Well, I finally made it! 36 hours, three airports and a 3am start later, I landed in Istanbul. It was an interesting journey, especially flying in over Dubai. The landscape out of the window was similar to the brown and dusty trees and hills outside Canberra, except the hills there were huge mountains which from 40,000 feet looked like a frozen set of peaked waves on a really choppy sea. Slowly they gave way to sand, sand and more sand. It was just one massive beach without end. Looking out over the vastness of the desert the promises of wells of living water springing up without end suddenly took a far more poignant meaning as the landscape was as bare and dry as bleached skeleton on a dusty paddock. Water was certainly in scarce supply in that area, and the dream of an endless stream would have been a promise of unbelievable proportions.
Leaving Dubai the plane flew a jagged course along the border between Iran and Iraq, bouncing around in the plane as the turbulence in the air seemed determined to match the turbulent nature of the land underneath. Up on the screen the names of places which I’d only seen on the news, usually prefaced with “...in today’s latest round of violence a car bomb in the street killed another 18 people and soldiers,” scrolled by as we flew over the turmoil below.
Coming in to land in Istanbul I couldn’t see anything but smog out the window from my cramped aisle seat. Once on the ground customs was unbelievably chaotic, with queues of literally hundreds waiting for a handful of spaces to get the all important stamp in the passport. Finally after over an hour of standing around I made it through, picked up my bag, looked around, and then promptly remembered I had no idea where I was supposed to meet the coach to the hotel. Standing in the midst of throngs of tourists I wondered what the best approach would be. I decided that if worst came to worst I could always get a cab, then realised with horror that I didn’t have a copy of the email with the name of the hotel on it. With an ever growing tide of panic I wondered how I was going to sort out the mess, when all of a sudden I saw a guide holding up a forlorn piece of paper with my name on it. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that glad to see someone!
The next morning we wandered out along the narrow winding cobbled streets of the old section of the city. Barely wide enough for one car, there was nonetheless two opposing streams of traffic in a chaotic jumble of horns, pedestrians and jostling drivers. Near the hotel was the Grand Bazaar, and while I had been sceptical that the name wouldn’t be accurate, the place certainly was grand in size. Endless tiny stores lined narrow alleyways, shop after shop after shop, all with enthusiastic spruikers calling constantly to buy their wares, that “We are cheapest!” and “Best buy in Turkey!” and “Please, come in, have some tea.” Everyone offered you their card, probably in the hope you’d bring other tourists back to their ‘best and cheapest’ shop. Scarves, leather goods, bags, carpets, carpets and more carpets formed a morass of vibrant colours and noises that is a marketplace in Turkey. Venturing into one impossibly tiny shop to look at scarves, we were instantly offered tea, while the owner brought out scarf after scarf after scarf. Some rather hapless bargaining later, I was the proud owner of a beautiful scarf embroidered in the pattern on part of the ceiling in the Blue Mosque, the mosque of all mosques in Turkey.
After venturing through the bazaar, we went on a ferry down the Bosphorous, through the city centre and out to where the river meets the Black Sea. Mosques lined the river banks as we went past terraced housing that was squeezed together so tightly you wouldn’t be surprised if one popped out of the middle of the long docks. The thing that really stood out was the absence of churches, marking a distinct contrast between the Muslim focus of Istanbul and the Christian background to home. Earlier that day I’d woken to the wailing of two nearby minarets, Imams in seeming competition with one another to call the faithful to prayer. Rather than hearing it on TV in some sterile recording, the richness of the sound was striking, bouncing off the rooftops and through the chilly and noisy streets below. Remembering the exhortation in Philippians to pray without ceasing, the thought crossed my mind that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to have a similar approach to calling the faithful to regular prayer back home.
Later in the afternoon on the way back to the hotel we stopped at the Spice Bazaar, an amazing experience. So called because it had just about every spice you could ever think of and then twice as much again, from all along the old silk road which snaked its way overland from the furthest reaches of the east through to the markets of Turkey. People were everywhere, and not just tourists. Locals were buying the fresh fruits and dried fruits, the spices and the clothes and jewelery lining the cobbled paths. Fighting for space to walk, you could barely move but yet you could still go around the world in 80 pungent odours of saffron, star anise, vanilla bean and more. The Turkish Delight came in more varieties than you could count, and taste testing them all became a challenge, but well worth the effort. Unbelievably delicious, the texture of each was slightly different, with wildly varying tastes and colours. Unlike nothing I’d ever tasted at home, each of the varieties of Turkish Delight I tasted was smoother than silk in texture and incredibly layered with different hints of honey, nuts, spices and fruits, and not the slightest bit of the sickly sweetness that clouds the same product at home. I couldn’t resist buying a box to munch on during the long drives which were to follow after our time in Istanbul, but for now it was time to go back to the hotel and try not to collapse in bed before dinner.
Tomorrow will be a long day of walking, starting with the Blue Mosque and going through the old city and the museums and artifacts that make Istanbul such an intriguing mix of east and west. But until then, I have my Turkish Delight and a very comfortable bed, so do not disturb…..
Kathryn Roach is part of a group of Moore College students investigating Turkey under the tutelage of Dr Paul Barnett
