Turkish Delight — Istanbul, Turkey

The whirling dervish spins, arms raised, eyes half open, head tilted, one palm to the sky to receive gifts from God and one facing the ground to give it to Man. Istanbul could be as disorienting; it seems to spin around you even as you stay still. But as our private guide explained, “Once you know Istanbul, you sense the order behind the chaos.” He is right. There are people everywhere, but not in the overwhelming, claustrophobic, stressful sense. Istanbul is colourful and lively, pretty and sprawling. And the number of people is outnumbered only by the number of cats.

Street cats are everywhere. But instead of mangy and scrawny and sly, they seem clean, well-fed, and flealess enough to hold on my lap. They’ve taken ownership of the city: lying on statues; standing by gates; and sitting upright on restaurant chairs like little furry men, spines against the chair back, hind legs stretched out in front of them, and front paws up high waiting for their coffee.

Old Istanbul conveniently gathers most of the major sites in one place:

  • Blue Mosque: more of a pastel mosque with as much pink as blue
  • Aya Sofia: named “Holy Wisdom” (“Sofia” meaning wisdom, not someone’s name), the church has changed from Greek Orthodox to Roman Catholic to Greek Orthodox to Imperial Mosque to museum since it was built in 537 AD
  • Topkapi Palace: home to the stunning 86-carat pear-shaped Spoonmaker’s Diamond that legend says was found by a fisherman who bartered it for three wooden spoons
  • The Spice Bazaar: endless stalls with perfect pyramids of multi-coloured, fragrant spices and dusty Turkish Delight, and the surrounding streets with wall-to-wall shops selling party favours beside prayer beads beside guns with child-sized mannequins in camouflage
  • The Grand Bazaar: much more civilized than expected and both cramped and enormous: small, clean stores with doors and air conditioning, beside busy kiosks selling variations of the same thing: carpets, pashminas, jeweled teardrop lanterns, copper pots, wooden spoons, housewares, hardware, giant rolls of bubble wrap… I regretfully passed up the opportunity to buy the softest scarf of unicorn hair.
  • Bosphorus cruise: a beautiful 2-hr boat ride at sunset on the breezy top deck listening to the incomprehensible, monotone tour guide who sounded like the teacher in Snoopy cartoons but thankfully was so bored by her job that she’d stop talking for long stretches
  • As much as I loved the majesty and variety of the sights, it is the little human moments that I enjoyed the most:

  • My friend and I laughing at the plaque in Aya Sofia that we both read as the minibar, instead of “minbar,” where the priests gave sermons
  • Conservative women in niqabs taking selfies over and over again, going for the perfect expression in their beautiful eyes, I guess
  • The museum’s cat that preened in front of a giant floodlight to a paparazzi of tourists snapping pictures – work it, kitty
  • The mesmerizing whirling dervishes who spun continuously for 30 minutes both on their axes and around a central dervish to mimic the solar system, then slowed to a stop without falling drunkenly over
  • But the highlight was the private tour guide we hired for our last day. Highly recommended, he was more like a rent-a-local-friend. He was friendly with a masters in history and walked us around 15 km (and 52 floors according to my FitBit) of neighborhoods telling us history and stories of current life in Istanbul but never feeling like he should have an umbrella or lollipop sign.

    He took us to local restaurants, chocolate shops and a tea garden. He revealed the creamy sweet deliciousness of balkaymak (literally honey and clotted cream) on bread, and we shared a pot of the richest melted chocolate with fresh strawberries and a crunchy granola. Best of all, we all drank “boza,” bulgur wheat fermented with water and sugar and topped with cinnamon and roasted chickpeas that you eat with a spoon. Like a summer eggnog and apparently very effective in treating cholera.

    And to crown it off, we walked up steep stairs, down a dimly-lit hallway, did a secret knock on an unmarked door, and then waited until the caretaker came towards us. The door to a narrow stairway was unlocked and then we were up and out on the roof above the Spice Bazaar to unparalleled views of Istanbul. Our guide making me climb up on one of the roof-top domes to be King of the World – definitely an afternoon of Turkish Delight.

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