Turkey Travails

My blog is NOT a travelogue, but at the same time I am DYING to write a minute-by-minute excruciatingly painful account of my Turkey trip. But most of you have heard/read/stumbled upon history books/articles/tripadvisor comments on the rich history, geography, architecture and culture of Turkey in general and Istanbul in particular. So I shall skip the text book details and instead talk about MY experiences and MY reactions.

So yea, we know how fascinating the Blue Mosque is, or despite being repeatedly savaged and ravaged to cater to the whims of different rulers and different religious sentiments, the Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya) continues to be an architectural wonder or the striking differences between the regal Dolmabahce Palace and the relatively simpler Topkapi Palace. But some of the interesting questions that came to my mind before I went there were:

Why is the Blue Mosque called blue?
Why do people in Turkey call Hagia Sophia as Ayasofya?
What is the origin of the term Young Turk?
Why is there a stark contrast between the two palaces when both essentially catered to the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire?
What is so freakingly unique about Istanbul anyway?

Well, now I have those answers!

Moving on, what are those little things that I simply LOVED about Turkey?

1.The winery in the underground city in Cappadocia. I mean, in those days people had the heart to prepare wine even while they were hiding in a cramped, claustrophobic hole for months! Talk about spirit and I don’t just mean wine…
2.After all the brouhaha over the unresolved Babri Masjid issue back home, it was refreshing to see the portrait of Jesus alongside the Allah inscriptions on the walls of Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya)… religion need not necessarily put one god over another…
3.The bed on which Kemal Ataturk died and the bedside clock still set at 9:05 even today, i.e. the time at which he died…
4.The bloodstained shirt of a nameless soldier from WWI in the Military Museum… that’s the closest I have ever been to a war…
5.The exotic appeal about everything and the lazy elegance with which the city shrugs its shoulders at history…

However, what DIDN’T I like about the trip?

1.How hard is it to learn a little bit of English really, especially if you live in a tourist destination?
2.It’s just unfair that ALL the pretty women in the world should flock within the radius of a city and the way they flaunt their beauty is just pure unacceptable to not-so-fortunate genetically-disadvantaged people like me. And don’t even get me started on the bellydancers. When was the last time they ate? Really?
3.Traveling with parents after eight years, my first trip as an adult with them and well, may be I am too old for that. Can’t wear ‘holiday’ outfits, can’t drink, can’t ogle at exotic men and can’t fulfill dreams of wild affairs with above-mentioned exotic men. Also, posing for innumerable snaps to please your dad only leaves you with innumerable ugly pics. Finally, taking a bath with your mom so robs the fun out of the Turkish Bath, irrespective of how exotic it is…

But it was a trip to remember, a trip to cherish and a trip to go back in time. If only history books came with magic glasses which can take you to where it all happened. Learning becomes so much more interesting then…