A very Latvian Christmas

Recently, every city I’ve been to has had an old town. And old towns have Christmas markets. Kitschy, overpriced and lame.

Yet, and begrudgingly, I was beginning to feel that creeping sensation of Christmas cheer. This was something I had wished to avoid, as in accepting this, it needed to be reconciled with the fact that for the first time I would be spending that most festive of days in a hostel. 

Snowman, Riga

Accordingly, it had taken some choosing to sort out where I wanted to stay—the cheapest, smallest hostel available—and lo, nestled above the McDonald’s near the bus station in Riga was my Christmas home.

After a long and boring bus ride from Tallinn, it was late and I had not much time to use the fading light of gloaming to quickly power around the city and come to terms with it. Back at the hostel I met Laurence, a recently single Kiwi man backpacking for the first time at the tender age of 28. He, along with the girls who ran the hostel, Dace and Daiga, along with two British gents, Ara and Doug, would be the core of my surrogate Christmas family.

Rather than spend Christmas Eve attempting to cultivate festive spirit by lounging around the hostel, it was the order of the day to try and see the city. So I headed out with Laurence to do the tour of the ghetto, which started at midday.

Christmas market, Riga

In the -12 weather it was an ambitious plan to try and endure a walking tour, and we arrived at the meeting point at 11am so that I had time to go up to the top of the church to get what was apparently quite a nice view of the old town. Sadly, the church was closed, and outside it was a lonely looking man spruiking the old town walking tour, which was meant to start presently.

We started chatting, and it became apparent that Toms was a hockey fan and he suggested we try to catch the 1pm game between the local powerhouse Riga Dinamo and some Russian scumbag team, but that we wouldn’t be able to if we did the ghetto tour. This was perhaps his attempt to get us to go on the old town tour with him, but we were unswayed in our determination to see the ghetto—mainly because it has an actual black market in it—and convinced him to take us on a special finish-before-the-hockey-game tour that encompassed the old town, the central market, the ghetto, and a brief history of architecture in Riga, all en route to the stadium.

Santa dog 

So it was that we ambled quite briskly in order to combat the chill, learning of Riga’s difficulty in establishing sovereignty as it spent the years being variously occupied due to its convenient position for trade. This was as we made our way to the central market, which is truly something to behold.

Formed in several old Zeppelin hangars and with enormous sections for various proteins, vegetables and miscellanea, we were treated to some variously pickled pickles—the garlic ones having enough power to burn eyes—and sampled some kvass. Kvass is a curious drink of fermented rye bread, mildly alcoholic, coca cola-coloured, carbonated, and malty, it is almost reminiscent of a Dr Pepper. Apparently it is so popular in the Baltics Coke started producing it, as it was outselling soft drinks in summer. 

Kvass with Laurence

There are still wooden houses in Riga, by-products of a time when it was a necessity to have the ability to burn shelter as you retreated from an impending invasion. We eyed some of these in the Russian quarter where we finally got to go to the much-anticipated black market. Like a sort of flea market for stolen goods, Toms remarked that as a kid, whenever he had his bike stolen he’d come down here the next day to buy it back.

Amidst the piles of ancient televisions, prehistoric tools, mobiles so old they aren’t even retro, and arcana from various occupations, there are no doubt bargains to be had, but I was quite content to leave them for the more ambitious, simply enjoying staring and fondling the mismatched bounty of unknown providence. Sadly, I couldn't find the person selling kidneys.

Black market

After some not entirely interesting information about architecture and neosomething-or-rather Russian Tsar facades, we made it to the hockey rink. Toms, as it turns out, was a player on the Latvian national team before he blew his knees out. Thus every hockey game he sees is bittersweet, supporting and watching his ex-team mates play out his passion. Sadly he was unable to join us today, as he had another tour to run, despite our entreaties for him to skip it and hang out.

The game itself was quite impressive if only because the crowd of 5600 was more raucous than some crowds I’ve been a part of that were five times the size. Replete with t-shirt cannons, American-style annoying music-bytes and drum-wielding passionate fans, it was a sensory experience. One only enhanced by the nasty mulled wine we sipped, watching the locals double fist beer and straight whisky. 

Di-na-mo

So it was Christmas, and waking late and having half of my surrogate family head out in search of breakfast—something that turned into a multiple hour odyssey—rendered the morning quite un-Christmas-y. Once they returned it was time for some grocery shopping, and so we decamped to the central market to source the requisite means to create some Latvian Christmas peas, sausage and sauerkraut, roast chicken and veg, mashed potato and mulled wine.

Thus began the festivities and the snowballing of Christmas spirit, the cooking a challenge given the tiny kitchen and insufficient number of pans. Nonetheless we soldiered on, my impulse decision to try to cook a traditional Latvian Christmas dish of peas without ever having seen or tasted it surprisingly successful, and the frenzy of creation seeing only one finger sliced—not mine.  

Laurence, Dace, Doug, Ara

With only four hot plates on the stove-top, space was prioritised and highly sought after. Appropriately, the mulled wine was the only untouchable. Speaking of which, it was also a tour de force. Already 15%, the special mulled-wine wine was emboldened with chunks of orange and apple, dried cranberries, more dried fruit and nuts, cinnamon sugar, cloves, and then boosted with a slosh of rum. By the third batch, the slosh had turned into about 1/3 of a bottle, and boy was it delicious.

Eventually we gorged on all the food we had prepared. The family was fortified by a trio of Columbians, Dace and Daiga’s friend, as well as a Dutch guy Ara and Doug had met at a bar. The gifts we had bought for Secret Friend—Latvian Secret Santa—were distributed via lottery and we settled down to drinking and eating the day away, my Australian-homage summer pudding for dessert.

After this very Latvian Christmas is was a tediously long bus to Kaunas, Lithuania. It was here I discovered my plan to catch a bus to Warsaw for the 29^th to meet up with the person I was to be couchsurfing with was in jeopardy given all the buses had been booked-out. So it was a flustered attempt to secure transport that consumed my evening, settling on a silly train trip that involved changing at the border as the soviet railway of Lithuania is a different gauge to that of Poland.

Christmas dinner

The next day I met up with Kristina, a local who had offered to hang out with me through couchsurfing. After wandering around the old town by myself in the morning, her local knowledge was utilised as we went slightly off track to a monastery about 20 minutes out of town, before eating apple pie at the yachting club that is no doubt much more pleasant in summer.

Indeed, that was the theme of her guided tour of Kaunas as we navigated slippery footpaths of black ice and slushy puddles that saw my boots sodden and toes turning pink. So we escaped the inclement conditions by hiding in a couple of bars, drinking a bit too much and admiring the ridiculously ugly ex-soviet factory turned church that looms over the city, illuminated for all to see. 

Big ass Christmas tree, Kaunas 

What is irritating about Kaunas, however, only became apparent on the morning of my departure. The place has no exchange offices. If you want to change your Lithuanian Lits into a more useful currency you have to go to a bank and join the enormous queue of geriatrics that moves as glacially as their walking-frame-supported shuffle. So with time a-dwindling, frustrated at the chunk of potential euros still in my wallet, I jumped on the wrong bus and ended up going basically the opposite direction from the train station.

Realising this, it was time to catch a cab in order to not miss my train. So I guess the leftover currency wasn’t too useless. But that is secondary to the true tale here.

I have had many cabbies in my travels and indeed, back home. Some have been creepy old men, telling me of their plans to import Estonian brides, or maintained lascivious streams of filth at passing women. One bragged of having slept with Lebron James’ mother, and one even made my sister cry. Some have smelled, some have been mid-beer when I got in, but all of them have been able to take me to the train station.

Ghetto hoopin'

Some might not have understood my English, but they did understand my choo-choo motion. Or were able to identify where I wanted to go after examining where I’d point on a map.

Not this one.

Even after I slowly and loudly—while pointing at it on a fuck-off-huge-A3 map of the city in which he makes his cab-driverly living—read the name of the streets that make the intersection where the train station sits, large and obvious.

To better understand this incompetence, keep in mind that Kaunas is not big. It is a city of 350,000. Hardly a maze-like metropolis. Moreover, going to and from the old town there are two roads, each running in one direction. 

Monastery

Even if he understood only the gist of the map, I had pointed in the direction away from the old town, indeed, at where the train station was located. Yet my cabbie decided to turn onto the one way road towards the old town.

The complete opposite direction to that in which I wished to go.

What the fuck.

Finally we pulled over and after an extensive conference were on the same page. “Ahhhh,” he exclaimed, “chka-chka chka-chka,” miming a train.

9 long and boring hours later I was in Warsaw. 

Detouring to the Baltics

In the snow the world simplifies. Fresh drifts even out the contours of the landscape to a bright monotone and colours are thrown into stark relief, light and dark.

In winter in Stockholm it is barely light at all. And this is how I met the city after my flight, the last vestigial daylight ushering in the biting chill of a frozen night.

Christmas market, Stockholm

The binary colour palette makes for some interesting sight seeing. Djurgarden and Ladugardsgardet, the fancy national parks near the city were of a frozen similarity. The old town, Gamre Stan, replete with the ubiquitous northern European Christmas market selling the local version of mulled wine, was similarly white-dusted and amorphous.

The downside of fresh snowfall is when its purity is hard trodden along footpaths to a brown sludge perilous both to footing and the dryness of one’s socks. This, combined with the size of Stockholm and my brief time allotted to visiting it due to the necessity of booking a ferry to Tallinn before the prices rocketed around Christmas rendered attempts to traverse too much of its vast cityscape impossible. Speaking of which, the only reason I was in Stockholm in the first place was because it was cheaper to fly to Stockholm and stay for two nights and then catch a ferry to Tallinn, than fly direct to Tallinn.

Enterprising

I met two Australians, Harry and Tristan, who had just come back from a hunting trip in northern Sweden where it was -28 degrees. They also showed me a picture of a jar of vodka with beaver testicles in it. Apparently it was delicious.

They had a car, so we took the chance to go up to see the Stockholm archipelago, which I’m sure is charming in summer. In winter it is charming in its own way, stark black and white again. Slightly unimpressed, we passed more time letting off the remnants of the fireworks they had bought in a car park earlier.

Ducks

 That evening we went to the ice bar at the Nordic Sea Hotel. Made of super clear ice from the Torne River in Lapland, it is a permanent -5 degrees and they fit you with a special poncho and gloves. Ice-glasses are one use only and have just enough room for some absolut vodka and a mixer, in my case, lingenberries and juice in a quiet homage to The Big Lebowski.

No one stays in the ice bar for very long. Obviously it is cold, but once the novelty of the whole ice thing wears off there isn’t much to do there, so we amused ourselves in the hostel lobby by strolling around the enormous fish tank, only to notice that if one were tall enough it was possible to dangle your fingers in the water. The fish thought this was  an offering of food and would lunge at your dabbling tips, which was briefly amusing, before of course we took it too far and this happened to Harry’s finger:

Harry's finger

In this sort of weather it is easy to understand why the Swedes have an abnormally high suicide rate. One evening at the hostel they had a Swedish movie showing, the existential themes of which—surrounding the return of a woman to her small hometown for her father’s birthday, a day otherwise synonymous with the suicide of a close family friend—seemed to capture the looming despond.

Warehouse

That said, apparently the Swedes have learned to combat this sense of doom by drinking the most coffee in the world, as well as eating the most bananas. Additionally, at Christmas time one can distract from the woes of the day by going to any one of the Christmas markets and picking up some piping hot glogi and some sort of potato and meat combination.

I also had the chance to sample some pickled herring, which to be honest is really tasty. I had it again it was so good.

On reflection, it was also very calming to be away from being on guard against perpetual tourist swindling in Turkey and back to the clear and simple rules of familiar customer-service regulation and mores.

Antique shopping

With my cheap beanie I bought in Turkey coming apart, I was at a loss for finding the means to darn it. I had a minor flash of brilliance and went to the Comfort Inn hotel down the road from the hostel and managed to snaffle, in addition to a needle and thread kit, some free coffee, biscuits and a pack of lollies. I am going to hang out in hotel lobbies more often. When I later sat in the hostel looking confusedly at the needle and thread and my beanie, a kind onlooker generously offered to darn my beanie. It was a successful enterprise.

Harry, Tristan and I also attempted some ice skating, but with the free boots failing to fit my manly feet and their finding being outskated and dodged around by kids a little irksome, we didn’t last long.

 

Clouds

 The ferry loomed, and I anticipated the 17 hour trip to be something akin to the night buses and night trains I have been frequenting, that is to say, full of boredom and discomfort. But then I had someone tell me that the Stockholm to Helsinki ferry, at least, is a floating house of debauchery and excess.

I boarded the ferry with 5 cans of beer, 700 grams of dahl spread across an old cheese container and a box that used to hold pre-cooked prawns, and one protein shake. Somehow, the bed in the 4 man cabin I had booked turned out to be a one man private cabin. It was luxurious.

I had a nap and emerged to find the boat commandeered by severely intoxicated people from the Baltics, Estonia and Sweden. One man with his family hailed me over and insisted we go drinking once he put his child to bed. A group of Lithuanian dudes huddled around me and offered me mystery liquor.

Christmas market, Tallinn

In the big bar area there was a show going on that reeked of eurotrash, and the floating night club areas—which were broadcast live into the rooms on the televisions—became progressively more busy and sleazy. A man in reindeer antlers boogied down and another dressed like a black wiggle with a bum-bag on at one stage started break dancing.

Eventually I was in Tallinn and it was cold. So cold. I made it to the hostel and promptly left to try and catch the walking tour. Unprepared for quite such cold, I lasted all of one hour before I had to leave, my toes threatening to fall off.

I sought recourse in a medieval themed sort of inn that served reindeer pies and elk soup for a euro each, but if you want cutlery you have to BYO or sing for it. It was so dark in here I struggled to find even the counter to order.

Gulag

The order of every night in Tallinn was drinking games then heading out to the various and endless bars. The Tallinn way of drinking is to order shots in trays by the five or ten from a nearly endless list. It gets messy.

Along the harbour line there are many abandoned soviet buildings. Relics of an unforgotten era stained yellow-brown and brooding, the colours of decay all the more stark against the snow. They appear locked in midstep as if all at once their world stopped, the menace of action lingering in futile.

The sky here is perhaps the most incredible. The sun never traverses high above the horizon and from this low position lights beautifully the rippled and uniform and repeating clouds stretching across the sky.

Cocaine shots

The Balti Jaam market in Tallinn is also cool, full of cheap clothes and food. Here I consumed two deliciously evil deep fried apple pie things, as well as traipsed through antique shops hoarding mismatched arcana from the occupation.

Speaking of which, one night I went on a tour of the prison that was used as a gulag during the Russian occupation of Estonia. Built over a hundred years ago, the atrocities that have taken place in this stone ex-fortress are terrifying to hear. Closed only in 2004, we were eventually shown to the kill room. Located next to the showers, those en route would never know if it was a different walk from their weekly shower or not. The floor here is a dusty copper.

  

Swedish archipelago

Miserably hung over from another night’s drinking strange shots—favourites including the coffee and whipped cream hotshots, and the absinthe heavy cocaine shots—I hopped on a bus heading to Latvia, the snow stretching about me in all directions.

Ruins, cats and elemental wrath

In the final book of Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, the cowboy rancher John Grady Cole falls in love with Magdalena, an epileptic Mexican prostitute. He knows his love is ill-fated, mirrored as it is by the proprietor of the whorehouse Eduardo, who is never going to let that which exists between John Grady and Magdalena flourish. Nonetheless John Grady pursues it, accepting that which is inevitably to come in his pursuit of that which he desires.

It is this acceptance of fate and inexorable looming suffering and doom that a man must confront when he plans to tour significant chunks of Turkey and in order to save time is to face three overnight buses in nine days. 

Fording the river at Olympus

Further peril threatens given that on such a tight schedule, one must weather the vicissitudes of the elements and persevere in order to accomplish that which one plans. So as John Grady defiantly did all he could to extricate his love from the thrall of a nasty and brutish existence, the Potato, Aaron, Mimi and I braved a night bus and inclement conditions such that we could sleep in a tree house and explore the Roman ruins of Olympus.

A night bus to Antalya turned into a dolmus to Olympus, followed by another dolmus down the 11km stretch to the hostel that was a stone’s throw from the Mediterranean. A slightly overcast day, we nonetheless succumbed to Potato Mike’s beach lust and hustled down in order to take a dip in the brisk, but still enjoyable water. Ogled by winter jacket-clad Spaniards who strode the cobbled shore hooting at one another and skipping stones, we swam and dined on oranges foraged from the veritable orchard that existed between the tree houses that made up the accommodation at the hostel.

Celebrating Potato Mike

 Tree house, however, conjures an image not entirely reflective of the reality of a wooden hut slightly elevated off the ground, but they are a legal necessity given that non-wooden structures are not allowed to be built in the national park that provides such a prime location for Roman ruins and summer beaching.

In the rainy off-season it is a ghost town, with the hostel at which we were staying ostensibly the only one still open and with an occupancy—beyond our little group—of two. On the plus side, included in the price were breakfast and a superb dinner, so staying here was incredibly cheap as the interim meals could be filled with oranges and wandering around and swimming was basically free.

D'aww

The evening of our arrival the heavens opened. Biblically.

The run from the common room—and its robust heater—to the dorms was fraught with the peril of unknowably deep puddles and slippery rotting oranges, and the rain did not relent the next morning. Finally, after lounging around all day there was some small abating of the elemental fury after midday, but the previously empty riverbed was swollen and chaotic. Given that the ruins we had hoped to visit were on the opposite side of said riverbed, it was troublesome. We bravely forded it at a low point, only to discover we couldn’t walk down that side to where we wanted to end up, so we had to cross back over and attempt to switch banks at the beach, where the river usually ended in a large pool separated from the ocean by the sand.

The beach at Olympus

Today this was not so. The overflow had churned a channel through the sand and into the ocean, turning the usually crystalline water of the Mediterranean into a murky mess of sediment and currents. This channel proved too deep and strong to cross. Stupidly I decided to try going for a swim to see how hard it would be to get across through the ocean.

See, in the ocean there is a shallow entry before a sharp drop off that is usually quite pleasant for swimming as it means you don’t have to head out too far before you can float with impunity. Today, with the tide higher than usual and some winds, it meant that the usually tranquil foreshore now produced some nasty waves which sure enough upended and almost depantsed me as I tried to brave them.

Walking the flats at Pamukkale

Having watched and filmed my dramatic entry and exit of the waves, one of two Spanish men, clearly needing to match my display of machismo, decided to have a swim too. This was a manly swim session filmed intimately by his companion, replete with cutaway shots to our huddled and incredulous group.

Defeated, we retired to the hostel for some dinner and, with the power down due to the storm, wiled the night away watching movies and drinking.

The ruins, once we finally got to see them, were quite spectacular if only because this is the only time I have seen ruins almost unadulterated in situ and without oodles of touristy signs and the other attendant shenanigans of money making.  One simply walked off the riverbank and followed the loosely perceivable paths through the forest until you hit stone relic.

Entrance to the forum, Ephesus

The next overnight bus was to Selcuk, but not before a tragic scene was to unfold: Potato Mike was going home. At the bus station at Antalya we had a tearful parting, commemorating the Potato’s leaving in the same fashion as we had celebrated his being with us: by taking a series of unflattering photos of him.

As the Potato moved irrevocably away, Casablancaesque, Aaron, Mimi and I continued onwards to more ruins at both Pamukkale and Ephesus. We arrived at Selcuk in the wee hours of the morn and managed to grab one hour of sleep before it was time for a three-hour train ride to Pamukkale through some driving rain.

 

Gotta shit, mate

 Holding out against hope for the rain to end at some stage, it duly didn’t. Looking to catch a taxi or Dolmus up to the entry point to the ruins both to save time and preserve our precious dryness for a few more moments, we responded to a call from the bus office. It was here that we were fleeced, the scurrilous man who claimed to be the brother of the owner of the hostel we were staying at—a kind and helpful man, unlike this man entire—charging us 30 lira for a taxi ride the distance he claimed would otherwise take us 90 minutes to walk. Further, he said that this was a necessary evil as the ruins themselves would take hours to traverse. With only 4 hours of sunlight, we agreed this sounded necessary.

One kilometre later we were unceremoniously ejected from a strange man’s car at the entrance to the ruins, feeling violated. To add insult to injury, the rain continued to pelt down on us for the sub-2-hours it took us to see all the ruins we could appreciate as well as time to have a little sit down and bemoan not as much the money fleeced, but the principle behind it.

Ephesus

Sodden and becoming slightly forlorn at the misfortunes of the day, we were wrenched out of a potential slough of despond by the walk down the calcium flats that are so famous and which cover the front slope of the hill upon which the ruins are situated. The product of the mineral deposits of a hot spring that one can swim in for an unsightly fee, to walk them you must be barefoot and in the blistering chill we scampered as ably as one can from hot pool to hot pool en route on our descent.

About halfway down the hot pools became lukewarm pools, and close to the bottom, cold pools. Pink-toed, drenched to the bone, and with an impenetrable fog setting in, it was a peculiar brand of delirium that saw us attempting to fasten shoes with unresponsive fingers as two dogs emerged from the mists and loitered around us.

Sahlep in and old man teahouse

 After chain eating our way back to the main bus station in Denizli, at last we had a stroke of luck, finding the train to be heated to a most welcome level. So we commandeered a section of it, draping our various accoutrements over all the vents and at last starting to feel warm again. But this reverie was broken as an irate ticket instructor insisted we put our shoes back on for no discernible reason. Like the rebels we are it was an edict unfollowed before the exhaustion of the day saw us pass out.

The good fortune of this restorative train ride followed into the next day and our planned trip to Ephesus. Sunlight and only a ten minute Dolmus were a most pleasant change from the previous day’s effort. More ruins, however, offer little by way of compelling narrative. On the plus side, we did stumble across Ephesus-cat, part of a long series of Aaron’s cat photos around Turkey. Soon, however, it became apparent that what we previously thought to be the sole cat of Ephesus was but one of many. This was not a bad thing, though, as it provided Aaron endless photo opportunities and amusement.

Yes.

 At last it was time for the final overnight bus back to Istanbul. At one stage during this passage Aaron and I awoke to find the bus on a ferry, which was quite unexpected. Apparently we were crossing very close to where the Gallipoli landing took place. Incidental tourism, why not?

Back in the big smoke Aaron and I met up with Andrew of Goreme fame. Following him and his couchsurfing friend, we ferried across to the Asian side of Istanbul to go to a couchsurfing gathering. It was here that I spent the night convincing people that Aaron was a professional surfer nicknamed The Barrel Smasher.

Folks were friendly, one handing out complicated cocktails of vodka, cinnamon and lemon and grapefruit juice to all and sundry, but the boons of generous hosts were soon forgotten as we became privy to the odd Turkish rule that alcohol left in the fridge is up for grabs. So our sequestered beers were liberated by some folks more aware of local custom than us.

Cold-induced delirium

 Also at this gathering took place the following exchange as Aaron and I stood talking and a strange girl walked up to him:

“I know you. We’ve met before.”

“No we haven’t.”

“Yes we have. Maybe in your dreams.”

“Maybe in yours.”

Exeunt

I am still unsure of what took place.

We rounded off our time in Istanbul wandering around Taksim for a couple of days, sampling the last on my checklist of foods. Sahlep, a viscous hot drink like a chai latte but sans milk—instead thickened with orchid tuber flour—and Kokorec, an intestine sandwich, were both funky delights. We also partook in some rice pudding back in Selcuk that was more like custard with a few bits of rice floating in it that jiggled almost obscenely.

Hanging with Ephesus cat

 When we sampled the sahlep Aaron and I at last found ourselves in a quintessential Turkish old man café. The women and children were all in a heated area outside, well quarantined from the old men with their chai and boardgames and own space for man business.

Fatigued from too much kebab and so forth, we did some hostel cookery, putting together huge meals of dahl, raita and various veg, feeding many for gratis and almost convincing one hardened carnivorous hostel worker that vegetarian food can be fun. We also spent one boozy evening celebrating our shared weeks in Turkey at a metal bar that blasted 80s thrash all night.

Finally it was time for the grand parting of ways. Andrew and I were due to catch flights, his to New Zealand and mine to Sweden; Aaron was off to Greece, and Mimi was sticking around for a bit longer before heading to the UK. In the wee hours of the morn it was a tearful farewell before I was gone.

Exploring ruins at Olympus

With discarded cigarettes smoking like flares against the nascent day’s starless darkness, I waited on the bus in the persistent drizzle to get to the airport. The man in front of me had a Rorschach balding pattern that reminded me of an anteater.

My only recollection of the three-hour flight, through most of which I slept, was peering out the window during the descent and seeing a lone cabin in a forest of identical snow-clad trees.

In the airport the bathrooms smelled like IKEA. 

Nosebagging in Turkey

The transition from Eastern Europe to Turkey was stark.

The not-unpleasant, but relative monotony of Eastern European food and culture was broken within moments of hitting the outskirts of Istanbul, the city’s sheer size alone dwarfing that of any I’d seen in my past two and a bit months of travelling.

With a population 17-million-strong, the bus trip into the centre seemed to take an age, and the highway in parts was sixteen-lanes-wide made up of chunks of four lanes heading in alternating directions. Forests of buildings and immense kebaberys bordered this seething metropolitan mess and to be quite honest, it was intimidating.

The Potato and a street mussel

After the twin impacts of a mystical mist-shrouded border crossing from Bulgaria and wallet-crushing 45 euro entry fee, I was exposed and vulnerable, and in the face of this sudden novelty of culture and size I had reverted to my more traditional form of traveling, man-baby-mode. Every time I saw something new, I wanted to put it in my mouth to find out what it was.

Sadly my overwhelming desire for a kebab of some variety had to be postponed as our attempt to navigate to our hostel went awry as we overshot our tram stop, resulting in a frustrating confusion amplified by the inconvenience of luggage. Eventually we solved our folly, finding the hostel full of unhelpful staff who recommended to us a mediocre dinner spot.

Fish sandwich central

Not a great start to our stay, and one that would only get worse. Eastern Europe, particularly in the off-season, is basically bereft of tourists. Cities would have only a smattering of hostels, and smaller towns one or two if they were lucky. You could confidently assume that you were one of a handful of tourists. Suffice to say that in Istanbul this was not the case.

We awoke bright and early, ready to face the vastness of Istanbul and try to tick off as many of the compulsory sights as possible. Emerging fresh faced and well-fed from an ample Turkish-style breakfast buffet, we were immediately caught up in the wash of a terrifying tourist throng.

We bravely soldiered on through the mass of people, but constantly trying to dodge staged photos and battling the malaise that infects the traveller used to more peace and quiet when exploring a city and who cringes at bus-loads of happy-snapping tourists saw a shared look of distaste and frustration across Aaron, the Potato and I.

Testi Kebab time

So in a frenzy of necessary evil facing we took in the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofia, Topkapi Palace, the Basilica Cistern, and the Galata Tower at a furious pace. While the Galata tower was pretty cool to go up and get a panoramic view that gave a true sense of the scale of the city, the Basilica Cistern, with its cheesy background music to add some faux-gravitas and noisy tour groups, was a letdown.

With the pesky sight-seeing out of the way it was time for some nosebag, a quest that would give purpose particularly to the Potato and I over the course of our four days in the big smoke.

The first point of call was a fish sandwich, which we lunched upon greedily. Tasty, but nothing amazing, it was the start, but not the end of my fish sandwich experience.

Shishkebabery

Later that same day as Aaron and I wandered across one of the smaller bridges spanning the Bosphorus, Aaron noticed something: a wharf-side grill with small plastic chairs and tables, fresh salads and chunks of fish a-grilling, with the only custom appearing to come from locals.

While so tempted by this Anthony-Bourdain-worthy sight that Aaron almost abandoned his principled vegetarian stance for a moment, he nobly resisted but insisted that I savour one so that he might vicariously experience what promised to be a culinary delight.

With fisherman spanning the same bridge, and indeed all of the bridges and available wharfside in Istanbul, I could only assume this fish was fresh, even if it might come from the not entirely sanitary waters of the Bosphorus, which, for those not in the know, is the 31 kilometre long channel between the two parts of Turkey and indeed Istanbul, separating Europe and Asia, and connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara. 

Castle at Goreme

One can hear the rhythmic chant “Bosphorus, Bosphorus, Bosphorus!” as you walk its banks, this entreaty the calling card of the endlessly competing boat tour companies. They offer 20 lira to the lazy, oblivious and rich, but can be readily negotiated down to 10 for a 90 minute long cruise of this famous stretch of water.

In later days I would learn that the fish sandwich is listed by Lonely Planet as one of the most dangerous street foods to eat in Istanbul, but even knowing this I would do it again as the sandwich lived up to its visual cues. Liberally seasoned chunks of fresh fish with crisp salady bits and a squeeze of fresh lemon—who could say no?

View from the castle

Speaking of the top dangerous foods in Istanbul, also listed is the cheap and tasty rice and chickpeas which one can find for mere pennies at many street vendors. While I am not sure as the origin of the peril of this dish—perhaps it is not entirely fresh a lot of the time—again, I would eat it again.

Similarly, street mussels of dubious providence, a favourite of his Holyness A. Bourdain, were a surprising treat. Two for one Turkish Lira and stuffed with rice, spices and served with a  squeeze of lemon, these lukewarm, pre-cooked, breeding grounds of deliciousness went down a treat for the Potato and I.

The Islak burger, or wet burger, is another Istanbul speciality and essentially a steamed hamburger with some tomato relish.

Hiking

A surprising disappointment in Istanbul was the kebab. When served in a wrap they come quite dry, and the theory the Potato came up with was that they are meant to be served as part of a plated meal, rather than as a convenient wrap-based street food. Indeed, when consumed in such a manner they tend to be much better, served with rice, salad and bread.

Omnipresent in Turkish culture is Turkish tea. Strong and served only with some sugar cubes, it is consumed religiously, and offered complimentary after a meal. We were not privy to this practice, however, when we dined at another of Bourdain’s chosen-establishments, our scepticism of the proprietor’s insistence that we have some tea—a product of a fleecing earlier in the day—led him to try and demonstrate Turkish hospitality with some free dessert, the offered ‘sweet balls’ and baklava oozing honeyed lusciousness.

Turkish tea

Indeed, Turkish sweets, including the 600g of delight we were complicit in being convinced to purchase, were surprisingly unsweet and not too overbearing as they tend to be when reproduced outside of the country.

But the scepticism that led to this most pleasant sugar-related revelation was a result of trying to be a good Samaritan when a passing shoe-shiner dropped his brush. Aaron and I pointed this misfortune out to him, and by way of what we thought was thanks, he insisted on dragging us over such that he might shine my shoes. Alas unwary Ryan was caught in a most tricksy of scams.

Anyone with an ounce of street-swindling knowledge would not have fallen for such an obvious ploy, but once he had my boot on his little wooden prop there was no escape as he scraped and washed and smeared mystery goo. For this most unwelcome service he demanded 25 lira per shoe. Offended more at the deception than the price, we reasoned him down to 10 lira total, but the damage was done, my tattered innocence scattered to the winds.

Kunefe

Bartering is another of the joys one can experience in Istanbul. One rainy day as Aaron and I looked for some cheap wet weather jackets, Aaron managed to talk one potential sales-suitor down from 275 lira to 90. Somehow, despite the excellent deal we were clearly getting, no rain jacket was purchased.

Speaking of swindling, this is effectively what you do to yourself if you are a tourist in Istanbul and don’t try to get away from the touristy centres. The city is spectacularly beautiful in many of its old parts, riddled with many famous buildings and ruins per square kilometre. Of course, these are the areas that attract so many tourists, and the prices adjust accordingly. Even a simple kebab can be as expensive as 10 lira in these areas, dropping to 2 lira mere streets away.

Fishing the Bosphorus

Similarly, shopping in the streets outside the Grand Bazaar or Spice Market yield bazaars with the same produce and wares at a quarter of the price. These bazaars are something to behold, thronging with people and boisterous vendors, with products stacked high and encroaching onto the narrow streets that weave endlessly up and down hills.

Despite the fondness for fleecing tourists, the locals of Istanbul are very helpful. Multiple times while we were looking slightly lost, locals would ask if that were the case, and were always useful and accurate in offering directions. 

Sampling sweets

But back to food, and no doubt the culinary highlight of Istanbul—for the Potato and I at least—were the shishkebabs we found at spot we chose purely because of the density of local faces within it.  Braving the curious looks from moustachioed men hunched over the white counters sipping their Ayran—a slightly salty yogurt drink essential for combating rich meat and spicy peppers—we ordered some lamb shish freshly grilled over coals, served with fresh herbs and salad on pita bread stained orange-red with spices and fat from having the meat rest upon it.

So good were these shishkebabs that Potato Mike, having already ingested one kebab and then one shish, insisted on going back for another in defiance of the repercussions of some inevitable indigestion. Complimentary with these meaty wraps were grilled peppers, which I rashly bit into, mimicking the locals like the foolish tourist I am. Almost reduced to tears by its spiciness, the only recourse was in the yogurty salvation of Ayran. 

Mountaineering in Goreme

With plans to eventually return to Istanbul after touring some more of Turkey, we took a gruelling overnight bus to Goreme in Cappadocia. The bus, however, only took us so far. At a place whose name eludes me, 60 kilometres from Goreme and with no one speaking English, Aaron cracked the shits, waving the ticket saying Goreme at people and insisting we get free transport there as that was what we had paid for. Never before have I seen this mild-mannered man conduct himself so aggressively, at one point almost raising his voice.

Eventually we arrived at Goreme but were turned away by the people staffing the hostel who insisted we were at the wrong place—something we weren’t sure about as the hostel we had booked claimed to be hotel in person. We wandered around in search of a similarly named hostel but to no avail, returning and dumping our bags at the first place and deciding to wait for someone with a solid grasp of English to turn up before we did anything else. With such a person two-hours away, we decided to pass the time by going for a wander.

The good stuff

Faced with the tedium of following a road going up a hill, the Potato decided off-roading would be better and so we cut randomly off the road. Breaching the crest we chanced upon awe-striking view after view, white capped rocks and hills in the wake of yesterday’s snowfall scattered by millennia of elemental determination like a mosaic on the earth itself.

Goreme is a place like nothing else I have seen. Famous for its fairy chimneys—flutes of rock into which the locals of moons ago had carved living spaces—it seems of a different world entire. With valleys and plains stretching out around in all directions, the surreal rock formations and distant snow clad mountains are such that there are astonishing vistas wherever you cast your eyes.

The order of just about every day in Goreme is the same: hiking and eating. As a result of this it is hard to do the place justice. Breathtaking vistas from walking are almost impossible to capture in words, or indeed in photos unless you have talents and equipment beyond mine. For more on this see www.traavlonweston.tumblr.com

Cats rule Istanbul

That said, we’d sally forth each day with some bread, a wheel of cheese, tomatoes and cucumbers, and many packs of 1 lira biscuits, and roam indefinitely with a motley crew of hostel degenerates keen to experience some of the great outdoors. One day we also ventured to Kaymakl, an underground city that once housed 4000 people, all of whom were midgets judging by some of the tunnels I almost got stuck in.

A similar crew would go in search of food at night, sampling the Cappadocian specialty that is the testi kebab. Incredibly amusingly named, this refers to a kebab-stew cooked in a clay jar sealed with dough which one breaks open at the table across its weak point with a hammer, the goodness inside still bubbling.

It was also in Goreme that I had the chance to sample Kunefe. Ostensibly a dessert of deep fried angel hair pasta soaked in honey, when one plunges into it with a spoon it reveals a gooey centre of salty cheese. Stringy, sweet, savoury and artery clogging. Diabolical.

From Goreme we eventually headed to Olympus on the coldest overnight bus I have ever experienced.

Definitely a change from the Balkans.