Turkish Delightful

November 2024

When I awoke, in my little garden cabin, a thick fog had enveloped the farmland around me.

I eventually summoned the courage to get up from my warm bed, packed all my things, loaded my bike, and rode off into the wet air, to the centre of the town of Bolu, Turkey.

I knew where I was headed. I badly needed to charge my phone, as my phone is a travel necessity these days. And I needed çay, pronounced 'chai', and something to eat. Turkish çay is just black tea, served in a transparent glass or cup, and there's always a bowl of white sugar cubes somewhere handy.

It was cold riding, but it was only for a few clicks, and then I was inside the same café I'd visited yesterday.

The young male waiters were very keen to chat. One of them said he loved my eyes and could he come travelling with me. I laughed, whilst secretly wishing he was the beautiful Georgian border guard from yesterday.

Then it was time to finally meet Yetiş, which is not pronounced yetis, as in a bunch of Tajik mountain creatures, but Yetish, as in a fetish for Y-fronts.

He was the sweetest guy ever, he lives in town, works for the local municipal council, and allowed me to store Black Bewdy and my panniers in his downstairs garage, for as long as I wanted.

Then him and his mate took me to the bus station in the council van.

So kind.

His mate and I chatted in broken German, as neither of them spoke English, and I remembered how bad my German is, which is annoying because I'm about to go there to work.

I waited at the almost empty station, and then my bus departure time came and went, and eventually I was advised that my bus had had an accident, and wouldn't be arriving, so they threw me on another bus run by a different company, that didn't drop me where I wanted to go. Which is a bloody hassle in a city the size of Istanbul.

The autumn countryside was pretty sometimes, even though I didn't have a window seat.

I love this in Turkey! It's çay left right and centre! Even in buses they come around regularly and serve it with snacks. I was so surprised by its ubiquity that I Googled it and yeah, just as I suspected, the Turks are the highest consumers of tea on the whole planet, downing an average of 3kgs of the stuff every year.

That's a lot. That average translates to 3-4 cups daily per year, but they often have 10 cups a day in the winter, which it nearly is right now.

Guess who the other large tea consuming countries are, per capita?

In order, it's Ireland, the UK, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Morocco, NZ, Chile and Egypt. Australia is 16th and Germany 18th. China is only 21st, Canada 22nd, and the US is way down the list at 36.

But don't worry, US guzzlers are the second largest consumers of soft drinks in the world, after the Swiss (now that's a surprise). Australia is tenth on that list, the UK 11th.

Turkey's also the 6th largest exporter of tea in the world, which surprised me, because they need so bloody much of it themselves. China is first, of course, then India, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

One of many bus stations we stopped at. This is Sakarya, about 150 clicks from the 'bul.

The traffic was bloody horrendous. It reminded me of Bangkok in the 90s. Even though Istanbul has a hugely extensive metro system it really was gridlock central coming in to the city.

We eventually made it to a stop on the eastern side of the city (what they call the Asian, or Anatolian, side), and then rather than carry on westwards through the city to our destination on the European side, the bus just turned around, headed east, and then went miles north and then west, bypassing the whole city, and then heading south and coming in from the other side.

As you can imagine, that took forever, but it was quicker than trying to get through the traffic right across the city.

Istanbul is absolutely huge, by population it's the 24th largest city in the world, hosting over 16 million Istanbullies.

By the way, five of the top 10 largest cities are in China, another two are in Japan, and two are in India. Only one of the top ten is outside Asia (New York, at number 10).

Once we finally got to the station it was dark and raining, and I was nowhere near any public transport that was useful to me. So I downloaded a ridesharing app, but it didn't operate the way others do, and it doesn't actually list the maximum price, just a minimum. This is to enable the drivers to try and swindle as many lire as they can out of you, in any creative way they can come up with.

My driver was a real live shonky Istanbully. Firstly, he took the long way towards my destination hostel, despite my protests, telling me it was quicker ('bulshit). You pay by the km. Then he said he needed fuel ('bulshit), it was a long detour, and it took forever (you also pay to wait, the meter just keeps running), and whilst there the driver disappeared into the never never and came back ages later pretending he was in a rush.

Then when we finally got to my hostel he tried to charge me a 50 lire commission, which he says the app charges ('bulshit).

I refused to pay his inflated price and just walked off with my gear, after giving him a fair price. He argued, but didn't do anything. Ya gotta stand up to these guys. I'm learning that around here.

And then I hit the streets of Taksim! The district is one of the nightlife areas of the city, and it was pretty crowded, considering it was Wednesday night, and it'd been raining quite heavily not long before.

Luckily it was only very lightly drizzling when I went strolling.

Istiklal Caddesi, the main drag through Taksim, which is pedestrian only. So good! More cities need to wake up and do this, it gets people in to the city and creates a really good vibe for everyone. Businesses thrive too.

I'm not sure why he was flinging his ice cream around

There were loads of busy çay cafés, and this not-so-busy one

All the veg places I found on Google were closed or super pricey. I settled for a cheese pide and salad. It's like a really delicious cheese-on-thin-toast, so not super healthy, but hey, by this time of night, and after a long day of travel, any food was good.

Coke bottle salt shakers. When will it end?

I finally crawled into bed, after a long conversation in Strine with Zach, a lovely Aussie guy from Nowra. It was so funny. I'm so not used to speaking to native Aussies that I kept fumbling and tripping over my words. Most of the time I'm speaking English with non-native speakers, so I need to speak slowly, and, as a result, fast Aussie doesn't come so naturally to me at the moment.

Zach's in the 'bul for three weeks, he knows a lot about history, both ancient and modern, great subjects for conversation for me, plus his grandma is a 'Lebo' as he called her (Lebanese), so we talked about that place too, including all the mouthwatering food there.

I finally hit the dormsack pretty late, and slept like a drunk backpacker on his first overseas trip.

Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul

Different names, same place.

Istanbul is by far Turkey's largest city, and is its cultural, economic and historic centre. It's not the political capital of the country though, that's Ankara.

It's a fantastic city, the most populous in Europe in fact, and a whopping 20% of Turkey's whole population live here. It's also consistently in the top ten of the most visited cities in the world. Last year 17 million tourists came and went, and most probably spent at least two days here, meaning that on any average day there's more than 100,000 tourists floating around.

Those figures are nuts.

And of course, as with any huge and vibrant city, there's a million things to see and do here.

A beautiful man named Omar from the hostel helped give my day the perfect start, by cooking this breakfast.

Hostel art

My dorm shower wall is made of Jägermeister bottles. Fitting I guess.

I headed out, and decided to stroll to the Golden Horn.

I started out by heading down Istiklar Caddesi, as it's so nice. It was quiet.

There's little side alleys with beautiful shops and restaurants, like this

And an historic new old tram

Of course there's food galore, and it's not cheap. Inflation has gone ballistic in Istanbul in the past few years, according to Andrew, an English guy I met who's lived here off and on for 30 years. For example, his rent went up 60% this year.

Amazing very-sweets

You say potatoes, I say ....

Where's the kid?

Fashion police

Ataboy

Not many unrenovated buildings left in these districts of Taksim and Beyoğlu

These guys are everywhere, selling simit, sesame savoury donuts, and other soft bread slightly-sweet rolls, at super cheap prices. A simit is 15TL, about €0.40.

For love songs

There was a laneway with loads of music shops

But trumpets were banned there, I don't know why, it's totally discriminatory.

The Galata Tower, a medieval watchtower built by the Genoese in 1267. It was built on the site of a tower that Byzantine Emperor Justinian had earlier built, and which was destroyed by those nasty Crusaders during the sacking of Constantinople in 1204.

Remember that Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul are different historical names for the same place.

By the way, if you're wondering what on earth the Genoese were doing in Istanbul at that time, remember that this part of the world was very much a part of Europe in those days (and still is, although it feels different these days because of a very strongly promoted Turkish nationalism and the fact that it's almost 100% Islamic).

The Genoese had a kingdom in those days, and they regularly fought against their arch rivals, the Venetians. The Genoese were gifted the area of Galata in Istanbul as part of a treaty, which required them to use their large fleet to protect the area from invaders, and to help the Byzantines retake Constantinople from the Crusaders.

My first tiny glimpse of the Golden Horn, way in the distance.

I really didn't know what to do after reading this, I couldn't work out what it actually meant.

And there it is! Not particularly spectacular, but very historic. This is the Golden Horn, the body of water that separates old from new Istanbul - well, I  should say it separates very old from old Istanbul.

The pic is taken from the red pin, looking south, towards the older Istanbul. Note how the peninsula there is shaped like a horn, and as the city was stinking rich at the time, it became known as the Golden Horn.

The Golden Horn also separates the European side of Istanbul from the Asian side.

And, just to complete the trifecta, it also separates the Sea of Marmara (which is connected to the Mediterranean) from the Black Sea.

So the Black Sea is directly connected by water to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, and all those important trade routes.

Do people really buy these?

Tourist cruise ship. Many cruise ships stop here every day, coming from all over the place.

Walking across the bridge. The mosque is called Yeni Cami, and is in the Eminömü district. Cami means mosque in Turkish.

There were loads of fishers on the bridge, and they were all catching fish. Not sure how keen I'd be to eat them though.

There's so many beautiful mosques in Istanbul.

Guess how many?

Looking back at Galata Tower.

There's actually over 3,000 mosques here. Crazy innit.

A fresh simit. Yum.

I strolled towards the Grand Bazaar, the main marketplace, and one of the grandest I've ever seen.

Dried eggplants, peppers and other vegetables

This is a bazaar on the way to the actual Grand Bazaar. I somehow preferred the smaller bazaars to the big bazaar, it was bizarre.

Since the horrors of the Armenian genocide in the late 1910s and 20s, when up to 1.5m Christian Armenians living in Turkey were slaughtered by Ottoman troops and their proxies, Turkey has become an overwhelmingly Muslim country.

99.8% of the population of 85m regard themselves as Muslim.

There's shops and bazaars basically all the way to the Grand Bazaar, which itself contains a huge labyrinth of small stalls and shops, selling everything from jewellery to clothing to food delicacies to anything you can think of.

It looks a lot more upmarket these days, compared to the last time I was here, about 20 years ago.

I wasn't falling for that one, you can go fart somewhere else.

An Oz in Turkley

Market mosque

More red flags than a Trump presidency.

I'm still practising moving physical objects with just my mind. Brad taught me. It's going quite well lately, I'm thinking of trying it in a bank.

Sultanahmet

I wandered into Nurosamaniye Mosque, right alongside one entrance to the Bazaar, which was built during the reign of Sultan Mahmut I in the 1750s. It's the first (and the largest) mosque ever to be built in a Baroque architectural style.

Magnificent innit. There's loads of incredible mosques in Istanbul, it's mind boggling.

This is called the Column of Constantine. Constantine the Great was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 AD, and was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. In 324, after the Western and Eastern Roman Empires were reunited, the ancient city of Byzantium was selected to serve as the new capital of the Roman Empire, and was renamed Constantinople. In 1930 it was renamed as Istanbul.

In 330 AD this column was removed from the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, Greece, and erected here, and a sculpture of Apollo, facing the sun, was erected on top of it. However, Constantine's ego got the better of him, and he replaced Apollo's statue with one of himself.

Tourist stuff

Ancient cemetery for nobles, most of the tombstones are from the 1300s.

Sad but true. She's not a mannequin.

The amazing Aya Sofia Cami.

I didn't go inside the mosque, there was a very slow moving line for about 100m, plus it cost 30€ for foreigners, which I wasn't into paying, to go inside a place of worship.

Foreigners really get fleeced in this city.

I met some really cool Hungarians whilst sitting around, who now live in Manchester, and who invited me to come and stay. They were cool. The guy had a Uriah Heep t-shirt on, which was how our conversation got started.

More pomegranate juice

The Sultan Ahmet Cami, more commonly known as the Blue Mosque.

When I went to go in it was closed for prayer, but I strolled around and there was a building around the side where a woman was giving a presentation in English about Islam. So I went in and listened. It was super interesting.

After the presentation I chatted for ages with a group of young university  students studying theology, about Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, et al. It was really a nice exchange, and later their professor came and joined the conversation.

They invited me to come and stay for awhile with them during Ramadan early next year, and observe the fasting etc, and said they could find a place for me to stay. After asking my views about God etc one of them, Abdurrahman, was very keen to convert me to Islam. Good luck with that one.

Of course, to convert to Islam is super easy. There's no bureaucracy involved. All you do is 1. state that you believe in the one God, Allah, and then 2. state that you believe in the words of the prophets. That's it.

They gave me an English language Quran, and eventually I headed off to check out the Blue Mosque.

The mosque is truly magnificent, a completely symmetrical masterpiece, embellished with 260 windows and over 20,000 tiled panels.

The Blue Mosque was constructed in the early 1600s, and has six minarets, which, when it was built, was the only mosque outside the main mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to have so many. So of course after the Blue Mosque was completed they added another minaret in Mecca didn't they.

The Obelisk of Theodophilus, erected in Constantinople in 390 AD. It was actually stolen from Ancient Egypt, where it was first erected by Pharaoh Thutmose III near the great Temple of Karnak, in, wait for it, about 1450 BC.

It has an incredible ancient base.

Dog day afternoon.

The Serpent Column, erected in Constantinople in 324 AD. This column was stolen from an Ancient Greek sacrificial tripod in Delphi, to commemorate the defeat of the Persians by the Greeks in 479 BC. One of the three heads is on display in the Archaeological Museum here, the other two headed off somewhere, no one knows where.

There's loads of other ruins around what is known as the Hippodrome of Constantinople, which was the sporting and social centre of the Byzantine Empire. These days it's known as Sultanahmet Square.

I sat in a café for awhile and wrote, after a long day on my feet.

Istanbul is famous for its cats. They're everywhere.

There was a huge Forum here in the 300s, and these are the remains of the triumphal arch leading to it.

The metro

Back in Taksim, this is the beautiful Taksim Cami.

Turkey became a Republic in October 1923, after World War I, and after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Istiklal Caddesi was pumping.

Made me think of Sham.

But not a good name for English speaking tourists.

Büfe (buffet) is popular here in Istanbul.

Into Eastern Europe

Well, my short foray into Turkey is nearly over, for the time being.

As much as I'd like to stay here longer, some of us have work to do.

So tomorrow I'm heading west, to cross into Bulgaria, and to again enter the European Union.

It's so handy having a Polish passport. It allowed me to be in Turkey for free and without a visa, which isn't the case for Australian citizens, and now it'll allow me to stay in Europe for as long as I want. And work there.

It's been a short, sweet and delightful Turkish sojourn.

This has been my route, right across the north of this very wide country.

And tomorrow, Insha'Allah, I'll be crossing the rivers and forests, and making my way to Varna, another Black Sea city, and the largest maritime centre in Bulgaria.

I love it! Yet another completely unknown adventure awaits❤️

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