A dervish-ion to Turkey

Tet means holidays for everyone in Vietnam. Vietnamese head back to their home towns. Buses are overloaded and trains are full. Traffic is chaos, although that is normal.

For expats it means a quiet time at the office, or a few days at the beach, or a chance to get away. We chose the latter, and headed to Turkey. We’ve spent years listening to an array of family and friends telling us how good it is, so off we went. We flew on Singapore Airlines, and when the pilot aborted the landing in Istanbul a few metres off the ground, it was a good feeling to know that we were on an airline that has experienced, well-trained pilots and maintenance crew.

What did we expect to find in Turkey? Kebabs? Old women in black dresses? A densely populated chaotic city with intense, noisy, badly polluting traffic? Whirling dervishes? If so we were a long way off the mark. Istanbul is one of the great cities. Just to see the Aya Sofia is enough reason to go. One of the great sights is to see the domes and minarets of the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia against the background of the Marmara Sea.

You cannot escape mosques in Istanbul. There’s one on every corner. Every sultan for 500 years wanted to build one. Nor can you escape the wailings of the muezzins as they cry their calls to prayer. The best singers get the best jobs. The mosques are so close they take turns in calling out. The wailing from the Blue Mosque and the nearby Firuz Aga mosque are loud and powerful. We were there for Muhammad’s birthday. They really let rip then, on and on. Not everything goes strictly according to plan of course. In one town the muezzin wailed away at midday and as he finished there was the unmistakeable sound blasting through the loudspeakers of a mobile phone number being keyed in.

Istanbul is divided by water into 3 parts. The Bosphorus, the strait that links the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea and then to the Mediterranean, runs north-south through the middle of the city. 55,000 ships pass through it each year. One every 10 minutes. On the eastern side is Asia. This part of the city is more populous, less expensive and less European. The western, European side is itself divided by a short inlet called the Golden Horn. The main tourist places are on the south side. The famous mosques, the Topkapi palace, the museums, the Roman relics, the Grand Bazaar and the Spices bazaar. The northern side is modern Istanbul centred around Istiklal Caddesi, the long pedestrian mall that goes a couple of crowded kilometres to Taksim Square. It’s full of modern shops (and several Gloria Jean’s and Starbucks), with dozens of side alleys and back laneways crammed with restaurants and bars and music and life. This is the scene for the young Turks on a night out. However it is hard to work out where places are. The place we ate at the last night was called Leblon. It was upstairs in a narrow laneway off another narrow laneway. It had good food, a smart bar, excellent wines (Turkish wines are an undiscovered treat) and a DJ. But this is the address: General Yazgan Sokak, Tunel Gecidi Is Hani, B Block, No 3/A, Tunel, Beyoglu. Good luck if you can find it.

Istanbul is also divided into 3 parts by its main football teams. Football is a national obsession in Turkey. The 3 main teams are all in Istanbul. Fenerbahce is on the Asian side, and Galatasary and Besiktas are from adjoining suburbs next to Taksin Square. These are top class European clubs with major internationals in their teams, including 5 or 6 who will be in the Australian squad at the World Cup in South Africa. Galatasaray has current Brazilian, Czech, Ivory Coast and Australian internationals, as well as Turkish. Fenerbahce has 6 Brazilians in its squad. All these clubs are broad-ranging sporting clubs. Besiktas, for example, also competes in basketball, volleyball, handball, athletics, boxing, wrestling, chess, bridge, gymnastics, rowing, table tennis and paralympic sports. 

Of course there is much more to Turkey than Istanbul. There are places where most tourists do not go, like the south-east which is said to be wonderful, and the Black Sea coast, but we stuck to the tourist trail and headed to Cappadocia. Famously it has a stark landscape of rock columns, and thousand year old cave dwellings and churches which are UNESCO heritage listed. Its history goes back 3 thousand years to the Hittites, and has been the centre of activity due its position at the crossroads of the major old trading routes. There are also 2 extinct snow-covered volcanoes over 3000m. The volcanic rock afforded the opportunity for the early Christian movement to hide themselves by building churches and houses in the rocks. It is spectacular, particularly around Goreme, but these holes in the wall are everywhere. Our hotel was a cave.

From there to Kusadasi on the coast. In summer it becomes a city of backpackers, but at the end of winter it was a pleasant fishing town. The reason for us to go there is its proximity to Ephesus, with its wonderful Roman ruins, and Parmakkale on the hilltop with its scattered ruins and the extraordinary calcium pools. After that it as north to Pergamon, another Roman ruin high on the mountain looking over everywhere. Then to Troy, where our guide brought the small ruins to life, and ending with the compulsory Gallipoli tour.

Every day was a treat. The scenery, the breathtaking ruins, the food, the shopping, the sense of history and civilisation, a modern Islamic society, and a young population.

Blue Mosque

Ephesus

Calcium pools at Pammakale

Goreme in Cappadocia

Aya Sofia

Towards Suvla Bay from The Nek

Roman mosaic

Aya Sofia, built 1500 years ago.

Blue Mosque on the eve of Muhammed’s birthday

Blue Mosque

Bosphorus bridge

Ephesus

Street stall in Istanbul

Frescoes at Cappadocia

Gallipoli

Cannakale harbour looking across the Dardanelles

Istiklal Caddesi and the Nostalgic Tram

Spice bazaar

Big mountain near Pammukale

The library at Ephesus

The theatre at Pergamon

Old blokes in the market

Grand Bazaar

Fishing on the Galata Bridge