Note: I've posted more photos of Turkey at kwilhelm.smugmug.com.
Greece and Turkey share a long history. A long, contentious history. Just as traveling by train between old enemies Spain and Portugal was tough to organize, getting from Greece to Turkey took some planning. The Dodecanese islands are just off the Turkish coast, but that doesn't mean you can get on a ferry to the mainland just anywhere. Rhodes-Marmaris, yes, but not every day of the week, at least not in shoulder season, and Marmaris is a long way from Istanbul, my real goal. Samos-Kusadasi, yes, but I'd already been to touristy Kusadasi, and visited Ephesus. Lesbos to Ayvalik, again, uncertain schedules, and Lesbos is a long way from Rhodes.
So Kos, with daily sailings to Bodrum, was the clear choice, even though I had doubts about Bodrum as a place to visit. Reading Mary Lee Settle's description of Bodrum in the '70s in "Turkish Reflections", you could fall in love with the place, but it is a major tourist destination. So, since this was my third trip to Turkey, and I was really in transit to the Crimea, I planned two nights in Bodrum and two in Istanbul, connected by a cheap plane ride. Trying to book the cheap flight over the 'net I ran into language problems, and enlisted the help of Meli, the warm, friendly and dynamic tour guide from my '99 trip to Turkey, who also booked me into the Ayasofya Hotel in Istanbul.
Since Alexis, the owner of my Kos hotel, drove me to the dock in good time, I was surprised by the long, slow line I found there. Swapping our vouchers for boarding passes, paying the Turkish port tax, and having the details from our passports laboriously taken down in longhand took so long we finally left Greece a whole hour late. Chatting with my fellow-passengers I discovered that almost everyone else on board was day-tripping, for the shopping.
When we finally arrived in Bodrum, the others streamed off the boat and headed for the bazaar. Already burdened with luggage, I took it more slowly, and after paying for my visa I trekked into town along the waterfront and then up a side street to the Su Hotel - a hidden gem. Once I found the right alley I trod a wavy line of blue mosaic tiles, decorated with colorful fish, to find white-walled buildings grouped around a brilliant blue pool, their red and yellow balconies draped with bright bougainvillea.
Not until I was lunching on red mullet, admiring a picture-perfect castle, did I remember that I was now in Asia. Changing countries, and continents, meant not only a new language and a new currency, but also improved food, and, just as important, better coffee. While I had forgotten whatever Turkish I had learned on earlier trips, in touristy Bodrum this hardly mattered. Multilingual menus were everywhere, although in early May the tourist shops and cafes were still uncrowded once the day-trippers went back to Kos.
For some reason, my right foot chose Turkey to start acting up - every time I flexed it, in other words, at every step, it hurt. Perhaps a delayed reaction to hiking over the stones in the Samaria Gorge? I didn't know. All I knew was that I was limping, yet again. I limped to dinner on the waterfront. I limped round the 15th century Crusader castle with its Carian princess's skeleton and Museum of Underwater Archeology. And I limped to the hamam for a Turkish bath. Here, while the receptionist spoke English, I saw no other tourists in the steamy, wet, marble rooms on the women's side. A hard, flat marble slab filled the main room, the center of the action.
First I changed into my swimsuit, locking my day bag and clothes into the changing room, and wearing the key on a rubber band round my wrist. Next I got wet, pouring water over myself from a plastic bowl, filled at one of the sinks lining the passageway around the main room. Then I waited my turn before slithering onto the central slab, pulling my swimsuit down past my waist. A large, nearly naked woman attacked the dirt on my skin with a rough mitt, before getting to the good part - a soapy mini-massage. She finished up by fetching buckets of water - some to pour over me, and some to sluice down the slab.
Now more than clean enough to enjoy the hotel's pool, I was disappointed to discover that the water was still too cold. Happily, my room came with a selection of English-language novels, and instead I relaxed with a book, managing to devour three before I had to leave. Since I was limping, I splurged on the hotel's van to travel the 35 kilometers to the airport, instead of sorting out the bus situation.
A young university student sent by the Ayasofya Hotel met me at Istanbul airport, and I felt a little guilty letting him carry my bag, as he was smaller than I am and it was a long walk to where he had left the car. As we drove into Istanbul past the old city walls recognition quickly set in - I had stayed at the Ayasofya, and been driven over this same route, in 1999. The hotel is on the edge of Sultanahmet, walking distance from the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia but outside the walls, perched at the top of a steep, cobbled street. At the bottom of the street is the small Cesme restaurant, where I ate twice, enjoying the spicy kebabs with salad and pita bread, and appreciating the friendly owner.
Having visited Istanbul's main tourist attractions twice before, I headed instead for the Mosaic and Carpet Museums. The route to the Mosaic Museum (excellent mosaics with good English descriptions) took me into a small bazaar, an instant reminder of Istanbul's aggressive carpet touts. Headed through the heart of the tourist area, near the Blue Mosque (properly the Sultanahmet Camii) in search of the Carpet Museum (missable), I met a helpful local - an urbane, older man. I came out of the Carpet Museum to find him waiting for me - my very own carpet tout. Since the Blue Mosque, my next destination, was closing for prayer time, I agreed to visit his shop. A typical Turkish experience with free coffee - why not?
At the shop I met the man's nephew, the real carpet seller, but not, I thought, a very good one. We chatted over the coffee, but wound up having a surprisingly tense political discussion. Then he kept showing me carpets that didn't meet my request for small and blue. I had no trouble leaving without buying. I suppose persistence must often pay - after I spent considerable time soaking in the beauty of the Blue Mosque's prayer hall I emerged to find the same man waiting for me!
That night I enjoyed a truly memorable meal, not cheap, but so, so worth every lira. Not so much for the food, bland lentil soup and shrimp with rice, but the view was quite magical. I ate on the top floor of the Hotel Armada in the Terrace Restaurant, which has walls and ceilings of glass. To my right, the Sea of Marmara, busy with ships, to my left, Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, serene in the sunset, and then floating floodlit against a black sky. Mesmerizing. For comic relief I could watch the sea gulls walking on the glass roof or peering curiously in through a partially open window.
Next day I again turned my back on Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar and boarded a packed ferry for the Princes' Islands, so called because inconvenient or disobedient scions of the imperial family were exiled there. While preferable to execution, I found one guide that says that they were blinded first, depriving them of a last sight of Istanbul. And Istanbul seen from the water has to be one of the world's greatest cityscapes.
Unfortunately my photographs don't do it justice. The weather had turned, and I shot the minarets of Sultanahmet through a grey mist. Eventually it turned chilly enough that I gave up my outside seat on the ferry and retreated indoors, encouraged to do so by my fellow-passengers, who were eagerly feeding a flock of seagulls. I began to think I had strayed onto the set of "The Birds".
I had chosen to visit the third of the four islands served by the ferry, Heybeliada, thinking it would be quieter. The big but empty waterfront cafes and rows of horse-drawn carriages waiting for custom suggested the island was usually popular, but not the day I visited. No cars are allowed on the islands, so the locals use the carriages too - or walk or cycle. I started by walking uphill to the Halki Palace Hotel, which Lonely Planet said had a good view from the swimming pool. Not so early in the season, though - the pool was empty, and I ate lunch in lonely state in the dining room.
Hunger satisfied, I strolled more slowly back down to the waterfront, admiring the old wooden houses, in various states of repair, lining the dusty street. After some hard and not particularly successful bargaining I climbed into one of the carriages for a tour of the island. I felt a little guilty as the driver took his two horses up the hills at a gallop, but enjoyed rolling through the pine forests. We were doing fine until we encountered road repairs near the end of the tour, and the driver had to find an alternative to his usual route. At one point I think the horses were actually sliding down the hill, and I was holding on hard! I was so relieved to be back at the waterfront that I tipped the driver as well as thanking the horses.
I couldn't leave Turkey without tasting baklava, so after an uneventful ferry ride back to the dock at Kadikoy I went in search of a patisserie recommended by Lonely Planet. On my way to the dock in the morning, mindful of my limp, I had taken a taxi. Having experienced Istanbul's rapacious taxi drivers before, I planned this with care. I had my hotel call for the taxi, and tell the driver both my destination, and my route. Using Kennedy Caddesi along the shore, the driver would have no opportunity to take a winding route through the old town. So what happened? He turned the wrong way onto Kennedy and it took me a while to get us going in the right direction! Therefore I rode one of Istanbul's smart new trams back to Sultanahmet, although it took me a little while to work out that I should have bought a token from a nearby booth before crossing the busy road to the tram stop.
After enjoying some excellent baklava, I spent what little was left of the afternoon admiring the Blue Mosque from the outside, before limping back to my hotel. I ate dinner at the handy Cesme, which even let me pay the bill in euros (I had run short of lira). I packed. Next stop, Crimea.
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