Turkish Honeymooning

DATE: October 2007
LOCATION: Istanbul, Turkey

Avoid Istanbul Airport. It takes a year to get out of the airport, and is a lesson in appreciating western culture. I’ve seriously missed connecting flights at Istanbul due to the chaos that is the airport, and have gladly paid extra to NOT fly through. When Istanbul is your final destination, you’re kind of stuck. Instead of just an immigration line, you FIRST have to stand in a visa purchase line, something many hapless foreigners don’t know since it isn’t written ANYWHERE, so they spend an hour in the immigration line, only to be turned back to the visa line, only to have to start over in the immigration line. Line probably isn’t the correct word. Perhaps MOB is more accurate. Needless to say there are a lot of angry frustrated people in this general area, which gives the whole thing a seething undercurrent of stress that occasionally erupts in screaming, pushing and police involvement. It would be good people watching if you weren’t actually in the middle of it all pushing, elbowing and then “posting” like a basketball player to keep your place. It’s stressful…seriously…and right when you’re in the home stretch some Russian, Uzbek or Georgian manages to slide in front of you with his family buddies. You can almost tell a Westerner’s nationality by how they handle this. Americans won’t cut, but they’ll “try” to stop others from doing so. Brits stand patiently, looking painfully perturbed that the rules of orderly queuing aren’t being observed, but at some point they loose it start tersely reprimanding everybody. The Spaniards watch for a moment, then try to cut themselves. Meanwhile drunk Russian divas wearing lots of leather and sequins and eastern European/central Asian bearded men with lots of bags somehow stream past…and yell at anyone who dares tell them to get back in line…to include the police. Bless the West and our orderly patient ability to wait in line.

A Room with a View. Our hotel was called the Turkoman…an interesting name since most Turkomen are actually Iraqi, but very few people would know or be confused by this…except me. Our room overlooked the Blue Mosque and the Marmaris. The breakfast room/bar was a terrace on the roof, and we spent most every night watching the light change on the Mosque, and the ships pass by to parts unknown. Most Russian oil passes through this waterway. It’s pretty cool to watch it…until you stop and think “wow, that’s a pretty narrow channel” then instead of admiring the twinkley lights, you start to worry about health and safety, the world economy, and other hefty things. Maybe that’s just me. When it got too much, I just ordered another glass of red, and petted the hotel cat that adopted us.

And a Cat. There are tons of cats in Istanbul. And they’re cute. Really, really cute--as was the cat in our hotel. He followed us to our room, came in and made himself at home purring and rubbing against our legs. When we tried to put him out, he refused to go. We figured he wasn’t feral, so we let him stay. It wasn’t until the second day we saw he went outside to cavort with other cats. But after letting him stay with us the first night, how could we kick him out the next night? He wouldn’t have understood. Of course, I was ready to kick him out when Ellis about pushed me off the bed because he demanded we not disturb the cat who plunked himself down in the MIDDLE. When we both woke up with flea bites…lots of them…we agreed letting cats sleep with us wouldn’t happen again. Learn from our mistake.

The Hamam. The most memorable experience was the Turkish bath in a REAL bad neighborhood. The bath sent a shuttle to pick us up at the hotel, and we soon learned why. There is NO WAY we’d have made it otherwise. We’d have been lost all night, and then probably mugged and beaten. Shame, since this bath is 500 years old, and many famous people bathed here, presumably before the hoodlums settled in. We entered—two Italians, two Americans posing as Brits, and 3 Taiwanese who actually lived in South Africa--and were greeted by a flamboyantly gay Turk with an outrageous hairdo. The Turk quickly asked the Taiwanese family behind us if they were Chinese. They said they weren’t, but he ignored them and promptly introduced the teenage helper boy holding the door as Chinese. He wasn’t. He was Mongolian. No mind. All wrongly identified persons quickly asserted their “non-Chineseness” as soon as the overly coiffed Turk left, and Ellis and I giggled about the fact that it isn’t just Americans who make silly gaffes like that. We changed into red checkered bathing outfits and wooden platform shoes that clicked loudly on the hard floors, and made our way into the marble “hot steam” room.

Normally baths are where the neighborhood comes to gossip while they wash, which left a bunch of strangers who didn’t speak the same languages sitting uncomfortably and trying not to stare at each other, which was hard since the room was round and we were all facing in. We remedied this by closing our eyes and falling asleep. We were roused from our slumber by a small army of Turkish men, loudly slapping wash mitts, a sound which echoed ominously throughout the chamber. There was no doubt they meant business, and we would all end up cleaner than we really cared to be.

Ellis and I were first into the wash room. I looked behind me and finally made eye contact with our little “UN” bath compatriots, who, when faced with the scary bath men seems like my friends. They shot me glances of sympathy mixed with dread as I made my way into the room labeled “Sultan Suleyman used to bathe here.” I then made eye contact with Ellis, who gave me a look that very plainly said, “I can’t BELIEVE I let you talk me into this.” We were told to sit next to sinks, and were unceremoniously and without warning doused in cold water. We were scrubbed vigorously with what felt like brillo pads and doused with more cold water. When I thought I couldn’t take anymore, and with my cotton bikini thing falling off, I was led to a marble slab table, hoisted up, and told to lay on my stomach. I steeled myself for the worst…and was greeted with bliss. A soft, hot, foamy, thick bag of suds was spread over me. Imagine laying in a warm marshmallow. And then a massage and a hair wash, with more sudsy goodness every few minutes. The pain at the beginning made the pleasure all the better. They had to drag me out of that place. From the” hot room”, we went to the “warm room” where we sat drinking apple tea. The South African -Taiwanese spoke English well. They were in Istanbul for the world karate championships. Their older son was the reigning champ. Their younger son was with them, and was 8th in the world in his age group. We sympathized about their nationality being misidentified by the Turk, and they invited us to South Africa. It was great.

The sites. We hit most everything in old town, which is actually only a small fraction of what there is to see in Istanbul--you could easily spend a week here. The most amazing was the Haghia Sophia. Originally built as a Christian church in 532 A.D.—I need to specify A.D. since many of Turkey’s sites date to 500 B.C. The building was one of the most important churches in Christendom for 1000 years, and became a Mosque in 1435 when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. It is now a museum celebrating both religions. It’s crowded, expensive to go into, pink and falling apart, but it’s the most moved I’ve been by a building, or anything else manmade in a long time. Perhaps it was the sheer size, the soft lighting, the smell of antiquity, the breathtaking marble, the beautiful blend of the two most influential religions in the world in a time when there is so much hate, or the artistry. It’s hard to say, but I was speechless as we wandered the perimeter looking at the sparkling gold mosaics of Jesus, Mary, and John the Baptist from the 9th century, next to intricate bold colored Islamic paintings.

Shopping. We went to the spice market and the central market which came highly touted in the guide books. After having been to Marrakech, neither market was actually that impressive, so I won’t bore you. However, we spent quite a bit of time with Haldun, our new friend the Turkish carpet dealer. Ellis is incapable of walking past a carpet store. Normally we go in, are greeted by a pushy uninformed salesman who quotes us an outrageous price, and we walk out. Either that or we walked out several thousand dollars later with a bunch of carpets (cough cough Morocco cough cough). Haldun was GOOD. REAL GOOD. We sat in his restaurant and drank several cups of apple tea while discussing politics, religion, and life. His wife is German, and he spends 2 months each year selling carpets in the states. He hires a Mexican to drive his van from New York to LA stopping at former customer’s homes with his gorgeous wares. Only after ample tea and conversation, when we all understood our respective positions in life, did we head back to his shop. He had a knack for knowing our taste, and wasn’t in the least pushy. When we got down to talking price, he started with something reasonable, and told us it was no problem to go home and think about it—UNPRECIDENTED for any carpet dealer I’ve even come in contact with. He knew he had us. When returned to buy the rug, we were treated to more talk, more tea, and I even got to help weave a rug…he hires a woman from eastern Turkey to sit and make a rug in his shop so people can appreciate how much work it is. Ellis and I couldn’t agree on a green one or a pinkish one, so we ended up with two rugs. Damn, Haldun’s good. He’s going to add Phoenix onto his stateside tour…we’re supposed to have our friends over for a party. Sort of like Tupperware…but not.

Starbucks attacked. Okay, not really, but Ellis chooses to think we witnessed an attempted terrorist attack on Starbucks. We were minding our own business on the way to the Roman aqueducts when we heard a crash a block away. A car ran into the bollards in front of the Starbucks and a crowd gathered. Then the police came and cleaned it all up. That’s all. The car was not packed with explosives, there was not a person packed with explosives, in fact nothing caught on fire or even smoked a little. I think you’ll agree with me that this was just a dumbass who ran off the road. I’m sure Ellis will tell you his side of the story if you ask. He went into full intel gathering mode, telling me I should call into work and we should watch from a safe distance. I gave him a pat on the head. So cute.