Turkey - Istanbul Part 1(we'll be back here in a month!) - Day 332 (23,548 miles)

Matt and Anita had shipped their bike into Istanbul a couple of months before us and had received a warm welcome and much help from the members of the Istanbul Bisiklet ve Motorsiklet Ihtisas Klubu. We made contact with club member Zeki before we left Nepal and headed for their club headquarters when we arrived.

They have a great set up, an area downstairs for chatting, drinking tea (an important pastime here), eating biscuits, looking at bikes, working on bikes, planning the events they take part in and an upstairs apartment for passing travellers to stay in.

From right to left Zeki, Adil, Ismail, Mehmet and a young lady who's name we didn't get.

On the right here is Jake a New Yorker who is spending his college summer holidays touring eastern Europe. He had been staying at the club and showed us round the neighbourhood on our first night taking us to a good cheap restaurant and baklava shop before heading off the next day on the remainder of his journey.

Adil holds the approved customs release form at Istanbul airport. This was our most difficult import yet (worse than Delhi), without a Turkish speaker or alternatively paying for an import agent it would have been impossible. You must have proof of police clearance for the rider and 3rd party insurance before you can even start the clearance process. In our case this was complicated by the fact that our bike reg number contains an X and there is no X or W in the Turkish alphabet, therefore none of the usual insurers would insure us!. To solve this Adil took a 90km round trip to the Turkish Automobile Association office who were able to arrange the necessary cover.

The complete process took 2 days and that was with Adil knowing the system inside out.

Our first sightseeing stop was the Kapali Carsi (Grand Bazaar) some of the building is 15th century and it holds 4,500 shops. It was torture! We wanted to see it but leaving without buying a carpet or lovely glass light fitting was so hard (well for me!)

The carpet sellers were on fine form

Them "Please, please come look, no charge for looking"
Us "No thank you, we are travelling on a motorbike, we cannot carry"
Them "No problem, we can ship, very good price"
Us "Turkish carpets are lovely but we already have some"
Them "Come I show you the best in Istanbul"
Us "We have no jobs, no money!"
Them "This is an investment,I do very,very, very good price"

At this point John would start talking about wool on wool, wool on silk and knots per inch to let them know we knew something about how to tell the quality of a carpet and wouldn't be lulled into buying that cheap tatty old one that had been in the shop for years!

Note the seated man having his blood pressure taken, perhaps his wife is a bit of a shopper like me.



I so wanted one of these.

Next stop was the Spice Bazaar if we couldn't buy anything to carry home at least we could indulge in lovely dried fruit, nuts and Turkish Delight while here!











After a couple of hours walking round the beautiful Topkapi Palace John hits the point of sightseeing saturation! He's probably wondering how long before I'll notice if he makes a run for it.

We take a break for dinner and a couple of beers before visiting the famous Blue Mosque......









I forgot to take my scarf so had to don one of the small sheets given out for head covering at many mosques and temples. Although this is an Islamic rather than a Christian place of worship I did feel like I was dressed to utter that well known Monty Python line "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy."

On Sunday we joined some of the club members for a picnic in a forest outside of the city. John helped with some on the spot petrol tank repairs before lunch.



Chef for the day was Apo, old olive tins were turned into ovens and in 50 mins he produced the best chicken and vegatables we had ever tasted.








Great company, food and chay turkish tea made in a traditional pot. We had a great day.



We took a boat trip on the Bosphorus the stretch of water between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, it's a great way to get a view of lots of the spectacular buildings in the Old City of Istanbul.










After a week in the city we packed up the bike and head west to the Gallipoli Peninsular.


Ismail and Adil lead us out of the city and pointed us in the right direction. We'll see them again in around 4 weeks time as we head back to Istanbul then to fit new tyres before we leave Turkey.