We took a bus from Goreme in Cappadocia to Gaziantep in the south of Turkey, which was to be our final stop before crossing into Syria.  The bus ride was supposed to last about 3 hours, but about 90 minutes in our bus overheated with a busted radiator.  We were luckily able to pull over at a truck stop which had a mechanic.  The mechanic ended up taking over 3 hours to fix the radiator.

During these 3 hours we slowly got to interact with the other passengers.  No one could really speak English here in the heart of Turkey, so people just made faces indicating that it was taking forever to fix the bus.  One guy finally had the courage to try to strike up a conversation with us, basically asking us where we were from.  We told him Hong Kong, which we’ve learned is a lot easier for people to comprehend than saying Canada.  The exchange was mostly smiles and shrugs on either side.   Eventually people started to take more interest in us, and next thing you know the whole bus was surrounding us.  This is not an exaggeration; all of the passengers on this bus were hovered around us (there were about 10 of them).

The other riders went around in a circle saying where they were from; a few were Turks from Gaziantep, one guy was from Lebanon, and the rest were from Iraq!  Supposedly the bus went to Northern Iraq (Kurdistan) after Gaziantep.  These Kurdish Iraqis could speak Kurdish and Arabic, the Turks could really only communicate in Turkish, and the Lebanese guy (who was named Zaki and was hilarious) could speak Arabic and a little bit of English and Turkish so he ended up being the group translator. 

Basically, pictures of wives and children were passed around to everyone, and one of the women there proudly placed her super cute baby on our laps to hold for a while.  They asked us where we were going to after Gaziantep and we indicated that we were traveling to Syria, and then Lebanon and Jordan, and all the Iraqis were like “Why no Iraq????”  Hilarious laughter ensued as they made bombing sounds and were shooting air pistols at each other.  Pretty amazing that they could make light of such a tragic situation.  They were all Kurds though, so their region is significantly more stable, and they seemed to be quite happy that Saddam was dead.  One guy said “Saddam” and then pretended to hang with his tongue sticking out, which was followed by more laughter.

At one point the engine started and we all went outside to take a look.  This is when all of them tried to give me their best Kung Fu stance which usually can get annoying but this time it was pretty funny.  The bus was a Mercedes bus, so one guy yelled “Made in Germany no good, Made in China good!” with more laughter.  Eventually the problem was fixed and we made it to town where everyone got off to shake our hands and to say goodbye.  Before we parted ways everyone made sure they got pictures with Di and I.  One Turk getting off told us to follow him and he paid for our transport (he wouldn’t take our money) and took us to the door of our hotel.  The Lebanese guy gave us his number and was adamant that we call him when we arrived in Beirut.  This was definitely the most fun I’ve had waiting for a vehicle to be fixed.  The above picture is with the most outgoing guys on the bus.  I am the second oldest guy in this picture (I was shocked to hear their ages, they’re mostly in their late 20s.  Please correct me if I’m wrong but I definitely feel as though I look younger than them.  Must be the Oil of Olay).   The Lebanese guy is the one wearing Di’s hat.  I hate to make light of this but check out the epic unibrow on the guy second from the right.  The first time I saw that over here I thought it was really funny, but in Turkey it’s almost been an hourly occurrence, seeing a guy with one eyebrow and one eyebrow only.

Anyways Gaziantep was a nice town with a fabulous (yes I’m using the word fabulous) mosaic museum.  There really are no tourists in this town so the museum was ours for about 5 minutes.  After that, about eighty uniformed 10 year olds showed up on a school field trip.  We were definitely way more interesting than the mosaics to them, as they kept running away from their teachers and following us, trying to wave and say Hello!  The teachers kept yelling at them to get back in line.  At one point we could hear a few sprinting up to us, and as we turned around the guy in the lead quickly screeched to a stop, with the resulting 5 students behind him ploughing into his back, straight out of a cartoon.  We took longer than them to check out the exhibit, but a group of them were waiting for us at the exit!  They were all yelling and waving “Bye” as we walked through them and I decided to turn around and take a picture.  They were more than happy to oblige as all them started to immediately laugh and pose, teacher included.  I was also given my first Koran here by a local on the city bus.  It was in Turkish though, so no I haven’t read it.

The next day we took a bus to Kilis, the border town, and grabbed a taxi to take us to Aleppo in Syria.  Though we heard stories of how tough it was to cross the border from other people, we had no problem and were through relatively quickly.  The border was quite disorganized though and I’m glad we took a taxi instead of walking through and finding a ride on the other end like we did at the Libya/Egypt crossing.  The taxi driver did take our passports to load up on as many duty free cigs as he could, but we didn’t mind, as long as we got through.

Turkey is truly an incredible country.  There is striking and unique natural beauty, an amazing modern metropolis, fantastic food, a beautiful coastline, a rich history, a strong culture, and wonderful, friendly people.  In addition the independent travelers trail is pretty standard (Istanbul – Selcuk/Ephesus – Fethiye – Olympos – Cappadocia-Istanbul doing it either clockwise or counter-clockwise) so along the way you are bound to run into people you’ve seen previously in other towns or you’ll meet people who can offer you advice as you keep moving forward.  Meeting other travelers who will no doubt have interesting stories and viewpoints always adds to the experience.  In short, Turkey is a country that you need to visit.  We liked it here so much that we plan to return relatively soon to check out the less traveled Northern and Eastern regions, with another pit stop in Istanbul, a city we fell in love with.  Who knows?  Maybe by then Iraqi Kurdistan (as of today the safest part of Iraq, and braver tourists are trickling in) will really be open to travelers looking for the next region ripe for exploration and discovery, with friendly Kurds like the ones we met more than willing to host and to share their undoubtedly incredible stories and experiences.

We took our first night bus of this trip to Cappadocia from Fethiye.  We pulled into Goreme, the town we used as a base to explore the region, at 4:30 in the morning and made our way to our second cave hotel of this trip (the first was in Matmata, Tunisia).  The one here though, named Star Cave, was definitely far nicer.  Since we arrived so late at night we didn’t get an appreciation of the landscape that brings tourists to this part of Turkey.  That completely changed in the morning.

The terrain, as Di put it, is almost alien-like.  It was created by volcanoes and carved by rain, wind, and time to form extremely unique looking valleys and countless pillars named “fairy chimneys” here.  Some of these fairy chimneys look like they belong in an elf’s village in a fantasy novel, others are extremely phallic looking and if I was a teenage boy I would have found them really, really amusing.  Actually who am I kidding, if my highly educated and respected 30 something year old male friends came here with me I’m positive the penis jokes would still be never-ending. 

Back to the landscape, we woke up really early one day (like 4:30 am) to hop on a hot air balloon, a popular but expensive activity out in this region.  We considered not doing it due to the price but everyone we met who experienced it vehemently assured us that it was worth it.  They were right.  We were in the air for about an hour while our pilot deftly controlled something that was basically at the mercy of the winds.  At times she would let us hover one meter off the ground, gently grazing the tall grass, and at other times she would launch us 1000 meters up to give us a commanding view of Central Anatolia’s canvas.  We would drift through valleys and canyons gliding between fairy chimneys with the silence being occasionally interrupted by the sound of massive flames erupting from the burner.  We couldn’t stop taking pictures.  It was a surreal experience and definitely one of the highlights of our trip so far.

Another day we rented a POS (that stands for piece of crap, mom) 100 cc Peugeot scooter to check out the immediate region surrounding Goreme.  I say POS because the thing totally died on me on a steep downhill section, so we had to ride it out without a functioning engine for about 500 metres before I could finally stop on some level ground and restart it.  Also when I had the thing on full throttle at inclines of about 10 degrees, the fastest Di and I could go was about 40 km/h.  That day was still fun though, seeing up close what we were seeing from a far in the balloon.  The most impressive sight was the Goreme Open Air Museum, which is deservingly the star attraction in this area.  Here Christian Monks carved cave churches into this otherworldly landscape between 900 and 1200 AD.  Some of the frescoes inside these cave churches are still in remarkable condition.  Three theologians known as the Cappadocians (St. Basil, St. Gregory and another St. Gregory) contributed greatly to Christian doctrine and the development of monasticism here.  So apart from its natural beauty, there is interesting history in Cappadocia as well.

On the last day we booked a tour to visit the farther areas (where a scooter would not be able to make it) and we checked out the Ihlara valley and an extraordinary underground city named Derinkuyu.  The city was made for the purpose of hiding from enemies and was remarkable.  The tour was fun as we had a good group of people and an excellent, informative guide.  There were a couple younger girls from Hong Kong there, and when I asked them in Cantonese to help us take a picture, they started to freak out and scream and hug each other in excitement.  I thought this reaction was due to the fact that I’m ridiculously good looking, but really they were just excited because they hadn’t heard Cantonese in over 3 weeks.  I guess their reaction could have been worse (like the “get away from me creep!” response that I’m more accustomed to) so I won’t complain.

The hotel/pension we were staying at was completely filled with Canadians, Australians and a couple of American students studying Arabic in Jordan on an exchange program.  We had a great group which resulted in some pretty good conversations about travel and life-experiences.  I mostly ended up talking to the Americans, and I found myself envying how impressive they were at the age of 21.  They had an amazing grasp on politics and Middle Eastern issues, and a drive to foster their intellectual growth while making the world a better place.  Long discussions about health care, foreign policy and economics didn’t phase them at all.  And if you’re envisioning a couple geeks you’d be dead wrong; the guy looked and talked like a ski bum out of Whistler with scruffy hair and an 80’s “Idaho potatoes are best” sweatshirt on, the girl (who had the sweet girl-next-door look) was confident and her obvious intelligence commanded your attention as she talked, but she was in no way overbearing.  When I was in third year at UBC I’m pretty sure that most of my conversations were still about girls and cars.  And it’s not like I wasn’t well travelled as I was able to backpack a region of the world every summer.  I’m happy to have met them and curious to see where they’ll be in 10 years.

After Cappadocia, our options were to either keep heading east to Mt Nemrut or to head south into Syria.  We finally decided that after being in Turkey for over 3 weeks, we really should head to Syria as we only have about a month and a half left to cover 4 countries before meeting my sister on July 4 in Cairo.  So we took a bus to Gaziantep (very interesting ride, will post about it later) and spent the day here.  We’ll be heading to Syria tomorrow.  I heard the border crossing is not fun, so hopefully we’ll get through in less time than it took to get into Libya.  Time to re-enter the Arab world, insha allah.

We enjoyed Greece so much we almost didn’t want to leave Rhodes.  It was the first time in our trip that we felt we weren’t ready to move on.  But we purchased the tickets back to Turkey the day before already so we reluctantly hopped onto the fast ferry from Rhodes to Fethiye.  However once we arrived on Turkish soil we were glad to be back as the familiarity was comforting.

As soon as we checked into our guest house in Fethiye, the owner Omar kindly made us cai (delicious Turkish tea which we’re quite accustomed to having) and helped us book a Blue Cruise.  The Blue Cruise is a 4-day 3-night cruise on a gullet (traditional wooden yacht) between Fethiye and Olympos.  It’s a very popular cruise apparently, as we found out they were all fully booked and the next available one was 4 days later.  Since we spent a few extra days in Greece already, we couldn’t wait for that long.  Omar was very helpful and suggested for us to join the Olympos to Fethiye (going in the reverse direction) one instead as there was an opening for the cruise starting the next day.  We agreed.

The first morning we took a 3 hour bus from Fethiye to Demre (close to Olympos where the boats docked) where we joined 7 other travelers and began our sailing adventure on the Mediterranean Sea.  Our captain was a cool looking 25 year old boy, our cook was his childhood best friend, and the other crew member was the captain’s dad.  The passengers were a good mix of people from all 6 continents of the world (if Eug and I did double duty of representing Asia and North America); one British couple, one Brazilian couple, one Australian lady, two South African ladies, and us.  Our first stop was a small secluded bay where we jumped into the beautiful turquoise waters for a swim.  It was our first time ever swimming in the Mediterranean Sea!  We then visited a cave and cruised over the Sunken City of Kekova.  At the end of the day, we docked by a small fishing village Kalekoy where we stayed for the rest of the night. 

Our captain told us there would be a ‘typhoon’ approaching the second day so we wouldn’t be able to sail very far.  It did get pretty windy but it was nothing like the typhoons in Asia.  He did his best to sail against the winds for an hour towards the next town Kas, but the journey turned into a major rollercoaster ride against the big waves.  All of a sudden, the front sail unravelled (though we were on a sailboat the sails were never raised) due to the heavy wind and the boat started to veer towards the rocks.  Our captain quickly ran out to grab the cord of the sail but as he was trying to keep it from unravelling anymore he was being thrown around like a rag doll, for a moment it looked like he was going to be blown off the boat.  Eug was having a great time and wanted to video tape the ride until that point, when everyone actually started to get nervous.  The captain was frantically shouting orders at the 2 other crew (his BFF and dad) while the rest of us didn’t know if we should help, stare, or abandon ship.  After about 3 intense minutes (2 guys trying to tie up a sail in strong winds, one deckhand being yelled at to steer the boat between large rocks on either side) the captain grabbed a knife and cut the rope that was holding up the sail and the entire sail came loose, ending the tension.  We ended up turning back towards the fishing village and spent another night there.  One of the passengers was in tears while another one said she saw her life flash before her eyes.  After we docked back in the harbour and people calmed down, our cook made a delicious barbeque dinner which we washed down with Raki.  What a day!

I forgot to mention that right before this all happened, I think I got stung by a bee on my upper right lip.  Immediately it started to swell.  I asked Eug if there was something wrong as I noticed my lip getting numb.  At first he said it was nothing and kind of laughed, the usual.  However, I knew something was up when about 2 minutes later he took another look and then sprinted down to the cabin in the midst of this windstorm.  That’s when I started to get worried.  Luckily he was able to get some anti-histamines and it resolved the swelling. He later told me he wished he could have taken a picture as he said my lip was almost swollen to the point of blocking out my right nostril.  He didn’t want to worry me though so he kept quiet (and told another passenger to do the same).  So while other passengers were having fantasies of the Titanic sinking, I was worried about my asymmetrical face.     

We started sailing at 4am the next day to get to Kas before the wind picked up again.  The ride started out rather smoothly and but progressively got choppier.  What was worrisome was that we were the only boats out on the water.  Thankfully we made it to Kas!  Kas is a small fishing, yachting, and tourist town that was founded by the Lycians.  We walked around this cute little town for a bit and grabbed a real coffee (as opposed to the ever popular Nescafe in Turkey).  Our captain showed us a small Roman theatre and the Lycian rock tombs and took us to a small pebble beach.  Later that night we all went to a pub where the captain and the chef shared many of their fun cruise stories with us (especially ones relating to fawning female guests).  The last day we dropped by Butterfly Valley, a canyon that hosts many different kinds of butterflies and moths when the season is right, and Oludeniz (Blue Lagoon), one of the most photographed beaches on the Mediterranean.  The colour of the ocean water here was absolutely breathtaking.  It is also regarded as one of the best places in the world for paragliding due to its unique panoramic views.  We saw the bay from our boat and it was so beautiful that we decided to stay in town for the night after we docked.  We were very disappointed to find out that this incredible beach was completely spoiled by restaurants and pubs blasting Kenny G and Celine Dion (we heard My Heart Will Go On no less than 5 times) at dinnertime.  We were hoping for some calm after dinner, but the music then turned into blaring techno (again?!) for all the beach party goers.  There were even dudes on the roofs swinging flames.  What a shame.

Despite the windstorm that put us behind schedule, we had an incredible time on the cruise.  Every meal was delicious and the dishes were never repeated.  There was no doubt that our young captain knew exactly what he was doing.  Us passengers bonded really well and we all shared an unforgettable 4-day journey together.            

We really liked Istanbul, but it was time to leave as the one week we stayed could have easily turned into two, and we still had so much of Turkey to see.  So we took the ferry across the sea of Marmara to Bandirma, and from there we caught a train to Selcuk.  If you’re into Christian history, Selcuk provides some interesting sites.  The Basilica of St John, just 5 minutes from the heart of town is the supposed resting place of St John the Evangelist.  There is also a house where the Virgin Mary lived towards the end of her life.  We didn’t visit the Virgin Mary site but the Basilica was pretty interesting.  There were a few American Christian tour groups there but the site is quite large so it wasn’t that busy.  The main reason people come to Selcuk though is to see Ephesus, the best preserved Roman city in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Ephesus is pretty large, with the entrance and the exit approximately 3 kms apart.  We, unfortunately, went at the wrong time.  3 cruise ships were in town that day, and we entered Ephesus when the cruisers did.  As you can see in the picture above, there were so many people that you couldn’t even move.  Definitely frustrating, it made it impossible to enjoy the ruins.  So Di and I found a little sanctuary in the shade behind the Library of Celsus (the 2 story building at the centre-left of the picture) and waited there until the crowds dissipated.  2 hours later, we pretty much had Ephesus to ourselves.  The ruins are pretty cool, but I think we’ve become ‘Roman ruins snobs’ because the ones in Libya were a lot more impressive to us.  All the other tourists found it amazing though, and I’m sure we would have as well if we hadn’t been to so many other ruins in the past 2 months.

After a couple days in Selcuk, we decided to pick a town on the Aegean Sea to chill at for a few days.  After reading the books we picked Bodrum since it seemed to be the prettiest and a little more laid-back than the other ones on the coast.  The cities’ laws restrict building height, which leaves the town looking pretty picturesque as all the structures are white and uniform.  The bay Bodrum is situated around is truly gorgeous as well.  However, the positives for us ended there as we were looking for a nice, peaceful place.  We got something entirely different instead.  We should have known when there were signs for “Halikarnas – The Best night club in the World” posted all over town.  The club boasts a capacity of 5000, so not exactly the kind of place you’d typically find in a quiet beach town. A lot of the restaurants were blaring techno, and on the main drag the shop-keepers, most wearing fake Ed hardy shirts, were frankly annoying (and that amazingly had nothing to do with the fake or the Ed hardy!).  I hate when you have to walk the long way home because you want to avoid the guys you passed by earlier, but we had to do that here a few times.  You have to be in the right mind set to enjoy a place like this, and we just wanted to relax and enjoy the ocean.  Techno is not conducive to that for me.

We did have a good conversation with the owner of a sandwich shop where we had lunch.  He had been living in Bodrum since 1981, and as we were the only ones in his place he chatted with us about the changes tourism has brought.  At the end of the conversation Di asked him if he thought the changes were good or bad, and after a bit of hesitation he said bad.  He understands it has brought more money, and he gets to meet people from all over, but apart from that he feels there have only been negatives.  He misses the strong community of the quiet, safe, friendly fishing village it once was.  So afterwards Di and I tried to compile a list of idyllic beach towns we’ve been to in the past 2 years that haven’t been too affected by tourism yet and we’ll check back on this list in 10 years (if we can remember).  Here it is: Playa Guiones in Costa Rica, Mui Ne in Vietnam, The Gili islands in Bali, and El Nido Town, Palawan in the Phillipines.

Anyways, since Bodrum is supposed to be the most laid-back of the Aegean beach towns we’ve decided to not go to any others.  It’s low season right now but high season will be starting soon (in a couple weeks), so we can only expect places to get even busier.  Because of that we’ve decided to change our itinerary.  We’re actually pretty excited about it, and we’ll tell you about how it went in a few days.

I haven’t written a post about food since Seville, but I think Istanbul really deserves one.  The food here has been spectacular.  Because we don’t get much Turkish variety back home, I incorrectly assumed that Turkish food was mostly meat on a metal stick over fire (kebaps) or meat on a rotating stick (doner).  Thankfully, I was wrong.

We checked the websites www.chowhound.com and www.istanbuleats.com to pick our restaurants, according to whatever area we were going to that day.  The best reviewed restaurants ended up being in close proximity to where we were living.  Score.  I’ll start with my review of the kebaps.  After eating the ones here, I realized I’ve been eating a bastardized version back home.  The many varieties (chicken, lamb, beef, spicy minced, etc etc) are all amazing.  A little crispy on the outside, spiced perfectly with a slight hint of the hot coals they’re cooked over, moist on the inside and full of flavour; basically the best meat on a stick I’ve ever had.  Meze appetizers are also a wonderful way to start your meal.  They’re small dishes (usually cold) that offer a surprising array of tastes and textures.  The salads, yogurts, cheeses, and dips were all great.   Their eggplant (or aubergine as they call it here) concoctions though, are something else.  Though I like eggplant, I’d never go out of my way to get some.  Istanbul has changed that, as we actually returned to a restaurant just to get their roasted eggplant dish again. 

All this food goes well with the Turkish drink of choice, Raki.  It’s a clear aniseed alcohol that when mixed with water turns milky like calpis.  The first restaurant I tried it at (also where I had the best kebaps) was called Zubeyir.  Everyone else at this packed joint was drinking Raki so I ordered a small bottle.  The waiter looked at me and said in his broken English that it would be too much for me and we would need more people to share it like the other tables.  The 16 year old (or more like the 16-29 year old) in me replied “No it should be fine”.  3 happy hours later, I finished that bottle.  I felt like high-fiving the waiter and yelling “Beeyaaah” (Dave Chapelle style) immediately after I emptied the last glass, however he, or anyone for that matter, was nowhere to be found.  We were the last customers in the joint, but at least I finished my Raki.

The street food on offer is delicious as well.  The doners, fish wraps, Turkish pizzas (pides), borek (flaky pastry stuffed with meat or cheese), the list goes on and on.  We were basically eating constantly and searching for restaurants became more important than finding the must-see sites (those were easy to find).  Oh we also had the Turkish baked potato called kumpir.  I used to think a baked potato with sour cream, chives and bacon bits was fully loaded.  Fully loaded potato now has a totally different meaning to me.  The kumpir here has butter, cheese, and about 10 (not exaggerating) other toppings.  Stuff like corn, hotdog, cabbage, peas, olives, durum, ketchup, mayo, I can’t even remember what else.  The final size of this potato was bigger than Di’s head (that’s not saying much cuz her head is size mini, we just bought her a hat at a children’s store) and it took us a good hour to eat one between the 2 of us.  Amazingly, the locals were inhaling one each in about 8 minutes.  We washed the potato down with an equally sized waffle stuffed with fruit, nuts and chocolate sauce.  This has been having a detrimental effect on my rippling 8 pack, but I guess I can deal with that later.

I must say I was slightly disappointed by Turkish coffee (even though we supposedly went to the best place called Mandabatmaz), and I reverted back to Starbucks.  Their desserts like their ice cream, baklava, and Turkish delight didn’t really do it for me either but I think we’ll be in Turkey for at least another week if not 2 so maybe I’ll change my mind.

Either way, don’t let that last paragraph deter you from coming to Istanbul to eat.  The food culture is great here, and I’m glad my ignorance to Turkish cuisine has been put in its place.  

We flew from Cairo to Istanbul via Turkish Air.  It was only a 2.5 hour flight but it was awesome.  Not only did we get drink service, wine was also free, and we got a full meal (pretty tasty too for airplane food) and snacks at the end too!  Air Canada should be ashamed, tsk tsk tsk.

After moving around from place to place for short stays in the past 2 months, we were feeling a bit tired so we decided to stay in Istanbul for one full week in a furnished rental apartment.  The last time we stayed in a rental apartment was in Seville, which also means that the last time we had a washer was almost 2 months ago!  Yes, we have been hand washing our laundry for almost 2 months and trust me, it is not fun at all.  We were so happy to have a washer again we did 3 loads of laundry the first day.

The apartment we stayed at was in a perfect location in an area called Beyoglu (thanks to Brooks for his suggestion).  Beyoglu is across the bridge from Sultanahmet where most of the main sights are.  We were within walking distance to the attractions without the crowds of tourists.  We were close to the Galata tower and less than 50 metres away from the most famous thoroughfare of modern Turkey – Istiklal Caddesi.  Eug met a Turkish guy at George before our trip and when he found out we were going to visit Istanbul he told Eug about Istiklal street and that ‘Istiklal is like Robson but way cooler’.  He was absolutely right.  The street is packed with locals every day and night.  It has shops, embassies, churches, movie theatres, restaurants, bars, street food vendors, a fish market, street performers, and a tram that runs up and down the boulevard.  There was so much to explore here that we stayed around the area for 2 days before crossing the Galata bridge to visit the main sights.  We also had to run around between the Syrian and Canadian embassy a few times to replace our Syria visa the first 2 days and we ended up discovering another nice area Nisantasi where there are more embassies and some upscale stores, it almost felt like Paris.  It was really nice just to be in a modern city again.

We went to Sultanahmet the next day and checked out Topkapi Palace first.  Ottoman sultans lived in this palace until the 19^th century.  The guide book said the must sees here are the Harem and the Treasury.  Oh I did ‘wow’ at the ridiculously huge 86 carat diamond in one of the Treasury rooms.  Eug said he’d buy my one that was 860 times smaller.  I’m a lucky girl.  And seriously, do you really need a Quran casing made out of gold and covered with emeralds and diamonds?  I guess I don’t understand since I’m not a sultan.  Though Eug thought the Harem, or maybe more the thought of it, was pretty awesome, we both found the Privy Chamber to be the most interesting.  The Privy Chamber houses what are considered to be the most sacred relics of the Muslim world.  It had an interesting collection such as a small strand of the prophet Mohammed’s beard, bowl, turban, Moses’ walking stick etc.  It also had the Muslim interpretation of the bible stories.  Neither one of us is religious, but we have been asked numerous times already if we believe in God on this trip.  It’s especially fun for me to hear what Eug has to reply to whoever asks us the question (evil laugh).  It definitely raised our curiosity and interest and we both agree we wouldn’t mind reading more about it in the future.  We moved onto Aya Sofya after.  From the outside, this religious building (church first under the Romans, mosque later under the Muslims) didn’t look as impressive as what the book described – one of the world’s most glorious buildings.  But once we walked in, we couldn’t stop staring at the incredible dome hovering above our heads.  The architecture was magnificent, as were some of the mosaics.  The history of the building was extremely interesting as well.   We then went to the Blue Mosque.  It was simply breathtaking.  There’s something about the Turkish Mosques, especially the Blue Mosque that you can’t really describe.  They look much more serene and graceful than the other churches and mosques we’ve seen so far.  You just really appreciate looking at it and you can take pictures from every angle and not get tired of it.  The last sight we visited was the Hippodrome.  It’s an open area in front of the Blue Mosque where chariot races took place.  There’s a stolen (er… I mean transported) obelisk from Karnak temple in Egypt here.

We also visited the Basilica Cistern, the Grand Bazaar, and checked out another fish market in the Kumkapi area.  The Basilica Cistern is this underground reservoir built in 532 AD to hold up to 80000 cubic metres of water.  We walked by it not thinking much of it, but luckily we decided to go in because we really liked it in there.  It was like a dark cave supported by Roman columns with eerie lighting.  What made it even more memorable was just outside of it I got pooped on by a stupid pigeon!  Obviously Eug thought it was hilarious and stood there laughing instead of cleaning it off me.  Thankfully it was just a small amount that landed on my shoulder and he wiped it off after he regained his composure.  See, I am a lucky girl!  On another day we took a cruise up the Bosphorus, a body of water that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and is the dividing line between Europe and Asia.  The sights are impressive on either side, and we got off at the last stop on the European side and took a bus back to the centre of town stopping at cute suburb Ortakoy on the way back.

There are tons of places to visit in Istanbul.  One week may not be enough for those who want to see everything.  There is also a lot of food to try; I wish I had an extra stomach to taste them all.  We thoroughly enjoyed Istanbul and will definitely come back again.  This time of year is perfect as well as it’s been nothing but blue skies and warm weather all week.  Life is good.