3 weeks of Istanbul

We arrived at the Istanbul Land Rover centre with two battered rides as it was getting dark so we sorted all the admin, told them what we wanted to have looked at, gathered all our gear and found a hotel near the airport to get in gather thoughts and plan ahead…. Our biggest problem was that we had arrived at a most awkward time… It was celebration time for the locals and holiday season had landed Luna calendar wise at the same time we where hoping to fix our cars just after the local holidays finished our Christmas season was due to kick in and that would slow insurance details so we where trapped in Istanbul…. For about three to four weeks waiting and exploring… In hind sight it was a bit of a blessing as it grounded us in an adventure and made sure we knew we where driving on a epic quest…. We had up till then travelled fairly fast and that had ment a lot of our route was motorway so we where forced to make the most of Christmas new years and Istanbul…..

Istanbul truly is the cross roads of the world. The country is placed geographically in a position which has meant that past and present transportation has had to travel through this city. Making it a shopping extravaganza especially in comparison to places like Bosnia and Serbia it is clear to see a level of cosmopolitan shopping and goods availability rise… It is also much warmer than a lot of the countryside surrounding it due to being on a thin stretch of land with seas north and south which stay warmer than land in winter, so we where blessed with far milder weather than most of turkey as we where to find out in the coming weeks…

There is a kind of sternness in the Turkish smile in Istanbul and It takes a while for the locals to warm to us but when they do they where great… we also found ourselves getting special treatment when It came to paying the bill at a lot of the restaurants we visited. We started to wonder if we where getting a special calculator pulled out each time we arrived as bills sometimes doubled and trebled their value! A classic manoeuvre pulled we imagine on western faces. Sadly we never seemed to work this out until we where well clear as we wandered back to our various hotels in the city… But is more experience and a skill we developed do our own maths before the optimistic calculators made it in to the picture.

So three weeks spent in Istanbul we met some wonderful characters including Edip a man of large stature and a kind of cross between OB one Kenobi and Oliver Reed he steered us to many interesting events and wonderful places mainly to do with Sufism a traditional religion which Whirling Dervish’s originate. One I will never forget was in a hall in the back streets of Istanbul and we walked through some fairly uninteresting gates where I, Jonny, Michelle and Lee ended in a courtyard. We followed others in to a area where we washed our feet then by a series of gestures from various Turkish men in White skull caps we found ourselves sitting on rugs in a side room of a large circular hall in which many men had formed a series of circles all with their arms inter locked and they where chanting and swaying back and forth as they circles the central dervish whirling with his head tilted and one hand pointing up to the heavens and one hand pointing down to the earth channelling as we where told later the energy from the heavens to the room and the earth…

The chanting and swaying physically moved the room and the pace of both the chanting and the collective dance was increased and slowed like a drum rhythm. The chant was simple and a prayer for the love of god and we where explained toi after that the men do this in a circle so not only do they say their prayer for the love of god and life but as they face each other this intension also is for each other… A most powerful experience and truly touching ceremony as these smiling men who all made us feel welcomed all gathered after to smoke and drink the chi or Turkish tea….

Sparkie had chosen to return for Christmas Jonny Michelle and me spent Christmas eve with Lee our fellow traveller in steam pool in Yallova a town famous for its hot spring… and on Christmas which is not a huge thing in Turkey we travelled back to Istanbul to deal with the insurance which as tragic as It sounds we did laugh and enjoy ourselves… basically are a little different from most of the travellers that go overland and this made everyone most welcoming and interested in our journey, including the Insurance brokers

By now It was becoming clear that only one car would be able to be repaired and that If we used the doors from the vehicle which had been written off we would save more time and our own money on hotels… so now we had a tough choice to make would we look into getting another van or car in turkey or could we get a car from Land rover to replace our lost ride or was it only wise to go with one… We also at this stage wondered weather we should attempt to go overland through Pakistan or to take the boats to Bombay…. Some crunch decisions where coming our way…

It was becoming clear that we where only going to get one car also Michelle’s deadline for college return was looming up so the decision was made to send her on to India so she could take more photos in a more relaxed atmosphere and that we after much searching where not going to Buy a Turkish car because the Price of any vehicle in turkey is double that of anywhere else… we did toy for a while with the idea buying a transit and painting it up but this would cost 10.000 instead of 5.000 pounds and we made the hard choice to continue as two in one car… Not an easy call for jonny to make on boxing day to Sparkie this news….

It would be ready for us as soon as we had the other car in customs and we had settled up repacked… We where getting ready at last to be on the road again….
Love it!