Istanbul

Kazakhstan Peace Corps volunteers, if you are looking for a cheap and easy vacation destination outside of Kazakhstan, I’d recommend Istanbul. If you get a ticket far enough in advance flying from Almaty to Istanbul isn’t expensive (around 400 USD round trip), visas are cheap (20 USD!!), and the food is amazing. They have lots of fruit! The city is easy to navigate and people speak English. Kazakh speakers will be pleasantly surprised: Kazakh numbers and certain food items are close to Turkish. I was very impressed with the city! This year Istanbul was awarded the 2010 European Capital of Culture, which is pretty cool. After hanging out in Ephesus, Ashley and I came back to Istanbul. Here is a list of some of my favorite things to do there:

1: See the whirling Dervishes. You can read more about them here. Basically they are an old Islamic sect that expresses their connection with the world and music and spinning in circles. Spinning allows them to feel connected to everything: people, the planet, and even electrons. The music is pretty awesome, and watching these guys twirl is pretty awesome.

2: Sit at a café, drink Turkish coffee, smoke a hookah, and watch the world go ‘round. I rarely drink coffee and smoke but I’d highly recommend everyone to take a couple of hours to hang out at a café, drink Turkish coffee, fire up a hookah and watch the world go by. Turkey and Istanbul in particular, is a crossroads of East and West, and it’s so interesting to see the diversity and watch everyone moving about and doing their thing.

3: Learn about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - if it wasn’t for this man, Turkey as a modern nation wouldn’t exist. Ataturk is to Turkey what George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., JFK, Abraham Lincoln and Rambo are to America. Seriously. People in Turkey love this man, and his name and face is on everything. Never mind the small fact that he’s been dead for awhile now.

Why do Turkish people hold him in such high regard? Read this account on Ataturk from one of my favorite websites of all time, www.badassoftheweek.com. I dig this site because it features articles on historical figures, real life people and the occasional mythical creature and the over the top, badass, things they did. (Warning: contains profanity…and lots of references to groin kicks, so be careful!).

4: Go to a Museum, Palace, or Mosque- The three main things to see in Istanbul are the Aya Sophia (museum) Blue Mosque, and the Tokapi Palace. They all are about a 10 minute walk from each other. There are also a ton of other museums to see (although the one I was looking forward to the most, the Museum of Ataturk was closed). It would take weeks to explore them all.

Blue Mosque

The most interesting things I saw were in the Palace. My friend Rachel turned me on to finding religious relics. I thought that only Christians and Catholics were into saving stuff from influential people and events, but in Turkey I learned that almost every major religion has some sort of relic. Turkey’s relics were acquired from Jerusalem and the West Bank through the mess with the crusades and from when the Ottoman Empire was a big deal. There are tons of relics and awesome stuff to see in Istanbul and especially in the palace such as Moses’ staff that parted the Red Sea, the Prophet’s Mohamed teeth and beard hairs, some really big swords and a diamond as big as your face.

5: Buy cat food – Istanbul is a cat city: they are everywhere: climbing on buildings, hanging out on street signs, and just wandering around. Most of them are nice and you can pet them for a very long time. It’s easier if you have food, but it’s not required, as the cats will love you anyway. After the rigors of Peace Corps, making a cat purr is very therapeutic.

6: Take a side road – Istanbul has a lot of tourist areas, but the vibe of the city changes even if you wander off onto a side road. You don’t even have to go far; just going one block from the popular Taksim square yields quiet neighborhoods, tiny (and cheap) cafes, and really nice people. Tourists don’t frequent these areas, which makes it even better. I had a “Peace Corps moment” when I entered a small café asking for directions for the Museum of Ataturk. The owner made eat lunch with her family, saying “Eat, Eat” about 10,000 times in Turkish (which sounds a lot like the Russian word for eat, or she was saying the Russian word for “eat”), and I sat and hung out with her and her husband for a half hour. They flipped out when I told them I was looking for the Museum of Ataturk, and proceeded to give me the long version of his life and how awesome he was in Turkish. We barely understood each other (German was our common language, and we both spoke it poorly), but the kindness was clear.

7: Go to the Spice (Egyptian) bazaar – Do not buy anything in the grand bazaar, as things are really expensive and it feels more commercialized, much like a mall. I prefer the spice bazaar, which feels more like an authentic bazzar and has stuff regular people buy like spices, fish, and cheeses. It’s a good place to see a real bazaar in action, but watch your valuables and mentally change your opinions on personal space before entering. I would recommend buying something small, maybe a kilogram of Turkish delight or an evil eye, just to get the experience of bargaining and haggling!

“I can help you spend your money!” – Turkish delight salesman in the Spice Bazzar