Surprisingly rested after my fitful sleep on the vans seats, I was however in dire need of the bathroom. My bladder was stretched to bursting point and I was trying to walk in a manner which caused me no pain, without success, perhaps resembling the gait of a crab. Lucky for me, there was a McDonald's close by and I was able to use their toilets. For once I was giving them some crap, instead of how it usually works at McDonald's. Later, whilst I was changing some money, I started talking to an American guy called Jason, who turned out to be a Couch Surfing Ambassador for some Romanian city. He was doing his Peace Corp time in Romania and could also now speak Romanian. So, all 5 of us went for a coffee (Turkish coffee is awesome) and tea. Very nice. Then came one of the highlights of the trip. We all walked down to the Blue Mosque. It is awe inspiringly magnificent. It is one of the wonders of the world I think. I can now understand the power of architecture to inspire religious belief. The interior is simply amazing. Go and see it.
After the Blue Mosque, we walked to the Grand Bazaar, which was a change of pace to say the least. It is the largest the indoor bazaar in the world at something like 1km square. I can easily believe it. I didn't quite get lost, but was close a few times. There is no price on anything and so everything is completely negotiable and depending on your skill level you may be able to get a bargain. But in the end I didn't buy anything, although I was pretty close. But there is only so much stuff that you can carry. Some of the sales pitches were an refreshing blast of honesty in a world of slimy half truth advertising. A point in case was a store owner (young guy) who called out imploringly "How may I take your money?", which I enjoyed thoroughly. It is also a bastion of maleness, with not one single female working in the whole place, at least not selling anything. We spent around 2 hours in there, trying to see everything, but not really sure if we succeeded. After that we said our goodbyes to the french couple and Jason, headed off to the ferry. Actually, we accidentally caught the fast ferry, as I wanted to sip on Turkish tea and travel slowly, in style. It only took 10min to cross the Phosphorous, 30min with the slow ferry. Felix and I both jumped through the air together to land in Asia, when we docked! This really is a high point in our trip as it feels the furthest we have come from home and is! However, the Asian side of Istanbul does look rather similar to the European side, at least at the dock which was somewhat of an anti-climax, even though it was an expected one. Ah well.
So, next problem was catching the right bus. We had the address written on a piece of paper, along with our hosts name (Cem Yildiz). Imagine going up to a ticker seller in normal unfriendly countries and showing them a piece of paper and gesticulating (sometimes wildly) to try and get the point across that you would like some help as you don't speak the language. The usual response would be "um, fuck off". Not so in Turkey. he could see we had the address in our hand and even though were trying to get to a major stop called 'Kartel', he asked for the piece of paper, saw the address and wrote down the stop and the bus number, with a smile on his face. Then we couldn't find the bus, and a young bus driver led us 500m away to the other side of the bus station directly to our bus. The we got on the bus, the bus driver helping us greatly to buy a ticket from him, which is always good. Then, as it was a long bus ride and the bus filled up (by the way, the buses drive on the highway and just pull over to the side through peak hour traffic to disgorge passengers) we started to get crowded, but there was a sort of ring around us, the two extremely obviously westerns speaking English. The people were simply curious, as no tourists head that far south into the Asian side of Istanbul. As were talking to each other about when to get off, some people gestured that we should show them our piece of paper and they told us in international sign language that we had still some distance to go. When we got to our stop, again a guy asked for our piece of paper and he motioned that we should follow him. He not only led us to the address, but knocked on the door, as apparently he knew Cem. So, from the ferry all the way into the heart of the Asian side, we were kindly guided by the Turkish people. Cem is a really nice guy, for him Couch Surfing is just an extension of his Turkish hospitality.
So, I finally got the long awaited shower. For a week now I had been thinking, mmmh, yeah nice tan you are getting davyboy. Hello, ladies. Turns out to be less a tan, and more a layer of dirt accumulated by standing by the road for hours. The water was running somewhat black off me. Hmm, no matter. So, we went for a beer on the coast, looking at the other side of Istanbul over the Black Sea. Very nice. After that, we return home to watch a movie all about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the creator of the Turkish country. there is something of a hero cult of worship around him still today. Anyways, I fell asleep rather quickly mainly due to the comfortable couch and the tortuous sleep of the previous night...
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