Boats, dried avocado and the sumptuous palace...

Thought I'd get one more update in before Peggy and I check out... But now I've forgotten where I finished on Wednesday. Before the Grand Bazaar or after?

Before. So we hung out in the cool for a while and worked out our next steps. Emailed some queries, checked some details. About 3pm we headed towards the Grand Bazaar. It was easy to find because it's well signposted so we got there easily enough. For those that haven't been there it's basically a huge indoor market that's like a rabbit warren with lanes, alleyways, twisting paths and a lot of people shouting at you. The best interchange I had went like this:

Seller: "Buy one for your mother-in-law!"
Me: *smirk*
Seller: "Or for my mother."

Points to him for making me laugh - most people just shout "Ladies! Ladies!"

We knew we wanted to buy pashminas here, there's no shortage of stalls but a lot are owned by the same people. We looked for ones that specified their scarves were 100% cashmere or described the blend and ended up in a little shop looking at hundreds of scarves.

The seller there kept calling me "babyface" which did not go over well... so he switched to "crazy girl", which I somehow preferred. He tried to tell us the scarves would be 120 lira each... we laughed and laughed. Eventually we got them for 50 lira for both. Certainly a lot less than he said but its hard to know if that's really a fair price. Regardless, I enjoyed the bargaining and the final cost was something we were happy with. Unfortunately it's so hot we can't wear them! Peg got a lovely 100% cashmere blue-grey one and I got a teal cashmere/silk scarf.

We wandered a lot then got lost trying to get home. We decided to just walk in a circle around the bazaar, which worked eventually but we ended up in a lot of areas that were obviously where Turkish people shopped. It was cool to see the "real" Istanbul and no one shouted at us on those streets. The thing that stood out was the extreme dresses! They would make those Big Fat Gypsy Weddings proud. Plus heaps of shiny fur lined capes for little boys. Maybe there's some kind of occasion where little boys where big capes?

Eventually made it away from there and decided to hit the Spice Bazaar, which is very close to our hostel. It was super crowded so we didn't meander, just walked through and goggled at things like circus tea and dried avocado (yuck? Stay tuned to find out...)

Home again home again we relaxed, cooked some dinner... what else? Not much. I fell asleep about 9.30 on Peggy's bed but she made me wake up and get ready for bed properly so I stayed up until the respectable hour of 10pm. Take that jetlag!

Yesterday we headed to the ferry to see the Asian side of the city. It turned out to be a bit boring, a bit dirty and quite crowded. On our way back on the ferry we were debating what to do. We still had Topkapi Palace and the Archaeological Museum to see but neither of us felt much like walking. We considered just going to the hostel or a cafe to hang out but that sounded a bit boring... what to do? Spontaneously jump on a cruise, of course!

You can take 2 to 6 hour cruises of the Bosphorus so we took a two hour cruise for 10 lira and got to sit in the sun (or the shade if you're Peggy), enjoy the views and relax on the water. I loved it. Took heaps of pictures but they're probably rubbish.

Then back to the hostel for lunch/internet, But on our way we decided, when else would we be able to try dried avocado? Never! So we got some free samples, took a bite and thought "Hey, that's not so bad..." Then the aftertaste hit and we got this lasting wave of bitter metallic taste. Yuck. Some free samples of turkish delight helped :) So no, we don't suggest drying your avocado. I think it still had the skin on too...

That afternoon we hit Topkapi Palace. It. Was. Epic.

Huge, ornate and spacious - you could easily spend all day there with no issues. We had about three hours there and saw the harem, too. That was pretty spectacular. All the concubines, eunuchs and most of the royal family lived there and never really got to leave. Sultans used to kill all their brothers so they would plot to steal the throne, but by the 1500s they decided locking them in the "golden cage" was a good alternative. It was very beautiful and ornate, with some amazing views, but I can imagine it would start to feel more cage-like than golden after a while, especially for the concubines who would ever have known differently.

The rest of the palace is equally stunning, but tomes have been written on it so I won't describe it poorly here. We had an audioguide so learned that the kitchens cooked for up to 15000 people.

Mostly everyone was spread out but in some of the smaller rooms the queues got hugely backed up. In one such queue we couldn't figure out what people wanted to see and I noticed some people kissing the cabinet (and getting yelled at by the guards) we got out of the queue to a different space in the room and discovered it was the beard hair of Mohammed. Also on display: Moses' staff, a cup Mohammed once drank from and Mohammed's signet ring. Gotta love holy leftovers.

We got home tired and overheated. Our hostel runs a restaurant that delivers so with another guy in our dorm we got platters and dessert. It was delicious and nice to relax on the rooftop with views over the city and eat traditional food. Altogether a lovely day.

Now we have to check out so we can make our way to Canakkale and Troy, then Eceabat and Gallipoli tomorrow.