Tuesday 3 October 1995

5am. Bloody wailing again. I forewent breakfast (it really wasn’t inspiring) and went to the Ayasofiya. I would have liked to have gone there as my first site in Constantinople, but it’s closed on Mondays. They charged TL245 to get in - it’s bound to have increased since then, thanks to savage Turkish inflation. Unfortunately, it was too dark inside to take proper photos - words cannot do the place justice. It is absolutely stunning, both in scale and decoration. It is absolutely vast, and the stone carvings in the supporting columns were more intricate than I had ever seen anywhere before. A pity about the Islamic vandalism, though - great discs bearing Arabic script, the minbar on one wall, etc. I think it ought to be converted back into a church. Probably only because this would entail the removal of the minarets which terrorised me every morning. It was also a pity that scaffolding covered one quarter of the nave, all the way up to the roof. The galleries upstairs were as large as many normal churches are. I really could not remember it being that large. Then again, it is the fourth-largest church ever built, and for one thousand years it had the largest unsupported dome in the world - until the construction of St Peter’s in Rome. The few surviving (restored after being covered up during the building's time as a mosque) Byzantine mosaics in the upper gallery, and in the entrance passage, were quite breathtaking.

     
Hagia Sophia with church of Hagia irene to the left 

As I left the place who should I bump into but Büland. There’s no getting away from some people. He gave me directions to the Grand Bazaar, and reminded me not to buy a carpet. Thanks, Büland. Once I found the place (I’m sure I didn’t take the most direct route), I was not very impressed. All tourist tat, or general tat. I did find a reasonable evil eye for my flat, and I deliberated over a Turkish flag (for my flag collection), but I deferred on a decision. I decided to change some money. Easier said than done. I queued up in a bank, only to be told that they don’t do foreign exchange. So I went to one of the change booths, which was a good thing to do, as they offer reasonably good rates for hard currency - it’s worth more to them than Turkish, as the latter is losing value as you look at it. Literally. It must be the only place in the world where you can get a good deal (i.e. you’re not totally ripped off) in an exchange booth. I changed £75 at a rate of TL77, compared with TL74 before I left London.

Things were going well. Time for a cock-up. I decided to go to the Egyptian Bazaar, the Yeralt Çarsisi. I remembered it being much better than the Grand Bazaar, anyway. So I followed the map, and walked all the way out there, quite a way along the main road along the Golden Horn. I passed shops selling all manner of guns, from pistols to machine guns. Safe country, Turkey, I thought. Finally I got to the point where I was heading. But - no sign of an old bazaar. The Yeralt Çarsisi turned out to be the consumer goods bazaar, a modern shopping mall. So I checked the guide book. Moron. The Egyptian Bazaar is the Misir Çarsisi (Misir is Turkish for Egypt; Misr in Egyptian Arabic. I should have known that.), just down the hill from the Grand Bazaar. Back along the main road I went, through crowded shopping streets, and, at last, I got there. It, too, was a disappointment. I bought some Turkish pepper, and some pistachio Turkish delight ("delight", I should say - it was disgusting, all rubbery). What’s more, I managed to get my trousers covered in henna as I queued up. Strange greenish powder - how come it turns red when used in hair? All in all, the bazaar was not as good as I had expected - let’s hope the souk in Aleppo is better.

I grabbed a döner kebab for my lunch on the move (when one has just three days in Constantinople there is no point wasting daylight hours by having a sit-down meal!). I was still hungry, though, so I had to have another. Greedy pig! I stopped off at the Galata bridge to watch the fishermen selling their wares, then went back to the hotel. After a brief stop to dump my latest acquisitions I grabbed a cab to take me to the fortress at Yedikule on the old city walls. It was built to incorporate the old Golden Gate, which in turn had been included in the city walls by Theodosius. I think I must have over-tipped the driver (going by the look on his face!), and I went for a look around.

What a DUMP, even by Istanbul standards (and that’s saying something!). The entrance fee - 40 - was outrageous for what you got. Also, the Health and Safety Executive would throw a screaming blue fit if they ever found anything like it back home. But let's face it, they can be a bit nanny state-ish at times, can't they! Some bits scared me so much, I decided not to risk them just for a potentially good photo of Istanbul. Firstly, none of the walls or stairs had safety rails, but that was OK, as they were quite wide. Then there was the raised walkway with a great big chunk missing out of it. That was OK, too, you could always balance along the steel girder. But the iron (or rather, rust) walkway along the inside of one of the round towers looked that bit too precarious. I decided I had had enough of Yedikule. Some kid approached me in broken English, telling me that this was Yedikule. "I know," I replied. "And I’ve just finished looking at it. Goodbye." I left.

Then I set about walking the full length of the Byzantine land walls, all 4 miles or so. They are simply amazing in some parts, less so in others, with one or two reconstructed sections, especially in the Belgradkapi area. By way of contrast, the sections beyond Topkapi, and approaching Edirnekapi, are in terrible shape. These bits bore the brunt of the Turkish bombardment during the siege, and Urban's cannon in particular. Then there is the stretch around the Tekfur Serayi, part of the late Byzantine imperial palace, where the Janissaries broke through on 29 May 1453 to take the city. This stretch is in beautiful shape, though the palace is not worth the 150 admission charged by the old crone at the gate. The view from the top (after another precarious climb) was very disappointing. As the promontory on which Constantinople is built curves around, you can’t see any of the prominent landmarks from here. I had to photograph it, though, as I had paid 150 to see it, and risked life and limb in doing so - the HSE would have gone into apoplexies once more (good, they deserve it): no signs forbidding the climbing of walls (which I ignore as a matter of course anyway), or alternatively, no restored steps, viewing platforms and safety rails, just a rickety ladder with several absent rungs! Excellent! After leaving the palace, I lost the walls. I descended to the Golden Horn, and caught a cab back to the Ayasofiya - I had had enough of walking for one day. I bought water at some extortionate price, returned to my room to collapse onto my bed, exhausted, and reflected on my day.

I had seen some interesting sights, and the walk along the wall had been worth my while. Some of my observations had been amusing, while others haunted me. On the funny side, I was amused by the fact that the gaps between the walls, and the moat itself, are being used for allotments. I also saw a TV aerial attached to one of the towers, providing a better reception for the nearby house built in its shadows. Two boys were pounding away at the walls along one of the dilapidated stretches near Edirnekapi, hurling rocks at a weak spot, which was crumbling under this renewed Turkish bombardment. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, or close up the walls with our Turkish dead! I wondered whether I ought to tell them that they could stop now, that the city had in fact fallen to them 542 years and 4 months ago...!

On the down side, there was the poverty I encountered - the walls these days are a small shanty town of sorts. At first, I only noticed a few shacks built within the watch towers. The sight of a shepherd grazing his flock alongside a main road in Istanbul, with the ram tethered to a tree nearby, appeared a bit bizarre and amusing at first - a bit like someone grazing their cattle in the park by the river in Hammersmith, and tying their bull to the railings on the A4. Then I saw more herds, grazing along this barren strip of dead grass between the ring road and the walls. this was followed by small groups of - well, tents is too generous a word for these contraptions - with children playing in the dirt. People with few or no possessions in this world, and seemingly little hope of ever getting out of this abject poverty. This strip of lead-polluted dust, these children, these tents, these sheep, were their entire existence. Probably they came up to Istanbul from the countryside in search of wealth and a new life - thousands do so every month. It made me feel very comfortably as I went by, and also when I was writing up my diary in the plush surroundings of my tourist hotel later that night.

So, I was to go out on the town with Orhan. Here we go again, another carpet-selling routine. Well, it was not to be. The girls he claims to have arranged didn’t turn up, and he had been delayed while buying a BMW with a friend in Asia. So I played Büland at backgammon - and promptly lost TL250 000! Orhan was not happy about this, but I told him it was OK, I had lost it fair and square. When Büland told a friend of his what had happened, this guy promptly volunteered to play me, too. I declined politely, and went back to my hotel. Then I got a cab to the Hacibaba in Taksim. I’m sure the taxi driver conned me by using the after-midnight rate on the way there. I had a wonderful meal - starter, then a Bosphorus Fish (whatever that may be precisely), and then dessert, all with a half bottle of Villa Doluca white, and all for under one million. Not bad at all. Then I walked back, but got lost, and ended up walking about three miles. Slight navigational blips. By the time I was crossing the Haliç bridge, still a long way from the hotel, my feet and legs were on the brink of going on strike. I slept exceedingly well that night - and I did not wake up at 5am!