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east meets west in Istanbul

Monday, May 17th, 2010

I always like going back to a city for a second time, after you have ticked off all the big things you have plenty of time to chill out and enjoy the city.I had enjoyed the last time I was in Istanbul with mum in 2008, but was disappointed in its less than exotic feeling after 6 weeks in the middle east, at the time it just felt too western. Now however, this is exactly what I liked about it, and this visit has put Istanbul as one of my favourite cities. I think Iran would be a lot like Istanbul given the freedom. Istanbul really does have this great mix of western Europe and the middle east, which makes sense given its location spread out on both the Asian and the European side of the Bosphorous.

(get your shoes shined in style)

Me and Yochim had finally made it to our hostel, a really nice clean place in the main tourist district. Free wi-fi, free breakfast, a bar and super friendly staff. Sometimes tourism is great. I had 3 nights before my flight to London and very little plans. After finally updating my blog, checking facebook and looking at news- all things that were banned in Iran- me and Yochim headed out in the sun (wearing a t-shirt and no headscarf!). We wandered over the bridge, took the funicular up to the main shopping street. The definite western part of the city, a street heaving with people, shops, street sellers. An old tram trundles up and down and Christmas lights (?) hang above us. We stopped down a little side alleyway for tea, and had some lunch further up. We walked back down the hill and along the water where hundreds of fishermen fish day and night providing fresh fish for all the seafood restaurants behind them. It was a beautiful day, people were happy, the views are stunning down by the water of the mosques, the palace and suburbs on the otherside of the water. Back at the hostel bar, the late afternoon sun was just hitting the tables, we drunk beer and smoked shesha with William and Nad, a French Canadian couple I had meet in Yazd, in Iran a couple of weeks earlier. They had been travelling for 2 years and were in their last couple of weeks before home time.

Yochim had seen a free student theater show advertised so we all headed off, with another Canadian guy from our dorm, to try find it. We failed at actually making it their so had dinner instead, on a little side street off the main road, which even at 8.30pm was packed. Afterwards we went to a couple of bars, we found one little street which was packed with little tiny chairs and tables spilling out from the bars, a live band was playing some crazy Turkish music that everyone knew and were clapping and singing along to, occasionally getting up in groups and dancing. It was great! We stayed for a couple of drinks packed in tightly with everyone else. After the band finished we wandered back to the hotel, getting a bit lost and taxing the rest of the way.

I had one last full day before home, and wanted to do a bit of shopping for some things for work. Yochim headed off for the asian part of the city and I went over to the main bazaar, getting far too overwhelmed with what to buy and ended up not buying anything. I went down to the waters edge for lunch, a row of little boats float on the water cooking fish and you can buy a fresh fish sandwich for 4 lira (about 2 euros) and sit on the side on little tables (always these little tables and tiny stools) with salt and lemon juice and order tea. I grabbed my sandwich and looking around for a place to sit I saw a big group of Iranians from the train, I went and ate with them, they were drinking red wine which they pulled out fro their bag, all of them looking very much like they enjoyed the freedom of Turkey.

(fishermen off the bridge)

Back at the hostel Yochim was heading off to Bulgaria, so said goodbye to my travel buddy for the last week. William and Nad were still around and after explaining how good the fish I joined them for some more fish. We talked about how great asian is for street life, being able to sit around on the sides of streets, how its always busy and warm enough! I was not feeling super excited about heading to London the next day, I would have much preferred to stay in Istanbul, sitting around on street sides drinking tea. William went off to take photos, and me and Nad walked back towards the hostel stopping to buy a box of sweets, baklava and other sugary goodness. We went and sat outside the blue mosque, lit up beautifully in the evening. A guy sold us cups of apple tea, the call to prayer was playing, we ate our sweets. The last night of my trip, albeit a short one. Tomorrow would be back to London and almost time to start work.

The trans-asian express: a very long train ride

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

The 80 hour train ride from Tehran to Istanbul involved a lot more that just sitting on the train. We had heroin smugglers, drug dealers, long border crossings, 2am ferry rides, and of course getting left behind in the middle of Turkey. The bus takes 40 hours, and despite the very long, slow train I think I would still rather spend twice as long on a train. I was taking the train with Yochim, an Austrian guy I meet in Esfahan who was heading back home after traveling in India and Pakistan. He met me at the train station where we had our passports checked and waited to board the train. We didn’t get going until about an hour and half after the planned time, this was just the start of our extreame delays and very little regard for the train schedule we were given when boarding.The train was great, we boarded in the dark while steam poured out from under the rails and the Iranian staff got everyone settled in their 4 berth compartments, which were decked out in carpets and came with bottled water, tissues and magazines.

It was the longest train ride I had been on since the trans-siberian trains across Russia. I was sharing with a girl around my age called Fatima with her mother, they were going to Istanbul for a holiday, then would take the train back to Tehran. Fatima spoke a little english, her mother nothing but they were really lovely and looked after me the whole trip with food and tea.

I had gotten my ticket with an extra meal voucher that would provide food for the Iranian section of the journey. I wasn’t too sure what to expect but just after we got going I was brought hot soup and bread then a huge place of chicken kebab and rice, with fizzy, dessert and yoghurt. Not bad. This continued all the next day with a lot of food being continuously brought to me. Along with everyone giving you food, I had plenty to eat. One family I was talking to their daughter and their mother insisted on giving me food every half an hour and sending her daughter down to me with tea every so often, once I stopped by their compartment and left with a giant bag of nuts and chocolate, bread, cheese, tea and sugar.

This part of the journey would take us west of Tehran over through the border crossing formalities at Tabriz then into Turkey where the train would leave at us the edge of Van lake, from there we would catch a 5 hour ferry, meeting the Turkish train at the opposite end and continue of to Istanbul. The Turkish train was coming the opposite way, there we met the passengers heading to Tehran on the side of the lake. We spent the day on the Iranian side and got to the border in late afternoon, leaving Iran was easy, just a long stop at Tabriz where they checked everyone’s luggage, a guy from Yochim’s carriage was caught with heroin and disappeared with the police. The 2 guys left in Yochim’s carriage included crazy ashk man, so named because he played this one love (ashk in farsi) song constantly from his phone, driving Yochim mental. He was from a small village and never been outside Iran, he was a bit overwhelmed with all this freedom on the train, the girls in t-shirts, and couldn’t get his head around me and Yochim just being friends.

(the border. Iran….and now Turkey!)

Crossing the Turkish border was a bit of a nightmare, terribly organised and took about 3 hours to get everyone stamped in. We all had to get off the train and there were only 2 queues for the hundreds of people to check through, so we stood in line and finally got everyone through, then they had to check luggage. There was a luggage carriage to check your luggage in so we all huddled outside in the pouring rain as it started to get dark as the let a couple of people inside at a time and went through all their luggage- like unpacking everything and I was probably let off lighter being a tourist. This took another couple of hours. Finally damp and cold we were back on the train officially in Turkey! Headscarves came off, music was turned on and t-shirts came out. Probably 70% of the women took off their headscarves and you could feel that things changed.

Another couple of hours on the train till the ferry, it was about 2am when we had to get off the train, and take this terrible leaky old ferry for 5 hours across the lake in the middle of the night, only uncomfortable seats so very little sleep. Not so bad for us but there were a lot of elderly people who had already spent hours outside in the rain at the border. Finally we arrived on the other side and dragged ourselves into the new Turkish train, much less friendly than the old train, all white and sterile, no friendly staff and no free tea, which was plentiful on the last train. But comfy beds which all that mattered at that point.

I slept most of the morning then found Yochim, who had a new roommate, a slightly crazy guy who took a lot of drugs, but spoke some english which was nice. There were a French-canadian family on the train until Van but from this point we were the only foreigners- and everyone knew who we were. We spoke a lot to anyone who could speak english, everyone on the train was Iranian and so all super friendly. Now in Turkey, alcohol was available in the dinning car so we went and drank Raki and had some over-priced food.

(Yochim drinking Raki in the dining carriage)

We still had 2 full days until Istanbul, spent a lot of time watching the scenery- which was actually pretty amazing, from rocky mountains, rivers and valleys across the border to big wide fields in Turkey I watched a couple of movies on my laptop, hung out in Yochim’s carriage a lot and in the dinning car. We were running low on food, and on money- our small supply of Turkish Lira had almost run out. We had an hour scheduled stop in Ankara, Turkeys capital so planned to go buy some food off the train. At this stage we were running about 6 hours behind schedule and looking like we would arrive in Istanbul at some stupid time in the middle of the night. We pulled into Ankara and jumped off the train, we were told a few different times from people but were sure it would be OK, lots of other people were getting off. We headed out through this market and found a little supermarket, we managed to get a whole lot of food for really cheap and then stopped and grabbed a tasty chicken kebab, the whole time nervously making jokes about the train leaving without us. We had been gone 20mins and thought we better check on the train before we went out again to try buy some beer, back into the station we went along the underground walkway which led to the platforms, we climbed the stairs and….no train. Surely it must have just moved or something? But no, there were no trains anywhere. Shit.

We had small bags with valuables in but all our luggage, and our ride to Istanbul was on the train. Slightly panicking at this point we ran to the main station to the information desk, were they could only speak enough english to say the train was gone. Sorry. We begged and pleaded for some help and were directed outside to anther guy who didn’t speak english. We were freaking out a little bit by now and trying to think of some plan B options. We split up to try find some different people, I went back to the info desk and tried to see if we could catch a train to the next place the train would stop- there was one more station the train would arrive at in 5 hours. I found out there was a fast train heading there that would arrive before our train, but it was full.  Sorry. We had to get on that train. I looked upset and pleaded with the guy, (I actually was upset) finally he walked me outside, I found Yochim who had tracked down an English speaking staff member, luckily this guy was super nice and took us with him, got us tickets on the train for only 10 Euros each, we got on just before it left.

We sat on the train, laughing at what a crazy situation. I was still slightly nervous about the whole thing, based on our (proving to be incorrect) schedule, the train would get there 45mins after our fast train…luckily our fast train turns out to be really fast, 250kms per hour, we sped along the country side passing our train after 30mins leaving far behind.

(our picnic with the food and beer that almost got us stuck in Turkey)

We arrived at this random station, and told our train was due to arrive in 2 hours. We brought some beer, sat in the sun in the station and ate our food we had brought. Eventually our train pulled up, the driver waved to us, just about the whole train was at the windows waving to us. They are all so nice, we were sure that the Iranian train would have waited for us. The women in my carriage told us how they had tried to get the train to wait and were all very worried. The station had contacted the train and told them we would be waiting, but they were very stressed out. They all were. Everyone kept coming up to us and asking about it.

In the end it worked out OK, but it was extreamely close, if that train hadn’t been leaving right then, then it would have been a long bus ride to Istanbul!

So the rest of the journey was OK, the last part was painfully slow as we ended up arriving 7 hours late, the last 2 hours just about driving me crazy. Far too long on one train ride. Finally after what felt like a lifetime, we pulled into Istanbul. 1.30am, public transport long finished. Luckily we shared a taxi with the guys from Yochim’s cabin to Sultanahmet, the area where I had a hostel booked, so not too expensive.

Trans-Asian express. Done!

Tehran- the politics come out

Sunday, May 9th, 2010
Before Tehran the politics of the country seemed more like a pain in the ass than actual reality, however in Tehran you are reminded that the government are in fact a little crazy. If you have read any ... [Continue reading this entry]

Tehran traffic rules

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

While in Tehran, visitors must take note of the unique traffic laws to avoid death/injury 
  1. Motorcyclists are exempt from any road rules
  2. Helmets are optional on motorcycles but not advised as they may affect carefully styled hair
  3. Always ... [Continue reading this entry]

ancient villages and nuclear power plants

Thursday, May 6th, 2010
I was sad to leave Esfahan, but my time in Iran was running short. I was off to Kashan, a smaller town on the way to Tehran. The buses are great in Iran, cheap and very good quality. Nice new, ... [Continue reading this entry]

Esfahan part 2

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

In the Islamic world you do see a lot of mosques. Like Wats in Thailand, Cathedrals in France, and religious paintings in Italy, after awhile you can get a bit sick of them. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Half the world

Monday, May 3rd, 2010
After the quiet streets and awesome hostel of Yazd, our dingy box like room in Esfahan on a busy street did not give me the best first impressions. However Esfahan turned out to be my favourite city so far and ... [Continue reading this entry]

Yazd- the oldest city in the world.

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
*A quick side note. My blog site is actually banned in Iran, thanks to my lovely friend Kate who is updating it for me via email. So I will add photos and video's when I get out of ... [Continue reading this entry]

Shiraz- but hold the wine

Saturday, April 24th, 2010

The beautiful city of Shiraz is where I flew into to be gin my Iran adventure. As I mentioned I had meet Alice there who was staying in Shiraz with me for 4 nights. Our hostel ... [Continue reading this entry]