Important things first – we had our first bath for months and months 🙂 We got ourselves a great deal on wotif.com for Istanbul which turned out to be a one bedroom apartment with a proper bathtub for the same price as a hostel. We’re loving low season in Turkey and all cold and luke warm showers have been erased from our memory. The location was great too. Just behind the Blue Mosque in Sultanahmet, the old quarter, but not too close that the daily morning prayer would wake us up before dawn. When travelling in Muslim countries this is always a major factor when looking for accommodation. Though by now we’re kind of used to the regular prayer times and we can even sleep through the stereo version. Well almost.

We can recommend visiting Istanbul in early December. It’s still fairly warm during the day and most importantly it’s relatively quiet. There’s not many tourists around and the carpet and souvenir vendors seem to be tired after the high season hustle and bustle and tend to give you a break. We spent four days in Istanbul – enough time to see the major sights, take a boat trip along the Bosphorus and to walk a bit off the beaten path.

The most famous sights the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Topkapi Palace are all worth visiting. The Hagia Sophia, originally a basilica constructed in the 6th century and then transformed into to a mosque in the 15th century when the Ottomans took over the city, was probably the most impressive building to us. The outside bit is maybe not as grand as the Blue Mosque but we found the frescoes inside unlike anything else we had seen before. In contrast the inside of the Blue Mosque is nice but found the outside structure more interesting overall. In the Topkapi Palace the Harem building and the treasury are the most famous parts and so we did visit both. We enjoyed the harem area because we had it almost to ourselves. However, the treasury seemed to be packed with every single tourist that was in Istanbul at the time. You had to shuffle your way through the crowds from window to window to see almost as crazily bejeweled jewelery, swords and various other ornate objects as in the Jewelry Museum in Iran. It was all a bit much after a while and looking at so much of all this wealth always leaves a bit of an unpleasant aftertaste. You can’t help thinking what problems countries could solve if they sold some of these pieces. Then again thinking of it, it may be better if they stayed behind glass forever…

There is a great atmosphere in Sultanahmet and there is a lot more to see than just the big sights. The bazaars are worth exploring and there is a lot of little alley ways with nice old buildings. We also enjoyed a visit of the cisterns a lot which feel like a kind of like an underwater palace. But after the stunning architecture of Iran and also Uzbekistan we find it hard to get excited by every mosque and medressa we see. This is the small downside of travelling for more than your usual two to three week holiday. There is sometimes too much room for comparison as you see a lot of the world’s treasures in a relatively short period of time. Needless to say it’s still absolutely worth it.

Maybe that’s why our favourite experience in Istanbul was our last day when we spent the entire time just wandering around in some random areas. At some point we stumbled across a fantastic Saudi Arabian exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery which was shown for the first time outside Saudi Arabia. It was interesting to see how the artists where playing with the portrayal of human faces which is still a taboo in Saudi Arabian culture. James has included some interesting shots in the photo gallery if you’re interested. Gunther von Hagens’ “Body Worlds” exhibition was also on next door where plastizised human bodies were exhibited and so you can literally see what’s inside us. I’m a chicken when it comes to those things so that wasn’t my cup of tea. But James really liked it and so did hundreds of high school kids who were glued to the windows.

You can see the contrast between the modern and old, the liberal and traditional everywhere around the country but you notice it best in Istanbul. Grand old renovated buildings next to crumbling houses and more and more tower blocks are built to provide homes for the 12 million people that live in this massive city. Women in tight tops and skinny jeans, men with spiky hair and T-Shirts with big colourful prints walk the streets next to women in head scarves and long coats and men in suit trousers and shirts. And then there is the street vendors selling tissues or lighters for a few cents from a stand that’s not bigger than a backgammon board and you ask yourself how they can make a living where the prices aren’t far off from European ones. The difference between rich and poor is of course nowhere as extreme as in other countries we’ve visited but it’s still surprising. Especially since most of the country feels like it’s on the same level as most European countries.

Turkey has so much to offer and we ended up staying longer than originally planned. Like China it feels like several small countries that make up one big one and every region is totally different. The only thing that doesn’t change much across Turkey is the food. While it’s good everywhere it does lack sometimes the spices you can find in the neighbouring countries Syria or Lebanon so we couldn’t wait to dig into some of their local specialties. With this in mind we made our way south and hopped on the night train to Adana which turned out to be the most luxurious 20 hour train ride we’ve ever experienced. There weren’t any six or four bed sleepers and so we got our own two bed sleeper compartment. We had our own wash basin, nice bed sheets and we were left to ourselves for the entire hour trip. What a difference to train rides in China, which we loved by the way, but which are also very exhausting because people are making noise all night and keep on climbing over you and stepping on you to get in and out of their bunks. We could definitely get used to travelling like this, especially if the tickets are so cheap!

When we told the guy at the reception of our hotel in Istanbul that we were going to Adana next he was wondering why because there is nothing there. Well he was right and so we only stayed the night and headed to Antakya next from where we got ourselves bus tickets to cross the Syrian border for Aleppo. We didn’t have a prearranged visa for Syria but we were pretty confident that we’d be successful at the border. Basically the official rule is that if there is a Syrian embassy in your home country you must get it there and you can’t get it in a Syrian embassy in any other country. If there is no embassy in your home country you can usually get your visa at the border. Well there is none in Ireland but there is one in Austria…

We were prepared to wait and insist on the the stamp if need be because we’re married and we both live in Ireland 😉 *cough cough*. But in the end we were cleared in an hour and a half after the guards got the ok from Damascus. This would have definitely not been such a smooth process without the support of the bus driver who was an absolute star. He was talking to the guards, translating and running with our passports from one counter to the other. Instead of just “tourist” we almost got our identities back – we were now “Ireland” and “Austria”. How kind and also quite unbelievable. We were expecting the bus to head off any minute without us but none of the other passengers seemed to complain. They were more curious what was going on and once we were back on the bus we shared some food with this nice old lady sitting next to us who then turned into our guide for a while. A bit like taxi drivers in Iran who point out every building you pass by to make conversation. “Petrol station, oh very nice, supermarket, great, hotel so and so, mhmm, bridge, lovely, some building, don’t know what it is but we’ll just nod and smile. Here have some dried prunes. Oh no thank you. Oh yes you must. Oh no thank you. No, no, you must. Ok then.” It’s polite to refuse several times but not too many. A very fine line and incredibly hard to get right. All this without a word of English of course. These are those moments that make travelling so much fun.