Turkiye—Bridge Together

In one word, Turkey was AMAZING! We recently visited Turkey (officially, they changed the name to Turkiye) and found this country on two continents, a developing country with a European touch, fascinating.

IST Airport – Just Incredible

We landed in Istanbul, a city of 16 million people, in the early hours of the morning. Istanbul Airport, home to Turkish Airlines, is a modern and efficient airport. The airport is huge and what I found incredible was that they built the whole darn thing in 46 months! I mean, it takes more than that just to get an environmental study approved in the US! With tens of millions of people flying through every year, they make sure you never wait in an immigration line for more than 10 minutes. How cool is that? Our bags arrived less than 15 minutes after landing. That was really impressive. While we passed through IST, we had a chance to visit the famous Turkish Airlines lounge (we actually got to experience both domestic and international lounges at IST). These lounges are certainly something else. The International lounge has at least six live stations where they make made-to-order food for you. They have a movie theatre inside the lounge! The domestic lounge is a typical lounge you will experience in most places but with an interesting twist. They have a separate boarding area where they will whisk you away to your plane directly from the lounge—no need to worry about going to your gate!

I had heard horror stories of Istanbul taxi drivers so we booked a private car to the hotel. We were staying in the heart of Istanbul in the area known as Sirkeci. Sirkeci is within walking distance from almost everything you want to do in Istanbul.

After a quick nap, we decided to start the day at Hagia Sophia. This place is a mosque but also a huge cultural site with tremendous history. We reached there in the late morning hours and there were already huge crowds. The lines were long but were moving fairly quickly. All of a sudden the lines just stopped. It seems that even though this is a tourist attraction, it is also an active mosque. So when it is time for prayer, the tourist activities stop until the prayers are completed. It has a 1,500-year-old history and just amazing architecture. The next step was Blue Mosque which is actually on almost the same grounds as the Hagia Sophia. It has beautiful gardens you can roam around on. There are vendors everywhere. You can experience the famous Turkish ice cream vendors (Turkish ice cream vendors do this flip with the ice cream scooper without ice cream falling off the scoop… like when a pizza maker flips the pizza dough in the air). We decided to rest in the gardens and experience corn on the cob as well as some roasted chestnuts. While we were relaxing, we met a family from Palestine and had an interesting conversation.

After some time, we made our way through the Blue Mosque. Once you see Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque does not look as appealing to you. We decided to hang out in Sultan Ahmet Square before making our way back to the hotel for the sunset cruise. We had booked a Bosphorus Sunset Cruise. Our cruise operator came and picked us up from the hotel. We had a small five-minute walk before catching a car for the cruise.

Taxi Mafia

On our way, we saw something jaw-dropping! There was a family on the road with their luggage arguing with the taxi driver. I asked if they needed any help and they said they had called a taxi using Uber and after driving about a mile or so, the taxi driver randomly tripled their fare. When they said no, he wanted them to pay the fare and then get out in the middle of the road. I thought that was disturbing. The cruise operator said unfortunately that was all too common in Istanbul. It seems that they only have 6,000 taxis and the taxi owners are so well connected, they don’t let the government approve any more permits. The taxi drivers who lease their taxis from these owners at high rates have to make a lot of money to be profitable.

After about a 10-minute car ride, we were ready for the cruise. We were on a small yacht with maybe a capacity of 50 people, but there were only 25 people on board. So the boat was quite comfortable. The guide started explaining the historical buildings along the way. I found the bridge connecting the two continents quite impressive. Not in a sense that it was huge or anything, just that it was connecting two continents. They served us some Turkish delights and nuts on the cruise. We came to the hotel quite late but did not feel like going out for a proper dinner, so we picked up Domino’s Pizza next to our hotel.

The next morning, we started with the Grand Bazaar. This really is a grand place. I like it for the history as this was on the silk road and merchants from India and China would come here to sell their merchandise. This place is like a maze. One could easily get lost. They have aisles of shops based on the merchandise. So there are aisles where you find clothing vendors and aisles of gold vendors and so on. It looked to me like it was mostly a tourist attraction nowadays. I wondered if they did a lot of business since most tourists were just wandering around as opposed to shopping.

We continued to the Spice Bazaar afterward and saw the same thing—a maze of vendors selling nothing but spices. We then walked a few miles to Topkapi Palace. Along the way, we stopped at a few shops that were selling some authentic Turkish souvenirs.  Once we reached Topkapi Palace, the line seemed to be long but was moving very quickly. Don’t fall for the fast line ticket hawkers as you really don’t skip any lines—you pay more for the same ticket that you buy on your own using a kiosk with no line.

Topkapi Palace is huge. They have King quarters, Queen quarters, Servant quarters, and so on. Check out some photos of the palace below. We must have spent the better part of half a day at the palace.

After the palace, we were ready for a nice dinner. We wanted to eat authentic Turkish food. We saw this interesting restaurant on the way back to the hotel where a lady was making fresh bread. When asked, they said it was Turkish stuffed bread. That sounded interesting so we walked in and decided to have dinner. Being vegetarian was a challenge, to say the least. We ordered the typical hummus, tahini, tzatziki, and other Middle Eastern starters. For the main course, we ordered stuffed Turkish bread. I ordered the one with potatoes and my wife ordered spinach, potatoes, and cheese. The food was totally bland—I mean no flavor at all. I was fine with some ketchup, but my wife did not like it at all. We came back to the hotel a little disappointed.

The next day, we were going to visit the archeological museum and Gulhane Park. But it was raining cats and dogs, so we decided to just take it easy and bum for the day. The following morning, we were off to Cappadocia (Cappadocia is located in Central Turkey). After a quick 40-minute flight, we arrived at the Kayseri Airport. Cappadocia is a good 50 km from Kayseri, so we rented a car and off we went. It was a nice hour-long drive. There were so many roadside fruit and nut vendors that we told ourselves we should stop on our way back. We had reservations at one of the Cave hotels in Cappadocia.

Cappadocia Quick Lesson

Cappadocia is famous for its geology. The landscape is amazing. You see different geological features in the same place as if someone painted the place. The geology is such that the rocks are hollow. So there are some natural cave openings. Starting about 500 years ago, people started to create full-scale caves to live in these rocks.

Our hotel was one of those caves. It has been lived in continuously for at least 300 years—that’s what they told us😊 You will find quite a few cave hotels in the region and it is certainly a unique experience. Our bedroom and bathroom were actually part of the cave. The living area appeared to be half in the cave with the other half built around the cave. Because these are natural caves, the debris still falls off the ceiling. So, they put a sheet on top of your bed to capture the debris. I thought that was cool.

They were able to give us our room early so we dumped our luggage and started sightseeing. Our first stop was Three Beauties. We saw three large rocks, almost identical looking, with caves inside each rock. Alongside this place were some vendors, so we bought some souvenirs.  After that, we continued to the Red Valley. All the rocks, as you can imagine, are red. The beauty is breathtaking. I could just sit there for hours quite frankly. We continued to Goreme Open Air Museum. This is an amazing place. It seems that the Catholic Church started to build churches in these caves a few hundred years ago, and they built quite a few churches in this area that is now known as the Goreme Open Air Museum. After a few hours, we continued to Pasabag and Rose Valley, as well as the Love Valley.

Cappadocia is famous for its sunrise balloon rides. My wife is not fond of heights, so we decided to skip it, but it may be worth your while if you are in the area—I have heard some great things about it.

We were quite hungry by this time. My wife was craving Indian food as usual, so we found a brand new Indian restaurant called Asoka that had opened a month ago. The food was nice. I started to talk to the manager and it seems most of their business is with tour operators who bring tourists from India. We made our way back to the hotel. We wanted to experience the Turkish Hammam Bath, so we went to town to find a nice Hammam Bath place and made a reservation for the next day. On the way, we found a nut store. They had fresh dried fruit and nuts. I was like a kid in the candy store as usual! We ended up purchasing walnuts, cashews, black raisins, dried blueberries, salted peanuts, and so on.

Turkish Hammam

Turkish Hammam is an experience one must try. I think it has its roots in Ancient Roman baths. They used to have public places for nobles where people would go for royal treatment. You start out with a steam room and the attendant scrubs your body afterward. Then, they apply some kind of peel which leads to a seaweed facial. That is followed by a massage and finally, they wash you with soap. Ladies, pardon me if I messed up any of the terminologies here. Overall though, after two and a half hours, you come out more relaxed than you ever were.

After wonderful relaxation, we were ready to drive back to the Kayseri Airport for our flight to Istanbul. It was the end of our wonderful trip to Turkey. What an experience, such an amazing culture. It is certainly worth a visit. What was the last trip you took? What did you enjoy most? Please do share…