**As always, supporting photos will be here, but there will be a delay due to a hard drive failure so stay tuned!
After Barang, we hopped our way to Bandipur, a gorgeous little town that deserves to be much more than a footnote, but I’m so far behind that I’m just going to say: if you have the option to go, please do. It’s charming, the food is excellent and the people are wonderful. We had mediocre weather, but made the most of it. I’ll share some photos in my Instagram set.
During our planning session in Pokhara, we made the risky choice to fly from Kathmandu to Istanbul via Dubai, which was still experiencing fallout from the US-Iran war. There were limited alternatives and most involved 36+ hours of flying, so we held our breath and went for it. Fortunately for everyone, a ceasefire had been declared by the time we hit Bandipur, so it felt like we scurried back to Kathmandu (where we were welcomed like family by Sujal and the whole staff back at Kathmandu Boutique Hotel) and onward to Dubai, hoping like hell that the orange monster kept his act together and the city stayed calm. Our one night stay in the eerily quiet city ended up being more complicated than necessary because of hotel shuttle hours and pickup locations, but we enjoyed a meal (Turkish, appropriately!) that was significantly better than the quality of our very short sleep.
We breathed a huge sigh of relief the next morning as our plane taxied to the runway, and I silently wished the city well. We were going to make it to Istanbul as and when we’d planned.
Istanbul has a checkered past, but the title of this post reflects not the history of the city but rather my feelings towards it… Did I love the food? Pretty much always. Did I love the architecture? Sometimes. Did I love the people? “Absolutely yes” for some and “absolutely no” for others. The times I didn’t left such a deep scar that I’m having to do a lot of work to refocus my memories of the city in order to erase those first experiences.
I’ve been looking forward to going to Istanbul since about 2008, so I was giddy as we walked out of the airport and made our way (our verrrrrrrry long way) to the train into the city. My hopes were extremely high. Perhaps too high. It’s hard for people to live up to high expectations, so maybe the same can be said for cities? After all, I wasn’t having the best luck with the places I’d had the highest hopes for thus far in the trip.
We’d read about taxi scams, Istanbulkart recharge scams, and restaurant menu-swapping scams among others, so felt somewhat guarded as we exited the airport. We stopped at the machines to buy our Istanbulkart and noticed one machine with no queue, so hopped over to that one and bought our first card. It was at that point that I realised it had a different logo than the machines beside it, but I didn’t hesitate firmly enough and Rich bought our second card. It turns out that we bought the wrong cards and your two favourite city explorers who walk almost everywhere were now in possession of far-too-expensive all-you-can-ride transit passes for the next three days. At least we didn’t pay for the five day pass, I suppose…
We grabbed dinner at a spot near our apartment, surrounded by Russian voices, which made me wonder if we’d chosen a tourist restaurant. Plates bearing foods we didn’t order arrived – a common restaurant scam – but they looked pretty good and we were hungry, so we decided to eat and see what happened (our actual orders also arrived). Relieved at receiving a bill with no surprise charges, we began wondering if these inclusions were just a standard part of dinner, but we thanked the service staff and rolled ourselves back to our apartment.
We walked to a local bakery and, with zero confidence, asked for two simit (often referred to as Turkish bagels, but they’re so much lighter and are amazing when you get them fresh out of the often) before spending the rest of Sunday exploring the Asian neighbourhoods of Yeldeğirmeni and Moda, an area whose cafes outnumber the variety of floral prints in a Northern Reflections catalogue. Turks love brunch like I love cake, and they seem to manage to turn the meal into long affair – breakfast was being served well after 2pm at various cafes that we meandered past. We noticed one restaurant that seemed to be teeming with people at haphazard tables scattered around the sidewalk and inside the small shop, so we walked up and cautiously asked for a table. We ordered two different versions of menemen, a Turkish scrambled egg specialty featuring tomatoes and onions, with other ingredients added to order, and we laughed when we realised the staff – almost exclusively men in their 60s – were debating who would have to serve our table, since none of them spoke English. The relief on their faces when we whipped out Google Translate was priceless!
Stomachs full of fluffy crusty bread and scrambled eggs, we continued our explorations. It was fun to see so many city residents making use of a wide variety of urban spaces and really get a sense of how they live within the city via the ferries, parks, cafes, waterfront esplanades. We stopped for a drink in a local pub, had tea in a waterfront park, meandered the esplanade, and had unexpectedly incredible pizza that evening at Porto Napoli Pizza, then hopped on the ferry for the return journey. What a surprise when it became an unplanned sunset dolphin-watching cruise, as a large pod of dolphins put in a lengthy appearance as we made our way back to the European side of the city. Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque were sporting some beautiful lighting and the city looked marvellous as we disembarked in the settling darkness.
As we walked back to our apartment from the ferry terminal on a high from such a lovely first day in Istanbul, Rich made an impulsive stop to buy a bottle of wine. I didn’t clock the fact that the shop was at the end of a long section of tourist restaurants. We also didn’t clock the fact that there were no prices on the bottles. We also didn’t clock the fact that the owner chose the bottle when Rich talked to him or that he kept Rich talking until the bag was in hand. Rich didn’t do the math before handing over his money, so we walked out $30 poorer and the extraordinarily disgruntled owners of a truly terrible bottle of wine.
Ever wondered if I’m one to hold a grudge? Know this: I spent the next week wishing misfortune on every generation of his family.
We travel on a tight budget, so losing money to a scammer (especially while also wasting money on transit cards) stings on the spreadsheet, but more than that it impacts my willingness to believe the best in people, and that is what actually stings. Travel has long been our reminder that the human experience is more shared than we realise and that, when you express an interest in learning about someone’s culture, they’ll greet you with kindness. Naïve? Maybe – but it has served me well for 22 years of travel in 63 countries. I’m not about to turn my back on it, but I do tend to have a good sulk when I’m given a reminder that it doesn’t always hold true.
Monday brought brighter moods. It was an exciting day: we had a tour booked with Culinary Backstreets (use code CBTI for 5% off), who have become one of our favourite tour companies because they share my passion for using food as an entry point into a location’s culture and history. We started by returning to the bakery of the day before, where they greeted us familiarly and we more confidently requested a couple of simit, then headed off an hour or two later to meet Gonca, our fabulous guide. She took us and four other guests on what would end up being the perfect balm to the beating my trust in local people had taken the night before. We sampled a little bit of almost everything the city had to offer, starting with a beautiful breakfast of simit, kajmak (like clotted cream) with honey, a deeply savoury and herbed tomato and pepper spread called ezme, different types of cheese and olives that even Rich – a devoted member of the Anti-Olive Club – enjoyed, and tea from a small stall that uses a pulley system to deliver tea to the upper floors of the market hall.
From there, we toured the Grand Bazaar, moving through strings of dried chillies, eggplants and intestine, past mounds of spices and olives, and piles of cheap souvenirs aimed at the plethora of tourist traffic that moves through the market each day. We sampled nuts, dried fruit, beyran (a hearty lamb’s neck soup with rice), ayran (Turkish salted buttermilk), the long Turkish pizza called pide, a couple kinds of kofte (grilled meatballs), kunefe (angel hair pastry filled with a stretchy cheese, cooked in a special pan over charcoal and then topped with pistachios and sugar syrup), yet more cheese, and pastrami. Even the gruffest-looking vendors in the Grand Bazaar welcomed us warmly, smiling with enthusiasm when I showed interest in their skills and took photos of them at work. Gonca snuck us into a mosque and an old caravanserai (inns built around a central courtyard, where travelling vendors could overnight with their goods and animals), all the while explaining the nuances of life in Istanbul and Turkiye. We learned that loyalty counts for a lot in Istanbul (perhaps this is why we were welcomed back warmly on our second simit bakery visit) and you should never cheat on your tea guy or your barber because they hear everything.
Leaving the bazaar behind, we moved on to sampling lamb and chicken doner, pomegranate and orange juice, sucuk (Turkish sausage), lokum (Turkish delight), and – finally – slow-cooked lamb, served on the bone and eaten with salad, fluffy pide, and ezme, while learning about the old wooden Istanbul homes and Kurdish presence in the city. By the end, Rich and I had out-eaten the other four to the point that it became a joke because they couldn’t believe we were still going. We would re-visit the doner kebab shop and one of the kofte vendors, where each welcomed us like loyal regulars, once again showing the warmth the city has to offer those who take an interest.
Our conversations with Gonca over the course of the six-hour tour (that became eight) planted the seed for the route that we’d eventually take when we returned to Turkiye in three weeks’ time. Had it not been for that tour, I’m not sure we would’ve had an inkling of the culinary depth that the country has to offer. We parted ways with hugs and laughter, the way that all memorable meetings do.
Tuesday was dedicated to some hotel inspections for work, but we made a pitstop en route to our first hotel so that we could have a look around Balat. Absolutely teeming with charm, it’s a great spot for wandering narrow streets, looking at funky little shops and cafes, and browsing through local markets. Strawberries were just coming into season, so we made a game of finding the cheapest but best quality.
My meetings at Aliee, the Peninsula, the Four Seasons and with my partner agency were a chance to continue learning that Turkish people are warm and engaging – and have such a delightfully lively spirit to share with those who show a willingness to connect. I have a local partner who’d been a mysterious face behind emails but became a friend as we laughed together about her family’s complicated support of two football clubs with a profoundly intense rivalry. Our hotel hosts loved that we’d already tried such a variety of different local foods and it was an easy talking point with each of them. Offers of tea were always accepted, which earned us raised eyebrows and nods of approval, as if it wasn’t expected that we’d enjoy Turkish tea.
The hotel tours took all day Tuesday and extended into Wednesday, which started with breakfast with our hosts at the Four Seasons. That meal will likely go down as one of the best breakfasts of my life. The spread of eggs, cheese, olives, jams, honey, kajmak, pide, ezme, salad, more eggs, and sucuk was so elaborate that it filled an entire table that seated eight people – and we were only five. I felt embarrassed that we seemed to barely put a dent in the offerings, but we’d also been encouraged to order other egg dishes individually and had clearly made a mistake in following that recommendation.
On our way to our first hotel, I’d had to ask the taxi driver to stop the cab so we could get out because he wouldn’t turn on his meter, which is a common scam used by cab drivers who will then charge an exorbitant fare to the unsuspecting passengers. On my way back from my agency meeting on Wednesday afternoon, the same thing happened again and this time I did get out – in the north of the city, nowhere near anywhere that I could hail a new taxi and with no phone data or available wifi to let Rich know what was happening or connect to the taxi apps and start the negotiating price again. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve felt a little niggle of panic rise.
I found a mall nearby on Google Maps, so walked there and ended up getting a taxi from outside. When the driver once again hesitated to turn on the meter, I became anxious that it was happening again, but ended up having the loveliest conversation via Google Translate after he pressed the meter button and told me not to worry: born in Istanbul, taxi driving is his retirement job and he isn’t like other drivers, so I can relax and feel comfortable. I explained what had happened and he offered a genuine apology for my experiences, while I offered an apology for lumping him with the others.
I showed up at the apartment much later than anticipated, so we quickly scurried off to see the Blue Mosque before it closed for afternoon prayers. Hagia Sophia, with its rising ticket costs and our limited timeframe to get value from the experience, would remain a mystery to us.
We headed for the airport feeling like we’d had the most complex city break of our lives.
Grateful for: second chances