Arrival and Istanbul
Day 0, Saturday, 19 June 1999
We boarded our plane (an overnight flight) with relief, because we had never phoned to confirm our flights (EDIT: gosh, remember when we had to do that?). This Turkish Airlines plane was much MUCH cleaner than the Balkan Airline’s plane I took to Germany (in 1995/96). And it was very large! The plane was quite spacious, but cold (but then, I didn’t have a jacket on), with many passengers – I think it was fully booked.
Dinner was served at around 10pm, amidst mild turbulence. We were offered a choice of lamb or fish – both mom and I chose the lamb, which was served with a bread roll, butter, cheese, crackers, salad, rice, green beans and a slice of cake for dessert. Quite a substantial meal! The lamb stew was delicious in a savoury sauce, perfect for dunking the fresh (hot!) bread roll. The meal was served in very hard, blue, plastic containers – not the disposable kind they might let you keep – with a little, blue, plastic coffee cup. Dessert was a kind of sponge cake – a layered chocolate-vanilla-chocolate confection with cream in-between – topped with chocolate icing and a piece of pineapple. A decadent finish to our meal! Mom had a dry, white, Turkish wine with her meal (Kavaklidere), and tea and coffee was served after. I chose tea, but it was served black, and mom said her coffee was strong and bitter.
Some plane trivia, since I couldn’t sleep:
- Ground speed: 961 km/h,
- Outside temperature: -39°C,
- Altitude: 10 700m
The first in-flight movie (EDIT: there was no choice, or personal entertainment station – not back in 1999) was some awful karate thing called The Corruptor, with Chow Yun-fat and Mark Wahlberg. I tried in vain to sleep through it. I had forgotten how difficult it is to sleep on a plane! My bum felt sore from sitting for so long. The second movie was some comedy with Robin Williams – something about being a doctor and helping people with humour (Patch Adams).
My hair was so static it was unbelievable! I had also forgotten how the air-conditioning on a long-haul flight dries out your skin – the skin around my fingernails had split, painfully. Note to self: next time, bring hand cream, bottled water, and some sort of hair gel or mousse! (EDIT: these days, there is often hand cream in the loo.)
My notes from our 1994 Let’s Go guidebook:
- Shops & government offices: Mon-Fri/Sat
- Banks: open Mon-Fri
- Archaeological sites & museums: closed on Mondays!
- Must see/do: visit a hamam (Turkish bath)
- Possible accommodation: Yucett Hostel ($6.50), True Blue Hostel ($5), Sultan Tourist Hostel ($12), Orient Youth Hostel, Hotel Ema, Hotel Holiday.
PS: What a coincidence (or a good omen!): The Jo’burg Saturday paper, supplied on the plane, had a travel insert focusing on Greece and Turkey!
Day 1, Sunday, 20 June 1999
Breakfast was served at 5:30am – a ridiculous hour for breakfast, but apparently the norm, and the latest they could do it, since we’d be landing soon. It was cheese, jam, bread roll and butter, pineapple slices, grilled tomato, mashed potato, scrambled eggs and chicken in some kind of creamy sauce, plus a croissant and tea. Scrumptious, and again, quite substantial!
Once we had finally landed and entered the airport, I nipped off the to loo, and had my first experience with an Eastern squat toilet! It was awkward, but I managed, little knowing that this would be one of the cleaner ones I encountered on this trip!
The passport queue took forever (as passport queues do – yes, shut up EU people, I know you don’t know what I’m talking about), but eventually we passed through and collected our luggage. Mom decided not to change clothing, but I did – into my blue dress and sandals. I wore a shawl, too, because the dress had thin spaghetti straps (modesty is expected in Turkey, and the guidebook suggested that sleeveless items weren’t a good idea), but the shawl turned out to be quite inconvenient to manage with luggage. I also packed my hand luggage back into my main bag – no point in struggling with multiple pieces of baggage!
We collected a tourist map of Istanbul, exchanged $100 for a ridiculously large sum of Turkish lira – about 40 million. The Let’s Go guide said to catch the Havaş bus, which we did. I’d have to get used to quickly recognising so many zeroes, because the trip came to about TL 2.5 million, and I handed the conductor what I thought was a TL 5 million note. He took that, shook his head and proceeded to take a further 2 million from my stack of notes! It took me some time to realise that we had not just been badly ripped off, but that I had first handed him a 500k note, not 5 million!
Anyhoo, we got of the bus at Aksaray (apparently a hub for sex trafficking, but we never knew that!), where 2 other girls got off the bus as well. By a happy coincidence, they (Melanie and Susan) were also South African, and also going to the same area that we were going to, so mom and I just kind of … tagged along. This turned out to be very good for us, because one of them was a very assertive type who dealt very nicely with the taxi drivers who tried to persuade us that our choice of hostel was bad/full/expensive/burned down and that he knew a very nice place he could take us to instead (and incidentally earning him a nice commission).
After much asking around, misdirections and offers of help from not entirely trustworthy-looking characters, we eventually found the tram station, bought our tickets (TL 200k each) and boarded a very full tram. When we got off, we were immediately deluged with offers of help, tours, accommodation, etc, by droves of men.
One of them (fortunately for him) was English speaking (a Brit, actually), and he ended up showing us the way to the Orient Hotel (mentioned in our guide book), which was where Melanie and Susan wanted to stay (mom and I had no fixed plan, so figured we would see what it was like and decide there). Somehow, on the way there, he managed to convince us to see his hostel instead, called the Toto Hostel, after the owner’s nickname. (Incidentally, it was next to the Sinbad Pensyon, the hostel our taxi driver tried to convince us to go to!).
Well, the hostel was clean, freshly painted, and we could have a dorm room (2 bunk beds) for $6 each, with a small, but clean, communal bathroom. The people there (staff and guests) were very welcoming, so we decided to take it.
After a long awaited shower (there’s nothing quite like long haul travel to make you feel grimy), I left the hostel to buy some water and Fanta from a little shop down the road (another very friendly man behind the counter). There was the most gorgeous little corner fruit & veg shop that I told myself I must take a photo of. (EDIT: I wonder if I ever did? I’ll have to look through the photos when I scan them in)
Then, the 4 of us (mom and I, with Melanie and Susan), left on a mission to Ortaköy, having been told (by the hostel staff and guests) that it was a great and vibe-y place to visit, especially on a Sunday. On the way, I took a photo of some colourful boots lying against a wall (wellies, several of). I don’t know whose they were, but it seemed like a nice “character photo”, as was the snapshot I took of a man carrying a tray of giant pretzels on his head. I had never seen pretzels like them – our pretzels are tiny, little crunchy biscuit things, not giant bread things. I wish I had tried one!
On our walk up to the bus station, I saw so many things that made me gasp and say “Wow, look at that!”. Over and over again, and I felt they were genuine “Turkish” sights, not touristy things. Such as 2 little boys dressed dressed in the most elaborate cream and gold outfits, with beaded crowns and satin capes. I wish I had taken a photo of them, but I thought it might be rude. Oddly enough, we saw them again on our way back from Ortaköy. Turns out they were going to some sort of circumcision ceremony.
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