This is a travel piece I wrote for a magazine aimed specifically at coloured women that somehow fell apart (the magazine, not the piece!). It's written for those who may not be used to travel. I wouldn't travel to Istanbul right now, due to the recent bombings in Turkey, but it may be useful in the future.
I sat in the taxi at the airport, pointing frantically to the collection of consonants and vowels that were the directions my AirBnB host had written in Turkish in his last email to show to the driver, hoping it made sense. The taxi driver kept speaking at me in long Turkish sentences, and I kept speaking at him in short English ones, neither understanding the other. Eventually, he nodded, and it seemed like he understood.
“How much will it be?” I asked.
More indecipherable Turkish.
Just as I was wondering how taxi drivers, who presumably picked up many, many tourists from the airport all the time, could do their job without at least some English, he whipped out his phone, and on the calculator function, typed “60”, meaning 60 Turkish Lira. I did a quick calculation in my head, and at R5,00 a Lira, figured that R300 was about what I would pay for an Uber from my flat in Joburg to the airport, and decided it was worth it, in order not to sit at night in a squashed bus with all my luggage.
Just as I was thanking God for airconditioned airport taxis, he turned around and babbled some more, pinching between his index and middle fingers an imaginary cigarette.
“No, it’s fine, go ahead,” I said, then realised his confusion. Clearly he understood only the word “No” in that sentence. “I mean, yes, it’s fine. You can smoke.” He seemed relieved.
With that short experience, I learnt my first two lessons about Istanbul: Nobody speaks English and everybody smokes.
Don’t let that put you off, though! There is so much to discover and see in beautiful and historic Istanbul. It is a city spanning two continents, separated in half by the Bosphorus, a strait of water separating Europe and Asia. With our tickets only costing around R6000 each for a return trip, and the Lira-Rand exchange rate being much better than the Euro-Rand one, Istanbul definitely wins in terms of value-for-money.
We booked our accommodation through the accommodation-sharing website AirBnB. For those unfamiliar with the site, it is where local people who have an extra room in their house that they’d like to offer for short-term rental can advertise the location, benefits included and photos of their flat online, for the price that they set. You can read reviews from those who have previously stayed there, and write your own after you’ve stayed. It’s safe and much cheaper than a hotel, much more comfortable than a backpackers, and has the added benefit of advice on arriving and seeing the sites from a local host. We paid about R500 a night for a spacious double room in a very pretty flat with unlimited wifi, centrally located near the shopping heaven of Taksim with its Istiklal Caddesi (Istiklal Street), and near the tram which takes you straight into the historic area of Sultanamet, in Old Istanbul. And if you get an Istanbul Card, for sale at any tram station, and load it with Lira, you can use the tram line for just 2.15 Lira per trip to go anywhere your heart desires.
But your heart should desire to go to Sultanamet. Any list of must-see site in Istanbul will include the Topkapi Palace, the Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque, and the Grand Bazaar, all to be found within walking distance of each other in this ancient part of town.
Stepping into the harems of Topkapi Palace is like stepping into another age. You can imagine that you are the sultan, visiting your wives and children, sitting on your golden throne in the throne room, with its myriads of patterned turquoise tiles lining the walls, listening to your many concubines playing music for your pleasure. Yes, the Ottomans weren’t great on woman empowerment, or even basic rights, but they knew how to live in luxury. A trip to the treasury to see the jewelled pitchers and gold cups, diamond encrusted swords and boxes made of pure emerald is enough to convince one of the excess of this previously glorious empire.
You can see this even in their places of worship. The Hagia Sofia, an ancient church built by Constantine I (after whom Constantinople, the old name for Istanbul, was named), and later converted into a mosque by the Ottomans, then a museum in the early part of last century, has a vast domed ceiling in golden mosaic, where images of Madonna and Child sit comfortably next to Arabic calligraphy proclaiming the glory of Allah. Just a 5 minute walk away is the famed Blue Mosque, where visitors can come between prayer times, provided women cover their heads with a scarf and men don’t wear shorts, to see the interior of the majestic dome covered in little blue tiles that has covered the faithful in their prayers for hundreds of years.
No trip to Istanbul would be complete without some shopping, and the Grand Bazaar, a 10 minute walk away from Blue Mosque, is the place to do it. You can find all the things Istanbul is famous for – carpets, leather, jewellery, perfume, Turkish Delight, linen, souvenirs and much more – all under one roof. The Grand Bazaar, which has housed its shopkeeper tenants since its construction in 1455, is a maze of over 3,000 little shops, generally organised in 61 “streets” according what they are selling, but not always so. Negotiation is standard here, so not everything will have a price on it. Don’t be shy – the sellers expect it.
Don’t expect the people to be as friendly as South Africans, however. (I doubt any people in the world are as friendly as South Africans!) A friend who has lived in Istanbul before said yes, Turkish people are friendly…if you speak Turkish. But don’t let the occasional lack of please and thank you put you off. The experiences to be had – a 2 hour cruise in a ferry on the Bosphorus, indulging in delicious fresh seafood, witnessing the captivating spinning prayer ceremony of the Whirling Dervishes or scavenging for something unique in the antiques quarter -- are worth it.
Travel can seem intimidating and expensive, although it’s hardly ever as intimidating or expensive as it first seems. Using the website skyscanner.net, you can scan the skies for the cheapest flights to wherever you’re going, and cut out the travel agent (and their commission) entirely. Many cities, like Istanbul, offer Museum Cards which allow you to skip the long queues and pay far less for entrance fees to most of the touristic sites. And yes, arriving at a new place, trying to figure out where to go and how to get there, is a little daunting at first. But most places in Europe and elsewhere have excellent, relatively inexpensive public transport systems that you only have to figure out once initially in order to enjoy the benefit of going wherever you want in the city. With technology making travelling abroad easier and cheaper, there is less and less of an excuse not to have an experience of a lifetime – and you can be sure to have exactly that if your destination is Istanbul.
I sat in the taxi at the airport, pointing frantically to the collection of consonants and vowels that were the directions my AirBnB host had written in Turkish in his last email to show to the driver, hoping it made sense. The taxi driver kept speaking at me in long Turkish sentences, and I kept speaking at him in short English ones, neither understanding the other. Eventually, he nodded, and it seemed like he understood.
“How much will it be?” I asked.
More indecipherable Turkish.
Just as I was wondering how taxi drivers, who presumably picked up many, many tourists from the airport all the time, could do their job without at least some English, he whipped out his phone, and on the calculator function, typed “60”, meaning 60 Turkish Lira. I did a quick calculation in my head, and at R5,00 a Lira, figured that R300 was about what I would pay for an Uber from my flat in Joburg to the airport, and decided it was worth it, in order not to sit at night in a squashed bus with all my luggage.
Just as I was thanking God for airconditioned airport taxis, he turned around and babbled some more, pinching between his index and middle fingers an imaginary cigarette.
“No, it’s fine, go ahead,” I said, then realised his confusion. Clearly he understood only the word “No” in that sentence. “I mean, yes, it’s fine. You can smoke.” He seemed relieved.
With that short experience, I learnt my first two lessons about Istanbul: Nobody speaks English and everybody smokes.
Don’t let that put you off, though! There is so much to discover and see in beautiful and historic Istanbul. It is a city spanning two continents, separated in half by the Bosphorus, a strait of water separating Europe and Asia. With our tickets only costing around R6000 each for a return trip, and the Lira-Rand exchange rate being much better than the Euro-Rand one, Istanbul definitely wins in terms of value-for-money.
We booked our accommodation through the accommodation-sharing website AirBnB. For those unfamiliar with the site, it is where local people who have an extra room in their house that they’d like to offer for short-term rental can advertise the location, benefits included and photos of their flat online, for the price that they set. You can read reviews from those who have previously stayed there, and write your own after you’ve stayed. It’s safe and much cheaper than a hotel, much more comfortable than a backpackers, and has the added benefit of advice on arriving and seeing the sites from a local host. We paid about R500 a night for a spacious double room in a very pretty flat with unlimited wifi, centrally located near the shopping heaven of Taksim with its Istiklal Caddesi (Istiklal Street), and near the tram which takes you straight into the historic area of Sultanamet, in Old Istanbul. And if you get an Istanbul Card, for sale at any tram station, and load it with Lira, you can use the tram line for just 2.15 Lira per trip to go anywhere your heart desires.
But your heart should desire to go to Sultanamet. Any list of must-see site in Istanbul will include the Topkapi Palace, the Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque, and the Grand Bazaar, all to be found within walking distance of each other in this ancient part of town.
Stepping into the harems of Topkapi Palace is like stepping into another age. You can imagine that you are the sultan, visiting your wives and children, sitting on your golden throne in the throne room, with its myriads of patterned turquoise tiles lining the walls, listening to your many concubines playing music for your pleasure. Yes, the Ottomans weren’t great on woman empowerment, or even basic rights, but they knew how to live in luxury. A trip to the treasury to see the jewelled pitchers and gold cups, diamond encrusted swords and boxes made of pure emerald is enough to convince one of the excess of this previously glorious empire.
You can see this even in their places of worship. The Hagia Sofia, an ancient church built by Constantine I (after whom Constantinople, the old name for Istanbul, was named), and later converted into a mosque by the Ottomans, then a museum in the early part of last century, has a vast domed ceiling in golden mosaic, where images of Madonna and Child sit comfortably next to Arabic calligraphy proclaiming the glory of Allah. Just a 5 minute walk away is the famed Blue Mosque, where visitors can come between prayer times, provided women cover their heads with a scarf and men don’t wear shorts, to see the interior of the majestic dome covered in little blue tiles that has covered the faithful in their prayers for hundreds of years.
No trip to Istanbul would be complete without some shopping, and the Grand Bazaar, a 10 minute walk away from Blue Mosque, is the place to do it. You can find all the things Istanbul is famous for – carpets, leather, jewellery, perfume, Turkish Delight, linen, souvenirs and much more – all under one roof. The Grand Bazaar, which has housed its shopkeeper tenants since its construction in 1455, is a maze of over 3,000 little shops, generally organised in 61 “streets” according what they are selling, but not always so. Negotiation is standard here, so not everything will have a price on it. Don’t be shy – the sellers expect it.
Don’t expect the people to be as friendly as South Africans, however. (I doubt any people in the world are as friendly as South Africans!) A friend who has lived in Istanbul before said yes, Turkish people are friendly…if you speak Turkish. But don’t let the occasional lack of please and thank you put you off. The experiences to be had – a 2 hour cruise in a ferry on the Bosphorus, indulging in delicious fresh seafood, witnessing the captivating spinning prayer ceremony of the Whirling Dervishes or scavenging for something unique in the antiques quarter -- are worth it.
Travel can seem intimidating and expensive, although it’s hardly ever as intimidating or expensive as it first seems. Using the website skyscanner.net, you can scan the skies for the cheapest flights to wherever you’re going, and cut out the travel agent (and their commission) entirely. Many cities, like Istanbul, offer Museum Cards which allow you to skip the long queues and pay far less for entrance fees to most of the touristic sites. And yes, arriving at a new place, trying to figure out where to go and how to get there, is a little daunting at first. But most places in Europe and elsewhere have excellent, relatively inexpensive public transport systems that you only have to figure out once initially in order to enjoy the benefit of going wherever you want in the city. With technology making travelling abroad easier and cheaper, there is less and less of an excuse not to have an experience of a lifetime – and you can be sure to have exactly that if your destination is Istanbul.
