Retrospective of Turkey and the Tour I Shouldn't Have Taken

From the terrace of the hotel, I can see a 24"-wide piece of the Bosphorus through the dulled plexiglass enclosure.  The heat of the day that's already rising brings a haze to the horizon, so I'm really only surmising what I can see is the Bosphorus because there's a stick-figure bridge and I know the water is in that direction.  


The cobblestone street that passes the front of the hotel isn't wide, but it's a major thoroughfare for cars, taxis, large and small tour buses, and delivery trucks.  One interesting custom here is taxi drivers beep their horns once or twice to let drivers around the corner know they're coming.  Very wise.  One driver told me, "You have to be crazy to drive in Istanbul."


In the four days I've been here, I don't like it better than I did when I began our acquaintance, but I've made peace with it.  I'm managing my expectations, carrying loose coins in a pocket to dole out to beggars, and realizing I've seen too little of this city to make an across-the-board judgment.  I've stopped thinking that western-looking people will speak much, if any, English.  I don't startle when a taxi zooms past within a foot of me.  And I've become comfortable with walking by merchants and restaurateurs without a sideways glance (though sometimes I deign to give them the internationally-recognized "stop" sign language, as in "talk to the hand").


Turkey has given me the most intense and meaningful (and expensive) experiences of my journey ("trip" is too inconsequential a word).  Since I've not been able to write about Day Whatever - I've lost track - and since the tour to Bursa is the story that best illustrates the distinction between journey and trip, I'll tell it here.


This is the tour I took in response to the experience the day before at Topkapi Palace.  This is the tour I took when I realized I'd had a sufficient amount of coordinating sightseeing with Lucy and Valentina.  This is the tour I took when I should have been packing to fly home.  


So...Topkapi Palace, home of the sultans and harems of the Ottoman Empire, another FAMOUS PLACE (well, I had heard of it).  After Lucy, Valentina, and I had breakfast at the hotel, and I discovered the sad fact that I had lost my sunglasses (including the pouch they were in), my day was off to a not good start.  I tried deep breathing and being thankful the loss happened near the end of the "trip," but the day was doomed.  Since I had loaned Lucy the 200 TL (Turkish Lira), I needed to find a cash machine, so we went in search of one.  There were several in a row near the Blue Mosque and lines of tourists at each one.  


If you recall from the blog that included my flight from Athens to Istanbul, I sat next to an archeologist from U of KY.  Well, in the line next to mine, there he was!  Amazing to see someone I "knew" of all the places we could be in Istanbul, and he's not even staying in Sultanahmet.  He asked me if I like Istanbul, and I said, with no tact whatsoever, "No.  It's overwhelming and confusing and I've come across only two friendly people."  He said that he was very sorry to hear that, and the Turkish friend he was staying with told me that it's different outside Sultanahmet.  I shrugged, said goodbye to John (said archeologist), and L, V, and I walked on to Topkapi to join 100,000 hot, irritable, claustrophobic tourists pushing and shoving their small children and strollers toward the narrow gateway and then through a narrower, one-lane security scanner/turnstile to enter the palace grounds.   


As if that weren't enough, we found out we had to buy tickets before we went through this process, so we had to do an imitation of salmon swimming upstream to get them.
It wasn't just the heat that was getting to me.  My water bottle was empty and my throat was parched.  The palace isn't set up like a museum we're all used to; for those of you who have experienced Night in Old San Antonio, it's like trying to get from one side of La Villita to the other on college night.  In other words, imagine people in a nightclub trying to escape through one set of doors when the fire alarm sounds.  It gave me a first-hand understanding of why so many people die in spite of adequate routes for evacuating a burning building.


I made it through the wardrobe room, a dark and dank place with no air movement whatsoever.  Remember that surging humanity and strollers? And have I mentioned that the people here have no sense of personal boundaries?  The caftans were laid out in lighted display cases - the only light in the space.  It would have been nice to see a couple of them on mannequins so one could see how they wore the darn things.

Being an already unhappy camper, halfway through the next dark, stuffy, crowded room - treasure room -I did a Popeye: "That's all I can stand and I can't stands no more."  After finding the cafe (best place there, shaded tables overlooking the Bosphorus) to buy water, I went out to the covered arcade to wait for Lucy and Valentina.  Somehow I missed them, and spent 2 hours searching, sitting in a central park, then moving to the exit.  Stuff it.  I walked back to the hotel.  The only photos I took at Topkapi were of V (top) and L.

Upon reflection, I realized the exotic language (plus no English), demeanor of the crowds, and generally unfriendly atmosphere weren't the only problems I was having with this city.  I had sufficiently experienced ruins and other ancient architecture, I was ready to go home, and I was exhausted.  Though I've enjoyed the company of Lucy and Valentina, walking around Sultanahmet with them has introduced the compromising and waiting I haven't had traveling solo.  There's a reason I didn't do this journey with a tour group.  Quite a paradox: I don't want to be isolated, but I need to be independent.

So that brings me to now (when I wrote this by hand sitting at "my" table on the patio at Medusa).  After my deflating, had-it-up-to-here experience with Topkapi, I came up with the idea of going on a day trip out of the city, on the Asian side, with lots of natural beauty, as an antidote.  Whilst dining, I studied brochures and consulted with the owner/manager (I don't know which we was).  He recommended Lake Abant and Bolu.  I also asked Mesut, my buddy at the souvenir shop, and he showed me photos on line.  Sile and Agva, on the Black Sea, also looked nice.  Here's a photo of Mesut I took late one night.

Then there was Bursa.  I can't tell you why I chose this tour.  Maybe photos of the view from Mount Uludag  (OO-loo dah) and I like mountains? (I didn't learn till well into the trip that Bursa is the Detroit of Turkey.)  From the brochure: Mount Uludag is near the historic center of Bursa, and is the Mount Olympus of the ancient province of Bithynia, rising 8343 feet.  Plan a minimum of 3-1/2 hrs for a visit to Uludag by cable car, allowing time for the ride up and down, waiting time for the cable car, and an hour to see the scenery on top." The only true statement here is that one could spend an hour looking at the scenery if one could see the scenery.

  There were only 9 of us, counting the tour guide, Hanifi (HAHN-if-ee) and driver: a family from Egypt, a couple from Abu Dhabi, a couple from Manchester, England (originally from Casimir), and me (there's a photo later).  Hanifi's English was very good, and I could tell he was going to be a character as soon as he told us it was the driver's first day on the job.
I took this photo to show the countdown light that shows drivers how much time they have till the light turns green.

We drove through parts of Istanbul that were very different than Sultanahmet, and crossed the first bridge that connected Europe and Asia (both sides are Istanbul).  The city has grown from 3M in 1960 to 14M now.  The Asian side is mostly residential and industrial, with no focus on anything historical.  As we drove, I saw a huge ad on a building for Re-Max (they don't have billboards.)

It didn't take long to get to the ferry, where I encountered my first minus 1 "toilet."  It's an official squat only type (visualize a port-a-potty with the hole in the ground and a toilet-shaped surround that has two non-slip places for one's feet either side).  I don't remember much else about the crossing of this little inlet of the Bosphorus.

Our first stop was a "kafeteria" that mostly just has Turkish Delight.  I checked the "nutrition" label and saw that one piece (approx. 1" x 1") has 500 cals.  All I bought there was water. 
For the next leg of the drive, the woman from Abu Dhabi, Fatma, moved to the back row and we had a nice chat.   Because English is their first language, conversation was easy.  We discussed shopping at Target and Kohl's on line, fast food restaurants, Skype, our children, the huge indoor ski slope in Dubai, where she'd like to visit in the States (I advised she avoid big cities since they'd look just like Abu Dhabi), how hot it gets there (122 deg!), how she handles the heat - she wears a next-to-full berka (photo later) and said that when she's home she can be "free," and her brother being a pilot and living in Phoenix.  Her husband was tracking our progress on his iPad and handed it to me to try out.  
We got to Bursa about 1-1/2 hrs later, and it started raining.  Ah, saunas.  After seeing a mosque/mausoleum, we had lunch, which was excellent.  The plan was to go up the mountain first, but the line was really long, so we saw another mosque that has wonderful calligraphy and wood carving.  Outside there's a place for men to wash their feet after going in.

 The Grand Bazaar was next.  Every "street" through it specializes in merchandise: shoes, linen, clothes.  It's easy to get lost.  While finding my way back to the entrance, I stumbled onto this wonderful plaza.

I had started for the entrance well before the rendezvous time, and sat on a wall people-watching.  When I was taking a photo of an interesting-looking chimney, a woman sitting next to me asked me to take her and her sister's photo (as least I think she said it was her sister - language barrier, you know).  She was making a big deal about my smile and gave me kisses on both cheeks and bought me a simit (sort of a 7" diameter flat bagel with sesame seeds on it - very popular - it's what the man in the photo above is selling).  She also pulled her purchase from her plastic shopping bag - hair coloring!  This is one of my favorite photos from Turkey.

Though you can drive the 14 miles to the top, we went back to check on the line for the cable car. It was a more reasonable wait, though we still stood in it for over an hour. 

It took a lot of negotiation for Hanifi to convince the gatekeeper to let us get on as one group.  The trip up takes 30 minutes and you change cars half way.  (What I thought was the top, because that's where the cable car ends, is not actually the top.  It's a 4-mile drive to the ski resort hotels beyond where we stopped.)
  

Mist had started thickening as we got higher, and it was only about ten minutes till it started raining. The view disappeared.  I went into the little cafe (an overstatement) and had tea with Hanifi. 
When it was time to get in line to return to Bursa is when the "fun" began.  We got in line for the cable car at 7:00 and reached the mid-way point easily.  The next leg is another story. 


Everyone wanted to be in the same place in line as everyone else - at the front.  People were "cutting" and being nasty and arguing and the soldiers wouldn't do anything.  I took a couple of photos, but they don't do the experience justice.  The young woman from Egypt (Yasmin), Fatma, and I chatted about when Yasmin put on the veil - against her parents' wishes; the many different styles of Muslim dress for women. Yasmin and her mother sat on a bench for a while.  Hanifi told us about a book called Perfume.   It got cold (at least it felt that way since I was in a sleeveless top).  And we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And tried to hold our place in line as a group.  And waited.
Yasmin's mother had a hurt leg and was using a cane, so she sat on the lower rail.  A little boy touched my painted toenails with one finger.  Women started sitting on the concrete floor.  Hanifi argued with the soldiers to bring some order to the crowd, with no success (you can see him in white below).  Yasmin's father argued with the soldiers, and that finally improved the situation.  

Below is the photo I took at the last minute before we got to the front of the line.

The man to the left of Yasmin is her father, and her brother is peeking out between the two.  The couple between Yasmin and her mom are from Manchester. The man on the left is Fatma's husband.  (Knowing names wasn't an important aspect of any of this journey.) It was even colder outside the waiting room, so Yasmin's mother and I sat next to each other and she put her arm and shawl around me.  It was almost midnight when we got to the bus and 3:15 AM when I walked in the door of the hotel.  
Based on what I experienced on this tour, even though it was grueling and didn't have much in the way of nature, I wouldn't trade it for the other two. 

This brings you to my last day in Istanbul post.  But I want to add a couple of photos I took in the park between the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia.