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Day 3: Istanbul: Egyptian Bazaar, Cruising the Bosphorus, Beylerbeyi Palace Egyptian Bazaar The Egyptian Bazaar was built in 1660 by Hatice Sultan with the taxes collected from Cairo for the trade of Egyptian commodities, especially herbs and spices. The domed bazaar is L-shaped and belongs to the complex of the Mosque of the Sultan's Mother. We started the day at the Egyptian Bazaar. Half an hour. Not much, but apparently the schedule was tight. So it was a very quick trip through it. Anne and I were looking at the stalls, passing by, until one guy was quick enough to grab our attention. He snared us with a lesson in pistachio quality, letting us taste the different varieties and sizes. So we bought pistachios from him. We bought the big ones, and they were wonderful. And dried apricots. Everywhere we went in Turkey, the dried apricots were superb. Bronwyn and Ene had come with the group too, and Ene had discovered a fabulous hand-operated coffee grinder. We went back and got one too. We haven't used it yet, but it looks ever so nice. By this time I had discovered that I was a lousy haggler. Anne was better than me. After about twenty minutes we all gathered out the front of the Bazaar, and waited till we were all ready. The pedlars swarmed again, trying to sell postcards and books, fake perfume, socks, all sorts of stuff. In the photo on the left, you can see a man in red with something on his back. He was a tea seller. He carried a hot urn on his back and would pour tea on the spot for customers. But if you wanted a photo of him in his colourful dress, then you had to pay photo money. He's included in the photo by accident. Cruising the Bosphorus When we were all ready, we walked across the road and boarded our boat and started our cruise. It was a large sort of ferry, with room for a couple of hundred people, and we had it all to ourselves. All 18 of us. So we were able to spread around a fair bit. Most people went above to sit in the sun. I stayed below in the shade, and semi-dozed for part of the trip. By this time, my cold was starting to build up, and I had a hangover from the night before, so I was feeling pretty miserable. The day was fantastic. Warm, bright sunshine, no clouds. You couldn't have picked a better day to go on a cruise. It was fascinating to watch Istanbul pass by the boat. Fancy new bridges, latest technology, beside old mosques. Such contrasts were always evident. We passed the Dolmabahce Palace, one of the major palaces along the Bosphorus. We visited this palace next day. And we cruised past the Beylerbeyi Palace which we were due to visit later this afternoon. And there was the Rumeli Hisari, the European Fortress, built on the European side of the Bosphorus. This was built in 1452 during the siege by the Turks. It was built at the narrowest point of the Bosphorus, so that the strait could be controlled and Istanbul could not get aid from the Genoese trading centres at the Crimea. We also passed the suburbs where the very, very rich lived, and their houses were sumptuous. Huge two-storied buildings in blinding white, some with mosaics. After passing a few of these huge, beautiful houses, I was having fantasies about building something like them back in Sydney. Nice fantasies, cruelly dashed by lack of millions. What impressed me the most was the height of each storey. And the use of so much white stone. The water was a lovely clear blue and it looked clean, but floating on top was the most horrible mix of crap. That was pretty ugly when you looked close up, but if you looked at the water mid-distance, it was a wonderful sight. After a while, the bar on the boat was opened. Not many takers for alcohol, but there was plenty of apple tea. It was sinfully luxurious to sit in the shade, sipping apple tea, and watching Istanbul slide part. There was one bad side to the boat cruise that I didn't get to experience, but some of the others did. That was the toilet on the boat. "Uuurgh! was the expression most used as they came back from the toilet. By the end of the trip, we didn't worry too much about the state of toilets. You learn to ignore that sort of thing. One thing that interested me, was watching the currents of the Bosphorus. I had read Tim Severin's book The Jason Voyage, where he and his crew had rowed a replica of the Argo, as featured in the tales of Jason and the Argonauts, up the Bosphorus against the currents. His tale fascinated me, and I was eager to see where he did it, and to check out the currents. I was quite satisfied, seeing the strong up-and-down currents, and the small patches of peace and calm amidst the turbulence. The Bank Debacle Finally, our trip was done, and we docked. We were supposed to be met by a bus and taken to our seafood restaurant for lunch, but there was no sign of it. Sebnem got a little agitated about this, but decided to walk to the restaurant and see the sights, rather than hang around waiting. This was a good idea for us. We walked and gawked. There was a replica wooden ship, that looked a bit like the Endeavour replica, docked near us so we had a gawk at that too. We walked on, straggling out, and then Sebnem decided to go into a shop and ask where our restaurant was. A great number of us saw a bank ahead, and decided to take the opportunity to get some more money. I had read in the Lonely Planet that banks can often take ages to cash travellers cheques and do cash conversions. I wasn't prepared for the inefficiency of this bank. Up till that time, our experiences with money changing had been to step up to a money-changer booth, hand over a wad of American or Australian cash, and get a huge wad of Turkish lira back within a few seconds. We were not expecting to paralyse the banking operations of this little suburban bank. There were only about twelve of us in there. They had a security guard at the door. He kept the door of the bank locked, and would unlock it and allow a few people at a time into the bank. We all managed to get in after a few unlockings of the door, and we were all lined up waiting for service, and then it seemed as if the bank stopped operation. we paralysed them. It took ages to get money converted and even longer to do anything with travellers cheques. Frank seemed to have the most trouble, because of his brand of travellers cheques. One thing that Anne and I learnt on the trip was that the day of travellers cheque is almost over. We didn't take them and we didn't need them. Every city and large town had automatic teller machines that connected to the Cirrus network. We just withdrew cash from our bank account when we needed it. And we always kept enough cash for emergencies and to get us to the next ATM. We didn't really need cash, because practically every meal was covered. Money was for water and beer, postcards and books, and any knick-knacks. So there we were, all lined up in the bank, slowly getting service. I don't know why it was so slow, because Anne and I never got to the counter to be served. Sebnem arrived and she was upset. She had foudn that the restaurant was too far away to walk to, she had found the bus, and she and the bus and the restaurant were waiting for us. She had gathered up the non-bankers and sent them off to the bus, and she then stormed into the bank and she roused on us. She wanted us out and on the bus. Well, Anne and I weren't likely to get served in the next few seconds, so we just headed off. We still had plenty of US notes anyway. The others hung on. Sebnem stoemd out, and waited and counted us, and then when she found she was still short a few of us, she stormed back into the bank. Pity the poor guard who was still locking us in and out. She wasn't taking no for an answer. She herded everyone out eventually, and got us all on the bus. There was heavy breathing from Sebnem for a while, until she calmed down. The Fish Restaurant Lunch The bus drove us around the corner, so it seemed, and we were at our seafood restaurant. They were waiting for us. Had been waiting for a while. We were seated, and the food started arriving almost immediately. Maybe they thought we were starving. Maybe they thought we were American. The courses kept coming out relentlessly. It was wonderful food. When the stuffed mussels arrived, I had no idea how much food was still to come, so I tucked into them. A number of the others didn't want theirs, so I ended stuffing myself silly on stuffed mussels. I wasn't the only one who got stuck into the stuffed mussels. They were so nice that later on, I bought a Turkish cookbook with a recipe for them. We ate. We ate and ate and ate. So many courses, and most of us filled up. There was so much food, that lots was left behind, despite my best attentions. This had dire consequences for later that night. There were interesting affairs at the end of the meal with the toilets. This was our first experience with a guard at the door, who took money. The theory was that the man or woman at the door would take a small amount of money from visitors, like about 50,000 TL, and in return they would keep the toilets clean and well stocked. That was the theory. The practice was often that they would take the money, but do nothing much about cleaning the toilets. This fish restaurant, I am pleased to say, had spotlessly clean toilets. A delight to use. But the man at the door was often not. Some people paid, some people didn't because he wasn't there to collect. No reason for it. If you think that I am paying too much attention to toilet matters, you might be right, but it was extremely important to me (us) while we were over there. I would anxiously work out where the toilets were, everywhere we went, and would ensure that I always had a roll of toilet paper handy. Most of us did. We waddled back onto the bus, groaning with happiness at being so plentifully replete. We drove to the Beylerbeyi Palace. On the way, Jenny mentioned that we still had the dinner that night at the Cati Restaurant. We all groaned, too stuffed from lunch to even consider thinking about another large meal. Jenny said she would see if we could put it off till the next night, as no meal had been planned for that night. Beylerbeyi Palace The bus drove us over the Bosphorus Bridge, where below us we could see one of the palaces we had earlier cruised past: the Beylerbeyi Palace. It's on the Asian side of Istanbul. This was a summer palace, built during the reign of Sultan Abdulaziz in 1865. There used to be a wooden palace here, built by Mahmut II, but like a lot of wooden buildings in Istanbul, it burned down and was replaced. It's a pretty grand palace, built in a similar style to the Dolmabahce Palace which we saw the next day. It's a lot smaller than the Dolmabahce Palace, but equally memorable. When Sultan Abdulaziz built the palace, he decided on something more substantial than wood. He wanted stone and marble. He called on the architect Serkis Balyan to build it, while adding his own ideas to the decoration of the palace. The end result was a beautiful Ottoman palace. Abdulaziz used the palace as his guest quarters, for storing visiting royalty. The list of visiting royalty is long. It includes Empress Eugenie of France, Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia, King Nicholas of Montenegro, Shah Nasruddin of Persia, Emperor Franz Josef of Austria and King Edward VIII of England. When you walk around the palace, you can see mementoes of some of these visitors. There are paintings on the walls which are gifts from these visitors to the Sultans, and furniture, and other small mementos. Each of these has a small plaque describing the notables who gave and got. It's pretty impressive to see just who did visit. The last royal guest was the last Sultan, Abdulhamid II, who lived in the palace after he was deposed in 1909 after 30 years of rule. As we walked around oohing and aahing at the sights and the sumptuous luxury of the furnishings, we were constantly reminded of the segregation of the sexes in the Ottoman Empire. There were separate sleeping quarters, separate dining rooms, separate receiving rooms, and this seemed to irk some of our modern women who began to make pointed comments about it. Elizabeth was the main culprit and I suspect she was just winding me up. Anyway, I usually rise to the occasion on such a topic and everytime Elizabeth made a remark tut-tutting about the segragation, I would remark that the situation was quite a sensible one. In the end, I think we had the situation where Elizabeth was being provocative and I was being provocative back, and we ended up irritating each other. Later that night, Elizabeth had a quiet word to Anne and told her that "your husband is a male chauvinist pig". This was relayed back to me with stern admonitions to be on my best behaviour again. Cati Restaurant After a quick tour through the Palace, it was back on the bus and back to the hotel. En route, Jenny let us know the bad news about the Cati Restaurant. They wouldn't let us cancel and they couldn't put it off till the next night. If we cancelled, we still had to pay. So we went. I don't think any of us were capable of doing justice to the meal after such a huge lunch, but at least we put in an appearance. Except for Caroline who visited the family of one her students. She braved the rail system and the taxis and made her way across the city and back. The rest of us rested and dressed for dinner. Our bus took us to the other side of the Bosphorus and we wound in and about through all these twisty little roads, and parked. We walked through lanes and alleyways, and came to the building with the Cati Restaurant. It was on the top floor, and the elevators were small and slow and there were 18 of us. It took a while before all of us had been ferried upstairs and were seated. It was a lovely looking restaurant, with an amazing view of Istanbul. There were Lots of windows to see the city below us, and plenty of room. We had one entire corner so we had a good view of Istanbul By Night. There was only problem, and that was that we were too full to do justice to the meal. We were also a bit tired, so we were quiet. The waiters brought out all the food and put it in front of us, then a little later carried it all away again. We all picked at it, and I made a reasonable effort and managed to finish everything that was put in front of me. It wasn't done with my normal gusto, but I did my best. After the main course, the waiters were visibly upset by our lack of enthusiasm for the food. They grumbled and talked a lot in Turkish above our heads and it was a most uncomfortable evening. When my waiter took away my empty plate, he smiled and patted me on the shoulder. My effort at stuffing it away had been appreciated. When we could reasonably escape, we began to drift downstairs. The room was filling up with smoke by the end of the evening, so we were glad to get out. I was one of the first downstairs and I waited in the laneway for the others, breathing the clean night air. Then I noticed across the laneway a small cafe/nightclub. Inside was a small Turkish musical group playing wonderfully wild music, while some of the audience (female) were dancing those erotic Oriental type dances. I was up against the window enjoying this very much. The music was wild and wonderful. It would have been a much better night if we could have sat in one of these little nightclubs and listened to music all night, instead of sitting stiffly pretending to eat. Ah well, maybe next time. It took ages for everyone to come down from the restaurant. Eventually we gathered and waddled back the bus and went back to the hotel.