~ Turkish Delight ~ Part 8

Day 4 - Left outs and Packing

The last day in Turkey had a lot of pending tasks - first being visits to Topkapi palace and Aya Sofia.

~ Turkish Delight ~ Part 7

Later that evening, we booked for a Turkish Bath. Bath in Turkish means Hamam. Now I understood how Hindustan Unilever stole this name for their famous soap brand!!

~ Turkish Delight ~ Part 6

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Day 3 Tour Istanbul

Day 3 was very refreshing for S(after effect of watching belly dance show??!!$%$^).  Got ready and started walking along the Blue Mosque, paid a visit it to for 2^nd time, and boarded into the hop-on-hop-off bus for a day tour around Istanbul.

~ Turkish Delight ~ Part 5

 Grand Bazaar and Sultana's 1001 Nights show!!

Later that day, after our Bosphorus tour, we went to Grand Bazaar, one of the largest and oldest covered markets in Istanbul. It is just a few minutes walk from Blue mosque.  Thousands of shops, and so many tourists, it is a busy and buzzling shopping centre I’ve ever seen. There are 1000s of things to buy there. They sell everything from carpets and kilims, leather coats, clothes, suitcases, beautifully decorated Turkish lamps,candle holders and chandeliers, gold and artificial jewelry, spices, hookah pipes, ashtrays, copper and brasswares, ceramic wares with beautiful hand paintings. It is definitely the most happening place in Istanbul, so beware of tourists traps. And Indians do not need any lecture on bargaining skills.  

As said earlier, the shopkeepers are very inviting, like in Ranganathan street, when you just look at the shop, a guy pops out and describes what he has, and asks you to come inside to have a look. These marketing guys (yes!! for these small shops), stand in all corners of sultanahmet.  After a lot of bargaining, I got some carpets, artificial jewellery, and a lot of ceramic articles for myself and my family. 

This bountiful shopping was over, and we went to our hotel, got refreshed, dressed up all-pretty-well, to leave for Sultana’s 1001 nights show. Rhonda and Jessie (our hotel owners..remember??) recommended that we should attend this show. Booking should be made in advance, and preferably through the hotel, so you get some discount, and a free pick-up and drop service at your hotel.

You can hear pleasing Turkish music while you enter the hotel. They serve you with traditional Ottoman and Turkish cuisine, while you wait until your clock strike 9.00pm. Then comes the much-awaited Belly dancer show for 15-20 minutes. There are 3 belly dance performances on regular intervals. Needless to say, they were dancing extremely well and in sync with the music. After the first belly dance performance, watch some traditional Turkish/ ottoman folklore dances from different regions of turkey. 

There is a Harem’s show that gives a theatrical performance of women and their life during Ottoman reign. Before you get bored, there’s another, better belly dancer entertaining you entertaining men(!!!) for another fifteen minutes. Then there is Aşuk Maşuk Show (pronounced as Ashuk, Mashuk),a funny dance show played by 2 male dancers dressed as dwarfs. After this, there is one more final and best belly dance which lasts for more than 20 minutes, and then the floor is open for dancing. 

We danced for a while with the belly dancers for “Awara Hoon” music in Turkish version and for some other music, and it was already midnight then. And we started back to our hotel.

Yet again, here, Turkish people claim that Belly dance was evolved from or before Ottoman reign, but the true history and origin of this dance is still a much debated topic among belly dance enthusiasts. Whether it’s origin is from Egypt or Greeco-Turkey or India or anywhere, I we really enjoyed this show a lot.

~ Turkish Delight ~ Part 4

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We reached Istanbul Sultanahmet area around 7pm, and it was already dark then.  We refreshed ourselves, and went on a long stroll around the road watching the beautiful mosques, parks, churches, restaurants and the vibrant night life.  We had our dinner at Barbecue house.

~ Turkish Delight ~ Part 3

The turkish cuisine has a vital place in this travelogue. Unlike any other European countries, I did not depend only on McD’s French fries because I am a “naan"-vegetarian-types. Though we find a lot if Indian restaurants throughout Europe, I did not find any in Istanbul. Blame it on my no-time-to-search-internet-for-indian –restaurants. Although, we continued to clarify the term “any vegetarian food; no meat, no egg, no fish, no beef, no pork”. Huh!! Sometimes I curse myself for being a vegetarian. However, we have survived our long journey in Europe. Thanks to Mc D’s and Burger kings.

Turkish cuisine is a delight to all type of food-lovers. They are famous for their sweets, apple ÇAY (pronounced as "Chai" i.e., Tea) served in Tulip bulb shaped clear glasses.  And at every shopping halt, we were asked to take this chai.  It tasted heavenly for that weather.  I even got 3 kgs of Apple tea bags each of red, golden and green apples. 

Dolmas are the vegetables-stuffed-on-vegetables kind, baked and boiled with some mild spices. And you can imagine anything stuffed on anything. Like I had baked potatos stuffed in Zucchini and Eggplant, variety beans and vegetables stuffed in Bell pepper. Dolmas became a part of my days food there, and the taste was very Indian.

Vegetables are generously used in all food, and eggplant is an important element apart from Spinach, artichokes, celery, cauliflower etc. Like, every restaurant had 4-5 only vegetable/beans related curry, plain or seasonsed rice that they call Pilav, naan and lenthil soup.  Pilaf/Pilav was also served with numerous combinations like chickpeas pilav, tomato pilav, eggplant pilav, zucchini pilav etc, and each of it carried a fancy turkish name, which I hardly remember. 

Mercimek (Lentil soup) is also another famous dish throughout turkey, and that’s a delight for veg like me. It was not like the normal lenthil soup they give in Indian restaurants across Europe.  I think this is prepared with red lenthils. 

Yogert is another famous food here, and in fact, the English word yoghurt or yogurt derives from the Turkish word yoğurt I(one nice uncle in the restaurant told us these stories). How can I complete this without a word left for sweets and desserts, which are again-again-again famous here.  You can smell the sweetness in the air while walking down the streets in Sultanahmet. 
The turkish cuisine is not complete without their world famous Baklava dessert. They are either served with nut toppings or with icecream. I had both the versions, and again, another wonderful taste. I also noticed a shop having Helva  on its display.

Now I really had enough, and the tastes and the smells are still lingering in me.
 

Let her soul rest in peace, Amen!!!

While I was being regular to the blog, I had to take an undeniable break to go to Chennai for enjoying my vacation. Lots of things I have to share, but the problem of pinnacle is that I have to mourn for my hard-disk. Now you understand the technical hitch I had to write a blog! I don’t have backup of my Turkey trip photos, which I did not bother to even have a look while I downloaded them to harddisk. And now, Alas! It’s gone! Poindhi”.