28 Apr 2015

Istanbul, again

Him: “So what’s that tattoo say?”

Her: “Well, it used to say ‘Curt’, my ex’s name.”

Him: “And now?”

Her: “Now it says…something similar. Still reminds me of him, too.”

(Overheard in a hostel lounge)

Ahhh, Istanbul! Beating heart of empires past! A city built, cultivated, pillaged, burnt and then rebuilt. And then pillaged and burnt again. An immense melting pot with millenia-long history, steeped in an air of timelessness. Full of cats, too!

I reached Istanbul after a 7-hour overnight bus ride. While the coaches are comfortable enough, sleeping is almost impossible because they stop often. Lights are turned on and announcements are made. People shuffle on or off the bus. People who seriously need to learn to shut the hell up. The journey was a fairly disorientating experience of drifting between wakefulness and sleep. At some point somebody shook me awake, repeating “Istanbul, Istanbul!”

So I took the hint and stumbled off the bus out into a grey-ish dawn, clutching my backpack and travel blanket.

Lesson 008: Get a travel blanket! Mine is almost full-sized but very thin, so it’s compact. It’s nice to have something to keep you warm or keep the light out of your eyes. Whichever bed I go to sleep in, once I spread out my blanket, it becomes my bed. Rolled up in a ziploc-bag it compresses a lot and stays dry, too.

Since Istanbul is home to around 14 million people, it has at least four large coach stations. Helpfully, the coach driver had woken me at the one closest to the area I was going to stay in, called Sultanahmet. At this hour however, the massive coach station was deserted. The sun was not up yet, so the entire site was grey buildings, grey tarmac and grey skies. I shouldered my backpack and just walked around for a few minutes to see where exactly I had to go. It turned out that the station was around 11-12 subway stops away from where I wanted to go. Since the metro seemed like the easiest mode of transport anyway, I went looking for the metro station. Just like your typical bloody tourist would, I ended up wandering all over the coach station, mistakenly walking into at least one storage building and one underground garage. I finally found the metro station (cleverly hidden right in the middle of the coach station). From there, it was a relatively straight forward trip east towards Sultanahmet.

Sultanahmet, the east-most part of the city’s European half, is its oldest and most famous district. It contains the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the ancient Hippodrome, the Topkapi Palace and several museums. It is the most tourist-y part of town with many hotels and hostels. It is also where I found my hostel, which I immediately identified as such because they had kittens!

Overall, I think that cats are alright. Sure, I took a few pictures. But it’s not like I’m a crazy cat person with dozens of pictures of kittens on their phone. Just a few:

Okay, one more:

Is there such a thing as a “cat habit”? You know, like a “coke habit”?

I stayed in Istanbul for five or six days (no, I really can’t tell). Since I had been to the city before, I had gotten most of the big sights out of the way already. So this time around I spend most days just walking around and exploring the more lived-in districts. Ironically, I took no pictures there, so here are some more common views instead:

On most days this meant 6-hour walks. On two days, the weather was actually so terrible that I barely left the hostel, except for food/coffee.

Yeup, that’s sleet. From the thunderstorm which nearly flooded Gülhane Park in a torrential downpour.

At the hostel I also spent time with a group of other travelers:

• An Australian solicitor (Hi, David!)

• Another Aussie and his Kiwi friend who were in town for ANZAC day

• A couple from Boston

• A data analyst from London (Hi, Paul!)

I also used the occasion to visit the famous Topkapi palace, which I hadn’t seen during my last trip. The palace is a mindbogglingly ornate affair located at the northern tip of Sultanahmet. It served as residence of the Ottoman sultans 15th-19th century. Today, it’s a UNESCO site with lots of visitors and almost as many selfie-sticks. Seriously, people: You have arms, right? What the hell is the world coming to?

I remember being thoroughly impressed by two exhibits in the palace: Firstly, the scrolls and calligraphy in the privies. The amount of detail in the carvings above pales in comparison with the granularity and precision shown in the religious manuscripts. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of them, but their effect is startling: You tend to get lost in the levels of detail. Every pattern is made up of smaller, more intricate patterns, which in turn contain their own symmetries and rules. Taking pictures of these with a cellphone camera seemed a bit pointless…

Secondly, the religious artifacts in the Chamber of Sacred Relics. It’s not every day that you get to see Moses’ very own staff! You’d think that even by conservative estimates of biodegradation, that thing would be gone by now. But no, there it is! They also have Abraham’s saucepan™. I had been told of this unique item before, still I felt incredibly privileged to find myself in the company of such distinguished cookware. I didn’t take pictures of those, you’ll have to go see them yourselves. Or google it.

In other news, I also found myself in a Turkish heavy metal bar. I know, but the band did play some great covers of Led Zeppelin, Megadeth and Anthrax.

Istanbul is obviously a colourful city with a rich history. Exploring its facets as a tourist is an amazing experience and I’m sure I will come back here. At the same time, the second trip here showed me some of the more mundane, less exciting aspects:

The sheer number of people and extent of the city feel suffocating at times. The districts feel like they are just going on and on and on. For most people, living here seems a trade-off: Either you sacrifice a sizable share of your income to rent a centrally-located apartment, or you spend hours of your life commuting through traffic the consistency of jam mixed with bunker fuel. Two examples: One, even on the busiest highways around the city you find men selling bottled water and pretzels while standing right between the lanes. That sounds risky, but there really is no danger to them, since traffic barely moves at all.

Two, when I eventually took a coach to Safranbolü, 90 minutes of the six-hour ride were spent just on getting out of Istanbul.

This being the capital, most things tend to be just a little more expensive than in other parts of the country. Food, drink, fares, you name it. Both in Izmir and in Ankara I spoke to locals who had at some points in there lives moved to Istanbul. They all told me that they had moved back for a higher quality of life and standard of living. Counterpoint: I also met plenty of people in Istanbul who had moved there and had no plans of moving away again, because, you know, it’s Istanbul.

While those realizations were sobering, they did reassure me that coming back and taking a look behind all those important sights was worthwhile: I only noticed those things because I spent more time here and had the leisure to observe in peace. If you only come to Istanbul for a few days, by all means take in all those magnificent buildings and museums, they are worth your time. But then make time to come here again, and use it to meandre around the city. Have coffee somewhere and have a look around. Go to the less pretty parts of town and soak up all the glances which say “The hell are you doing here?”

After a few days however, I happened to look at a world map in the hostel. And then at a calendar. I got angsty, so I packed my bag, did some hasty research and took a tram to the coach station. Eastwards! Actually, the coach station was west, which turned out to be a stupid mistake, as you’ll see…

Until next time,
Arne