Turkish Delight Pt 2 - Here I Come, Constantinople

Warning: this post contains no photos, just my long ramblings about Istanbul.

This will sound a bit old-fashioned, but Istanbul (nee Constantinople) strikes me as a city best arrived at by sea. To make a comparison most of you will understand, imagine how wonderful it would be for a tourist to first arrive in Sydney by sea, coming along the northern beaches, around the headlands, and into the harbour, seeing the bridge and the opera house for the first time, then alighting at circular quay to begin their stay. Istanbul is of course very different to Sydney, in place of pristine beaches and modern buildings you have rocky foreshore and a historic skyline of domes and minarettes; in place of the calm harbour, you have the black menacing Bosphorous.... Perhaps what I'm really trying to say is that the way to arrive in Istanbul is not by bus.

Istanbul bus station is out in the cramped legoland suburbs (in the last 50 years, the population has exploded from 1 million to around 15 million; the urban sprawl is, well, sprawling), it looks like an 8 story shopping-centre car park, and must at any given time have around a thousand buses in it, and hundreds coming and going all the time, and in it there are surprisingly few people who speak any English. But we eventually managed to find our way to the historic district Sultanahmet (rhymes with - and hence nicknamed - sultana bread). At least it was quite cool in Istanbul, after a week of temperatures between 40 and 45 along the coast, Istanbul was a refreshing 30 degrees!

In his book, Orhan Pamuk has a lot to say about the Bosphorus. This is not to be compared to the calm harbours or meandering rivers on which cities like Sydney, London and Paris are built. It is a surging black mass of water between two continents, with currents and whitecaps and dolphins chasing the ferries that ply back and forth; all the palaces and mansions of the old empire are along its shore; it has been the scene of midnight explosive collisions between oil tankers, and midnight passage of soviet battleships; on hot weekends (like last Sunday) Istanbullus come out in little boats, or down onto the giant black cuboid boulders along the shore to swim (men only) and fish and cook their catch on little fires... it is the heart and soul of the city.

Another major theme of the book is hüzün: a Turkish word describing a sort of communal melancholy in the hearts and faces of Istanbullus that is born of living in an impoverished city amongst the monuments and palaces and ruins of a great capital of a vast empire. Maybe something similar can be found in places like Cairo, Athens or Rome, but in Istanbul the fall of the empire is relatively recent - the 50 years or so leading up to, and just after World War 1 - and still much fresher in the memory of the city (if not many or any of its actual human residents).

The beauty of the city is a picturesque beauty - meaning accidental, orthogonal to any architects intention: creeping vines, broken blackened wooden mansions, slums leaning in beneath the city's many grat mosques, fallen stones of the city walls. It's a beauty that only comes with time, and makes us think "what glories, and what miseries and punishments, must the people here have lived through to have created the scene we now see before us" (and its why cheap and careless reconstruction of old ruins is so damaging).

This is what makes Haghia Sofia so much more interesting than the Blue Mosque (the two dominating features of the Istanbul Skyline). Haghia Sofia was built in 532 AD, in Byzantine Constantinople. In 1204 is was plundered by the crusaders (despite being a Christian church), in the 15th century is was converted into a mosque, and in the 20th century to a museum. Inside, there are ancient gold and ceramic mosaics of Christian scenes, that were plastered and painted over with abstract Islamic art and caligraphy, then chipped back and rediscovered. The floor is made up of giant marble stones, worn smooth over the centuries. All the layers of history are right there in front of you. The Blue Mosque, on the other hand, is "only" 400 years old, and still stands precisely as it was when first built. The intricate tilings and domes are certainly beautiful, but there is nothing picturesque about it.

That's enough for now, I've got emails to reply to...

Turkish Delight, Part 1

Well, my Turkey visit is half over... time for some recent highlights (really slow internet so not too many pics now)

- Randomly meeting a Turkish girl on a bus who worked in England for the last few years, so had perfect English, and took me to a little winemaking village in the hills near Selcuk, meeting some of the locals and sharing a meal with them.



They even offered me a bed for the night, but I had other plans (Atilla's Getaway, for those in the know, i.e. Jo and Jer)

- The ruins of Ephesus. Lots of history, I won't repeat it here...

- Gallipoli tour with Ali, who was formerly a Captain in the Turkish navy, commander of their submarine forces. After his retirement he became a war historian, focusing on world war 1 and Gallipoli in particular. By far the best tourguide I have ever had, the perfect mix of history, anecdotes, personal stories and charm. J&J had told me about him, but I was lucky to get him because 6 weeks ago he was climbing up a ladder to pick a plum for his wife, and he fell and injured his leg. This week was the first week he started doing tours again. I feel blessed.

- Istanbul.... wow! The city is alive like an anthill. It has everything, the only other time I've experienced that impression of a city was in Barcelona. Aya Sofia, the Spice Bazaar (incredible Turkish Delight!!!), the Basilica Cistern, the Ottoman Emperor's Harem, the general crazyness... will add much more about this later.

Here is Aya Sofia (aka Haghia Sofia, aka The Church of Divine Wisdom), taken from the roof of my hostel:



Met lots of jubblies along the way, heaps of aussies and kiwis here (especially around Gallipoli of course)... gotta dash, more later.

Turkey, first impressions.

The photo above was taken from Kos, and is of the sun setting over the hills in Turkey. You may have thought that Turkey was east of Greece, but then the whole thing about Turkey is that East and West are bashed against each other and come out the scuffle with little of their original meaning attached. (The country with its head in the west, and its heart in the east, as the saying goes.)

I arrived at my hotel a bit frazzled from an early start, passport hassles, and finding a taxi at the docks, but was pleasantly surprised when the hotel owner came out to welcome me, payed my taxi fare, then sat me down and gave me a free welcome beer. As I later sat enjoying a flawless shish tawouk (grilled and spiced chicken), I had a strange feeling that after long wanderings I had finally come home (strange mainly because I have never set foot in this country before).

I can trace it partly to the friendly welcome, partly to the years spent with my great friend Yalchin, who taught me so much about Turkish food, coffee, and the culture in general, all of which I now see in their natural habitat. I have lately been immersed in Orhan Pamuk's book of childhood reminiscences of Istanbul, so maybe that's part of it. But it also reminded me of a similar feeling I (and others) had when returning to Egypt after visiting Israel... I'll leave the interpretation of that to others.

Well, that's my impression after one afternoon, lets see what happens next, but so far I am loving it!

I am in Bodrum, a little resort town just across from Kos. All day there was a big fire looming down the hills towards the harbour, which cut off all electricity and water supplies for some reason, but things seem to be back to normal now...



That's it for now...
xx all.

Kos I want to

Sorry kids, no pics in this post due to the techanogical limitations I find myself constrained by.

Kos reminds me quite a lot of home: the sea, the heat, the incessant cicadas, there's even an abundance of gum trees. Although I think Australian beaches probably have more greek people on them, most of the beachgoers here are Swedish.

It's really quite incredible, most of the shopkeepers here know at least a few words of Swedish, there are lots of Swedish women around who came here on holidays when they were young, hooked up with a greek guy, and never left. In the convention centre where the conference was held there is even a Swedish consulate, just to facilitate such things.

The conference finished yesterday, all went well. My talk was well received, saw some interesting presentations, and met a few new people. I had many discussions with my old supervisor (basically I just have to tell him dates I want to be in Australia and he will arrange everything).

I will probably get the ferry to Turkey tomorrow, for some much-needed and long-sought fez and sheesha action. The greeks do a mean greek salad, and the olives here are wonderful, but compared france the food is pretty rough. In Turkey I'm looking forward to some shish tawouk and some dry flat-bread with bits of concrete in it, like we had in Egypt all those years ago...