The Golden Horn: Istanbul

Day One

After the all night bus from Selcuk, I was exhausted and confused when we arrived in Istanbul; mainly because no one could explain to us how we were going to get to Sultanahment. A connecting bus took us there from the bus station and Mike and I separated on the street. Two Australians were on the bus and familiar with the neighborhood, so they brought me to the neighborhood of the Istanbul Hostel. Within 30 minutes, I was showered and out the door to see the sights. Because the only map they had was in Italian, this proved very difficult so I just walked around and took it all in. On every corner is a carpet salesman, trying his best to make you stop and say hello because after that, it’s over and they know it. Two blocks away is a gorgeous fountain embedded between the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya. I followed the crowd around and discovered the gates of the Topkapi Palace, so I decided to explore it. I saw prayer rugs, jewels, thrones, porceline and arms from the Ottoman Empire. I was also really impressed with the tile work in the more prestigious rooms, like the Harem and the circumsision room. After the treasury was a killer view of the Bosphorus River. The palace was crowded with people and I saw a huge concentration of Muslim women wearing the complete black burke. Strangely, these were the more pushy and rude people that I encountered in the palace.

After the palace, I had a roasted corn and went to the Aya Sofya for free because some Italians had extra tickets that they couldn’t sell. This mosque was really gorgeous. I’m not sure who built it in 413 AD, but I know Justinian put up the famous mosaics that were later covered up. It’s strange to see Muslim and Christian art in the same building side by side. The light in the building is fantastic: it streams through the windows like beams. It is also amazing to see the view of the Blue Mosque from the Aya Sofya.


I returned to the hostel for a nap and later met some guys and smoked shisha on the terrace with them. I went to dinner with some people from my hostel and then for a beer. Three of us stopped and played volleyball with some local boys until we destroyed the ball and had to stop. A small group from the hostel then went out for apple tea and a rose shisha water pipe.

Day Two

The next morning, I went down to breakfast and met Louisa and Emily (The English). They went out and I went with a few of the guys to the Blue Mosque where Zen (our Pakistani guide) told us about the procedure for entering the mosque. This mosque is also spectacular, though the small woman’s area in the back was quite a sad site. From there we walked to the bazaar.


This is probably my favorite place in Istanbul. There are over 4,000 shops selling jewelry, leather, ceramics, water pipes, shawls, and about anything else you could imagine. I got a feel for how to haggle with the locals and quickly began to enjoy the banter with the vendors. Turkish people are born salesmen; it’s in their blood since the spice trade on the Silk Road. They call to you, but you can’t pay them any attention unless you really want something. “Yes please”, “Where you from?”, “I make a good price”, and “You want apple tea?” are their most prized phrases. If you stop for a chat, you will get sucked into a long conversation that results in you buying something. Then you get home and you wonder who you’re going to give all these things to. I only bought a shawl that first day: I wanted to get a feel for the bazaar before I made my large purchases.

After a lot of tea and walking, we returned to the hostel for a rest and a smoke. Then we went out to the Basilica Cistern, a Roman aqueduct that had the face of Medusa carved into its columns, and the Hippodrome, two Obelisks located right next to the Blue Mosque. We returned to the hostel and had a bite to eat and some shisha and decided to go on the sunset cruise along the Bosphorus. We haggled the price down for the boat and boarded, then met another group of people from a hostel on the other side of the Golden Horn. So we all chatted and hung out, enjoying the wonderful view of the only city that spans two continents. When we were done, we all walked to Taksim and went to a bar on the top floor of a swank hotel. We had a complete view of Istanbul at night, which claims to be one of the largest cities in the world. I hung out with Rich from Milwaukee, and learned about his work in Biology and Geography while drinking mojitos.


We left the hotel and went to Taksim, the hip area in Istanbul. One person wanted to go to a college bar with cheap drinks, which Rich and I (and the English) wanted something a little more unique to Turkish culture. When we wouldn’t sit down, it became quite a fuss and the group ended up splitting in two. We went for beer and pasta on a cute little street further down. Louisa, Danny, Emily and I walked back to Sultanehment together, telling stories and laughing all the way there. The fishermen were still out on the Bosphorus at 3 am with their polls yelling, “fish fish” just because they were proud of what they were doing.


Day Three

Rich had planned to email me and set up a way to rendezvous, but it didn’t work out. Instead, Danny and I went to a local neighborhood called Besiktas, checking out the outside of the Dolmabahce Palace and its changing of the guard on the way. The area was a lot more authentic and Turkish, which was refreshing. We took pictures of the vendors in the outdoor market and got Turkish Pide for lunch. Then we walked to Taksim, the way a car would get there: a dangerous and dusty experience but we arrived in Taksim and explored the hip district during the day. The main street was bustling with cool shops, young people, and a trolley that dinged its way around. We got soft serve and walked on to the nearest tram stop.

I got in touch with Rich, who invited me and the English to come to their hostel for drinks on the roof and then dinner. We drank raki and 3 Germans from the hostel played in the didgeridoo for us. The tower was so close that we could see the tourists on its highest level waving to us. From there we walked around the Taksim district and found a restaurant, where we ordered calamari, raki, cheeses, salads and other mezes. A man played the accordion and a small boy sold Rich a rose for Emily (that’s a Faulkner story). From there, we found a rooftop bar and danced all night. The Germans wanted to go home and I really wanted to chill and watch the sunrise, so Rich and Kyle came back with us and we went up to the roof. Our hostel employees had left the tap on, so we drank free beers all morning. The moon was a silver bowl and the river a glistening necklace winding around the city when the sun started to rise. We took pictures and listened to music until the guys had to leave for their train out of Istanbul.



Day Four

I had to wake up, though I was not in the mood to move. Tired and still kind of drunk, I showered and then went to breakfast, when the English arrived. I checked out and went to the bazaar to spend all of my leftover lira, which was about four hundred. When I got there, I met Ziya the jeweler who helped me find a beautiful silver bracelet at a good price. After I got hustled to buy an amber necklace, Ziya came out of the store and told me he would help me if I needed to negotiate with a storeowner. Then he walked me to a friend who had silver and the man gave me a great price on a really heavy piece that will cover the tattoo I’m getting on my wrist. From there, I was in a great mood, though I had spent most of my money in the first 15 minutes of my being there.

I walked on and started admiring the Lapis Lazuli in a store window of a guy named Deniz. He invited me into the store and we had an apple tea. I was instantly taken with him: such a gentle and genuine person. We laughed and talked and I admired his beautiful jewelry, trying a lot of it on. He brought out an amber bracelet that matched my necklace and was so unique that I really wanted to buy it, but I didn’t have much money left. He sold me on it when he said that he really wanted me to have the bracelet and sold it to me at a 5 lira profit to himself. Of course, this could be a story, but that’s the fun of the bazaar; everything is a game. You have to understand that they hold all the cards because they know how much it’s actually worth and your whole bargaining with them is a game. Deniz had to have the bracelet adjusted to fit my wrist, so I waited in his store and finished my tea. I liked the way he looked at me too, but again, I didn’t know if that was a game too. When he asked me to lunch and dinner and gave me his card so I could call him, I really wanted to but I worried that it was another game. It’s hard to read men sometimes, especially men from other cultures.

So I moved on to the next shop: another jewelry shop where I had seen some gorgeous amber that had insects incased in them. I wandered through the labyrinth of shopkeepers, getting stuck in the trap of the Kurdish “doctor” along the way. I finally found Ali’s shop and he welcomed me in, though he knew I had already spent all of my money. He ordered us tea and proudly showed me his designs and tied them around my neck. I could tell that he enjoyed touching me, but it seemed like he just wanted to share the necklaces with someone who would enjoy them. I saw one made of garnet that I fell in love with, it looked like the jewels were embedded in my skin. When he saw that I liked that one, he gave it to me for free. So, though I was swindled a little bit, I had such fun at the Grand Bazaar. I finished my day by returning to Ziya and having a tea with him in his shop and talking to him. He walked me out of his corridor and pointed me in the direction of the Spice Bazaar.

This area of town is called the Egyptian Bazaar. Instead of being inside, it is an open market with a lot of cheap clothes and shoes. There are so many people there, it is hard to walk, especially with mopeds and men pushing dollies occasionally making their way through the crowd. I walked slowly so that I couldn’t take it all in and soon I entered the Spice Bazaar. It smelled amazing! Every shop was teaming with dried fruits, nuts, spices, henna and tea. Everywhere I turned was a sample of Turkish delight or raw honey on the comb. I bought pistachios, love tea and a pepper grinder for Gunner then made my way back to the hostel. I collapsed on the roof terrace pillows in the cool of the afternoon and napped.

Later that night, Emily, Louisa and I went to the hamam for relaxation. This place was much more authentic than the Bodrum haman, primarily because it was separated into men and women so that you could be naked. We were led into a marble bath room and sat down next to the marble fountains. There we washed and sweat, watching the other girls who were further along than us in the hamam sequence. The show is run by an old woman who seems to have been in the bath house forever. Her bare breasts hung to her stomach and she wore little black bottoms that hung off her bum, exposing her but crack. But what was fascinating was the naturalness of it all in what I had read as such an uptight culture. We sat and steamed for about thirty minutes before the bath began.

You start by laying down on the marble table and being scrubbed with an exfoliating mitten on both sides of your body. Then you are to rinse off using your bowl and the water from the fountain. Then she called to be washed and massaged with foam on both sides. The strength of this old woman took my breath away. She aggressively rubbed my sore muscles and bones with foam so hard that I winced at times. However, when she was done I felt like jelly. Then she washed our hair and put us in the sauna. The whole process took about two and a half hours. When we left the hamam, we were relaxed and in need of tea so we walked to the seafood district for dinner and then cabbed it back to the hostel. Emily chilled with me all night so that I could stay up for my ride to the airport. The guys from the hostel bought us beers and taught us to play “Chinese” on a checkerboard. We listened to Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd until it was finally time for me to go. I hugged my friends and boarded the shuttle to Ataturk Airport to begin my long journey back to the states.