Renaissance Polat Istanbul Hotel

... about this place and wanted to see it so I did all the paperwork in advance and a woman I met was my reference. Her husband is the person I mentioned who when i asked if he was from Istanbul replied: My family has been here for 500 years. We came from Spain. His grandfather was the French tutor to the Sultan's sons. They thought I needed an escort but I went alone. It's really much easier to get around alone. <br><br>No photographs were allowed inside so I will ...

... though, we gave a guy a job and a good wage and food and<br>board for three weeks. Its not something to pat ourselves on the back<br>for, but it is something to recognize when one feels guilty about what<br>Arjun was asked to do. Ultimately, we also paid him, unfortunately, so<br>little to do it by our standards, though he made nearly as much as a<br>doctor in Kathmandu can make in the same time. The sum, though too<br>small by American standards, was also a perfect ...

... and talking of how he got his hair made up every day. It was rather vertical. Shared an apple shisha a lovely turkish dinner, before heading to a smaller shisha bar in the shadow of the blue mosque. I drank apple tea, played backgammon and shared some more shisha with Adam, Jasper and Andrew. Perfect end to the best day yet&#8230;<br style=""> <br style=""> <br><br>The next morning was spent at the blue mosque, which was breathtaking. My photographs don't ...

... in handy because it is faster and cheaper than paying cash. We, however, were unable to find anyone who would sell us one. There are kiosks all over the city where you can add money but no where to purchase them. We went to four different kiosks and the answer was always "Ackbil Yok": Roughly translated as "no ack bil here". We made it to the mall the old fashioned way; with cold hard cash. Soaring seven stories with countless shops ...

... from our books by a constant whistle and clapping noise (and since we were not in Southern Thailand - we knew it wasn't a lady-boy whistling at Trevor). We saw two young boys at the bottom of the rocks entering the water and looking at something. Their father was doing the clapping and whistling. We followed their stares and eventually spotted two dolphins playing not too far from the shore line. It was a good little ...

... hour ride in good circumstances). I took pictures along the way. A couple things about Istanbul and the commute are interesting. First, there are many ships sitting in the harbor waiting for their turn to travel the Bosphorus to get from the Marmar Sea to the Black Sea. These ships can sit for days waiting their turn. Secondly, when the traffic is bad, there are street vendors in the middle of the street ...

... dinners of stewed veggies, chicken, all sorts of good stuff. She was so nice to us too, and we ended up deciding to eat there every night. The first day in Selcuk we wandered around, going up into the hills above this really poor area, and rather awkwardly running into some kids carrying a gun. The people were really nice though! After climbing in the hills, we took the bus to the very very unimpressive beach. It was all built up with hotels though ...

... By the time we arrived at our hotel in the Sultanhamet area (the old part of the city) we had been travelling for 26+ hours with no sleep, so the first thing we did was check into our room and go to bed for a couple of hours! We finally got up around 5pm and went out for a walk. The hotel we are in is by no means up market, but it has comfy beds, great water pressure in the shower and really friendly staff; and its location is fantastic - a short 2 block walk to the ...