Reading: The Host by Stephenie  Meyer and let me tell you it’s rather  dull, but bizarrely I’m still keeping with it. I was reading Dostoyevsky, which was much more interesting until the events to be described …

Doing: Walking around a lot from train stations to subways to airports; just recently have I managed to walk around a lot doing touristy things.

Misadventures

It’s begun! My first of ten weeks  of budget stricken travel, starting in Istanbul, taking in Gallipoli and finally ending up in Sevilla. My first stop was … Lille! Yes!  the same little uni city I’ve lived in for six months. Okay, not really, it was the most convenient place to take a bus to London (buses from Brussels run only at 6am – ouch), and I was only there for an hour.

First misadventure: bus was an hour late. I wasn’t so worried. Eurolines buses are famous for being late. However, I was more worried about the fisherman’s strike which was blocking ferries running across the Channel. This turned out not to be a problem: for the first time, Eurolines fronted up the extra cost to take the Eurotunnel train. However;

Second misadventure: the bus driver left me behind at the boarding gates. For real. I went to the toilet,  put the book I’d been reading on the toilet paper dispenser, and was then surprised by a man’s voice yelling in a slavic language. Assuming – correctly, it turned out – the bus driver had come to gather us toilet-goers. I hurried through my business, only to be met with an empty parking lot, and  the Eurolines bus disappearing into the distance. Arsehole. The Eurotunnel operators had a wry smile on their face – clearly this sort of thing happens all the time. They drove me out to the train, told me to wait till boarding had finished, and then let me walk up 20 train cars to  my coach, in the first car. The bus driver nodded and smiled at me. Prick.

Third misadventure: I’d left the book sitting on the toilet dispenser! Major big deal, I was really enjoying the bloody thing! Now I’m stuck on my travels with nothing to read.

Fourth misadventure: I had to sleep at Gatwick, and not on Brad’s sofa. I hadn’t realised it was so difficult to get to Gatwick at 2am in the morning.  But that wasn’t a big issue: by the time I’d arrived, there were about thirty other passengers doing the same thing – oldies included. When I woke up, I swear there more like a hundred. I laughed a little when I saw the sofas in the cafe on the second floor full of sleeping passengers,  some of which had even been decent enough to buy a cup of coffee before doing so.

Fifth misadventure: EasyJet are a lot stricter about their carry-on baggage size than Ryanair, and my backpack, sleeping bag and hand bag didn’t quite make it. I pleaded poverty to the assistant (checking in my backpack as hold luggage would have cost 13pounds), shoved my handbag into my desperately groaning backpack, and shoved the whole thing into the Carry-On dimensions gauge. It got stuck – I had to push it out the bottom. ‘You know, I really shouldn ‘t let you through?’ she said, before letting me through. She did warn me that the gate assistant may not let me in; however, the gate assistant didn’t even bat an eyelid at the dozen or so people bringing in three or four hold-sized bags each, so my little bursting backpack with attached sleeping bag was no issue.

Actually, from there, it’s gone pretty smoothly.  I estimate that 2/3rds of my flight were Australian or New Zealander; despite being a flight to Turkey, there were perhaps only a couple of non-English speaking travellers. I’d expected the transfer from Sabiha Gokcen airport to Sultanahmet (the backpacker hub of Istanbul) to be  difficult, but the Havas bus took me to Taksim easily enough, and from there it was relatively easy to use a map and a compass to get to the tram line.

Orient Hostel is a dump, but apparently most of the hostels in Istanbul, and at least it’s not terribly expensive: AUD $70 for three nights, not as bad as, say, a French hostel. I’m looking forward to Egypt, though, where the hostels are AUD$6 a night. Now here comes my usual money grump: my main hiccup here is food: I’d been happy to book into a hostel that doesn ‘t have a guest kitchen because I’d  expected to be able to buy cheap meals in their restaurant. Turns out their ‘restaurant’ is a dodgy money spinner, with AUD$7 house wine and $12 kebabs. Turkey is the home of kebab! Why is it that I can get a decent kebab (yiros) at home for  $5 in the middle of the city, but not here? Even in Lille, the most a kebab would put me back was AUD$ 10. My bag full of tea bags and spices are sadly going wasted here – here’s hoping the rest of Turkey has some monetary sense.

So, I’m already exploring alternative avenues of food, leading me to a dodgy conversation with a drunk  Turk in a nearby convenience store. He promised to pay for half a bottle of wine if I would share a glass with him, and then told me he’d pay for my chips (Lays, some bizarre Turkish flavour that was really really really good) and orange juice (Minute Maid – not not not good. Coca-Cola and Tetra-Pak have made it all the way out here it seems). I didn’t let him, of course, and the shop keeper gave me a sympathetic look when I paid. I later saw the same drunk chasing some middle aged British tourists, before stopping to chat to a local shopkeeper.

Istanbul

… really is a bizarre and cool city, though I do wish I’d come here with more money, and taken the time to choose a better hostel (I went with Orient cos they came highly recommended by Lonely Planet. I must have a really really old edition).

I’ve definitely been beset by ‘Hello? Where are you from?’, ‘Are you lost’, and ‘Do you want to buy a carpet?‘, followed by ‘Bonjour? Bongiourno? Hola?’  as I ignored them (touts and scammers are everywhere here). I went out to the Grand Bazaar, more out of love of the Tea Party song and out of a need to buy a scarf, than for any touristic interest. It’s gorgeous, ancient and full of action: but the goods are mostly the same sort of things I could find in Central Market back home, and the Pashmina scarfs were three or four times  the price.  I was quoted 45 Turkish Lira for a cashmere-silk blend scarf I’d liked; even haggling wouldn’t get it down to the price I was thinking about spending: 5lira (the Lira to Aussie dollar is not-quite-but-almost parity, and I’m working on a 15dollar a day budget).  So, I walked around a little more, and bought a 5lira scarf somewhere else (100% Cotton! Made in  Turkey! the sign claimed, but I’m sure it was more 100% Polyester! Made in China!).

It started raining after that, which, after eating  ( AUD$8 for a wrap and a cup of tea! I thought this was a low socio-economic country. Oh, I’m going to be broke really quickly), forced me back to bed for half an hour. I did drag myself out again to go to the Blue Mosque and the Basilica Cistern, of which I’ll talk about when I get my pictures in order.

Now, back in Orient Hostel (after my meal of Lays chips and Minute Maid), I’m here for the promised ‘Belly Dancing show’ which is actually so far the fat hostel assistant in shorts, a clown wig and a sequined skirt. Something tells me I’m going back to bed.