Istanbul

Post 5 of . . . Note: Best to begin with Post 1 of . . . and move forward

What with the Golden Horn, the Sea of Marmara, the Strait of Bosphorus connecting the Marmara to the Black Sea, and the city straddling the two continents--Europe and Asia--more than any other place, it’s important to keep a map in Istanbul (old Constantinople) handy. On the second day, we did, as, on the first day, we spent most of our time in the company of our tour guide Sait, a short, soft-spoken yet feisty, baby-faced fellow.

Did the guide's company stop one of us from getting lost? NO! At Topkapi palace, the crowds were maddening, there was a lot to cover, and we had very limited time. We were supposed to get back with the group at 11:45 a.m. B was engrossed in his photo shoots of the palace, and I decided to let him follow me than lingering with him, and so I ran back to the center of the Ottoman Empire marked by a football-sized rock on the ground to meet up with my group. It was 11:50 and it was too late. I got hold of another tour guide (no. 26) and asked him if he had seen tour guide number 10 anywhere. All the guides carry an orange umbrella with their number displayed on it. It was a rainy day (next day our last day in Istanbul also it rained--the one true bummer on this trip). I wondered how they displayed their number when it did not rain.

Number 26, who looked more European (?Greek ancestors possibly?) than Turkish, spoke English with an accent I couldn’t place, and said that he’d take me to the front of the palace where someone who helps lost people will help me. Lost people helper, a slightly built fellow with an orange vest, didn’t speak English, but the panic in my voice communicated to him all that needed to be communicated. Of course, number 26 also translated my words to the orange vest guy and I was directed to go to the fountain outside the palace which is where Sait supposedly was waiting for me and B. I ran like mad, in no time, connecting up with Sait. I was relieved to see him. Seeing that B was not with me he called his connections inside the palace and described B to them. I knew only a miracle could materialize B in a timely way. Sait himself went back inside but soon returned without B. He assured me that the security folks inside would find B and eventually bring him back to us. I was tempted to get out and wait for B but folks on the bus advised against this. Except for one woman, the rest were all very sympathetic to my situation. Sait asked the driver to get going. At this point, I requested him to leave B’s name with the security, which he resisted. I couldn’t understand this. I insisted and he finally did. It didn't look like Turks have a paging system. The bus began to roll and one of the fellow tourists told me hat I could always find another husband in Istanbul and another one added that by now B probably had another wife and how lucky for her.

Our next stop was the famous Grand Bazaar. Here, I chose to stay with Sait while the fellow tourists went shopping. Sait and I walked a block or so and met up with a woman in an orange vest at a desk on the wide sidewalk outside a corner coffee shop. She spoke no English but was very friendly. She had sheaves of paper on her desktop and was going over some kind of a list. I kind of figured out that all the orange vested men and women were part of an efficient Turkish Tourism department network. We had to wait quite a while before B rejoined us. I kept saying thank you to the woman, as she seemed like the head honcho in that particular hub. She seeemd to be directing all the tourist-related activities over an intercom and she was delighted to see B and I get back together as if we were two long-lost lovers.

Having lost quite a bit of time (I actually felt guilty about having inconvenienced others on the bus), B and I spent very little time at the Bazaar but still enough time to be blown away by the glitter and the shimmer of the place. I did feel that this is what heaven must be like. It was that fairy tale-like. Next morning, when we had a map with us, before we resumed the tour again in the afternoon, I realized that all the places we went to on the tour were walking distance from the ship. But next day, the Bazaar was closed, though the famous spice market was open and B and I visited it for the second time the next morning on our own when we decided to cross the Galata Bridge with its neatly laid-out restaurants on its lower level parapets across the Golden Horn. They all had outdoor seating as well, one of them sporting bean bag seats with graphics and logos of many American consumer product companies like Coca Cola and others.

Visiting these markets is one thing but actual shopping could be challenging, as one, at least in the case of big-ticket items, never knows what’s fake, what’s genuine, what’s the right price and what’s overly inflated. A tourist’s ignorance and limited time are a deadly combination. So we just bought some packed Turkish Delight (unpacked loose pieces are not allowed onboard, which we did get to taste; the quality varies from shop to shop) and a few souvenirs for friends. Though I told B that we got Turkish Delight, probably the better export quality, in New York and we ourselves have bought it several times, he insisted on carrying an "authentic" one from Turkey for his office folks.

I try to pack light these days. So I try to keep away from anything that weighs more than a feather although I almost got bamboozled into buying an attractive 20-pound runner from a bunch of smooth-talking salesmen in a carpet showroom where refreshments flowed and stunning carpets almost blinded you. Of course, trying to be overly careful is a silly goal while on a trip. Even when I go to the next state, or even county, I try to buy something that is indigenous, so standing in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul and not buying something local might be the height of idiocy, but still we kept our shopping to the minimum.

When we returned to New York and B got to taste the delights he reported that there were hardly any nuts in them. The box itself sported nuts galore and it also claimed to have nuts in the delights. The delights I buy in New York are laden with nuts and taste amazing. It’s a common saying by New Yorkers that if you don’t find something in New York, it probably doesn’t exist anywhere. To this, I add that, probably, you don’t need such a thing.

Quickening the pace of my blog, on the tour, in addition to the above mentioned places, we saw the other usual must-see tourist spots, namely, the amazing Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, and the Hippodrome, where just a handful of ruins graces the spot that used to feature chariot races and other entertainment during the Roman times. So, one really has to use one's imagination to visualize what existed here at one time—the thundering hoofs of he horses and the roaring crowds. For some reason, I saw many stray cats in Istanbul.

I didn’t want the 85-minute, 10-mile up-and-down boat ride on the Bosphorus to ever end. Everything around me seemed perfect even as I kept thinking how much more beautiful the sights would have been had the sun too had made its appearance that day. So I just imagined a sun-drenched fairyland. The strait between Europe and Asia with its two bridges—the Bosphorus and the Fatih (two more engineering marvels) is a massive sweep yet all the landmarks on the both banks: the city's pagan, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman history, the majestic palaces, the endless mosques, the commanding minarets, the Rumeli Hisari fortress, the layered homes, the Silimeya Barracks that houses Florence Nightingales' home during the Crimean War, all look as if they are at an arm's length.

During the tour, one thing that irritated me a bit was some fellow tourists’ trying to learn all about Islam from Sait. I think this irritated Sait too at one point. He gently suggested that we read the Koran so we’d understand why at Hagia Sophia still so many of the Christian symbols were left in tact.

On the second day, we also saw the mind-boggling, underground cistern a.k.a the Basilica Cistern (http://www.istanbultravelguide.net/undergroundcistern.htm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_Cistern). No wonder that to this day, we revere Roman engineering.

On the first night, we also went to a restaurant in Taksim Square where food and entertainment in the form of live orchestra (I loved the music; a lot of it was melancholy and I could trace Indian raagaas in it), belly dancing by female bodies that defied all laws of physics, acrobatics by three young men, regional folk dancing (?Karsilamas) by trained men and women in local costumes and crooning by a middle-aged man who was probably British or some other Western European nationality defined the evening. The crooner "thrilled" the audience by singing a few lines of hit songs from countries of almost all the audience members. The U.S. won out with New York, New York and India by the badly sung "Aawaara Hoon," an old Bollywood hit

There was considerable audience participation, whereby, toward the end, a middle-aged Japanese male sang Sakura, Sakura (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakura_Sakura) with much soul. A couple of men in the audience joined a belly dancer on the stage and following instructions by the pro on stage, wiggled their bellies and their non-existent boobs with much gusto. At the very end, a lot more men and women, upon their urging, joined the folk dancers.
People could not get enough photos of the fare. We had forgot our camera, which allowed us to enjoy the evening and the company at our table more fully.

The dessert sekerpare (my first time tasting this) at the end of a four-course meal was amazing. Next day was at sea when, once again, we could enjoy all that a luxury ship offers. My personal first stop the next morning was the gym. How else could I justify eating all those desserts
onboard?

Onward to Athens. I have already written about it. So I may skip to Palermo, our last stop.

Ciao!