Arrival, Grand Bazaar, Shoreline Reflections

ROM OUR CRUISE ship drop-off point, the taxi crosses the Galata bridge. The driver knows where our hotel is, but how to get there is a multitude of infinite decision points. He picks the coastal route, eventually, running around the peninsula and then, at just the right point, plunges into the old city, weaving and threading his way through an impossible maze of run-down neighborhoods.

One turn is transected by a ditch cut on both sides. It's a tight turn and the cut leaves a narrow path, so he gets out and checks the clearances, then jumps back in and proceeds. We sit in the back seat, looking at the run-down neighborhood and gutted buildings.

Is this the beatiful city Rose described in her earlier visit? I wonder.

What a place! Wall to wall shops crammed together in a maze of alleyways, all under an ancient roof,

Eventually, we find our hotel and dump our bags into the lobby. The rest of the RROMAD gang is here, already, and Dan is lounging in a straw chair on the porch, his hat pulled over his eyes and a cigarette dangling from his lips.

He's relaxed.

We get our room. It's a creaky, old hotel - old wooden floors groan as we pull our bags over them. The elevator is miniscule - not much larger than perhaps two phone booths stuck together. It is capable of holding one person and two bags, or three people max. A bit of a musty atmosphere pervades the old hotel.

Our room has the same creaky floors, light fixtures of questionable origin and operation, a tiny desk and a tiny armoire. The man at the desk informed us that it, "is very noisy." We thought he was kidding. It's a tiny street. How much traffic can there be? But he repeated solemnly with no trace of humor: "Very noisy."

Ok. We're here and the location is fine, even if the atmosphere is a bit questionable. We're at the foot of the Blue Mosque and a stone's throw from the Grand Bazaar. It'll do.

We dump everything. Alan (the A in the RROMADgroup) has a contact here - the wife of a cousin's brother-in-law. We are scheduled to meet her for lunch at a restaurant somewhere on the Bosporus, but for now -

The Grand Bazaar

What a place! Wall to wall shops crammed together in a maze of alleyways, all under an ancient roof, selling a huge variety of wares. Silver platters and goblets, hanging glass candles, colored glass tea sets, ceremonial daggers, meerschaum pipes, harem costumes, baubles and bangles and bells, religious artifacts, jewelry, and, of course, carpets.

"I don't want to waste your time..." I try. "Yes, we are wasting our time, already!" "Please, come in and look!"

Proprietors stand outside their shops and hawk their establishments at anyone passing by - if you give them the slightest attention or stand still, they descend on you like vultures to the feast, setting up a rapid-fire patter to convince you to come into their store.

Some in our entourage are put off by it, but I think it's fascinating and engage, trying to counter the banter.

They're good: "Please, I make a very good price for you - come! Come into my shop, you see."

A simple no doesn't work, and it's not good to get angry. You just smile and say, "No, not now," which spurs a flurry of earnest claims to quality and demands to justify yourself. "Why not?!" "What are you looking for?!" "Please come in, I am best carpet store in all of Turkey!" "Look at this quality!!", and you smile and insist, "No, not now, but thank you."

They'll come at you with leather jackets, scarves, socks - all kinds of clothing - insisting you should try them on or inspect the quality. You agree they're very fine but you repeat, endlessly: you're not interested right now.

From shop to shop it goes, some of the shopkeepers are cleverer than others. Some of them are as exasperated as you: "Yes, you will be back - everyone says that..," or "If not now, when?"

"I don't want to waste your time..." I try.

"Yes, we are wasting our time, already!" "Please, come in and look!"

Otto, being a Dane, tries Danish. One responds in Danish.

Never mind. I'm trying to think of responses that will shut them down, but I can't do better than Danish and my repartee isn't otherwise fast enough.

Eventually, we just have to view it as entertainment and tune them out or take them in stride and continue the exploration.

Surprise!

The streets are replete with shopkeepers standing outside, lying in wait to ambush anyone coming within range.

The whole city is a grand bazaar!

I am tentatively in the market for a platter of gold to go with a crystal set I picked up in Prague. The good news here is the silver and gold merchants are much more circumspect and a bit more dignified. No point begging for a few million lira - if anyone is interested in their goods, they're going to have to have real funds available (after our visit, the Turkish lira was revalued and the trailing six zeroes were dropped.)

We wander through the bazaar, window shopping and fending

Conservatively Dressed Women in the Marketplace

off the hawkers, taking care not to stand still for too long or linger over something more than passingly, lest we gather a buzzing cloud of persistent shopkeepers.

In terms of markets, it is truly like nothing I have ever seen.

The time is getting late - we need to hook up with Alan's contact, so we proceed out of the Grand Bazaar in a different direction, with the assumption that we are leaving the maelstrom of stalls and merchants behind us.

Surprise! The streets beyond the Grand Bazaar are lined with shops, replete with shopkeepers standing outside, lying in wait to ambush anyone coming within range. The whole city is a grand bazaar! At least the old section. We try to focus on each other and our maps, but it doesn't work. "Why don't you come in to my shop?" "What are you looking for?" "Please, I make a very good price."

It seems to be the standard litany for the

shopkeepers. In a way, I can sympathize. There are forty-five hundred shops in the Grand Bazaar alone, many of them with redundant goods. There are five thousand carpet shops in just the old city, we are told. It's got to be tough for the shopkeepers, especially as the season dwindles down.

We wind along the streets, dodging cabs, cars, sweating men loaded down with bundles like mules, throngs of people - tourists, shoppers, and shopkeepers, all pressed together in a sea of mercantilism.

Lunch with Serap

We finally locate the building that has the restaurant where we are to meet Alan's contact and proceed in. The restaurant is upstairs and has a very nice

view of the Golden Horn and the water traffic up the Bosporus, and one of the two bridges that cross the same.

We don't know the menu - this is our first meal in Turkey - so we just order one of everything and pass it around. Most of it is quite good - a lot of spiced minced lamb on kabobs

(spelled kebap, here), creamed eggplant that goes very well on the flatbread, and various vegetables. We pass everything around, gleefully, while Serap fills us in as much as she can on the food and the basics of Istanbul.

The finisher is Turkish coffee - "mud in a cup". It's incredibly strong - basically finely ground coffee boiled and dumped, grounds and all, into an espresso cup. In minutes I feel like jogging around Istanbul or perhaps swimming across the Bosporus a couple of dozen times. Who knows when I'll crash? Who cares?

We take our leave of Serap after lunch - we'll be spending more

time with her, later, when her schedule permits. Right now, time doesn't permit, and we're still getting settled in, anyway.

On the way back to the hotel, we wander again through the Grand Bazaar, gawking and gazing more. I'm less convinced I'll get my gold platter -

most of the shops here that are working metal of any size (like platters, tea sets, and the like) are working silver. The gold is restricted to small jewelry. One silversmith says he can gold-plate a platter, but I'm not sure the final cost is going to be any less than if I get something from home.

That's a disappointment.

Other than that, the bazaar entertains our afternoon before we eventually move back to the hotel. Rose and I split from the group to walk along the coast and survey the water traffic. Here, at the mouth of the Bosporus, there are more ships gathered together in one place than I have ever seen, I think, crowding the waters. They lie in the now-crimson waters of the sunset, waiting to pass the strait, or take on or drop off cargo.

The shoreline on the south end of the city isn't terribly attractive - there's a lot of trash, as we've seen throughout the rest of the city.

I was puzzled about this and asked Rose what she had found so attractive about the city in her past visit? So attractive, indeed, that she was moved to tears in describing it on her return.

Thus far (and for only one day, admittedly), I haven't seen anything I would call attractive, much less moving.

She was puzzled about it, as well, and related a couple of things:

When she was here before, she was staying at the
Hilton in a much nicer section of town - she never saw the trash or the street scene of the old section. Or it didn't enter her consciousness.
Then, too, over the last thirteen years since she's been here, there has been a huge influx of people displaced from the Bosnia-Croatia conflict.

Finally, she also had ventured out of the city - it wasn't the only thing she'd seen.

All well, I suppose, but the buildings stacked on top of each other weren't built in the last thirteen years. The congestion resulting from waves of immigrants displaced by the stupidity of war is believable, though.

Scribo, ergo sum.

Arrival, Grand Bazaar, Shoreline Reflections

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The Grand Bazaar

Lunch with Serap