Istanbul 2
Trip Start
Nov 14, 2008
1
56
102
Trip End
Feb 26, 2009
Istanbul,
Turkey
Friday, January 9, 2009
After some ineffective bargaining, I paid 20 Lira (pretty much $20) to take a 2-hour cruise of the Bosphorus, Istanbul's main waterway surrounded on one side by Europe, and the other by Asia. Istanbul's the only city in the world that's on 2 continents!
The cruise was beautiful, it was pretty sunny though strong winds kept me inside for half of it. It's right up there with Sydney Harbour for beauty. Along the shore you can see lots of mansions, for a city of 16 million people, there are quite a few who can afford to live a lavish life on the water. There are also 3000 mosques in the city, and I reckon I saw about half on the cruise.
Rest of the day
The rest of the day I hung out at the hostel, a lot of it on the net again, as a chance to unwind after a hectic few weeks in Europe. At night I hung out at a bar while chatting to the young Turkish people working there. They played some AC/DC for their Aussie guest, I told them I know only one Turkish song and they started playing it without me even naming it - the original of Holly Valance's "Kiss Kiss". For 3 Lira I bought a pack of Turkish Delight - not the crap Cadbury one, but the delicious, colourful and chewy Turkish variety, filled with enough icing sugar to make an Ethiopian fat. There's a distinct aroma to Istanbul, you can kind of smell the kebab in there, I'll describe the food in detail a bit later because there's so much Turkish cuisine to enjoy.
