Istanbul - take two

Istanbul's minarets
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We finally came full circle and arrived back in Istanbul early one morning by plane from Cappadocia.

We threw ourselves headfirst into the standard tourist sites starting with the museum of Aya Sofia (formally a mosque) and moving on to the Blue Mosque (still a working mosque that we were only allowed in outside of prayer times). Both were stunning for different reasons.

The Aya Sofia is HUGE inside, and has some incredibly detailed and lifelike mosaics covering certain walls. Also interesting is that the space has been used for different religions at different times, but previous religions’ icons have been left intact. Most unusually, above the mihrab (muslim ‘altar’ facing Mecca) is a mosaic of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus.

Careful with that razor...precious goods
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The interior of the Blue Mosque is incredible. Lined with beautiful tiles and with hundreds of lights hanging at head height from long cable attached to the ceiling far above, the carpet is deep and plush. A really magical place.

The highlight of our time in Istanbul however was my Turkish barber shave and haircut. A little put off by many of the dodgy looking places we saw on our wanderings around Istanbul, we asked the manager of our hotel if he knew of a place to recommend. He took us under his wing and before we knew it we were on a commuter boat with him at the end of the day whizzing over the Bosphorous to the Asian side of Istanbul to visit his local barber.

The Black Sea
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Within seconds I was in the chair with a strong coffee (good start) and the barber wrapping me up in various towels and cloths. Fisrt up was a shave. So after massaging my face with lovely smelling oils and gels the cut throat razor came out and Orhan (the barbers name) then proceeded to give me the closest shave I have ever had (even beat the great GF Trumper in London). Once the shave was complete he rubbed a face mask on me which was left on until the end of proceedings.

Next was the haircut which he also did extremely well and despite my complete lack of Turkish to say " Tracey doesn't like it too short" it got the full thumbs up from her too.

Interior of the Blue Mosque
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After the haircut he then decided to focus on the small details around the head so nasal hairs were duly plucked (instant pain and then relief) and then as his "piece de la resistance" he sprayed a wax stick with hairspray, lit it and started flicking my ears with the flames which apparently burns all the little hairs in your ears...unexpected, a little scary but...it worked. Genius.

Once all that was finished it was a hair wash and time to wash off the face mask and I emerged from under the towels a new man. What an experience. It all took and hour and cost me ten quid. Easily the best ten pounds spent in Turkey.

Istanbul's Grand Bazaar
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The other highlight of our time in Istanbul was the day long cruise up the Bosphorous to the mouth of the Black Sea.

The boat took about two hours to slowly meander up the Bosphorous occasionally stopping at places on the Europe and Asia sides and eventually dropped us off at a tiny village at the very north of the Bosphorous. We could climb up to the top of the hill behind the village and had fantastic views in both directions both into the Black Sea and back down the Bosphorous towards Istanbul.

Byzantine Cistern
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It is worth noting that on the day we did this trip it was a Muslim holy festival called Kurban which requires followers to either give money to charity (if they can afford it) or slaughter a goat (yup thats right..). The path we took up the hill behind the village took us past a number of small farms and houses and three of tnem were in the process of either slaughtering or butchering animals as we walked past. Now THAT wasn't in the tourist brochure. Anyway, after a leisurely lunch we got back on board the boat and slowly worked our way back to Istanbul. All in all a very good day.

Mosaics in the Aya Sofia
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On our final night in Turkey we thought we would have a celebration (of leaving) and went for dinner in one of the cities best Italian restaurants. After wandering the posh part of town for hours trying to find the place we ended up having a fantastic (and very welcome) meal of pasta, risotto and Scicilian wine. Yum! Turkey is a great country but it's cuisine will not win any awards , if i was on the panel anyway.

So..after three weeks and countless miles we had "done" Turkey and it was time to move on. Now it got serious...we were off to India!!