September in Istanbul

As the glorious summer of 2014 started to fade and cool and the leaves became tinged with an autumnal brown, I waved goodbye to home yet again, this time jetting off to cosmopolitan Istanbul.  The reality of a posting to a city where other people pay to come on holiday is an existence very different to that which I’d experienced before. In short, Istanbul is a gem. It’s easy to get around, plenty to see, spectacular views, bars, good food, good coffee and for now at least, weather to die for.  Istanbul is not al all typical of the rest of Turkey and I’m staying in the swanky Beyoglu area, akin to Covent Garden, with prices to match, but my first couple of weeks here have been spent getting to know the city and its eccentricities. My ten minute walk to work passes posh hotels, coffees shops and convenience stores, until a dazzling view opens up far away down to the shimmering Bosphorus and beyond, the minarets of countless mosques dotting the skyline.  That view, every single morning, is enough to take your breath away.

Istanbul is a bizarre mixture – very westernised, with smart shops selling every conceivable item and more; swanky restaurants with trendy roof terraces; perfect for a beer watching the sun go down; to local joints selling fantastic delicious Turkish food, great Mediterranean delis, their wares displayed in a riot of exotic colours; hundreds upon hundreds of cay (tea) bars, girls in miniskirts brushing shoulders with burkha-clad ladies, neither seemingly batting an eyelid.  It’s truly a fusion of East and West.

Everywhere people drink tea, a Turkish institution – served in small shot glasses, black, with sugar cubes in the saucer and often a square of Turkish delight on a cocktail stick.  The men sip their tea whilst playing endless games of backgammon, seated on tiny low stools.  Of course there’s always Turkish coffee, strong and sludgy in a tiny cup resting in a beautifully intricate silver holder adorned with a miniature lid.

It’s easy to play tourist in Istanbul. There is so much to see – but a horde of other people intent on seeing it too. The main sights are in Sultanahmet over the Golden Horn, home to the Blue Mosque, Cisterns, Spice Market and Grand Bazaar:  predictably atmospheric and bustling.  Then there is funky Chihangir, full of trendy cafes, boutiques and antique shops.

One of my favourite things to do is to take a trip into Asia – this exotic journey is no more involved than hopping on a ferry which crosses over to another continent in a mere twenty minutes, passing rows of cormorants standing to attention on the breakwater and, if you’re very lucky, a dolphin.  The ferry drops off at Kadikoy, full of great food shops and bustling restaurants.  The waterfront is superb, ferries constantly coming and going, fresh mackerel being grilled on braziers, its aroma enticing you to buy the most delicious crusty mackerel baguette on earth – cay sellers with their tea pots perched on a basin of hot coals and fishermen lining the Galata bridge hoping to catch a fish to sell to the mackerel grillers.

The waterfront is integral to Istanbul, many commuting to work by ferry.  The sea of Marmaris is fed by the mighty Bosphorus, and with the setting sun glinting on the water it is easy to linger on the banks of the river on a low stool with a cay or on a rooftop bar with a cold beer.

There are hundreds of cats in Istanbul. Seemingly, Istanbullites have always been fond of cats and although they obviously breed indiscriminately (the cats – not Istanbullites) they are well fed and not at all shy – cat biscuits litter every street corner and there are water bowls dotted around.  Generally unafraid of people, often upon sitting down with a beer and a cat will march up and plonk itself on an available lap.

So there you have it.  I’m smitten with my temporary home.  Cats, beer, good food, sunshine and a waterfront.  What’s not to like?

Tripping Around

I’d decided I had better see a bit of Bangladesh before I left so I booked on a weekend trip to Srimongal.  Situated 180km north of Dhaka it nonetheless is a 5 hour train journey.  At the princely price of 800 Taka (£6.15) for a return trip I’d booked a first class ticket which turned out to be only marginally better than sitting on the roof of the train, which a great deal of people opted to do.  At least I had a seat even though it was plastic and sweat–inducing, and the view from the window was probably worth looking at, had the window not been so filthy there was no seeing out of it, and it was raining so hard there was no possibility of opening it.  The only consolation was that the carriage was so hot I didn’t feel the need to visit the toilet facilities as no doubt they would have been somewhat unpleasant.

It was an early start, my train leaving Dhaka station a little after six thirty in the morning, but it did arrive in Srimongal more or less on time, having trundled through a spectacular thunderstorm for the best part of the journey.  No wonder Bangladesh is frequently flooded.  Srimongal was wet; I was met by my guide, the quietly reserved Manik, and we bundled into a rickshaw, my wheelie bag propped between us, draped in a black bin liner to keep out the rain, to a local restaurant for a stupidly cheap lunch of vegetable korai.  Then it was into a CNG, plastic curtains flapping as we gathered speed and spraying water everywhere, to the rather splendid Grand Sultan Hotel and my very posh room for the night.  After three and a half hours sleep, I was feeling a bit jaded, and it was still raining, so I ordered a cappucino in their coffee shop.  The hotel hasn’t been open very long and I think staff training may need to be one of their priorities.  The waiter serving me was so nervous he very nearly slipped over after taking my order, then when delivering my coffee he slopped a load of it in the floor by my table then promptly ran away.  Anyway sadly the cappucino was almost stone cold so I had to call the poor young man over again whereupon he stood like a terrified rabbit whilst I tried to explain the temperature issue with my drink.  Eventually a manager sauntered over, listened to my plight then asked aggressively when I had ordered my cappucino. Taken aback and resisting the impulse to tell him I had ordered it half an hour ago and the service had been painfully slow, I told him it had only just arrived.  ‘You see’ he said knowingly ‘I find cappucino goes cold very quickly’.  Ah, the laws of physics relating to hot milk must be different in Srimongal.

Luckily the rain stopped just as Manik turned up to take me on a tour of the tea gardens. Serene, cool and with a noticeable lack of pollution, if a bit muddy, the tea gardens cover an undulating landscape, tea bushes planted in amongst larger trees which was not only very pleasing to the eye but which, my guide assured me, were selected owing to their small leaves which fall through the tea bushes below to fertilise the soil rather than settling on top of the bushes causing mayhem.  We heard an owl, saw a kingfisher and heard lots of cuckoos, we saw the tea pickers who pick off the tea leaves by hand, earning 70 Taka (53p) per 23 kilos of tea leaves; they can pick around 46 kilo per day.  Mind you they do get a house thrown in on the tea plantation and schooling for the kids.  We walked for a good couple of hours, having tea halfway round at the tea factory itself, made in a big metal pot on an open fire,  for 4p a cup, and we inexplicably got a tour of some eco-cottages on wooden stilts. We passed jackfruit trees, lemon trees, lychee trees and betel nut trees.  Once we had exhausted the tea gardens, we hopped into an electric rickshaw, passing rubber plantations bearing the scars of where the bark had been tapped for rubber.  Back into Srimongal to the famous tea cabin to sample the seven layer tea.  I’m not sure how they get the layers to stay layered, but it tastes pleasantly of cinnamon, lemon and ginger as you get through the layers.  A Srimogal institution apparently.

Back to the hotel for a welcome shower and a stroll around the exquisitely manicured grounds, which include a lake housing an improbably large amount of frogs all croaking loudly in a bid to outdo each other.  The temperature was ridiculously pleasant, around 26 degrees come nightfall, and it was very lovely indeed to sit on one of the hotel’s wicker swings, the chirruping of the crickets punctuated at random intervals by a frog, at close quarters sounding much like someone enthusiastically sitting on a whoopee cushion.  I am easily amused.

The next say was the day for a trek into the Lachwarra forest, one of the national parks of Bangladesh and home to the endangered Loolok gibbon, as well as many, many varieties of trees and birds.  It being the rainy season it was also home to  huge number of leeches – apparently it helps to deter them by smearing tobacco powder around your shoes – I avoided picking one up somehow, but my guide was not so lucky.  The forest was lush, tropical, butterflies everywhere and the most amazing noises, the loudest crickets in the world sounding like circular saws up in the trees, strange sounding birds, macaques grunting as they swung through the branches.  Then we heard the gibbons, one family group howling derisively at a second group sounding for all the world like football hooligans winding each other up. Bizarrely we could hear them but not see them, that is until the return leg when we spotted another family group swinging through the trees, eyeballing us, the males jet black with grey eyebrows and the females chestnut brown.  We wandered though a village in the heart of the forest, kids as young as three or four sorting betel leaves into different sizes prior to selling them, and had more tea at a roadside stall from a young lad who insisted in giving me some miniature bananas to eat.  Then it was back to the hotel at which point the heavens opened once more making further exploration foolhardy.

And so the long train journey back to Dhaka beckoned, this time with achingly lovely views of paddy fields stretching off into the distance.  My sojourn in Bangladesh was coming to an end…..