Istanbul

Leaving Adam and Dez in Bar, Montenegro, I jumped on an overnight bus to Ohrid, Macedonia. The beers we had whilst watching the football before the bus didn't help me sleep as planned. My eyes were closed for most of the trip though, so I didn't see anything of Albania.

Ohrid, my first taste of Macedonia, was a pretty, old town on Lake Ohrid, which connects Macedonia with Albania and Greece. There's not much one can do at 5:30am, so I just wandered around until I eventually found a little cafe that opened earlier than the rest, and accepted my euros. I needed, and indeed ordered a coffee, but the local men were sitting around drinking their tea. This was the first time I saw this kind of hanging serving platter: the owner would load it up with tea and coffee, then jump on his bike dangling the platter wih one hand to go and deliver them, presumably to other shop owners starting their day. A nice community feel.

I jumped on a bus that afternoon to Skopje, capital of Macedonia, where all I did was have a good feed. The highlight was a kind of cottage cheese cooked in a dish with capsicum, tomato, 'erbs and an egg on top. I then got straight back on another bus, this one being an overnighter to Istanbul. I actually slept quite well on this journey, though if I learnt a lesson from spending two nights on buses, it's to change my underwear in between journeys; or at least wear something more comfortable than jocks.

Would I have done anything else on my first day in Turkey other than get a kebap? Of course not! Just a basic one, for 2TL, chicken on a roll with tomato, lettuce and seasoning. I'm sure there's entire websites dedicated to the kebap, so while I like the idea of speaking all day about the kebap, I'm not going to spend the time researching it. I can at least tell you about the ones I had though. A great, chilli chicken kebap in pide, another chicken in pide, and an 'iskender' (aka Bursa) kebap, which is a doner kebap on a plate with tomato sauce and yoghurt on top - this one was a bit dissapointing actually, but the venue I chose was the reason. Holy cow! Only 4 kebaps! Well, I'm obviously going to have to sample a couple more doner kebaps before I leave Turkey. I should perhaps make a quick comparison of the kebaps I had to their Australian counterparts. In Australia the 'kebab' is always enormous - I can only justify eating them when I'm sloshed - where as those I've had here are a more sensible size. Also, the meat I've had, and especially seen here, seems to me a much better quality than the uniform density doner meat in Aus - here you can always see the layers of actual meat.

Ok, so where to start with Istanbul? Again, you can do your own research, but it's a city of close to 20 million. It straddles the continents of Europe and Asia. It's been around for aaiiiges, was once the capital of the Byzantine empire until the Ottomans took it and made it the capital of theirs. How can anyone possibly absorb all that history?

Istanbul is expensive, at least compared to the Western Balkans I had been travelling through. I spent a fortune in one day seeing three of the main sites. That's a poor way to talk about such amazing places though - first of all was Topkapı Palace, home to the Ottoman Sultans for centuries. The interior was beautiful, with a lot of tiles, in particular delft tiles, indicating a progression towards Western influences. The 'Summer Pavilion' was also the place where the Crown Princes were circumcised - I loved the contrast! The court of the concubines was less interesting to look at than to think about the goings on. I believe one Sultan fathered more than 100 children! One highlight for me was seeing the Imperial Council, where the Ottoman Viziers held heir meetings, and the metal grill up on the wall behind which the Sultan sat and observed. I'd heard about this grill, this place, where so many shaping events in the Ottomans history had taken place. It was amazing to think about how all those things happened, right there, just a few hundred years ago!

The Basilica cistern, built by emperor Justinian in the 6th century, was a nice cool place to visit in the heat of the day. Amazing that something built so long ago, had been used to store the cities water for so long, and is still in such good condition today. Also built by Justinian was the Aya Sofya, originally as a church, then converted into a mosque, it was then converted into a museum by Ataturk. I've never been inside anything like it. The enormity of the main dome and the whole inner space just takes your breath away. On another day, I headed out to the Chora church museum, which had some pretty gnarly Byzantine mosaics - which had been covered up by plaster for hundreds of years when it was converted into a mosque.

While out at Chora, I treated myself to a fancy lunch at a restaurant called Asitane. They claim to have carried out extensive studies of traditional Ottoman cuisine, and go about recreating them. Some stuffed vine leaves (with sour cherries - is that what made them Ottoman?) were average - not worth their price. But the main, a melon half stuffed with mince, rice, almonds, pine nuts and currants, was fantastic, especially the cooked bits of melon sitting beside. Other meals of note included a couple of fish sandwiches down by the water, on the 'Golden Horn' - apparently an Istanbul institution. Fresh fish, grilled, chucked on a roll with some onion and lettuce - excellent. There are plenty of veges around, which I found great, but the problem for vegetarians is they are always served with meat!

I never got to a 'meyhane', where mezes and raki are the order of the day, but I did drink enough raki to determine it's just a Turkish version of ouzo, pastis, or any other aniseed liquor out there. One raki fuelled night started with some expats I met in a brew pub, in which I was ostensibly sheltering from the downpour outside. One member of the party was an expat Yank, who co-ownded a hostel in Istanbul - he'd been living there for five years on tourist visas, walking across the border to Greece and back every three months! We ended up at a bar with some great live music. It was (I guess) somewhat traditional, but they were all young musicians, obviously passionate, and had a great energy about them. At one stage they sung in that wavering way in which the call to prayer is made five times a day. It really captured me, as did hearing the call to prayer, though I'm sure it would wear thin after awhile.

One morning I jumped on a ferry, and for little more than a dollar crossed the Bosphorous from Europe to Asia. Cool! I searched out a recommended coffee shop, where I had a mastic turkish coffee (interesting) and also a regular turkish, also good. The Turks don't actually drink much turkish coffee - they appear to prefer their black tea, çay. It is always served in little tulip shaped, stemless glasses. My guts decided they weren't overly happy with me in Asia, so after walking through the neighbourhoods north to another terminal, I got a ferry back to Europe and chilled out awhile. In the evening I visited the çemberlitaş hammam, which was designed by Sinan, a famous Turkish architect who also designed the Süleymaniye Mosque among many other things. I received a vigorous scrub down by a Turkish man, followed by a wash (with a lot of bone cracking, the good sort) then a massage. I'd never felt cleaner! It was a fabulous way to wind down after a couple of busy days.