didn't bring my camera with on this trip but I took some shots from our hotel balcony when we got back.

Our little sitting area on the top floor of our hotel/hostel.

The view by day...

...and by night

The Blue Mosque from a distance

...Blue Mosque again

Turkish graffiti on a bench in the park (why am I always taking pictures of graffitti?)

We wandered around a lot in the Grand Bazaar, (ended up going back to it about 4 times) it's crazy, it's a huge covered market selling everything from fruit, to jewelry, to fake watches, to chess sets, to beads. You can probably get just about anything hear but the salesman are very pushy, I guess that's just the way it is in Turkey.

Day 2: Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace

The Blue Mosque is huge! but the inside is relatively small, it's really weird, the gardens surrounding the mosque are beautiful and the courtyards are impressive too.

The Hagia Sophia is right next door (we never got the chance to go in) and the Topkapi Palace is next to that. The Hagia Sophia used to be a church but it was converted into a mosque when the Ottoman Turks took over, Topkapi Palace was home to the sultan, and was his official residence until the sultanate was abolished in the 1890's I believe (not sure about the date)

We wanted to try out the Turkish Nightlife so Dave, me, and a kid named, I forgot his name went walking around town. We found a neat area near the Blue Mosque with a bunch of hostels and clubs but it was all but empty. I guess Taksim Square is where you are supposed to go but we didn't go there because we didn't want to pay the cab fare. We almost got scammed on the way back as this sleezy looking guy and his friend offered to split a cab ride to Taksim. We were about to do it, but said that we needed some more money first. "No, no money, need credit card!" was their response, we had been warned about this and turned and walked away. The scam goes something like this.

Local Turk befriends tourist and takes them to some bar or club, they order a few beers, have some girls come in and pretend like they like the tourist. Everybody is happy until it is time to go and all of the sudden you ask for your tab and it is like $2500 dollars and they want you to charge it to your credit card. This actually happened to our Australian friends Scott and Paul but they just refused to pay and muscled their way out of the bar.

Here are the pics from the day, I wish I had taken a photo of the scammers so I could tell everyone to watch out for them!

Gateway to the grounds of the Blue Mosque

Courtyard of the mosque

Inside of the Blue Mosque

Another view of the inside

Kirsten with the Hagia Sophia in the background

Watchtower at Topkapi Palace

Closeup of the pillars in the palace

One of the many doorways in the palace

Topkapi Palace

Topkapi Palace

Me looking off the palace balcony at the Golden Horn

They keep up the grounds beautifully...

Another court in the palace, where we ran into our Australian friends from Cappadocia looking at a Far East pottery collection.

The main sanctum of Topkapi Palace, the roads branched out leading to all areas of the palace.

Outside the palace grounds, this doorway was very photogenic!

Outside the palace grounds, the same building as the picture above.

Day 3: Grand Bazaar (again), getting lost (again), Dave's suits

We had decided that the Grand Bazaar was the best place to buy souvenirs for people back home so we ended up going back here a total of four times. I'm trying to think of all the stuff I bought at the bazaar; little painted boxes, a Turkish hunting scene painted on an old scroll, a crystal candle holder, and a carpet, although the shop where I bought it was outside the bazaar.

After the Grand Bazaar we went and walked to Taksim, seeing the Roman Aquaduct with 4 lanes of traffic going through it, a little mix of old and new. Then walked around Taksim and through the Egyptian Spice Bazaar. We had originally planned to go in the Hagia Sophia but got semi-lost trying to find the bridge back to Sultahnamet and ran short on time.

However, since the Hagia Sophia was closing we decided to go back to the Grand Bazaar one last time for some one last time shopping (last time). I was interested in a rug but in the bazaar this little 2 x 3 foot silk one was $1500, yeah right!

This was our last day in Istanbul so Dave decided to get some suits after he saw a sign in the window advertising them for $30, 30 bucks! I have four collecting dust in the closet so I didn't buy any. After walking around Taksim a bit, we ended up by the University, then crashed at our hotel for awhile awaiting the shuttle to airport, slept overnight in the airport (we had a 5:00 AM flight) then back to America! Here are the last of the pics from trip to Istanbul.

The Roman Aquaduct

Fisherman on the bridge to Sultahnamet

Dave trying on his new suit
- posted by mark @ 2:03 AM (1) comments

 

Turkey, Cannakalle

We visited Cannakalle today, it is a port city in western Turkey. It was an overnight bus ride from Cappadocia which took 18 hours, brutal is all I can say. Managed to sleep most of the time though so it was alright. I found a nice place to stretch out and sleep on the back of the bus (where the seats formed a kind of bed) but got woken up in the middle of the night by the conductor and had to move. I thought this was because it was a safety issue or something but it turns out he just wanted my spot, arrggghhhh!!!! So I went back to my seat and attempted to sleep in the chair which didn't work too well.

Cannakalle is okay but we came here to see Troy since Dave and I wanted to see it. Took the dolmus (Turkish mini-bus) survived the ride (dolmus drivers are almost as crazy as the cab drivers) and arrived at Troy. We basically had the place to ourselves as there were only about 20 people there. My initial impressions were that Troy was a lot smaller than I imagined, although where the outer wall and town was were not altogether clear. It was really neat to be in the place where the Greek hordes came ashore and look at the plains where Achilles and Hector duked it out the the death (if you believe that really happened, it's quite controversial) Dave and I loved this place since we are big history buffs, Kirsten politely tolerated it :)
Here are the pics from Troy...

Dave scaling the wall pretending to be a Greek invader

Standing on the ruins of a temple? I don't really see it though

One of the gates to Troy VI, I believe

Foundations overlooking the fields of Troy, where the battles were fought, now they are farm fields...

Closeup of the ruins...

Another shot of the ruins...
- posted by mark @ 2:15 AM (0) comments