Rockin' Rollin' Ridin'

We live right next to the railway line. There is one building in between us and the line, and as it goes past here the line is not underground but down below the level of roads and buildings so there is not much noise. All the same it has taken us five months to actually get on one of these trains.



The carriages are very basic. Hard plastic seats, and plenty of standing space. The doors mostly close automatically, but some of them take quite a yank to get them open.

On Thursday we went west towards (and past) the airport, and discovered the little beach at Florya. Yesterday was our day off so we decided to head in the other direction, east - into the main part of the city. We went to the end of the line, but on the way we noticed one or two interesting things to get off and investigate next time.

At Sirkeci, the end of the line just before the Golden Horn, we found a litle Tourist Information office. On the window was this map of the various train systems on the European side of Istanbul.


What a good map! We dropped in to ask for a copy of it. The little man behind the desk was pleased to see us. He spoke some English, and was sitting there with his study books learning about Past Simple Passive Verbs - we gave him a brief free lesson. But he told us his office was very poor, and he could not give us a copy of the map.

"You have a digital camera ... ?" he asked. And so we collected a copy on our camera instead.

As you can see with a glance at the map, public transport in Istanbul gives a lot of options. This map shows just the trains. There are also buses - big and small usually running the same routes - and dolmus (shared taxi), and taxis.

A slight miscalculation

I heard on the news that the funeral for Dink - the journalist who was shot the other day - would be on Tuesday, and I made a mental note to stay at home on Tuesday.

However said piece of information must be very small, because it slid right through the sieve of my mind. So when Charlotte appeared at my door on Monday evening asking me to come with her (and Jordanian Ali and New Girl Sarah) to see Dolmabahce Palace, I agreed. Peter couldn't come - he was teaching a class.

So in the morning I was up and dressed and ready, and Charlotte was here in the flat waiting for Ali and Sarah. At the moment when he should have been ringing the doorbell, Ali rang, and said he couldn't come because he had no money.

That wasn't useful. Not coming because of Dink's funeral would have been a better statement. Charlotte and I decided to go anyway. That was a slight miscalculation ...

The queue at the Taksim Dolmus stop (shared taxi) was longer than usual - especially seeing as it wasn't peak hour. But finally we got a ride. Charlotte takes this route every Saturday to teach some classes at Besiktas, one of the other centres for our company. But a few minutes later, as we were sitting in one of those impossible Istanbul traffic jams she commented, "I have absolutely no idea where we are! I've never been here before ..."

Nothing to do but sit tight - the Dolmus was obliged to eventually arrive at Taksim Square. So our shared taxi fare of 1.6 New Turkish Lira bought us an extensive tour of the backstreets of Taksim. I love the tiny streets of Istanbul, but we went to places I would have thought a motor vehicle shouldn't - couldn't - go. Up steep hills, and around tight corners, between ancient dwellings - in Australia the whole place would have been a museum - and in those tight streets our dolmus was squeezing past other vehicles, trucks, buses ...

All the big wide streets were closed. All of the traffic was in the lanes and steep places. And in among the patient drivers were motorbikes, police everywhere.

At thıs point Peter phoned me to ask where I was because one of the teacher's at our school - who lives in Taksim - had been unable to get to work.

The square

The square, usually bustling with people and cars, was eerily empty. But all around the edges there were hundreds of police. Charlotte and I felt quite out of places and a little nervous - I remembered our government website's warning about staying away from places like this. We felt very brave dragging out our cameras to sneak a couple of shots. In this pic you can just see one of the walls of police with their riot shields. There were lots of guns in sight, and a couple of tanks and armoured personnel carriers. We decided to wander nonchalently past rather than point our cameras at those.

We decided to soldier on ... sorry, bad metaphore. We headed out of the square and climbed aboard another dolmuş to go to the palace. Withşn minutes we were once again in gridlocked traffic. We saw the palace - from the dolmuş - with lines of police guardıng the entrance - and we stayed on the dolmuş.

So we had a wander around Beşıktaş, and then we went on to Ortaköy - a beautıful spot by the Bosphorus.

We sat down in this lovely waterside restaurant, and had kumpır - a dish that this area is famous for.

Its a very large baked potato, with all sorts of additional fillings. First they stir some cheese into the cooked potato flesh, and then you choose what else you want - bit like choosing your fillings at Subway.

Maybe on Friday we'll have another go at visiting the palace.

A hint of trouble

When we first thought of coming to Turkey, friends responded with questions about how "safe" it would be.

Well, apart from the occasional whisper of an earthquake, it seems as safe as anywhere nowadays.

Along with Sara, a new teacher from America, we accompanied Jordanian Ali yesterday to a part of town where there are a number of music shops, looking for a particular keyboard for his brother. We travelled there by dolmus (shared taxi) and then hoofed it from shop to shop. This part of town is particularly pedestrian-unfriendly with little or no sidewalk and we had to clamber over guard-rails and scurry across traffic lanes between speeding heavy vehicles.

We finally checked with the last shop and were assured that the keyboards we were looking for were sold out. Leg-weary and footsore, and not a little hungry, we were looking for a restaurant. Ali recently found a restaurant in the area where they cook the style of (Jordanian) food he had grown up with - and in fact the proprietors are quite familiar with members of his family back home. So we agreed to go there, and all climbed into a taxi to relieve our tired limbs, expecting a very short ride.

However we soon found ourselves in one of those traffic jams that happen in Istanbul's narrow streets. After a long period of time sitting in the one spot Ali commented that there must be a problem - "an explosion or something", the main streets have been closed. So we got out of the taxi and walked.

We sat in the tiny restaurant enjoying felafel, and 'fool', and humus, while Ali regaled us with tales of back home.

Coming back out of the restaurant, we heard a lot of shouting. It was reminiscent of political rallies (and political training in the schools) we had seen in China. It was a demonstration, a crowd of people were shouting something together as they marched. There were police everywhere as we headed back to the dolmus stop to catch a dolmus home again.

It wasn't until this morning that we heard about a famous reporter who had been shot, and this was what all the fuss was about.

Nothing for us to worry about.