Istanbul

Istanbul was a fabulous city.  I was basically there to recuperate after Nepal and it seemed that when I arrived the effects of the hike I was on began to catch up with me.  My ankle was good and sore, I had a wicked sunburn on my lips, which was very annoying and painful, and I was exhausted all the time.  As soon as the sun went down, I'd be ready to call it a night.

My flight from Kathmandu was extremely comfortable.  Qatar Airways really knows what they're doing.  I spent a few hours in Doha, Qatar, the closest to the Middle East I ever hope to go (well, it's in the Middle East, technically) at least until that whole "jihadist vs infidels" thing ends.  I arrived in Istanbul and as much I wanted to go out and grab a Kebab, I was very full from the Qatar meal services (one on each flight) and I was completely exhausted.  I passed out pretty quickly.

The next morning I went on Wikitravel to try to figure out my game plan for the day.  I didn't have any really specific reason for going to Istanbul; it's just one of those places I've always wanted to see and it's on the way to Europe from Kathmandu.  When I went to see what there was to do, I saw that I could go see the Hagia Sofia, which in my post-Nepal delirium I hadn't even realized was in Istanbul.  It's another one of those places that I've heard about in history classes since the 3rd grade.  Jackpot.  I was psyched.

I tried to just jump right back in to the thick of things and my first day in Istanbul was surprisingly productive.  I went and saw the Hagia Sofia, Sultanahmet Mosque (also known as the Blue Mosque) and the Basilica Cistern.  I grabbed a Kebab in Taksim Square and hailed a cab to head to the Sultanahmet district.

My cabbie completely ripped me off (it was seemingly impossible trying to find an honest cabbie in Istanbul), but these sort of things tend to happen from time to time and you can't get too annoyed about it.  I beelined it straight for the Hagia Sofia, bought my entry ticket, picked up one of those audioguides, and headed in.

For those of you following at home who don't know what the Hagia Sofia is, it's a really really really old building.  It was built during the decline of the Roman Empire by the Emperor Justinian.  By that time, the center of power in the Roman Empire had shifted toward Byzantium, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire.  For several hundreds of years it was the world's largest enclosed space and is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture.  Originally it was a church until the Ottomans conquered and took over Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453 and converted the Hagia Sofia into a mosque.  The building has a lot of other interesting history associated with it, but the bottom line is that it was eventually changed from a mosque to a museum.

The Hagia Sofia

Inside the building was truly impressive.  It's easy to see both the Roman/Byzantine, Catholic, and Muslim influences

This is the spot in the Hagia Sofia where all Byzantine Emperors were coronated

 There was a good deal of art with frescoes, mosaics, and sculptures, and I wandered and enjoyed my audio tour for a little bit.  One of the more interesting things I came across was a spot of marble with a bit of interesting graffiti: I couldn't exactly read it or anything, but it was carved in by Viking warriors hundreds of years ago when they were in Constantinople.

After my tour I walked out and headed straight for the Sultanahmet Mosque.

Front courtyard of Sultanahmet Mosque

It is still a functioning mosque, so I took off my shoes, got herded in with the rest of the sheep, took my photos, and headed out.

Some of the interior of the Mosque

From there I had to search a little bit until I found the entrance to the Basilica Cistern.  The Cistern was also built by the Emperor Justinian, and provided a water filtration system for the surrounding palaces as well as being a reservoir of water in the event of siege.

It's a fairly creepy catacomb-like underworld:

The Basilica Cistern

Medusa Column

It was a cool little area and I would have liked to explore it a bit more but I think every Turkish school had a field trip that day to the area and I just couldn't stand listening to the din they created down there.

I walked back to my hotel, worked on my Everest blog, and fell asleep a little later.

After that extremely productive first day, things got a bit lazier.  I succumbed to the exhaustion I was dealing with and generally slept a good 15 hours a day.

Other istanbul highlights:

I bought a new pair of kicks and retired the hiking shoes I've been toting around for the last 8 months.  It seems that the Everest hike really did a number on them and they began to slowly fall apart.  They stank like hell and I just couldn't deal with that anymore either.  They were hung up in the rafters and left behind.

One morning I went out for some breakfast and met a nice Canadian guy who claimed to have lived in Istanbul for 5 years studying the clarinet under one of the worlds great clarinet masters.  So that was a little bit of a strange conversation, but I happened to be sampling my first ever Turkish coffee at the time, and wasn't finding it particularly pleasant.  It's really thick.

He suggested that I try another place to give Turkish coffee another shot, and it was only a few blocks away.  I can't recall the name of the place (and couldn't spell it anyway) but the name translated to something like "The Water Buffalo Won't Sink" meaning the coffee is so thick that a water buffalo wouldn't sink in it.  He said it was the best in Istanbul so I figured I'd give it a go.  The coffee was actually surprisingly good.  It started getting exceptionally thick towards the bottom--like oil sludge--and I just couldn't take it down and gave up on Turkish coffee.  It has a nice caffeine kick though, and after two cups I was buzzin'.

Another day I opted to try out one of the Hamams--Turkish Baths.  I walked into the building, which was ornately decorated and was all kinds of marble from the floor to the ceiling.  I spoke with a charming Turkish man who suggested I take the traditional service, and I obliged.  After that, nobody else spoke a lick of English.  I was ushered into a changing room where I was given some kind of loin cloth before being brought downstairs, fixed up with a pair of wooden clogs, and directed into the Hamam.

I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting, maybe in the back of my head I was hoping for naked women and Eastern European massage therapists.  What I got was a sausagefest.  Penises everywhere.  Way worse than your average steam room.

They lay me down on a huge block of marble in the center of the steamy room, where I just tried to relax for a few minutes, get a sweat going, and avert my eyes from absolutely everything except the ceiling.

Eventually this big, fat, sweaty, bearded Turkish man wearing nothing but a towel around the waist walked over to me and turned me on my back.  Then he dumped a bucket of water on me and literally began washing me.  Yes, I was bathed by a gigantic fat Turkish man.  It was extremely awkward.  I almost wanted to stop and say,

"you know, I can probably do this part myself..."

not that he would have understood me anyway.  So I soaped up and then he absolutely pummeled my muscles.  They were still a little sore from the Himalayas and I got a massage until I was almost in so much pain that I didn't care that I was receiving a soapy massage from a fat Turk.

Then he dumped another bucket of water on me and through the international language of charade told me to go over to another area where there were a bunch of marble basins.  He filled the basin with warm water and dumped about three buckets of water on my head before pulling out what can only be described as a mop head.  It was lathery and foamy and I got some kind of foam coating all over my body.  Then he dumped bucket after bucket of water over my head.  I don't know how many, but it was enough for me to start wondering when he was going to run out of water.

He then shook my hand and walked away.  I sat there for a minute in awkward silence.

I exited into another room where I took a cold shower and another fat Turk wrapped me in towels from head to toe like a burrito.

I was ushered into the main room in front, where I was given a seat next to a fountain with all the other burrito-wrapped individuals who had just received their treatments as well.  We drank some tea and chatted for a bit before I eventually changed and headed out in desperate need of a beer and a kebab after that whole experience.

I'll at least say this:  it was the cleanest I'd been in a long time.

I had met this French guy named Romain who had traveled from France to Istanbul via motorcycle.  He showed me some of the more out-of-the-way kebab stands that the locals use.  The food was excellent.

We had a few beers and I went back home for some much needed sleep.

I had trouble deciding on a destination after Istanbul and had originally considered Athens, but eventually decided on Budapest.

Budapest post soon...