Meeting a friend in Istanbul

Flying to Istanbul

I woke at 0530 and walked to Trg Slavija at 0610 for the 0630 bus to the airport.  I had hoped to catch the bus at a nearer stop to my hotel, which was supposedly the retired railway station, but wasn’t able to locate the stop.

Finally, today, I found the bus stopped for a pickup at the bus station at an unmarked stop.  It’s a lot more sensible than at the retired railway station.  It does show that accuracy of information, even on official sites, hasn’t quite made it into the culture yet.  For me, it is a key difference between developing countries (like the one I’m from) vs more developed ones.

Arriving at the airport at 0630, it was a dream check-in with no queues even for economy class.  I had redeemed a ticket for business class though.  Immigration and security were easy too, with security equipped with high-tech scanners which didn’t require laptops and liquids to be removed.

My booking entitled me to the Air Serbia lounge where I had a light breakfast and caught up on online work.

At the boarding gate, I saw police doing document checks on passengers disembarking from my aircraft.  Two were held back and put on the same plane, having been denied entry for some reason.  They did look like some of the refugees I’ve seen lately.

We departed on-time at 0915.  The A321 felt light on take-off and a peek into the rear cabin confirmed that it wasn’t very full.  I could have easily got on the flight standby but I didn’t want to risk it with a friend Ming waiting for me in Istanbul.

Belgrade from the air.

While the flight was nominally 1h50, we were only in the air for about 45 mins before starting our 30 min descent into Istanbul.  A full-sized tray of breakfast was given and I was pleased to once again taste the airline’s homemade minted limonata and also freshly-squeezed orange juice.

Even though we landed 25 mins early, it was a 15 min taxi to the gate which had me disembarking at 1200.  As with my arrival three weeks ago, the plane was parked at the furthest gate, requiring a long walk.  While immigration looked busy, it only took 10 mins and I was out 30 mins after disembarkation.

Meeting Ming

Due to a miscommunication, I had exited while Ming was still in the luggage hall.  Fortunately, we managed to get in touch after hassles earlier in the day with a worldwide outage to WhatsApp.  She had landed about 0600 and had waited for me as the hotel may not be able to let her in anyway.

After getting some cash from the ATM we made our way to the taxi but must have misread the sign and ended up at the bus area.  With the bus departure imminent, we continued by bus #12 to near Aksaray Metro where we transferred to the tram.

Including time to top-up our Istanbulkart, helping a French lady and letting full trams leave without us, the entire journey took a little more than 1h30.  That’s probably 45 mins longer than by taxi.  With two of us, we would probably have been happy with the taxi price but there’s always a small chance of getting ripped-off.

Showing off “my” Istanbul

We got to the hotel around 1435 and after an hour’s rest, headed out again to start introducing Ming to “my” Istanbul, a city I’ve visited often.

The Egyptian Bazaar (Spice Market) was a good place to start and after a walk through, we went on to the waterfront where the fish sandwiches (bone-in) were being sold.

We continue onto Galata Bridge, walking on the lower deck with the restaurants and returning on the upper deck on the other side.  The view from the waterfront and bridge were good on a sunny like today.

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We finished with a walk around our neighbourhood before taking a rest in our rooms.  In one of the alleys, there was a highly popular stall selling some kind of reddish paste which was eaten with lettuce leaves in a thin bread wrap.  I thought it was raw meat but it turned out to be spicy bulgur wheat.  We were given free sample but I didn’t like it that much both in terms of flavour or texture.  It is normally eaten with a squeeze of lemon and pomegranate sauce so I think the sour and sweet would have balanced the spice better that way.

Bulgur wheat paste (looked like meat at first). It’s eaten as a wrap but our free sample came on lettuce leaf. Would be nicer with the standard accompaniment of lemon and pomegranate sauce.

Around 1900, we took dinner outside the post office, seated on low stools at low tables.  We shared a mixed kebab platter and a salad and finished our day around 2000.

It had been a big day for Ming arriving from Singapore.  I only had one comfy short flight but I felt ready to retreat to my room.