Istanbul

Markets, Mosques and… Mannequins? We found all three in abundance during our visit to Istanbul.

We expected the Grand Bazaar to be one of the highlights of the city. To be honest, what we found disappointed us. We had thought the Bazaar would be chaotic and lively. Instead, it was full of repetitive souvenir shops and more resembled a shopping mall than a bustling street market.

What we enjoyed more was wandering around the streets nearby. There seemed to be different shopping districts for different products – cheap shoes, firearms, kids’ toys and our favourite: shop mannequins.

The Grand Bazaar is in Istanbul’s old city – an easily walkable district containing many of the city’s historical highlights.

It was interesting to be in a country with a Muslim majority. We enjoyed visiting a variety of mosques, from the impressive Blue and New Mosques to the smaller neighbourhood ones. It was particularly interesting on Friday, the Islamic Holy Day, when some mosques were full to overflowing and people were finding space out on the footpath to pray.

Turkey has a long history of separating religion and state, so despite having an overwhelming majority of Muslims, religious law is not in effect. However, some Turkish locals told us that this tradition of secularism has been steadily eroded over the last five years. We also heard of other problems facing the country, such as conflict in neighbouring countries and a Kurdish minority violently seeking independence in the east of Turkey. We realised how little we hear about the situation in Turkey back home.

The Bosphorus Sea splits Istanbul in two – the European and Asian sides. There are regular ferries (as well as a couple of bridges) that run between the two sides. One day we took a ferry across to Üsküdar on the Asian side (said to be the more relaxed side of Istanbul) and spent time exploring. We saw lively food markets and older men at cafés playing backgammon and drinking tea – two popular pastimes throughout Turkey. We ended up spending a bit of time on the Bosphorus Sea – also going on a cruise and visiting one of the Prince’s Islands. With so many people living next to the sea, there are fishermen standing at every possible spot along the coast, at all hours of the day.

Our time on the Bosphorus helped us appreciate the immense size of the city. Istanbul is one of the largest cities in the world, with around 14 million residents. This makes for a very busy place – the traffic is pretty crazy and even pedestrian streets can feel like busy highways. We’re not sure we could handle living in a city this big for very long. We CouchSurfed for some of our time in Istanbul and one of our hosts, Deneb, told us about how she used to have a two hour commute each way to work.

While the city is busy, it does have charm. Istanbul is very different to home, but the hills and the waterfront apartments with cable cars reminded us a bit of Oriental Parade in Wellington.

It’s been a while since we went on about food, so here goes… Turkey has been a big foodie destination and we’ve tried some amazing dishes. However, you do have to pick the right places. Surprisingly, the standard of kebabs here hasn’t been as high as in New Zealand. Mind you, you can’t get a kebab for NZ$1.50 back home (we weren’t game enough to try meat this cheap). Some of the delicious things we’ve had while we’ve been in Turkey are lentil soup, stuffed peppers and cabbage leaves, pistachio Turkish delight, baklava, a milky dessert containing chicken (unusual but delicious) and Noah’s pudding (see photo below). Our CouchSurfers also cooked us an amazing Turkish feast.

Noah’s Pudding, topped with pomegranate, currants, raisins, pistachio, chopped nuts, coconut, fig, apricot and walnut

On our last day in Istanbul we enjoyed a game of backgammon while relaxing in a small café. However, we ruined the Turkishness of the moment by ordering Apple Tea. It’s kind of like drinking hot Raro and you can find it everywhere (but it’s pretty much just for tourists).

With four days in Istanbul we had plenty of time to see the sights and also to relax. While here, we also went on a long day trip to Gallipoli, which will be the topic of our next post.

Written by Craig Drayton and Sally Robertson