Turkey and I - Day 1

There was a soft thud and the sound of a sudden gush of wind as I thought to myself, "Finally, my vacation begins! ". I get off the plane in a slow leisurely fashion as if I was trying to prove to someone that I wasn't actually very excited about being there. This couldn't have been further from the truth, because I was excited! It had been quite a while since my last vacation and the 3 hours delay in the flight to Turkey seemed to have just further pronounced that fact in my mind. But here I was, ambling along, letting people pass me by. Then my body seemed to catch up with my brain and I quickened my pace to head to the immigration counters. I meet a middle-aged Indian business man in the line who starts by asking me if I'm Turkish and if I could tell him about some good hotels in Istanbul. Now I usually get this a lot, that is, people thinking I'm not from India, but I wasn't expecting it in an immigration line for Non-Turkish nationals! I start the conversation off from my side in Hindi and find out that he's a Jain Hindu and needs a hotel room with a kitchen (Jain's have strict dietary requirements including only certain types of vegetarian foods). Since there were a large number of hotels in the area where I was headed, we decided to take a single cab so that he could also take a look around that area. The cab ride was ...., well, interesting. This fellow was a divorcee and decided to start telling about his marital experience after finding out that I was still quite young and single. "The secret to a successful marriage is to have a child within one year of getting married", I was told. Hmm.... "And why is that?", I ask. "Well", he starts. "You see its the child that actually binds the couple together. If you go on a trip, you'll always come back for the child, not the wife. It is a woman's job to stay at home and take care of the child and household tasks. It's the child that guarantees that you always come back and that the woman never leaves the house. " Hmmmmmm.... Most women I know would have been looking for something hard and heavy just about now. That was also just about the time I switched my mind off from the conversation. The next I knew, we were near the area where my hotel was supposed to be and the taxi driver was trying to find out where it was exactly. A few minutes later we were there and I was trying to argue with my "friend" on who would pay the taxi fare. He said that he was older and my company had been more than worth it! I left it at that and we said good bye. [ It's amazing how you can be good company to someone by just listening to what they have to say. Apparently, even pretending to listen works. Listening is an often neglected yet very important part of any conversation. In fact, it typically utilizes about half the time in any conversation (we can cancel out the time when both parties involved are talking together and making no sense with when both are silent trying to figure out something more interesting to say than "The weather seems decent today"). ] Konya Pension. I peer at the words written in white on a sign board with a black background that's hardly visible at this time in the night. An arrows points me in the direction of more darkness and I start getting a bad feeling about the "hotel" I'm supposed to go to. Tanya had mentioned (make that warned) me that we were on a budget holiday. "How bad could it be", I think to myself and ring the bell on a door that I think just might be the place (there really wasn't any clear sign and it was quite dark). There's a buzz, the door springs open and I walk up a flight of dimly lit stairs to be greeted by a young man who seemed to be expecting me. Ah, this was it, well..., kind of. We were standing at the base of a stairway which had a tall thin table with a phone on it at one side and a wall covered with brochures on the other. It was smaller than my office cubicle. It was also the reception, as I was told. [ Hotels usually distort your sense of space by having both enormous and elaborate lobbies. Its only later that you find out that the rooms are all the same size and the hotel really isn't big enough to house a gazillion people. ] I got a big hug from my sister as I stepped carefully into the room which was quite small but seemed adequate (not to mention cheap!). Navdeep was trying his best to greet me while lying on the bed under the covers keeping warm. Since none of us had eaten, we decided to proceed immediately to take care of just that. These guys had already asked around for some good placed to eat. We decide to head towards somewhere called Taksim and in our haste we forget to carry any maps, guides, or even a camera! Vaguely remembering where this place was, we spend a half hour walking around trying to find out how to get there and then finally taking a bus ride. The bus drops us off in Taksim Square which looks lively and busy even at this late hour. We walk around trying to find a non-touristy place to eat, realize there really isn't one here, and step into a small restaurant serving kebabs. Now there's a lot that can be said about Turkish food. It's amazing, surprising, spicy, tasty etc. My favorite single word description however requires a particular intonation to add some feeling to it - 'yummy'. The meal was indeed yummy and quite filling. We were offered some salad on the house which apparently is a major part of the Turkish meal. In fact they have the salad "elements" (cucumber, tomatoes, cheese and olives) for breakfast as well! We took a bus ride back to somewhere near our hotel. Now I mentioned that we had forgotten the maps so it was quite an interesting walk back home. Even more interesting was the fact that back at the restaurant, Tanya had produced a business card for the hotel we were in with a small map behind it. This card was no where to be found at this point. We did manage it back our room somehow which was surprisingly warm and cozy. It had been a long day (the time difference was against me) and I was quite sleepy at this point. So what did we end up doing now? Well we slept of course! Were you expecting something else after all this?