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tim — Sat, 31 Aug 1996 12:21:14 +0000

Woken by rain – on our packing day. Everything is soaked. Put our tent under the cover of the toilet block to wipe it down and meet a Kiwi and a Canadian girl doing the same thing. They share our view of Rhodes and it is refreshing to talk to them.
We have to wait for over an hour at the bus stop – all the buses are full. The rain has driven the crowds away from the beaches and into Rhodes. We don’t really mind – we have fifteen hours to waste today. Goody’s restaurant in town kills another one and puts a stop to the hunger, then we leave for the airport. Chris walks miles to the nearest village to get apples and bananas and a paper.
At 8.30pm after a seemingly endless wait playing chess and talking, we can claim our tickets from the Airtours rep. Richard. Apparently our flight numbers are wrong and for a sinking moment, we are nearly on a flight to Stansted. Thankfully, Birmingham is still on but Chris discovers there is a chance he could get a place on the flight to Stansted leaving later. He is ecstatic at the prospect that he could even be home by sunrise tomorrow but he must wait to find out for definite. I wait till 3.35am regardless. Chris is imagining getting into Stansted and going straight to Harriet’s house, not to see her it seems, but to use her power shower. Can’t imagine anything nicer right now. Unfortunately, he returns crestfallen from the office – all the passengers have turned up and there are no spare seats. The tables are turned only minutes later when a flight to Manchester is announced and I get my hopes up for an early departure. The same old story though, no free seats. Everyone is doing the sensible thing and leaving this place as soon as they can. The hours quickly pass when we meet David, originally from Birmingham but studying as a mature student at Canterbury in ‘English and The History of Science’. He teaches us some of the finer points of chess and slaughters Chris in a long-drawn out game, having beaten me virtually seconds after starting.
So engrossed in talking and playing are we, that after 12 hours of waiting we actually miss the build up of the queue for check in and have to join it – not at the front as we’d hoped – but knee deep in the herd of Brummies. David runs into an eccentric guy who turns out to be curator of a museum in the Midlands, wears a huge Panama hat and cracks the lamest jokes ever. David’s conversation seems intent on taking the mickey out of the guy – in the nicest possible way – and it is all I can do not to burst out laughing. The Airtours plane is only three years old and seems pretty state-of-the-art. There are drop-down TVs for every three rows and radio stations on tap. Breakfast is served not a moment too soon an hour after boarding and afterwards the film ‘Twister’ offers light hearted relief from the sleepless night. A visit to the cockpit is the highlight of the trip. The view of the fairy lights over Austria as we cruise at 575mph across the cities is very special, as are the stars unimpeded by clouds above us.
From an engineer’s viewpoint, the cockpit is incredibly impressive and we spend twenty minutes or more questioning the pilots and joking about our travels with them. They can’t believe we’ve paid £180 just to be on this flight – but don’t make any attempt to offer us a discount. Captain Kylie seems to be a Kiwi – just one of many which appear to have been a recurring theme of our trip. Land without a hitch and although the steps are late arriving, the flight is on time. The Brummies really haven’t been that bad to travel with. Were glad of the cattle prod a few times though. Birmingham is cold and clear. Chris has all the luck. His Dad has driven up from Swindon and slept in the car and is waiting for him outside. Chris is obviously silently relieved he didn’t end up in Stansted – Dad wouldn’t have been pleased. And so the time has come for goodbyes.
I think a fantastic holiday for both of us comes to an end here. To be re-lived, enlarged and exaggerated again of course in Freshers week. It all seems a bit of an anti-climax really, but that’s only because Rhodes was not up to scratch. Compared to the rest of the holiday, the end belied the laughs and fun we had all along.
And as I sit on a brand new BR train home, opposite a pretty face falling gently asleep at this unreasonable hour and watching the clouds turn first pink then orange in a glorious blue sky, I decide that England is, after all, a fine place to live and that really, deep down, the desire to travel far and wide is only matched after more than a month on the road by the desire to be back at home, sitting in slippers by the open hearth with buttered crumpets toasting for tea. I can’t help feeling though, that as I get on with my life, shrink-wrapped and pre-packaged for convenience as it is, that all the people we’ve met – the shoe-shiners, the drunk, the street kids, the old bag lady – will all be getting on with their lives too. Even if I never see any of them again, likely as that is, the hardship that I have seen them experience will always be etched in my memory. Knowing they have probably got it harder now, thinking of them is the best I can do. Mind enriched, horizons broadened, perspectives changed. Maybe so, but as the crumpets get closer, and the memories flood back, I look outside and see nothing’s really changed. I’m still me. The world is still one hell of a big place. The adrenalin drops off. The sleep loss kicks in. I’m happy to be home and there are new challenges to be faced.

Running on vapour

tim — Sat, 31 Aug 1996 12:20:54 +0000

Wake at 7.40am as our body clocks have become conditioned to do, but soon fall back to sleep and end up sleeping most of the day. It is not Rhodes itself which we find frustrating, it is the cheapness of the tourist industry – smothering all interest and culture here and taking away all that could once have been interesting to see. And yet looking out over the sea in the evening, now the crowds have gone away, and perched as we are on huge rocks silhouetted against the setting sun, I am once more struck by the amazing beauty of the place and its power to inspire me despite the filth crammed along the shoreline.
Only one more day in Rhodes. But the tale was guaranteed to get worse. In our efforts to get our hands on the plane tickets which guarantee us a seat home, we have returned to the travel agents no less than eight times. Each time we have been told to come back later or the next day during the ridiculously long hours Contours hold. The crowning turd is that on our last visit our cheerful assistant tells us she has the tickets. Our relief is audible. Unfortunately, nothing about the tickets m bears any resemblance to the ones we thought we’d paid for. These ones are to Birmingham at 3.25am on Thursday. We exclaim loudly in protest but her response is curt. ‘Say nothing, you are lucky to have tickets at all.’ There is not much we can realistically do. The Dear Sir letter is already mentally written.
Moods are not improved by a poor night’s sleep. This only reminds us of the lack of sleep we’re going to get at the airport tomorrow when we’ll have to wait there for 15 hours for our flight to come in.
We travel to Lindos on a cramped bus. It is different, with its little square whitewashed houses, a little more up market, but still Rhodes. We aim for a cheap day so when it costs 1200 Dr (£4) to get up the Acropolis on the hill, we decline. Instead we decide to break in from the rear. Considering the castle was built to keep intruders out, we find it surprisingly easy to get in. Chris scales the wall while I take pictures. Only when he reaches the top to find a group of German tourist looking down him, does he think twice about sneaking in. Too many people for me to try, but it was a moral victory. The Acropolis was breached.
We sit on the beach under the shade of bamboo umbrellas and try not to spend any money. Americans dance merrily away in the bar to loud taped Greek music – which is, when I come to think about it, a lot like Greek food in terms of originality and ability to poison. All goes well until at 6.45pm and last ones off the beach, we traipse up to the bus stop to find the last bus home went at 6pm. Our carefully calculated finances all go to pot and despite extensive efforts (some in German) to secure two more people to share a taxi, we are forced to take one ourselves and must pay the £12 fare between us. All hopes of food for tomorrow and tonight are gone – all my money is spent. Depression turns to amusement. Can there possibly be another blow to our happiness in the last few days of the holiday?
Dinner is Heinz chicken soup and two day old bread. A thunderstorm ends a sorry day.

Reflexions [sic]

tim — Sat, 31 Aug 1996 12:20:34 +0000

We know what has to be done today and head straight for the beach. There are all the expected clientele, the bars, the boats and the bungees. Plenty of nubile young women, but also many more old ones. The sun is hot, the water is warm and blue and the bungee jumpers there to keep us entertained. After a full day in the sun, we return to the site, purchasing on the way, from the corner shop called Safeway (not far from Asda and just opposite Tesco), food enough for tea. Spend the evening playing chess and suffering slightly from the powers the suns rays have played on us.
Money worries are becoming slightly more prevalent now the end is drawing closer. Can we afford to spend all that we have done? Consider slimming down the operations so we can last out until Wednesday on what we’ve got, but this is made more difficult when we decide that tomorrow we’d like to go motor biking to see more of the island than just the beach. The old argument – that there is no point in skimping now when in three years time our careers with Arthur Anderson will pay for our motor-biking in less than an hour – soon surfaces and any idea of slimming it down goes out of the window. We’ve only got four days left. might as well go out in style.
Restless night as the true horror of the sunburn makes itself hotly apparent. The bus is late and by the time we reach Rhodes we are already hungry for lunch. Our hopes of motor biking are dashed by the fact we have no licences. Chris has left his in the tent and I, rather more prohibitively, have left mine at home. Concerned that we’ll see nothing more of Rhodes than the crowded beach and the tourist centre, we jump on the first bus we find, claiming to be headed for a somewhere called ‘Butterflies’. It turns out to be a good choice. Butterfly valley is a conservation area for ‘worn-out butterflies’ who must not be disturbed for fear of wasting their reproductive energies. They are also, claims the notice, ‘heavily nocturnal’. Can’t help wondering whether this technically makes them moths.Perhaps it is just a convenient way of making sure everyone feels sympathetic when they don’t see any butterflies. As it turns out, the valley is a haven, not for the butterflies, but for us. Here we can get away from the whinging crowds and get great views of the island from leafy heights. None venture higher than us and we are rewarded for our efforts. At the top it is deafeningly silent, and magically hot.
As we return into Rhodes and fail to find anywhere selling fresh food for tea we feel totally disheartened with the place. Too many tourists and not enough mental stimulation. Having said this, we then proceed to demonstrate our need for mental stimulation by finding a bar and watching ‘Ace Ventura’ – possibly the poorest film I have ever sat through. Perhaps, after all, we are just common tourists too or worse still, perhaps Rhodes has turned us into common tourists. After a couple of beers the frustrations fade away and we return a lot happier with the intention of going to bed. On the way home at Faliraki we change our minds. Faliraki is a heaving mass of pubs and clubs all designed for the British night out. We decide there and then that if we can’t beat them, we’d better join them and that no ‘package holiday’ could possibly be tacky enough without a night out here. Most of these people have spent £300 for two weeks here. We are spending £180 to leave as soon as possible. As we see it, it’s all a case of who comes out with the better deal.
Anyway, return to Faliraki we do. This time washed, brushed up and without rucksack and cameras. Quickly find our feet in the two drink for one deals – usually with free shots thrown in on top. Oscar’s bar seems to be where it’s at and no sooner have we started dancing than we are invited up on the bar to strut our stuff. As Chris and I form the major advertisement for Oscar, whoever he might be, I realise we have not only joined these pathetic people, we have beaten them at their own game. Free shots for the bar dancing and we need them. We have to cope with Alan, the short Welshman, holidaying alone and the two Mancunians who’ve come here for drugs and women but who seem to be doing a pretty poor job of getting either. They sit in the corner, wasted and our comments about velcro knee pads for Welshman nearly cause a fight to develop between them and Alan. Cocktails in the King’s garden next and as it quickly approaches 1am, Reflexions night club – a stylish place where things are happening with powders and razor blades in the toilets and the dancing goes on all night. The clientele is British, but not necessarily willing. They’ve had it all before, and not even Chris’ Cantab charm is enough to win over one particular busty blonde. We leave, painfully deaf at 4.15am to begin the two mile walk home. Decide I hate the place more than ever before.

Pricey flying

tim — Sat, 31 Aug 1996 12:20:16 +0000

At the travel agents, Rhodes suddenly becomes a lot less attractive. She calmly tells us without remorse that there are no charter flights available to England at the moment and the scheduled flights leave Athens for £182. We run through some bizarre combinations, culminating in a flight from Rhodes to Brussels at £162 which we could use with a day’s worth of interrail left to get us to Ostende. From here, the ferry would get us back to Chris’s home town of Ramsgate, still leaving me at the wrong end of the country. Getting to Athens on my own and staying a night there, though, is bound to cost more. The options are distinctly sub-optimal.
After a while we question the travel-agent’s thoroughness and decide to ask around elsewhere. A tour of several back-street offices leads us to the cool interior of Contours, a possibly appropriately named company, who suggest they maybe able to help. After some initial confusion, we discover there is a flight to Manchester with British Caledonian next Wednesday. At £180 it’s still not ideal but it does give us two more days in the sun and this time leaves Chris stranded at the wrong end of the country.
Spend a good while considering, rather annoyingly, that most of the people here probably spent less than £180 on their whole week here including a hotel. Are we being the mugs here? Then, of course, there is the debate about British Caledonian. We feel sure they went bust years ago. We waste ages waiting around for the ticket to come through, and eventually lose our patience. Go for a swim in the sea and phone home, and then decide to come back on Monday. Big plans for a night out are half squashed by the price of beer here – £1.62 a pint – and half by the torrential downpour which impresses us so much as we prepare to go out that we just go to bed.

Rhodes Scholars

tim — Sat, 31 Aug 1996 12:19:59 +0000

The journey is punctuated every couple of hours when the driver keeps stopping by the side of the road, or in hot and dusty service areas, and switches all the lights on, mainly for Chris to go to the toilet.
Eventually, three hours later than expected, we arrive in Marmaris on the south coast. It has a pretty bay and a crowded marina full of expensive-looking white yachts. We find the ferry-port and sit outside until it opens up. The ticket agent is a young guy who offers us bread and plenty of helpful advice. He even lets us pay in a mixture of three different currencies which is useful and quite lucky because we are completely unprepared for buying tickets and there is only one sailing a day. Later, a herd of brightly dressed tourists of the very worst kind – middle aged Germans and Brits – slowly builds. They all clutch their passports and tickets – obviously on a day trip to Rhodes – and seem leaderless and directionless. Ear to the ground, as ever, though, Chris senses a stampede. He is right. As the door opens to let passengers in there is a dash for the entrance and the herd takes on form. We let it all pass by and sneak in the side door where no-one has thought of queuing.
Half-an-hour later we are locked inside a hydrofoil with several dozen of the same crowd, most of whom seem to be middle-aged couples, wives bickering at their husbands. Hope this isn’t representative of the population of Rhodes. It is! The place is full of them. We try to resist backstabbing, but it’s all too easy to pick faults in everyone we see. Rhodes has perfected the art, if indeed it is one, of attracting boring couples from Brummieland and Manchester and London for knock-down-bargain-basement holidays. We find a campsite, set in the most striking ‘spaghetti western’ country, and miles away from the commercial hustle bustle of Rhodes city itself. It is closing in five days time but this doesn’t seem to matter. It has a pool, a shop and a boarded-up restaurant.
After a swim, a shower, a shave and a rest I feel quite human again. To complete the process, we cook up a sausage bolognaise – our first ‘proper’ meal in 30 hours – and feel a lot better. The moon is high and bright, the sky is clear, we have reached the final country and the Mediterranean coast on our journey and I am happy.

Travelling Turkey

tim — Sat, 31 Aug 1996 12:19:36 +0000

Can’t help feeling that we’re missing so much of Turkey. The Aussies can’t believe we plan to go straight down to Rhodes without stopping in places like ‘Butterfly Valley’ and ‘Cappadocia’ in mid-Turkey which are apparently havens for travellers and very beautiful to see. The risk of not getting a return flight, though, is more pressing to our minds and Rhodes does promise sunshine and 31°C according to the papers.
Everyone seems to be leaving today and although we must leave, I can’t help feeling regret at moving on. I have really enjoyed our stay here. Nowhere else have I felt more at home than here. On our way to catch the bus, and possibly to reduce our regret at leaving, we imagine magical moments beach camping in Rhodes with bonfires and barbecues. All to often, though, for one magical moment, you endure the mundane moments in far greater proportion. Our major regret is not spending long enough travelling. In particular, we could easily have valuably spent a month in Turkey alone.
When our shuttle bus finally arrives we are the only passengers and the journey – with a nicotine starved driver without a cigarette light – is reminiscent of our taxi-ride in Krakow. Turkish drivers love both their cars and their horns. The bus-station itself is a monstrous affair. In Turkey buses are far more widespread and efficient than trains. The bus is very impressive – possibly the most luxurious form of transport we’ve used so far – except for the fact that smoking is allowed and we’re packed in with 50 other chain-smoking Turks.
Once we’re underway, we have an unrivalled view of the country. Rural Turkey is somewhere halfway between how I imagine India and Western America to look like – unplanned, ugly and full of advertisement hoardings. In the built up areas no building seems ever to be complete and most are just concrete shells. Perhaps the Turkish government is expecting a population explosion, or maybe they just like building. Whatever, the architecture is drab and boring and most of the land is littered and derelict. People stand around in the dusty streets, selling their wares or just watching the traffic. I find the place ugly and annoyingly commercial. And yet, as we round the corner and the verge drops away to a wide lake, backed by mist-shrouded hills and crowned by a fantastically large red sun on the horizon, I am reminded that even with all our added ugliness, nature remains impressively beautiful.
In the air-conditioned comfort of the bus, we are served coffee and given sickly sweet lemon-smelling oil to rub into our hands and faces. As the sky darkens, the ten hours we have left to travel in this manner seem insurmountable, displayed as they are on the bright red digital clock above the driver. I keep reminding myself that we have slept in worse conditions.

The orange juice story

tim — Sat, 31 Aug 1996 12:19:14 +0000

This morning I manage to sleep through the 5.30am wake-up call of prayer from the minarets outside and feel cheated. I feel my day is not complete until someone has shouted at me in haunting monotone from across the city. Catherine, Ingrid and the others in our room complain there was a huge street cleaning truck in the street outside last night making a noise. I have to say I missed that too.
In the rooftop bar for lunch, Chris orders a fried chicken sandwich but while we wait for it, two police officers come in for their lunch and it is clear who takes priority. They have the last two chicken sandwiches served to them and Chris has to settle for the steak instead. Police men in Turkey seem to do nothing but play backgammon and eat. We head off with Dan to the ferry terminal in search of a boat tour of the Bosphorus. One salesman tries to con us into crossing the bay instead of having a tour round it, but we’re not so stupid. End up on a suitable boat, albeit without a sundeck, with a round trip for 400,000 lira.
As we board the boat we are handed glasses of fresh orange juice and decide we definitely made the right choice. Later, we’re not so sure. The chubby waiter comes round and demands 250,000 for the orange. We look at him incredulously. He has pulled the oldest trick in the book on us and we don’t intend to pay. I pretend to ignore him, while Chris argues with the ‘Chef’ but manages to secure only receipts. Dan, of far too weak a disposition for a Cambridge man, pays for all three of us. It turns out the price is 200,000 lira so not only is the boat company ripping us off for orange juice we were given free, but the chubby waiter is adding on a commission too. They have well and truly stuffed us. We could have probably got away without paying but getting a refund now Dan has, is nigh on impossible. However, the value of our expenditure soon makes itself apparent. An American couple who also fall for the same trick only pay 100,000 lira for two and refuse to pay any more. The Chef comes out to protest but he gets nowhere and soon all the passengers are rising in glorious rebellion, whipped into fury by our shouting of ‘Don’t pay. Don’t pay.’. The beauty of it is that the orange juice was not to be the last entrepreneurial stunt pulled by this company. We get a succession of Turks through the cabin pedalling jumpers, watches, yoghurts, tea, beers and every one of them falls foul of our protest.
We pretend to haggle with the tradesmen, offering them ridiculous sums for their wares and then backing down, claiming they are shoddy and cheap. Quite what any of the passengers would want with a saggy yellow jumper or a fake watch, I really don’t know. Our action has all the Turks shouting in anger at the Chef who they think has queered their pitch. They protest even more violently when we take photographs of them and it turns out we never spent 200,000 lira in a more enjoyable manner.
At the end of the Bosphorus, we disembark at a small fishing village turned tourist town with expensive-looking fish restaurants. It has a ruined fort on the top of a wooded hill and offers great views out over the clear Black sea. We sunbathe for an hour before returning exhausted to Doy Doy’s for another impressive meal. Later in the bar we meet two English guys from Shrewsbury – one is going to Oxford, the other Kings College, Cambridge. As we say, we just can’t get away, Bed at 1.25am. Sleep is prevented by the Turks and their unbelievably noisy street cleaning hoover revving up and down outside our open window.

The man with the bowl cut

tim — Sat, 31 Aug 1996 12:18:52 +0000

On for a lazy day today. The pace of travelling seems to have caught up with us and we want nothing more than to mooch around town in the sun. Our main activity is chasing round travel agents, all of whom claim to know nothing about Rhodes. Perhaps we have come up against the Greek/Turkish divide, neither side acknowledging the other. In the end we resort to ringing up a Rhodes travel agent who tells us charter flights must be booked in person four days before when they know for sure how many places are left. This adds a whole new element of risk to our return flight. Flights are apparently on Wednesdays and Sundays and we imagine a scenario and the dilemma which could face us – take a guaranteed flight on Sunday or risk an extra three days in the sun for a late flight. Next Wednesday is the point of no return in terms of getting back for Uni. The trouble is the excitement of all this risk detracts from the relaxation we’re supposed to be enjoying here.
We visit Doy-Doys, a restaurant we have been recommended and whose title translates as ‘Stuffed Stuffed’. The title is very apt. We get two huge plates of superb food for not very much money and resolve to eat here again as many times as we can. Later in the carpet bazaar we are greeted by ‘Hello, How are you?’ by one of the many merchants as we are walking through. Chris replies with ‘No. No thank you. No carpets’. A rather crestfallen carpet salesman shrugs and claims indignantly ‘I didn’t even say anything.’
A Turkish Bath, us being experienced connoisseurs, is on the cards this evening. We are handed cotton wraps and directed into a marble room where three worried looking chaps are already lined up for ‘the treatment’. It seems this is a pro-active baths – none of your ponsey plunge pools or your saunas – here they actually get you clean. It feels like waiting outside the head masters office, not knowing what is going to happen to you, but knowing it’s going to hurt. A vaguely triadic Turk with an enormous bowl cut and even bigger fists soaps us down on a marble slab. My legs and arms are stretched and pulled in ways I’m sure they were not designed to, while I slip and slide around on the soapy block frequently losing my loin cloth. The next stage is no less enduring. We squat down while a large bellied Turk sloshes hot water all over us and then rubs us down with a mitten which seems to be covered in sand-paper. I lose at least a pound of flesh in the process, and wonder if this is the price I pay.
Afterwards, feeling cleaner than ever before, we sit around in towels and head dresses sipping Turkish tea with the three other guys who turn out to be Dutch, like some Nativity play re-enactment. The Turkish guy in the corner is chatting away on the phone and I’m sure he’s saying ‘You should see what I’ve got these guys doing this time. Really stitched them up tonight’. I wish I had my camera, but then think otherwise and am quite glad I don’t. Outside it is raining huge drops and we dash home ducking under awnings and dodging the puddles. A Turk rushes past us and shouts at us ‘Umbrella for sale!’. We laugh. This seems to sum up Istanbul completely. Just when we thought we’d escaped the English influence, and getting the beers in in the bar, we bump into Dan and Simon, economists from Emmanuel. Ridiculous, but they met out here too.

Smokey, mystical Istanbul

tim — Sat, 31 Aug 1996 12:18:32 +0000

We rise late and breakfast in style as the sun rises over the bay. Feel a little like we’re taking part in a Bacardi ad. Certainly the Australian girls we are sharing our room with have been cast as unacceptably gorgeous and totally inaccessible.
At the covered bazaar we dive headlong into the bartering, haggling world of Istanbul and just about avoid making expensive carpet purchases on the Barclaycard. We don’t get away completely without buying though. Chris purchases a colourful – okay, loud – ethnic top which is arguably made of camel hair and gives him a certain Chris Bayliss look. I am persuaded to buy a marble chess set which is too ornamental to play on and way too heavy to carry through customs. It proves to be a complete mistake because Chris promptly hammers me at Chess.
Over a few beers we plan the rest of our trip. It seems to be evolving into a coach journey to Marmaris on the south coast, stay for a few days and then take the ferry to Rhodes, a Greek island where flights home ought to be cheap. Agree to try to advance book a ticket so we guarantee ourselves a way out. Time is getting short now.
We cross the Gelata bridge and take the lift up the tallest tower in Istanbul, for an expensive but worthwhile view across the smog obscured river to the mosques and minarets dotting the opposite bank. The chaotic arrangements of tiled roofs beneath us, crammed into every last space, seem to sum up Istanbul for me. It is 5.30pm and still burning hot.

Numerous shoe shines

tim — Sat, 31 Aug 1996 12:18:12 +0000

The train clatters on for ages before arriving in the station a full 20 hours after we boarded. When it arrives, however, I am excited and ready to explore Istanbul, the place we have so looked forward to and bolstered our moods with the hope of through Romania. We visit the bank first and Chris manages to extract 20 million from his account. Always thought he was loaded. Realise a little later the rate is higher than we expected and he now has £130 to his name. Split between us, however, it should be about right for our four days here.
We find a great youth hostel – The Orient – with 94 rooms and a fantastic roof-top bar looking out over the bay of the Bosphorus. It is full of travelling types and we are instantly hooked. Chris is clearly in need of a rest after his bad night so I leave him to sleep while I trek off to see what Eastern delights Istanbul has to offer in the early morning sun. I walk down to the edge of the Bosphorus where the water is clear and calm. It is not long before I have my first encounter with the entrepreneurial tendency of the city. I am approached by Ahmed, who asks me the time and clearly doesn’t need to know. He has a toothy grin and asks me if I like Istanbul. Within seconds he has me sat on a wall and is polishing my shoes. I am in no way prepared to resist – I have, as they say, just come down with the last shower. When it comes to the crunch – and he is joined by his friend – he says the shoe shine is for free but that his son is sick and he has no way to pay for a doctor. He demands 1 million lira. I guess it’s just a good way to claim over the odds for a shoe shine and £7 is definitely over the odds. Unfortunately, I have no smaller change than 1 million and he seems to misunderstand when I gesticulate that I only have 1 million notes. There is an awful moment when between them they hold £21 of my money in their hands, but they are not thieves, just Turks working for a living, and I can do nothing except take the notes back and walk away.
I do, however, walk with a spring in my step knowing that I got my shoe shine for free. I take a walk in the sun around the peninsular and then back into the city where I phone home on my Mum’s birthday. It is kind of nice to hear that home is still there. It seems so long since I left it.
In the station I meet the Harris Isles guys for the third time. This random event thing is becoming oversubscribed. They have had a single expensive night here getting wasted but seem to have really enjoyed the place which is encouraging. They are now moving back north towards their Munich Beerfest goal. Evidently their childhoods have at least given them the right idea in this direction. I return to the hostel through wonderfully aromatic streets. There are donor kebabs roasting, spices in huge vats being sold and the general smell of all things cooking.
Back in the hostel, Chris is just stirring so we have lunch on the rooftop. He wants to sleep again this afternoon so I decide to head to the bazaar and wander the streets some more – still full of enthusiasm for this place. I wander without direction – a single blonde Westerner lost in a sea of Turks. I sit down in the middle of a park near an elaborate monument to watch this strange world go by. I see an Arab man come up to the domed monument, which I notice has taps arranged all around the outside. With great precision he removes first his shoe then his sock and stands on one leg while he carefully washes his foot in the cold water. He then repeats the process with the other foot while I look on with fascination. I guess any religion which requires ‘shoes-off’ during prayer must, for the sake of its priests, make adequate provision for foot hygiene. I sit in peace watching the people come and go : the loud American tourists, the quiet Arab women, the running children and the shifty traders. I take what seems to be a fairly main street and am quickly caught up in all the bustle.
It is all I can do to refuse the offers for carpets, leather jackets, lighters, postcards and shoe shines but it’s great fun to experience the industry with which these people go about selling their often shoddy wares. It strikes me that the bazaar is not just a gimmick for the tourists, the majority of punters are Turkish. It truly is a way of life. I wind up lost in some back streets where my blonde hair is definitely not an enviable attribute. I feel more than a little uneasy to be alone here – dark eyes are watching my movements – and so I make my way as quickly as possible back to the tourist areas. There are cars pressing their way arrogantly through the patient crowds but the selling just continues across their bonnets. I feel worn out by the constant pressure and have a weak moment while I sit and drink a fanta on a bench. It is a fatal and costly mistake. Istanbul is the city where you can never pause, never offer a chink in your armour where an enterprising Turk can apply pressure to open your wallet.
Before I know it, I have a shoe-shiner – maybe 12 years old – applying paste to my shoes. He is persuasive, persistent and for the second time today I am unable to refuse. Halfway through I realise that the paste they apply is sticky and critical to the furtherance of their income and expansion of their markets – all the dust of the streets sticks to the shoes, making them appear dirty almost as soon as they’ve been polished. The lad is joined by three of his friends – this seems to be a recurring pattern – and claims that 500,000lira is the price. I say more like 50,000 but he claims this is what you pay to go to the toilet, which is true.
The bartering starts here, but I have not as much experience of the game as he does and wind up learning by my expensive mistake. I pay 300,000lira, about six times too much and feel momentarily annoyed with myself for being so weak. This is reinforced by an old Turkish guy sitting nearby who, judging by his unfathomable shouting, thinks I am to blame for the state of the Turkish economy. I shrug, tell him I don’t understand and walk off, knowing that next time I’ll agree a price in advance.
Chris is still fast asleep – unbelievably – so I sit in the bar, look out over the bay where dolphins are dipping in and out of the water under a beautiful sunset and sip my cold beer. I end up staying there until 9pm talking to two Americans who met on a forestation programme in Albania and have only two weeks left before they return home to find jobs in Alaska. They recommend we head for the Turkish coast rather than the Greek islands because it is nicer and cheaper. Perhaps we will. I go to bed, exhausted but happy to be in this lively city such a contrast to yesterday’s Romania.