Istanbul, Chapter 3: Şişli to Marmara

Wow, people actually read chapter 2, I'm impressed. It was so long, I didn't go through it myse - okay, that's a lie, I went though it 1896568799000 times. I see a couple of you left comments (vehshi naach) so I'll address those before resuming with our normal transmission.

BumbleBee - Thanks for the positive feedback! I definitely plan to include shopping and food both, not to worry. The cost breakup is something I can't really help with myself since my dad (he's a travel agent) took care of our hotel expenses. We paid for our food and shopping and traveling on metros/cabs were split whenever possible. If you still need an estimate, leave me your email address or contact me on Twitter and I can get you in touch with my dad's agency.

Anonymous - You can easily find out the average rates of hotels online, that's how we finalized ours. Everything you need to know is available on TripAdvisor. As for the domestic flights - again, the rates are easily available online. When we booked ours, the fares changed twice or thrice so you'll have to check the going rate, I wouldn't know. Like I wrote to BumbleBee, if you want to contact me and get the number for my dad's agency, feel free to contact!

AncientHydra - You'd win this unfitness-off, hands down. NO to roller skates, the streets are more often cobblestoned than not, and you with your unfit regime could end up seriously hurting yourself. Please to not do that. I'll add in more detail when I'm done with the major stuff, be patient! (super glad you're reading all the crap I write though 💜).
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Right then, back to my trip. Day 3 found two of us injured with the always accompanying feverish symptoms, two of us too exhausted to go anywhere (parents had already been traveling for well over a month) and the last two (my brother and I) restless and uncaring of the heat - and let me tell you IT WAS HOT. Like, Lahore hot. Just not with the horrid, breathing-through-soup humidity so bearable hot. So we did what anyone does in this kind of heat: went to hunt ice cream. Now, here is one of my top favorite things about Turkey: Mado. This wonderful, amazing, reaching-genius-level lovely, lovely gelato was my saviour every day; sometimes twice a day. Their Nutty Roasted Caramel is out of this world good. This ice cream place is all over the 3 cities I visited, in pretty much every popular street - in the markets, by the beach, by the hotels, by the food strip. Pretty easy to find. The flavors aren't too creative but what they have is this gorgeously textured gelato with a depth of flavor that's absolutely fantastic. It's not just an ice cream parlor though, they have their own cafes serving food - both local Turkish cuisine and other stuff. When you go, please do try their desserts and food, it was one of my favorite places there.

These are only the ones I paused to take pictures of, not all the ones I ate. I ate a lot. 

*Disclaimer* all food pictures are from my phone, please forgive the wonky colors and composition.

A little bit about Turkish cuisine: if you're not a fan of meat or lamb, bring your tin ke dabbay with your choice of food with you. Turkish food is meat, meat, meat with a side of meat. Not to say it wasn't good - it was actually pretty flavorful, depending on which restaurant you picked. Most dishes are served with a massive bowl of salad and yogurt (their yogurt was super good) and sometimes, a basket of bread with dipping sauces of weird things I couldn't recognize except olive-chili oil.

Great bread, weird dips.

There are doner places everywhere, which is great if you like mild wraps. Fast food chains like Burger King, KFC and McDonald's are very popular there. This one time, I ordered a burger at BK because I wanted a break from the local food and I kid you not, the meat patty was making the sides of the burger box bulge out and tear. It. Was. MASSIVE.

Lamb shish

 Their lamb shish, lamb chops and chicken shish are safe options pretty much everywhere.

Lamb chops

Their local pizzas are kind of meh - toppings are great but there's too much of the sheep's cheese they love and the bread is too weak to hold it all so it ends up an attractive, oddly imbalanced mess in your mouth.

Pizza with gooey toppings and super mild flavor

Plain cheese

Ground meat with cheese and veggies

Which brings me to my most important point: never having tried it before, I thought sheep's cheese would be okayish, nothing too amazing. But man, was I ever wrong. They do these flatbreads at every local cafe and restaurant called 'pide'. The fillings range from plain cheese and ground meat to combinations of both with veggies or even half and half. These were hands down the BEST food item in all of Turkey (that I saw). I can't begin to describe how good these are, you'll just have to take my word for it until you go to Turkey and try these yourself which you MUST.

 We tried their local fried chicken which wasn't bad, just kind of tough to chew - or at least mine was. I think because the oil was reused and also I really, really hate the flavor of sesame oil so I wouldn't give it 5 stars. But hey, it looked good.

Also, if you're into breads, they have this sesame coated bread I forgot the name of - it's a circle of twisted dough that's baked a deep golden brown and it smells sooooo good! It also tastes pretty great, provided you get a fresh one and not the ones they've baked at 5 a.m. These are available in every street, every food place, every ferry/boat ride. Very common.

Sorry for the mediocre pictures, most times I was too hungry to wait so I just ate it all and then remembered I had to take pictures but it was too late, obviously. It's okay though, I don't mind. The food for me was a bit too mild at places so I wasn't a huge fan but there were some places that did something exceptionally amazing to the meat and it was divine. I'll show you those pictures later, I'm not adding everything I ate and liked here, these are just a few things.

Also, not adding anything tea or coffee related here. Those I feel deserve more than just a cursory mention, so I'll include those in either the next post or some other one. I also have cute pictures of the Turkish chai and I want to show those off, so you'll just have to wait and see. I wasn't intending to talk about the cuisine just yet but... oh well.



Coming back to what I did on day 3 - shopped for things like iron-on badges, cute little bags, any souvenir type thing, explored adorable street-side cafes - mostly just roamed around the area I was staying in. It's called Şişli so that's where I was and the street market there was awesome. There's loads of shops that sell pretty much everything and the price range is low (street vendors, small markets, tiny shops) to high (upscale boutiques, pretty cafes, sexy shoe stores), depending on which shop you enter.

When it got too hot, we went up to the hotel's rooftop swimming pool which had a nice cool breeze so hung out there for a while. Here's a view of a tiny section of the city from up there.

Post 4 p.m., it got really hot and even the breeze stopped (plus we were hungry and tired) so all of us decided to rest up a little before heading out in the evening. Around 9ish, baba suddenly decided to have dinner near the seaside. That wasn't exactly nearby but we were so excited at the prospect of thandi hawa and good food and just chilling out that we ran to the Metro station. Got there in about 40 minutes and walked through the area (which by day is Spice Bazar, by night it's... closed). A lot of street vendors had set up supplies near the bridge and under it so you can get a lot of cheap shopping done there (the bridge by the Marmara sea). If I'm not explaining things right, don't worry, you'll find it anyway lol. Here are some nighttime views of random places I liked.

Loved, loved, loved this purple bridge. Picture doesn't do it justice. 

There were tons of seafood restaurants in the area, but the coolest part was how they arranged it all. So, on the docks, they'd set out chairs and tables for the customers but the kitchens were in the boats and ferries themselves - on the water, tied of course but the chefs and waiters would jump on and off the boat to speak to/serve the customers.

We sat here and had chai and boiled corn (I don't know how theirs tastes so good while ours tastes like... boiled corn). Nobody felt like seafood, and there was a strip of local Turkish restaurants on the other side so we started meandering - yes, meandering - there.
Had a great dinner of Turkish sandwiches and shisha - more on that later.

I don't remember if this is the Golden Horn Bridge, the Golden something or the Golden something or the other. But it's golden, it's pretty, it's a tram station and it's famous. Sorry, I suck at remembering stuff. 

Alright then, huge ass post once more, I hope you guys enjoy it. I'll be adding more about food and shopping bits wherever possible, since I still have 3 more days to do in Istanbul before moving on to Izmir and Kayseri - which in comparison will sound like I spent all that time in a coma. 

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Istanbul, Chapter 2: Blue Mosque to Taksim Square

My real journey begins here because on day 1 we did nothing. No no, I'm not downplaying it. Aside from roasting in the heat, staring at the streets, wandering around the supermarkets, we did nothing. Half of my siblings were asleep, one was indifferent and I was going mental thinking WE MUST GO OUT AND BE ABOUT AND EXPLORE AND THINGS but as circumstances had it, we waited until the next day to actually start saying hello to Istanbul.

Now, before you go to any new place, the most important decision you have to make is where you'll be staying. Do not take this lightly (I can't stress this enough) otherwise you'll end up doing 4% of what you actually want to do and 96% of your time will be spent going to and from the place. In Istanbul, we stayed in the City Center, which was awesome. Taksim square - the main hub of cafes, markets, shopping, food, live music, basically everything awesome - was one metro stop away. If you're planning on going, stay in either the City Center, Taksim Square or if possible somewhere in the Sultanahmet District (old city: Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Grand Bazaar, etc).

Our preferred mode of travel inside the city was obviously the Metro train. Super fast, convenient, light on the budget, most of all NO TRAFFIC LIGHTS OR JAMS. The only thing you have to be careful about is knowing exactly which station to get off at and change lines from (if necessary). Don't you roll your eyes at me, I'm "stating the obvious" because there are like 3 areas with the same name there. Yeah, sometimes Istanbul sucked becau- I'll get to that later. Point is, be very very sure that the stop you're getting off at is where you need to be and not somewhere at the other end of the city. The train stops running around 11 p.m. I think, so after that your options are a little more limited. There's the Metro Bus, the tram, and taxis (total rip offs). Taxis were 24/7, the tram and bus both have fixed timings which I don't remember so just check on your own when you go there. Some places you'll be better off going on taxis though, because the train or bus takes a roundabout way and gets you there in 1-1.5 hours whereas the taxi can get you there in 10-15 mins. I know you know all this, but bear with me.

Onwards then, to where my day starts. After a lovely, lovely breakfast at the hotel, we set off for the old city. Sultan Ahmet was our destination (two metro stops, a tram, a lot of walking) specifically, the Blue Mosque. So if you're unfit (like me), unused to any kind of exercise (like me) you'll be dying within a few minutes. You. Have. To. Walk. A. Lot. Like a lot. A LOT. Am I making myself clear? No? There is a ton of walking. A mega ton.



Okay, you get the idea. So we walk, walk, walk, walk to the mosque area where I was lucky enough to go and pray on Jumma-tul-Wida hashtag blessed. Here are a couple pictures for you to ooh and aah over.

I don't have words to describe what the whole experience was like. From sitting outside on the stone steps, to going inside the vast maidaan, to praying on mats in front of the domes, to the lush gardens ringing it on both sides - it was stunning, amazing, beautiful, completely majestic. 

After taking a million pictures and being quintessential paindu tourists, we set off to explore it from the inside. Here, we had about a 30 minute wait because Jumma prayer had just ended and the area from the inside wasn't open for visitors. So we baked in the sun, experienced olfactory death thanks to hundreds of unwashed, sweaty tourists.

Finally, the doors opened and here again we were treated to the smellier side of humanity. Mashed up against each other single file, we inched our way across the steps to the main entrance. Yahan sab nangi aurton ko burqay aur hijab pehnaye ja rahay thay, which were called 'parachutes' by the goray. Lol. Khair, we went in and it was super crowded so I didn't get many good pictures but just to give you an idea:

After trying and failing to take nice selfies inside - too dark, too crowded, too many other toursists taking photos behind your ear, tui, elbow, etc. - we ventured out and to the opposite side of the mosque. 

Here, there was a massive handicrafts market in the front and to the side, these tiny shops full of Turkish lights, local souvenirs, scarves, keychains, handmade tiles, decorative items and such. For hijabis, don't go mental buying your scarves here. They might seem very inexpensive but trust me you can get a much better price and equal quality in the Grand Bazaar or even Sultanahmet market.

Bargaining is essential here. In the hand crafted goods area, everything has a fixed price and they're pretty fair. But these markets and bazaars, look out for people taking advantage of tourists and charging way more than they should.

From here, we wandered down the road past the gardens to Hagia Sophia: started out as a basilica, became a mosque and now a museum. We didn't go inside because the ticket price seemed a bit excessive and also it was almost closing time. Here's a shot from the outside.

It was pretty late in the afternoon by now - around 5:30ish or maybe 6, I don't really remember. But basically, the old city mosques, museums, galleries and bazaars were all closing up. Baba decided to go down to the waterfront just to see if there was something to do there. 

We all followed - little did we know HOW LONG A WALK IT IS from this area down to the Bosphorus tour ferries. Or maybe it seemed that way because we were all hungry, tired, sweaty and unused to being in the sun all day. So we set out pretty grumpily but honestly, even the roads there lift your mood. I mean, just check this out. 

 

A very welcome cool breeze began as soon as we stepped out of the main square and towards the seaside. There were hundreds of tiny little cafes, shops, patisseries and bakeries that had me salivating for the next 30 minutes. Quaint little shisha cafes, pretty cool gadget shops with camera and phone equipment - there was tons of different stuff to be found there. We didn't really stop here because of time constraints - the way back to the hotel was pretty long and we didn't want to miss the Metro train time. So onwards to the ferries. Here, we were greeted with blazing sunlight, a gorgeous strong breeze (severely fish scented), fishermen everywhere on the dock and so many, many, many people! It was like a busy little world of its own. Spectacular view, fresh seafood cafes, great local color.

From here we decided to take one of the famous Bosphorus cruises (rates vary acc to the time and amount of people. For e.g., in the morning the fares ran about ₺12-15 but by the time we booked seats, they'd increased to ₺20-25, per person). Not too expensive. The whole thing took about an hour and a half because it was very slow going so it's more of a peaceful ride where you enjoy the city and the breathtaking view. 

The whole experience was pretty sublime, but I won't lie: the heat was scorching hot on the top deck. Like, the sunlight felt like it would burn my face off. So unless you're sitting in the shade, you might not enjoy it too much. 

Around 8ish, we started heading back to the city and decided to swing by Taksim square and have dinner there. I swear it felt like I'd found my home. Istanbul and especially Taksim ki Istiklal street is Lahore elevated by several hundred levels but the vibe is the same. It is so full of life! One of my absolute favorite places in the world. 

There's tons of food options here. Everything from chains like Burger King and KFC to local Turkish food - which I'll talk about in the next post. The shopping and bargains you get are well worth visiting this little area. There's always something happening here, from live music to dancers to a group of people singing bus ainwaen. 

Whatever you do, wherever you're staying, please don't miss Istiklal street. It's so vibrantly alive. 

Okay, I think I've talked A LOT in this one post so the rest will have to wait until the next one. If anyone's reading this (lol) please drop a comment and let me know if there's anything you're looking for specifically. 

Istanbul, Turkey: Chapter 1

At the risk of sounding self important, obnoxious and all manner of other unflattering adjectives, I decided to record my Turkey trip here. At best, it'll help you plan for your own trip, maybe have a little fun seeing where I went, what I experienced, when disaster struck and when I was absolutely stunned by the sheer beauty of Turkey, no matter where I went. At worst... who cares, don't read ahead.

So, my trip was around 11 days: 5 flights, 5 airports, 4 hotels, countless metro bus/train/tram travels. The larger chunk was spent in Istanbul - even 6 days wasn't enough to explore the city, we saw only the barest slice. I could spend a year here and not get sick of it. The rest of our days were divided between Izmir, Kayseri and then the last day and night back in Istanbul before heading home.

I went with my siblings and our parents joined us there. For those of you thinking I'm about to describe a trippy friends vacation, sorry to disappoint. I'll upload pictures, try and remember where I went and what I ate but I'm telling you honestly, this whole series is filled with bias, it is not a complete depiction of Turkey and/or any city I'll describe. The little I saw, I'll share with you.

I'll start with the 5 days we spent exploring Istanbul so if you're planning to go, feel free to read, leave comments, throw food at your screen and jeeringly yell bullshit made-up swear words. I might even join you.

- Until next time.