Istanbul, Turkey (6-20.10.2014)

From Skopje’s “alternative reality” I was due to go to Istanbul. There I was to meet my new friend Freddie to whom I bumped 4 times accidentally on this trip and also a couple from Germany. After a night bus from Skopje with 12 hours of surprisingly comfortable and quiet traveling hence the emptiness of the bus I was somewhat terrified when I arrived to Istanbul at day break. I had no idea whatsoever where exactly I was, no local money and no clue how to get to my hostel. The fact that there was to border crossings during the night meant that the amount of sleep was not satisfactory and I wasn't at my brightest. (yeah yeah, I know. When would I be?)

Border control also went through my stuff for the first time on this journey when I was leaving Macedonia. First the guy checking the passports in the bus asked questions quite harshly and as I gave him the only answers I could “Don’t know how long. Don’t know where I’m going next. Don’t know when I’m going back to Finland” That might have been the reason the border patrol called me out of the bus and told me to pickup my backpack and follow them. I followed a guy into a small cabin and while one other guy started going through my stuff a third guy started asking me the same questions again. I think they thought I’m gonna go fight against or for ISIS or something. First they were really officious but as soon as they slowly gathered more information about my traveling they turned from officious to genuinely interested about my journey as a individuals. They even apologised but I said that there’s  no need to since they were only doing what they were supposed to and when I finally got all my stuff back together they even gave me an apple to go =D

The biggest f****** kebab animal I've ever
seen. Humongous!

This is the reason you can't enter Istanbul
by train from Macedonia. They haven't laid the
 tracks!

So back to Istanbul. So I was tired and without a clue what to do. I really didn’t wanna take a taxi so I just started wondering around to get some money first. After 10 minutes I found an ATM but I still didn’t know where I was. “Ok Teemu, just take it easy. Have a banana and then figure it out”-I told to myself. So I sat on a concrete wall and plucked a banana from my post officers bag and as I was chunking it down I saw a Metro-sing with the name of the stop underneath it. Voilá! Banana did the trick! I just happened to be totally on the “wrong” side of Istanbul when it comes to my hostel. After two different metro systems, a bus and a tram I found my self on the Asian side and as I went to the hostel’s terrace I saw my buddy Freddie having a breakfast. Happy days!

Me and Freddie reunited in Istanbul! Yar!

Since Freddie was to fly back to UK from Istanbul it was just appropriate to go out for some brewskies. Few fellow travellers from the hostel and we were ready to go. At some point I heard some kind of commotion which I thought to be caused by local football enthusiasts. Boy was I wrong. We sat in front of a pub drinking our beers when these four guys wearing scarves went back and forth the street with empty beer bottles in their hands. First they were only shouting slogans but soon they lit a garbage bin into fire and started throwing those bottles. Presumably the owner of the pub got knocked down for reasons not known to us and as he laid motionless in the ground the stuff came to tell us that it is now time to move inside. We asked that what was going on and as you just might have read there was some demonstrations against the Turkish government and we just happened to witness one of those from first row. Well we did as requested and watched from inside how things were starting to get out of hands with pints and bottles flying and slogans been yelled. At this point we thought it’s better to get back to hostel or at least go to another watering hole.

The next day there was some teargas in the air and we could get our doze of that in our hostel’s roof terrace. Water cannon vehicles were on the streets to cool down the demonstrators. 

This is where they make the famous and not so tasty
fish sandwiches.

Cistern! Echo, echo?

Local authorities getting ready for their evening.

Except for taking my first steps towards becoming a coffee addict which I'm not yet Istanbul was basically a place to chill and to decide where to go next and when. Chilling in Istanbul might sound a bit odd but it's possible if you just stay away from certain spots. It took some time for me to decide how to proceed my journey but I somehow managed to do a rough itinerary with some help from Freddie and some other people. Nothing too specific of course since that would be planning ;)

The famous tower that I didn't climb in
Istanbul.

Maiden's Island in Bosphorus.