"Istanbul" a Istanbul Travel Page by astro_kerryn

Istanbul is one of the most amazing cities I have ever been fortunate enough to see!
The smells, and they are pungently heady, are the kind of smells that form a lifetime of association with the one place and cause your nostral hairs to stand on end! They do take some getting used to but go hand in hand with a vibrantly rich cultural experience!
Having only been exposed to a western, predomintly christian society, I was unprepared for the call to prayer! Being woken on my first morning in Sultan Ahmet by unearthly chanting was alarming. Everything was deadly quite except this hauntingly strange choral voice that seemd to radiate from the ether! Of course once I was fully awake I realised it was coming from a loud speaker, but where from and for what reason? After 24 hours of course I understood. The call to prayer, being piped across the city actually become a calming and comforting experience that I looked forward to and stood in awe of. Not to mention giving me a rough idea of the time on my travels!
The people were very friendly and extremely eager to learn of other cultures, of course I inevitably found out that my energetic and willing self appointed guides were actually carpet sellers, or just angling for a quick one from a foreigh chick, but this didn't make me bitter!!!!!! Because I discovered I could use them back!! They proved great buffers when being hassled by other carpet peddlers, shifty currency thiefs, restaurant hawkers and Grand Bizarre hustlers! If it wasn't for them I wouldn't have had half of the bargaining power that got me some fantastic prices at the Bizarre! I also wouldn't have got my Efes for the prices that I did!! Although I have it on good authority that it was because I am Australian and apparently we drink heaps, therefore buy more, so they are happy to discount the beer for "Aussie's"! I also found that if you can no longer tolerate the constant attention of carpet sellers and hustlers, because sometimes it does get a bit much, just walk towards the tourist police, and the guys that have been following you for the last hour with vanish without a trace! Well, for a little while anyway! I think the most unerving part of it was that once one of them knows your name, the whole street does because of the network. You find yourself being greeted by name, by guys standing outside of restaurants trying to get you in. Complete strangers walk up behind you and say "Hello Aussie Kerryn, you look tired today..........." Its kinda freaky,

Topkapi cats, blue mosque cats, Hagia Sofia cats...............................Istanbul is owned by cats with attitude!! No carpet sellers among them (that I met!!) but they do inhabit carpet shops.......................................as well as alleys (cliche truth!) and on corners in little gangs of scraggly, flee bitten youth with eyes missing, teeth missing and some tripods!! There are some gorgeously well fed felines who have the sympathy of generous shop owners, restauraneurs and tourists. You find these ones asleep in shop windows most of the time or preening wistfully in full view of the jaded, yet street wise moggies that often appear on the end of nasty human boots.