Maybe it's the fact that the bus ticket is 20 cheaper than to Barcelona, despite my plans to go to Spain from Italy; maybe it's that San Marco's square here in Venice has been whispering to me of the Eastern architecture which it reflects. My mind is swimming with Disney-fused images of spice-laden merchant ships, twirly-moustached baggy-trousered men, and mosques glowing softly in the dusky jasmine-pungent air. Istanbul is easy to romanticize.
The queue is building behind me. The bus leaves in
two hours.
"Istanbul, signorina. Si o no?"
Thirty-six hours and four countries later, I find myself stumbling towards the towering Blue Mosque in an Istanbul that slumbers in a pale dawn. The only sounds are the early metro and the lone calls to prayer that float over the empty spaces and mingle in eerie unison as the city stretches its limbs. It is the first day of the Ramadan fast, and though the mosque is closed during prayer, I wander around its gardens where a gaggle of women begin laughing at my clumsily-tied headscarf, and flock around me to twist it expertly into a cast-iron knot like their own.
The richness of culture in this, my first Muslim country,
is overwhelming. I'm thankful for the locals who, in
English better than my own, point me towards the world
famous Grand Bazaar; a warren of thousands of shops
sprawling across 31,000 m² having been built and
destroyed and rebuilt over a period of five centuries;
its haphazard, labyrinthine structure betraying this
organic growth.
Corridor after domed corridor disappears into the distance,
multi-language signposts at every junction pointing
us towards various or to the nearest exit nineteen streets
away. On every side are piled trinket Aladdin lamps
and jewelled sabres; necklaces heavy with tiny enamel
half-moons; stalls laden with belly-dancing costumes
and oiled leather jackets; crates of figs and nuts and
grapes and young men piling you with free Turkish delight,
the best in all Turkey - oh! If it weren't Ramadan they
would guzzle the whole lot themselves!
But at 6.00pm the fasting is shattered with a prayer call, and suddenly the stall owners scatter to return bearing tables, chairs and steaming vats of food. The setting up is as well-oiled as the leather jackets; and at 6.05 silence falls as the corridors are packed in each direction by silent crowds hunkered over piled plates. Passing between the rows of bowed heads, I wander towards an exit, feeling that I'm sharing in more than the phenomenon of the Bazaar itself. The hundreds squashed shoulder to shoulder and spearing food on each other's plates become fathers, sons, friends who have grown up together sharing culture and religion; and I feel humbled to witness an intimate reflection of this all-encompassing bond, now alien to the West.
As I emerge into the darkness outside, the Bazaar's
aromas of perfume, musk and hot stews mingle with the
hot dusty sweatiness of the crowds that are already
jostling to buy kebabs or paper bags of peanuts from
the street stalls that have sprung to life. It is the
Disney myth made tangible: jasmine and incense translated
into the heady cocktail of a reality that is at once
exotic and human, mysterious and familiar. And without
a doubt, one that is every bit as bewitching.
By Megan Ramsay
