Hi all. I was planning to write a final post on my last week in Colombia, but now I’m two countries behind already so I will just have to say that Col0mbia is one of my all-time favorite countries and you MUST go, if you ever have the opportunity. You will meet no friendlier people and see no better beaches, jungles and mountains, I promise.
After Colombia I spent a whirlwind week back in California – a few days with my family in Los Angeles and a very quick weekend in SF. It was delightful to catch up with everyone and eat all the food I had missed, but I am thrilled to be back on the road and away from “real life” yet again…
For the next leg of my trip (Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Israel, India) I am traveling with Colleen, one of my oldest and closest friends. We spent four days in Istanbul before arriving at our current destination in Amman, Jordan. Istanbul fulfilled many of the stereotypical images in my head as a bridge between traditional and modern, religious and secular, east and west. I didn’t realize that there is also a literal bridge that connects the two halves of the city (old and new). Istanbul is an incredibly massive, diverse, bustling metropolis. We visited many different parts of the city but I felt like I needed weeks more to fully explore it. We spent a fair bit of time in the historic old center where the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and our hostel were located. This part of the city is incredibly picturesque but extremely touristy, which brings mediocre food, blaring American pop music and irritating carpet sellers. Akbiyik Caddesi street is very similar to the abomination that is Khao San Road in Bangkok, but all the cheap hostels are located there so we didn’t have much choice. Also, the backpackers you meet there tend to be very young and very green travellers - just out of college generally, with Istanbul being the “craziest” place they have ever been (not to be such a travel snob, sorry). AND I had just met up with Colleen and we had lots to catch up on, so I wasn’t too interested in smoking a hookah with alcoholic 22 year old Aussies on the roof of the hostel. Anyway…
Friday night we went out to Beyoglu and Taksim, a hip shopping district with lots of bars and clubs. Beyoglu is full of energetic young Turks and plenty of women with their heads un-covered. We went to a bar that was playing salsa music (random) and danced at an electronic club. Good times. The next night we took it easy and sprawled out for what turned out to be a five hour dinner. We drank 10-15 cups of tea a day, and that night was no different. The tea drinking culture in Istanbul is absolutely fantastic – it’s like enforced relaxing. I loved wandering around the Spice Bazaar and taking in all the delectable aromas, and every time we walked into a cafe we were greeted with the fragrant haze of apple tabacco smoked in large water pipes.
The main reason I didn’t totally fall in love with Istanbul, however, is that we were endlessly harrassed by men almost everywhere we went. I do miss traveling with a man for that reason, because two girls alone is no different than one girl alone in terms of harrassment. The title of this blog entry is how we were greeted by almost every shopkeeper/annoying tout as we walked by (I have a bag that says “Colombia” on it so people kept talking to us in Spanish, funny). At first we were polite and responded “hello” back while continuing walking, but that would lead into inevitable conversations with lecherous men and pleas to have tea so we quickly developed the art of averting our eyes and not responding to anyone as we hurried by. This wasn’t even the ideal solution though, because we found that some men would become really angry if we ignored them – “Are people unfriendly in your country? COME BACK HERE I AM TALKING TO YOU!!!” or an unfortunate incident at the club where a guy said “F*** you! God will judge you!!” because I answered a question from someone else. Ugh. I pretty much stopped talking to any local men after that, which is so unfortunate because conversations with locals is one of the best parts of traveling. Oh well.
I don’t want to leave the impression that all Turkish men were like that though, because we did also meet some friendly university students as well. They didn’t believe in God, which was pretty shocking in a country that is 95% Muslim. We had a nice chat with them in a hipster rock bar and left without anything lecherous happening. Whew. There were also plenty of men who barely noticed us in Beyoglu, which was really refreshing.
I think Istanbul would have been a radically different experience if I had been traveling with a male companion, but… well, lesson learned I guess. I would love to go back and explore the rest of the country sometime in the future. We did have some excellent food experiences – Turkish yogurt (yum), gozleme (kind of like a crepe stuffed with cheese, spinach or meat served with an array of spices) and manti (ravioli-type things served with yogurt, garlic and some harrissa-type spicy sauce). But…er… the food in Jordan is blowing me away right now, so I think it wins for best Middle Eastern food so far.
I hope all are well, I will post about Jordan later! I love it here!!
