Not much room, but practical if in desperate need of a makeover. Room proved to be prone to condensation (but nothing an airing didn't fix), and I got no sleep the first night due to the noise from outside plus the light streaming into the room from beneath the too-short curtains. The next two nights were better when I wore earplugs and an eye mask, and Sasha and I switched sides of the bed as one side was more lumpy than the other - I moved to the side where you could feel the bed springs. The location is so central though so that's the tradeoff - and its the cheapest thing we could find in central Istanbul.
There are two more things of note with the hostel - both relate to the bathrooms. There are 2, each with a shower and one I call the "Red bathroom" due to the decor and the other the "Nice Bathroom" because its nicer than the Red one. The Nice bathroom is fairly normal, except for a sponge-like red matting all over the entire floor that allows water to drain below the matting. The Red bathroom has the same matting, but is smaller and has the toilet beyond the shower area - meaning you walk through the shower part to use the toilet and basin, a bit odd. The first thing was one night we got back to the hostel, I used the toilet in the Red bathroom and the toilet wouldn't flush - no water in the cistern, and no water coming out of the taps. A message to the owner, and I discover there's no working water in Istanbul at the moment and it might be back in some hours. Not the hostel's fault but both bathrooms ended up a bit gross! The 2nd thing was when I finally decided to give the shower in the Red bathroom a go due to the Nice Bathroom being occupied and found the handle for the shower water mixer had broken off - it wasn't fixed before we left so the hostel had one functional shower. We are staying at this hostel again when returning to Istanbul before going to Albania, so will it be fixed by then? We'll see!
We often do these, and so Sasha booked one for our first full day in Istanbul. This was not a Sandemans one but run by another company which I've never heard of before, and was good overall but was notable in two aspects - one, we never left the Sultanahmet area of the city which is essentially where the palace and the two main mosques are so didn't get to see much of the city nor gain a lot of bearings in the process; and for a walking tour, we actually spent two distinct and prolonged periods sitting down. We learned a lot though, whether it was the history of Istanbul (was once Constantinople!) and some of the attractions around, plus about the Ottoman culture which apparently primarily revolved around the separation of women and men from each other and they weren't allowed to mix - something only abolished with the creation of the Turkish Republic in the aftermath of World War 1. We also were told a lot of practical information about how to get around in the city and what to expect during the other sit-down period, but less of actually seeing the city!
The most famous of Istanbul's Mosques is the Sultanahmet Mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque - this is closed for renovations while we're around so can't go inside it, but we did get to go into its courtyard. We're not yet certain if we want to go into the 2nd of the famous Mosques, the Hagia Sofia which is now a museum. We did however go inside the Suleymaniye Mosque just after prayer time, which is almost as large as the other two and was fairly impressive. We may yet go to the Hagia Sofia when we're back in Istanbul before going to Albania but we're yet to decide that.
We visited a remnant of the Byzantine era and beyond when Istanbul was Constantinople - basically a big Roman-era water tank under the ground, called the Basillica Cistern. It was built to store water in the event of an attack or siege of Constantinople, so that once they closed the gates and relied on the city walls to repel any attack they had a supply of fresh water so they didn't die of thirst instead. Its virtually empty these days due to restoration work but quite interesting to visit and see - especially the raided materials from other structures in order to get it built, such as parts of statues of Medusa propping up roof support pillars.
So we were told of 3 big markets or bazaars in Istanbul - The Grand Bazaar, the Spice Market (also known as the Egyptian Bazaar) and another market which mostly seemed to specialise in Rugs (I'm going to call it the Rug Market). The Grand Bazaar was large, as you'd expect - lots of little shops shoehorned into little and large alleyways throughout the indoor complex. The large alleyways were busy with lots of people (almost all tourists), while the narrow alleyways were almost devoid of anyone bar the shopkeepers. The Rug Market was outdoors, and had more than just rugs, wide paths and when we went was pretty empty of people. The Spice Market was the first one we went to visit, and confused us at first as we wandered around outdoor stalls which seemed to be selling birds, birdcages, lots of petfood and pet litter, and there were jars with leeches in them. But no spices - turns out the Spice market was indoors in the building behind this pet market. Pet market is the most apt name but I doubt leeches count as a pet! there were also baby ducks in a cage for sale too. The Spice Market was busy and very colourful with all the spices and sweets on display. Interesting to visit them all - perhaps the most memorable is the pet market!
Since before we left, but particularly after we arrived in Istanbul, Sasha had been going on about how much she wanted to do a Hamam - a traditional Turkish Bath and was trying to work out when would be a good time do one during our stay, and where might be a good place. Sasha deliberately never asked me whether I wanted to do one, and knew that I was not keen - but that didn't matter, as far as she was concerned my participation was mandatory because she didn't want to do it all by herself. That sounds fair enough, right? except its a bit of a fallatious argument, because a Hamam comes from Ottoman culture. In Ottoman culture, men and women were separated. Men and Women don't do Hamam's together so although my participation was mandatory and we could go to the same Hamam complex, there was not going to be any way we could do it together!
I had to read up about what to expect, and what I read didn't really do anything to stem my "I don't want to do this" feeling. However it did help prepare me for what I would go through, which seemed especially daunting because I would be doing it without my glasses on and wouldn't be able to see anything. What's more, Sasha had chosen a Hamam venue that was not only very cheap and well recommended, all the reviews said the staff don't speak any English! Not only would I be blind, and by myself, but I wouldn't be able to talk to the staff. Great. But I had known this was likely to be a possibility for a while, and had steeled myself to go do it. Had Sasha actually asked me if I wanted to do it, I would have done it despite all my misgivings because it would be an experience no matter what happened!
So we went, arriving about 7pm. We had no wait - Sasha was sent off to the Womens section, while I was shown to a small unlit room with lots of windows facing out into the main reception area. The person who showed me to the room motioned what I needed to do - get undressed and put my clothes on the clotheshooks above a bed/couch, put the towel around my lower half and tuck it so it wouldn't fall down, and then put on the sandals which were on the floor. When leaving the room, lock it, take the key out of the lock and take it with me. Pretty simple, though quite what would happen when I left the locker room without my glasses on was a mystery. When I did leave, they pointed at a man wearing the same stripey towel I was wearing who then motioned at me to follow him in through a door.
This man took me through into a small room and pointed at the far end and said something in Turkish, so I started heading in that direction only to be called back by the guy and motioned to follow him while he was muttering something - which I then realised was him trying to say "Toilet", he was showing me where they were. He then took me through two rooms, one with marble slabs where people were getting the massage, another where people seemed to be just relaxing on the marble, and then pointed into a room and motioned for me to go in. This was the steam room or sauna - a smallish room with bench seats on 3 walls, and I was alone when I went in. It was hot, and although steamy it was not full of steam "smoke". The marble walls were all hot, the wooden benches were fine to sit on but breathing in the hot humid air was a bit uncomfortable - the breathing reminded me a lot of being in a steam locomotive cab when going through a tunnel and the cab fills with steam, and its a long tunnel and you can't hold your breath. After a while some more people came in and sat down while I just waited, hoping that someone would come and get me for the next part - some time later the same guy came back and motioned me to follow him.
He then took me to a place that was a bit like a stone shower cubicle with a stone basin in one corner that was filling with hot and cold water, and a slightly raised floor in one part. I had to sit on the slightly raised part of the floor next to the basin, and he got a glove with a rough side and began rubbing my skin everywhere except where the towel covered with it. After this, he then scooped water out of the basin with a dish and poured it over me until I was drenched, then he took some soap and lathered me up with it and spent a lot of time lathering my hair, head and face before I got drenched again and led to one of the stone massage slabs and lay on my back on top of a soapy towel which had just been freshly laid. The massage began, and it was fairly brutal - as expected - but I tried not to shy away from the pain nor show any wincing. After the front, I turned over and he then disappeared for a while. I just stayed put, wondering if he ever might come back and then all of a sudden I found myself being covered in cold water! After quite a drenching he then began the massage on my back, again quite brutal before more drenching (warm this time) and I was lead back to the shower cubicle, he motioned that I was to use the dish to rinse and wash myself with the water, after finishing to put on the fresh dry towel that was there and to put the old wet one on the side of the cubicle - and then "Finish" he said at the end and pointed to the door.
So I rinsed myself with the water, and when I was done I figured I should turn off the taps to the basin since it would probably start overflowing. This was a wrong move, the guy came back, turned them back on and repeated all the motion process again. Apparently I didn't spent long enough washing myself so I kept pouring water over myself for a while until I was absolutely certain there was no part of me still dry, I left the taps running and changed into the dry towel. At this point I realised I was still dripping wet - was I supposed to dry myself with this new towel also? that was quite unclear, but I dried as much as I could and then left through the door into the reception area. Here the gentlemen running the place pointed to a chair for me to sit in, the guy who had shown me to the locker got two towels, wrapped one around my head and the 2nd around my upper body, towelled me off a bit with it, motioned for me to relax and stay sitting and brought me a cup of Turkish tea. After the tea, I went to the locker room, changed back into my clothes and waited for Sasha to come back after finishing her Hamam.
I was waiting about no more than 10-15 minutes before she showed up, but she was not relaxed - turns out after her Hamam they had shown her the exit through the outside women's entrance and not back to the Mens section, so she'd had a bit of trouble trying to find me again. We related Hamam experiences and it sounds like they were not the same although similar - the key differences were that I got guided through by the masseuse whereas Sasha was largely left to her own devices for a lot of it, and although everyone in the male Hamam had towels covering their privates at all times it seems most of the ladies were bare. Sasha also didn't get tea at the end! She said although it was daunting now that she knew what to expect she'd like to do another one again before we left Turkey, but I didn't have to if I didn't want to. I'm glad I had the experience for sure, but I am in no rush to have another one!
We've had a few views, but so far the best ones in my opinion have been from a rooftop terrace cafe we visited after going to the Mosque, the view from the middle of a bridge which for some reason has a metro station right in the middle of it - so you walk along the sides of the bridge to get to the station, and from the Bosphorous ferries. People go to the Galata tower, but we won't - we got told to go to the rooftop terrace of an adjacent hotel which has the same view for free, but the view wasn't actually that great looking over the city from there and the terrace was glassed in with a restaurant there. We are likely to do a Bosphoros Cruise when we return to the city though.
We're trying to economise as much as possible with the food expenditure to make our money last as long as possible, so for breakfasts we've been eating the museli that we brought with us in little plastic containers with plastic cutlery that we brought along. For a couple of meals we've eaten stuff from our supplies (which don't require cooking) but we also have eaten out a few times. One lunch was from a streetside doner-kebab type place where they put meat, tomato and gherkins in bread (quarter, half or whole of a large piece of bread and priced accordingly - we went small) which was rather tasty and filling and was only 5 Lira each. This place literally only had room inside for the guy assembling the food - the guy collecting the money and the guy shaving the doner meat were standing on the footpath outside! We had a kind of deconstructed kebab at a streetside restaurant near the Spice Market which was ok but not great and certainly cost more than what we were expecting. We went twice to a restaurant called Ortoklar which is near our accommodation - Sasha found it in her searching and it was such a gem we went back a 2nd night, something we almost never do but it was so cheap, had great service and great food. From here Sasha's had a "Eggplant Kebab" dish as well as an all-salad-and-dips dish which goes well with the complimentary Turkish bread, while I had a "Chicken Kebab" dish and also something which they call in English "Cork Tile" - I think Tile is the name of food done in a sort of ratatouille style in a piping hot stone dish, as for the Cork well that's their translated name for Mushroom (looks a bit like a cork, right?). Actually a lot of the dishes at this place have hilarious translations - not only Cork Tile but there's Watch Tile (not sure what Watch is), and maybe next time I will try whats called "Crushing Pain" (no clue what it is - its minced something!). Lastly, we also sampled a couple of the famous fish sandwiches from the waterfront near Eminonu - the first was from some guys barbequing the fish on the front of their fishing boat and selling them, the second was from one of the more established fish sandwich cafe's by the ferry terminal. The first one was better than the 2nd!
As for drink - mostly water, some soft drink but we have tried Parsnip Juice (tasted like a particular kind of strong Vegetable Soup to me, particularly the vegetable soup I had when I was 5 years old at Greenacres School when we all brought in vegetables and made a collective cook-up of soup - 5 year old me just wanted plain tomato soup!), and otherwise just soft drink apart from Turkish Coffee and tea. I have been surprised that the strong Turkish coffee has not given me the slightly dizzy caffeine rush I usually can get from coffee on the rare occasion that I drink it, but it definitely needs sugar. As for the tea, we've had complimentary Apple Tea from Ortoklar and I've had a Turkish tea at the Hamam. No alcohol - not really interested in it yet!
Lastly - Turkish Ice Cream, or Dondurma which is served by a guy wearing a Turkish vest and who uses what looks like a sword to scoop the ice cream out of the containers. There's a bit of an art to this and a bit of flair, as teh ice cream is kind of stretchy and sticks to the stick/sword. This allows the servers to have a bit of a play with it at your expense but its all quite humorous.
We've done a lot of wandering around, helped by the Istanbulkart metro card - public transport is very cheap. There's also a lot of cats and dogs wandering around - mostly strays but not feral, and I've managed to pat a few of the cats!
Summing Up
Istanbul itself seems nice enough - lots of Mosques everywhere, and although crowded at times does not on the whole seem unsafe but we should still be wary. Still more time to make an impression with our return there, so I'll leave the full summing up until after the next time!
That's it for now - I think I'm going to have problems keeping on top of this blog and keeping up with the details, Sasha's doing a much better job with her daily blog entries so if this does fall qutie out of date, go over to http://throwntothefourwinds.blogspot.com and see the latest!