We clear the airport and catch a shuttle to our hotel. My first impression is that there is very little graffiti and rubbish - a stark contrast to Rome. However there are people all over the road most of the trip selling water or snacks, a lot of them are kids despite it being midday on a Tuesday. After some very interesting defensive driving from our driver we make it to our hotel. It's not much to look at from the street, but boy is our room nice - even if we are in seperate beds. There's a fridge (nicely shut away in a modern cupboard), a dressing table, aircon, wifi, ensuite and bunches of "free" stuff - cotton buds, soaps, and shoe shine to name a few. We also get a short but free city tour (maybe tomorrow morning?) and breakfast!
Despite the Lira being Turkey's official currency, Euros and US $ seem to be requested, particularly by hotels and taxis - lesson learnt.
We make our way to the Grand Bazaar and my goodness is she grand. It's a HUGE market full of everything you never knew you wanted, unless you want to buy women's clothing in which case you will be very, very limited. All I wanted was another plain t-shirt so I could have my shoulders covered and keep "cool" (it's still pretty hot here), there were precisely zero options, however I could instead choose from over a thousand different scarves (no exaggeration) or many different kinds of naughty lingerie. Not particularly helpful. There are so many wonderful options for men and for children, but women are mainly ignored on the clothing front which was pretty frustrating as I am used to it being the other way around! I did buy a pair of sunglasses in the end though, they are pretty cool but despite the official tag on them I doubt that they are genuine Ray Bands!
A man outside a kebab shop got talking to us, he was very nice and made us sit and drink tea with with while he talked to us about everything from Gallipoli to the current political issues in Turkey and why they will never be invited to join the EU. We ended up eating an early dinner there and holy moly was it good, probably the second best dinner of our trip (for me, might be Willy's best). I had a lamb and beef kebab on rice, Willy had ALL of the meats chopped up, fried, and served with a delicious sauce/gravy, we shared pita breads and a tasty fresh salad which our new friend threw in for free. It was super awesome.
We roamed around for a bit longer before leaving, we got a bit lost and ended up in the start of a slum in front of a sweat shop... Oops. We left quickly. Lots of beggars, all of them are women or children, it's really, really sad. Eventually we made it back to the right street and found our hotel, I have spent the evening washing clothes in the shower and Willy has crashed early (earlier than usual), we were meant to make plans for Thursday but it's been a big day and Thursday can wait.
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