2010 Trip: Istanbul Day 5
7th May 2010
Today, Simon had a day off work! After a bit of a sleep in, we decided to head to the Prince’s Islands. They are to the south of the city, in the Marmaris Sea. In order to get there we caught the subway, then the metrobus, then light rail, then boat. I am constantly impressed by Istanbul’s public transport system, especially when the size of the city is obvious.
As we headed away from the mainland, the scale of the Istanbul struck again like a dreaded disease. It was literally impossible to even see the European side from where we were and the Asian side continued in both directions as far as the eye can see (it was admittedly a liitle smoggy).
The Prince’s Island chain is a variety of hilly and picturesque islands. There are four main inhabited islands, and we stopped at the largest - Buyukada. We ate turkish icecream from giant waffle cones. The flavours are pretty awesome, but what makes Turkish icecream special is that it is stretchy. It seems hard to believe, but it has a surreal glutinious texture. Apparently, this is achieved by adding an extract of a lily root to the icecream to give it this consistency.
After walking around the coastline and being surprised that the ocean was actually pretty clean, we hired bikes and headed off around the island. The island doesn’t have any vehicles apart from a few service trucks, locals and tourists alike have to travel either by bicycle or by horse drawn carriages. Very quaint, but efficient. It is also an extreme contrast to Istanbul, where one can’t see bikes on the road to save onself. The horse drawn carriages are brightly painted and the girls had a great time petting the horses.
We cycled about a third of the way round the island, up and down hill, it was fun to feel the wind rushing through one’s hair. Helmets don’t exist. Unfortunately, as we had to be back in time to catch the boat, we had to turn back. On the way back, we caught a boat up into the Bosphorus itself. It was accidently time perfectly to catch a brilliant orange sunset over Sultanahmet. The silluettes of the mosques against the sky and the golden water were perfect.
Simon lead us to one of his old haunts, a great little buffet restaurant only minutes from his apartment. The girls had Iskender Kebabs, bread covered with meat and smothered in a butter enriched tomato sauce, with a large serving of yoghurt on the side. I had a selection of warm salads that, as expected, were delicious. There were various dishes with steamed vegetables, deep friend peppers and aubergines, yougurt and tomato doused aubergine, marrow dishes, and to top it off, artichoke flesh poached whole in a buttery mix with peas and potatoes. All topped off with a generous serving of crusty bread. Yum!
When you buy juices in Turkey, you can often get them in a nectar form. The most common being cherry, nectarine and apricot. We washed down the meal with cans of nectar. We then finished the meal with a ubiquitous cup of tea (in Turkish, cay, pronounced chai), served with sugar cubes, in the traditional bust shaped glasses. Later that evening, we headed out onto the town, down Iskitlal Caddesi, to a small salsa bar.
This street is the main area for nightlife in Istanbul and has 4 to 5 million party goers each weekend who traverse the street. The street is packed, chesnuts are grilled in little stalls on the street corners, fairy lights are strung all over the top of the street and live street performers attract the crowds. They include pan flute players, traditional Turkish musicans, violin players and even acrobatic ice cream salesmen.
While packed with near millions of people, it feels surprisingly safe and welcoming. The salsa bar was near empty when we arrived, but filled up by about 11pm. A live band played several sets of music, including merengue, reggaeton, bachata and salsa. They were rather good and didn’t even have a backing tape!
There was not all that much ‘proper’ partner dancing going on, though we certainly rated quite well on the ability scale. One of the highlights of the evening was a techo remix of ‘Istanbul is Constaninople’ (in Turkish I believe). Apparently, it is an absolute hit here, with good reason. We finally made it home and to bed by 2am.