Round The World by Bike: Istanbul with a Vengeance (20 October 2001)

Istanbul with a Vengeance

Listen! When you finish enjoying this article don’t just fold your paper and

get off at your usual stop. Go home, get your passport and cash card, head

for the airport and fly to Istanbul. This is Istanbul from scratch where

ignorance is bliss. No schedules, no preconceptions, no guidebooks, no

maps, no speaka the language – no problem! This is the incredible Istanbul I

have stumbled into.

I won’t woo you with historical tit-bits, fancy place names or lists of

‘must-sees’, purely because I don’t know any. Besides, it’s more fun to find

them for yourself. Before I arrived I knew that Istanbul was the gateway to

Asia. From my University nights I remembered that Turkey was the spiritual

home of the kebab. That was about it. After just a few days here I have seen

and heard and felt and smelt so much more now.

At dawn all 12 million of us in this glorious sprawl are greeted by the

exotic, haunting call to prayer from the minarets of countless skylined

mosques. As Istanbul awakes I join the mayhem, burying into the scrum at

random. Memories fly at me like a photo album scattered over the floor. I

find stalls packed tight together, humanity filling the gaps and huge

barrows of hazelnuts or pistachio nuts manoeuvring impossibly through it

all. Every way I turn are streets selling everything you could possibly

imagine, one product per street – bath taps, rugs, dodgy pirated music

cassettes, leatherwork in quick succession. Sacks of spices and herbs lure

me. I have no idea what they all are but the colours and aromas and textures

are intoxicating. Precarious pyramids of pomegranates for freshly squeezed

juice. I see old men sagely and ceremoniously sip from glasses of amber-like

tea. Sausage stalls, giant blocks of cheese, fish plucked fresh from the

Golden Horn of the Bosphorus.

As I burst dishevelled from the madness a vast mosque gazes down at me. In a

shaded park cool benches provide quiet respite from the noble strife of the

madding crowds in the bazaars. And six slender minarets spear skyward from

the mosque above a cascade of majestic domes and cupolas.

Wandering disorientated and enchanted I graze constantly on snacks from

street stalls, lured by scents, colours and persuasive sales talk. Sweet

cups of tea, stuffed vine leaves, walnut pastries, sesame rolls and of

course kebabs: several vendors stand on every street, red coals fanned

beneath a sizzling grill of lamb. Walking later beside the Bosphorus

looking towards the far shore and Asia I feel an almost magnetic pull

towards the Wonders that lie beyond.

Shouting shop merchants, watching shoeshine men, blaring taxi drivers: a

bubbling cauldron of sensations and life being lived with energy. Which is

more than I have as I sit beside the water in the warm autumnal sun. I have

no idea where I have been or what exactly I have seen, but discovering

Istanbul for myself and without prescription is proving to be a real thrill.

Essential Information

A passport, a cash card and the train to the airport is all you need to

launch yourself into the delights of Istanbul.