Day 12, 13 & 14 (Istanbul)

Three whole nights in the same place...BLISS! We arrived into Istanbul on June 4th to stay at the Orient Hostel in the Sultanahmet area on the European side of the city. We were a stones throw from the Blue Mosque and Grand Bazaar – a great location. On arrival at the hostel we were given a free welcome drink on the rooftop terrace overlooking the Bosphorous Sea by owner Memhet Shark (crazy guy in neon clothes) and he gave us a bit of a welcome intro to Istanbul.

The first evening was pretty relaxing with the furthest we wandered from the hostel being the ATM and the laundry place to leave in our dirty washing (which they delivered back to the hostel the next morning so we didn't have to worry about going back to collect it!). We ate at a lovely little restaurant on the corner where they gave us lots of free stuff like bread and dips, apple tea, postcards, turkish delight..all very pleasant. They had only opened up as a restaurant two weeks before (they had been carpet sellers) so were keen to impress us and tried to get us to come back the next day with the whole group. We ate until we could fit no more and then headed back to the hostel for some beer and shisha pipe. It was a great night with most of the passengers around the tables at some point, and lots of us getting in on some Uno action with Nadia's luxury item for the trip. I won my first hand despite not having a clue what I was doing for the most part.

Once again we were in an 8 bed dorm (thought we were supposed too have 4 bed dorms pretty much all the time but it seems that's not the case – boo!). The dorm room wasn't all that big so with rucksacks for 7 people in there it was pretty cramped for space. That wasn't the biggest issue though..the top bunks were super high and there was no safety barrier to hold people in if they rolled around in their sleep..a problem for me! The hostel was fab..the only complaint I could make was the safety of the bunk beds we were given.

For our second day in Istanbul a guided walking tour of the Sultanahmet area was organised for 20 Turkish Lira. A good portion of the group took up the offer and headed off with Tarik our guide after breakfast for around 3.5 hours. He was very knowledgeable and friendly and the tour was well worth the cash we'd paid. The only thing we got free entry into was the Blue Mosque but he gave us the prices of entry into the cisterns, palace, museums etc – the only issue was we ran out of time to actually go back and do any of them. Some of the group went to the cisterns and said it was quite cool, it's something I would have been interested to see, but hey ho, next time maybe. After lunch we went on a cruise on the Bosphorus so we could enjoy views of the European and Asian side of Istanbul. The price was set at £22 sterling before it started, a price I queried because it seemed incredibly expensive given a return trip on the public ferry would cost only 3 Turkish Lira (€1.50 or so). I was told we'd get commentary and it was a proper tourist cruise rather than a commuter ferry, so I figured I'd play sheep and follow the rest of the group on it. Boy was that a mistake! We got to the harbour and got onboard a ferry (public not private cruise) and found that Tarik was again our guide (not a problem, super nice guy with a lot of info in his head) but rather than getting to sit outside and see what was going on, if you wanted the commentary you had to stay down below deck where views were limited and we had to fight to get seats. The Galway girls had the right idea in blowing off the commentary to go upstairs and get a proper look at what was on both sides..I only had a couple of glimpses at things on the Asian side and saw none of the European. A couple of us queried the price of the tour before we'd even gotten on the boat because when we were handed our tickets the price was 13 Turkish Lira which was in no way a close conversion to £22 Sterling! Kim followed up with the company to express our unhappiness at what we'd gotten for our money and they dropped it to £14 Sterling which was less of a sting, but was still extortion for what we got in my view – I'd go with the public ferry next time around.

That night we signed up for a Belly Dancing evening at the hostel that included traditional Turkish dinner for €10 or 20 Turkish Lira. Though the food was lovely, we'd probably have got the same stuff cheaper in one of the restaurants..and the Belly Dancing was free to everyone anyway. Still, it was nice to have the whole group there and see Richard, Ronan and James get dragged up to dance with the lady.

Day 3 in Istanbul was a lazy day for Loonie and I. We slept almost until lunchtime before going in search of a post office (along with one of the other girls I'm trying to downsize my bag already). Having walked forever and stumbled upon a beautiful tea garden we eventually got to the post office in time to have the guy in the parcel centre slam the door in our faces and refuse to help us. I was not a happy bunny! We decided to chance our luck by asking inside even though we knew they'd tell us that it had to go from the parcel office. Thankfully the little girl lost impressions we did got the pity of one of the guys there who when said the parcel office guy had closed the door in our faces brought us back out to try sort it out...then things got nastier and the guy slammed the door in his own colleagues face! So, the guy said he could sort out postage for us inside but we'd need to split stuff into smaller boxes because there was a weight limit on what he could send from there. Eventually we got the parcels in the post and all was well with the world.

After the post office we tried to find our way back towards the Grand Bazaar / Blue Mosque area only to get lost in the Spice Market and end back at the same place a couple of times. We managed to find our way out and get food at a little back street restaurant that served chicken shish that rivals Khan's chicken tikka for my affection. Since we'd had such a stressful day we figured we deserved a nice evening off with a trip to the Turkish Baths. It worked out quite expensive and we definitely blew the budget for Turkey, but it was worth it. Loonie has promised to write up the story, so I'll nudge her for it..she'll tell it better than me. All's I'll say right now is we've never been so clean, we're now intimately acquainted and Una now knows what it's like to visit a Turkish Bath as a blind person :)

So, overall verdict on Istanbul was that for me it was a lot nicer than I had anticipated. The only thing I didn't like was the constant heckling from the men at the Bazaar and being harassed to go into every single restaurant that we passed..but that's just what you get when you stay in a touristy area.

For photos from Istanbul click here.