Istanbul: From Asia to Europe all in one day

We are currently running on maybe 5 hours of sleep over the last 72 hours and are likely to add only a couple more to that total over the next 24 hours. As such, if this entry makes little sense, please accept my apologies.

We left Bergama on the 10 hour night bus to Istanbul. As comfortable as these buses are, there is only so much sleep you can get in such a position. It is therefore not surprising that when we arrived in Istanbul at 6am we were quite exhausted. However, we somehow managed to find our way to the center and to track down the meeting point for our pickup by Gokhen, our next Couchsurfing host.

In the past, whenever I’ve referred to our Couchsurfing experiences, I’ve generally kept it quite brief, especially when discussing our hosts. However, I think this time round a bit more detail is necessary. Gokhen is a Human Rights lawyer in Istanbul. He has completed his masters and is now working on his PhD while practicing full time. He informed us prior to our arrival that he lives relatively near the old town of Istanbul. Maybe I should have learned by now not to have any expectations, or rather to expect the unexpected when traveling through the Middle East as well as most other places. However, having scanned through a number of Couchsurfing profiles, seen relatively roomy apartments etc, I had some kind of standard in mind when I thought of a lawyer hosting us. That is not to say that I expected luxury or felt cheated by the lack of it. What I’m getting at is that what greeted us was the complete unexpected.

Gokhan’s flat was a very small two bedroom place that had seen better days. Officially there were at least 5 guys sharing the flat, sleeping 2 or 3 to a room on mattresses spread on the floor. Unofficially the rotation of tenants at times was unpredictable, often with more than 6 people sleeping there (that is excluding any Couchsurfers). Furniture was comprised of several mattresses, two couches in the little living room, a table, a tiny TV, several laptops and some hangers for clothes that hang in various spots across the flat. The toilet was a traditional Arabic style toilet and from the kitchen window you could shake hands with the neighbor in the building across from you (beneficial if you ran out of tomatoes while cooking pasta etc.).

Various reasons came to mind for such living arrangements: rent might be extremely high in Istanbul; there might be a shortage of flats; this was a temporary arrangement. All three of these proved to be false. Rent for the flat was approximately 500 TL or 250 Euro a month; apparently a flat double the size could easily be obtained for the same price in a similar area; and the living arrangement had been in existence for a number of years. This was simply the way they chose to live.

We were welcomed into these small quarters; a few of the tenants were woken up and told to move to the other room so that we could have somewhere to change; and we were informed that the sleeping arrangements would be sorted out in the evening.

After a quick breakfast we headed out onto town first towards the Blue Mosque, where through the massive crowds of tourists we managed to catch some glimpses of the gorgeous interior of this building. However, we decided to pass on the massive lineup to the Aya Sofya and instead visited the fantastic Basilica Cistern – an underground chamber 65 meters wide and 143 meters long and supported by 336 columns arranged in 12 rows. It once held 80,000 cubic meters of water. Now there are only several inches of water in the cistern, but the atmospheric lighting and the occasional dripping of the water make this a truly memorable place.

From there it was off to lunch, followed by some Turkish tea, and an excursion to the Great Bazaar where I got yelled at by a shop attendant for talking too much and meddling in other people’s affairs (as I haggled for a good price for Julita and tried to do the same for Paulina). He told me to stay out of it and having gotten mad, refused to lower the price any further.

We then returned to Sultanahmet Square and realizing that there was no longer a lineup to Aya Sofya, decided to go in. For me, this 1500+ year old building that used to be a Christian Basilica and then was converted into a Mosque seemed to be missing its identity. The interior was in a state of great disrepair with renovations ongoing but to little effect. Some of the Christian mosaics were visible as were most of the Muslim decorations that had been added, but all of it lacked luster and failed to make an impression. What did, however, make an impression was the giant dome which seemed to float unsupported over the massive center chamber. The architectural design of this structure was truly amazing.

A side note: all of these sights have security checks that you go through. The last time we had made ourselves sandwiches, Paulina had pulled out her knife, put it into her day pack and completely forgotten about it. As we went through the security check to the Aya Sofya they noticed the knife on the x-ray machine and told Paulina to remove it from her bag. After fiddling with it for a while the security guard asked us where we were from, and upon hearing that we were from Canada, handed the knife back to Paulina saying that Canada is good and that it’s no problem. Go figure. I wonder if he would have been as generous if he knew we were also Polish citizens.

From there we headed towards the water, rounding the Golden Horn and strolling along the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus Strait until we reached the Galata Bridge. From there it was up the hill, all the way down Istiklal Caddesi, Modern Istanbul’s most pretentious street, filled not only with the best brandname stores, but also an endless array of restaurants, bars, clubs and embassies. By 8:30pm we had finally made it to Taksim Square where we were to meet our Couchsurfing entourage. Unfortunately plans had changed, they had decided to sleep and we had to continue our exhausted march back down Istiklal Caddesi until we got to Gokhan’s office.

There we finally were given the opportunity to have dinner and eventually dragged out for some drinks on what must have been the 7th floor of a restaurant. The stairs were never-ending. We finally made it back home at around 2am at which point we were advised that Paulina and I would be sleeping on the balcony (not a large balcony – barely long and wide enough for a single mattress). At 5:30am the alarm rang and we were up on our feet again to see the sunrise over the Blue Mosque.

As exhausted as we were, this proved to be a wise decision. The view was stunning and the lack of crowds was amazing. We went back to the Blue Mosque and aside for the janitor vacuuming the carpets, had the mosque to ourselves. Next on our list was the Topkapi Palace where the highlights must have been the Topkapi dagger with its giant emeralds encrusted in the hilt, the 48kg solid gold candlesticks, each encrusted with thousands of diamonds, as well as the Spoonmaker’s Diamond, an 86 cerate rock that had been found in the dump and bought by a street peddler for three spoons (it’s the 5th largest diamond in the world).

The Place was followed by a visit to the spice bazaar, some haggling for jewelry with an elder Turk who spoke a beautifully accented Polish and was of the opinion that Polish and Russian girls were the most beautiful in the world. He also spoke fluent German and English as well as being able to communicate in Russian, Hungarian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Spanish and a couple other languages.

By this point it was already 4pm. It took us nearly an hour to make it back to the apartment and the plan was to quickly pick up (reserve) our bus tickets to Bulgaria and swing by a Haman (Turkish bath) prior to heading out to the bus station for 7:30pm. Well, everything seemed to take much longer than expected. By the time we got our tickets we were dripping wet from sweat (after having carried all our packs in the 32 degree weather), desperately needing one of those scrubs offered up in the Haman, but having absolutely no time to do so. Instead, still soaked, we stocked up on some incredibly delicious Balaclava, boarded the tram, then transferred to the metro and headed to catch our next 10 hour bus that would take us into Europe proper.

We are scheduled to arrive in Burgas early in the morning and from there plan to take a minibus for another hour or so to Sozopol. Hopefully there we will be able to rest up a bit.

PS: And rest we desperately needed. Having commenced our commute to Sozopol at around 4pm in Istanbul with a 1.5 hour march through the blazing hot streets, the last half hour with all our gear, followed by local transit for another hour, we finally got on the bus at around 7:30pm. Exhausted, we started to fall asleep around 10:00pm only to be woken up for a half hour stop at 10:30pm. We got back on the bus at 11pm and an hour or so later started to fall asleep (as opposed to just dozing), but were again woken up at 1am for all the border formalities. The same situation repeated itself with a stop at 2:30am and at 4am when we were really desperate for some rest, we arrived in Burgas. There were no ongoing buses to Sozopol nor was anything open at that ungodly hour. We grabbed some benches in the park, pulled out our sleeping bags, stretched out and decided to nap for a couple hours. I got up just before 6am, found a nice bakery and was informed that a bus would be departing for Sozopol in less than 10 minutes. By 6:45am we were in Sozopol, a town whose official population is 4900. However, on a Saturday morning at 7am in the offseason the population is likely closer to 20. We could not find a single hotel reception that was open despite having wondered through the “new” and “old” part of town twice. Eventually at around 8am I tracked down a couple eating breakfast in one of the hotels and managed to secure a room where we all passed out.