Well, this was an adventure. We started off by taking the bus from Kavala, a city about a 20 minute drive from the village. The “bus stop” was located on the side of a major road near a corner store type place and wasn’t marked at all. The overnight bus ride was a BIG mistake…and this is where the adventure really begins. We got to the border at about 2:30 AM, and didn’t leave the boarder crossing for a few hours. We had 3 stops at the border, first on the greek side to give our passports to the officer who takes them all and we go to the duty free to shop and go to the washroom for a while. The employee who gets our passports from the officer starts yelling our names out to give the stack of 70 or so passports back to us all the while getting eaten alive by massive horse mosquitos. Then we are back on the bus for 2 mins to buy our visa (45 Euros!) and get our passports stamped, which took about an hour, while we were outside being attacked by horse mosquitos again! They were at least 3 times the size of normal mosquitos. We all get back on the bus again and I was thinking that it was all over, so I got all settled in for the 5 horu ride into Istanbul, when the pull us off the bus AGAIN. This time it was to take all our baggage off the bus and get it individually scanned by the Turkish passport police. The whole ordeal took a few hours and made it really hard for me to sleep on the way in. We arrived in Istanbul at around 8:30 AM to a barrage of heat and taxi drivers harassing us saying “Taxi, Taxi?” until someone says O.K. and goes with them.
We were originally going to take a transfer bus from the bus station to our hotel, but the employees at the station ended up being such a pain in the ass that we hopped into a cab who took us to the hotel. We got scammed by the cab driver who charged us 20 euros (which is about 45 Turkish Lira – the national currency) while we found out later on that it should cost about 26 TL. We eventually arrived at our hotel after an INSANE cab ride where the driver didn’t even consider the rules of the road, while he was doing 140 on the highway. It felt a bit like an F1 race, except for the insane traffic.
Now, to give you an idea of how big Istanbul is, we were in the outskirts of the city for about an hour on the bus before we got to the bus station and it still took us another 45 mins to get to the hotel from the bus terminal.
Now the hotel we stayed at was really nice, the rooms weren’t huge, but that is normal for Europe. It was a 10 to 15 minute walk from the major attractions. Aiga Sofia, the Blue Mosque and right near the ocean. We got all unpacked, and went down to Aiga Sofia, which is a former Greek orthodox church that was taken over by the Turks and turned into a mosque. The architecture in the church turned mosque turned museum was incredible, but the paint job that the Turks gave it could have used some work…the Greeks did a much better job before.
My mother went back to the hotel at this point, while my father Ange and I went to the Blue Mosque. We arrived just as prayers were starting, and had to wait outside for over an hour, as tourists weren’t allowed in. We should have gone at a different time, and researched the visiting hours…but live and learn I guess. Once we got in, it was an incredible sight to see, but we all agreed that Aiga Sofia was better.
Later that afternoon, we got back to the hotel, and met Atilla, who was a German Turk travel agent that set up a great ocean tour, and belly dancing dinner for us. He also helped us navigate through the massive abyss that is the Great covered bazaar. The Bazar is really a lot of stores selling the exact same thing, and they all try to haggle on the price with people, which gets really exhausting after a while. We didn’t really buy much but my parents bought a tea set with a tray to that they use to drink Apple tea…which is really just heated up apple cider, but tastes fantastic.
On the first night, we went to a Belly Dancing dinner show. The show wasn’t bad, but the food was very basic and really boring. We found that most tourist restaurants in Istanbul were targeting the English and German tourists who don’t really like spices. It was a shame because there are some incredible spices and foods available in the city which aren’t being used at all. I guess it was our fault for not going to the Burger Turk and getting the ottoman burger instead :p The belly dancers weren’t bad, but the best part of the show was the singer at the end who tried to sing popular songs from all the different countries of the guests in the audience. He would go up to the table and get people to sing along with him. It was great until he came up to us with our Canadian flag and didn’t have a song to sing. The song we attempted to sing was “this land is your land” and Gus told the guy that Kathy was a singer, so that he could get out of singing…and now he is dead to her Even the Aussies got Waltzing Matilda! We didn't get back from the show until late and once we got back to the hotel all 4 of us just passed out after such a long day.
Istanbul part two will be continued tomorrow! It includes a boat ride, shopping and dinner cooked in clay vases!
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