I think I've finally got it all figured out - how to use this damn Turkish computer (otherwýse ýt looks lýke thýs - weýrd!) - how to get the best possible speed connection (use the Internet cafes while all you lazy Americans are still in bed at 3am!) - and how to use the keyboard the way I remember it being, not the way it looks on the keys here!

So, I'm finally in Turkey! Lemme tell you, its been a serious up-n-down trip emotionally (and now physically!) since my arrival only 3 days ago. I crossed the border at Ipsala in the northeastern corner of Greece, close to Istanbul, and spent that night at a hotel in Kesan. My first impression of the place? That I'd passed through some transportation machine and had arrived in the wrong country somehow! The language sounds like a combination of German, Norwegian, and Arabic; the cities look like (in some parts) pictures I've seen of Eastern European ones, with their 4-6 story cookie-cutter apartment blocks dominating the landscape; and the smell of the place is reminiscent of little English towns in winter, with all of the coal fires heating the homes and some businesses. Very disorienting at first!

Since then: where to start? It has been a total emotional roller-coaster from the beginning, so that's where I'll start. I crossed the border after a very short spell of the beaurocratic stuff, and a fresh visa in my passport, the first one! (This was in my UK one, as I was a little unsure of Turkish (Moslem) sentiments towards Americans currently, although so far this doesn't look like a problem in the slightest.) While there I met Gail and Peter, an Oregonian / Hungarian couple (!) and chatted to them a while - including getting a recommendation for a hotel in Istanbul, and a promise to try to meet up with them there. I rolled across the border a new multi-millionaire (now worth 64 million, if you must know, although in Turkish lira only...) and hit the first little town for lunch, where I promptly let myself get screwed hard! Leaving there with a new resolution firmly in mind (not to EVER let that happen again), I hit Kesan, a hotel for the night, and a bus ride to Istanbul the next day to avoid the heavily-traffic'd road there. The bus ride was great - an express that soon turned into a local, as the driver stopped every 15 minutes to pick up folks to fill the empty seats. The conductor passed around free water and cookies, and then squirted a little lemon-water into your hands for you to rub into them and into your face for a little refreshment! Cool!

Istanbul: It's huge! And this is coming from someone who lived literally in downtown for a couple of years. I'm staying in the cutest little hotel in the area of Istanbul known as Sultanhamet, right in the thick of things, literally 50yds from the back of the famous Blue Mosque and overlooking the Bosporus and Asia on the other side. This puts me close to just about all the tourist sights, but also conveniently has me cheek-to-jowl with all the ultra-aggressive hawkers and carpet shop 'representatives' (who cause the prices to get jacked by 30% due to the commission then demanded by them of the shops). I've been accosted numerous times, sometimes pretty damn rudely, and have had shopkeepers attempt to charge me 3x Greek prices for groceries, as there are NO prices listed in most places. At times this has been a real downer (to use a phrase I dislike, but that really fits the situation), and I've struggled hard to remember that, 1) it's not personal, and 2) I am, after all, smack dab in the middle of the high-traffic tourist area in Istanbul (the worst of the worst, for that type of thing). But I've also had just as many enjoyable encounters with folks, from waiters to hotel owners to just-plain strangers on the streets - people just wanting to chat and becoming ultra-friendly when you respond in a similar manner (find THAT on the streets of Manhattan or Houston!). Since then, I've tried hard to let my HARD guard down (not completely, of course, for simple safety reasons), and just ignore the bad that inevitably accompanies the good. I don't want to have to develop a certain hardness in me just to deal with the crap, but I also don't think it's necessary. Having said that, however, I think this is a good introduction to the problems that will surely become more common and more persistant as I go further east and the poverty gets more widespread. Am I enjoying it? Absolutely. Am I looking forward to getting into the country and away from the worst of it for a while? You bet. The Dutch cyclist couple I met said something similar about India: every once in a while you need to go to a hotel, get an upstairs room, close the window and lock the door, and settle down with a good book for a day (or even 2), just to get your equilibrium back and re-enter the fray refreshed and ready to experience it all with joy and appreciation again!

I've been to the Topkapi Serayi, that massive palace complex that was the domain of the sultans and their famous harems from 1453 to 1839. It's incredible - housed and fed around 5000 at one point - I sat at the back end in the late afternoon sun away from the crowds of tourists and gazed out over the bay and sprawling city complex, at the dozens of minarets poking out of the buildings like missiles ready to defend against the infidels, and listened raptly to the multiple voices of muzzeins calling out over loudspeakers to come and pray. Absolutely incredible. I've had to stop several times in the past few days and marvel to myself that I'm actually in Istanbul, the city of SO much history, the subject and setting of multiple (sometimes really bad) movies, the end of the line for the famed Orient Express. Wow! It's touristy, polluted, and aggravating; but its also mysterious, fascinating, and SO exotic. As always, I wish I could have seen it 50 or even 20 years ago, but I'm glad I can experience it now and be able tell my grandchildren in a creaky voice what it was like "before it was ruined by them goldurn tourists!". In between, that is, the obligatory "I walked to school uphill in the snow - both ways!" lectures! I think I'm gonna enjoy torturing 'em with those, just so I can revel in the laughing "Grampa - you're so full of crap!" responses.

So, the standard 'having a great time - wish you were here'! I hope I can give you just a little taste of this place and make you want to visit it for yourself sometime.

Mark

Some of the locals, patiently waiting outside a likely spot.