Turkey! 🇹🇷
A two week recap of our time in TURKEY!
It’s here! And it’s long! And it’s *very* late!
I already was late to starting this letter and then we got stuck in some mud and had to be pulled out by a tractor (which took a few days + kicked me out of the writing mood).
But it’s here!
Without further adieu: let’s talk TURKEY!
Bodrum
22 hours of travel and 3 flights took us from Portland to Bodrum.
Our first task once landing: get a taxi to take us the 40 minutes to our airbnb. Getting a taxi ride was easy enough, but the ride itself felt like real life Mario Kart. Road laws in Turkey are more suggestions. You can run a red light, ignore a stop sign, drive in the middle of the road, speed, you name it. The route to the airbnb also happened to be on a curvy interstate, so the drive was extra fun. All of this is to say, yes it’s different (and we were a bit surprised at first), but no it’s not dangerous (kinda). Everyone knows what to expect, so we felt safe in the car of a local (but I wouldn’t want to drive myself).
We got to the airbnb just fine, aaaaand then we couldn’t find the keys. It took us five minutes to find the keys to the gate and then another five to find the keys to the house. And then another 20 minutes were spent attempting to get inside. Turkish keys and locks and doors do not act the same as American ones. Our first stupid American moment abroad had the neighbor coming over to unlock the house for us at 10pm 💀
Day 1
Our first day was spent exploring. We found a coffee shop around the corner and a mom and pop restaurant for lunch (with grandma cooking). The food here was incredible. Turkish rice, stuffed peppers, bread, yogurt with eggplant, and moussaka — an eggplant, tomato, meat dish and one of my favorite dishes of the trip.
We then meandered our way to central Bodrum to see the touristy side of the city. We browsed the bazaar, had some kebabs, got some ice cream (iykyk), and toured to the Bodrum castle. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves:
The taxi ride of nightmares
By the time we were done at the castle it was dark so we hailed a taxi. We had five people at this point, so four of us crammed in the back seat while my partner managed the directions up front. The driver asked him “Is speed a problem?” — my partner said no (he should have said yes).
After tailgating, flashing lights, and honking our way through the downtown traffic, we were on the open road and quickly learned why speed *is* a problem. Let me set the scene: Eminem Mockingbird is playing at full blast, four of us are crammed in the backseat without seatbelts, and we’re driving 80mph on curvy backroads passing cars on blind corners. What should have been a 10 minute drive was done in under three.
Thoughts passing through my head during the drive:
If we crash I’m going through the windshield
Thank you Dad for making my buy international health insurance for emergency medical transfer
A drive for the record books 😵💫
Note: all of our other taxi rides throughout the entire trip felt incredibly safe. Just know that if the question is asked, say speed is a problem.
Jet lag rest day #2
We gave ourselves two days to get adjusted to Turkey time before our friend’s wedding, so Day 2 was another slow day. The itinerary: going to a beach club to swim and meet up with the bride and groom (along with a handful of other folks who traveled from the states)!
Afterward we brought a few friends back to our airbnb and over to grandma’s for some more moussaka. It only took us a day to learn, but rejecting tea after a meal is considered rude. When we ate at grandma’s on Day 1, we said no to tea and there was a very concerned “why” thrown our way. So after learning this lesson we wanted to go back with more people and say “yes” to tea (which made grandma very happy)!
Wedding day!
Day 3 was wedding day! The guys ironed their suits, I steamed my dress, and we headed to the venue. An hour drive on a windy road that by the end had me debating whether I’d had a bad lunch or was just a little car sick (turns out I was just car sick).
The wedding was absolutely beautiful. The decor was beautiful, the beach was beautiful, the timing of every part of the wedding was beautiful. We arrived for cocktail hour, took photos with the bride and groom, wrote in the guest book and found our places on the beach for the ceremony.
These friends got married in the states in 2021, but this was their big party (the bride is Turkish, i.e. the “destination” wedding — to all of her family). They walked down the aisle together to an altar on the water, timed perfectly at sunset. Their close friend officiated with a speech that alternated between Turkish and English, and then the party started. Dinner was a five course meal that spanned 2.5 hours and was delicious (how many glasses of wine did I drink? I don’t know, they were constantly pouring me more).
Dancing then went until 2am! This wedding was absolutely gorgeous (definitely on the luxury side), and we got to see some of our best friends tie the knot — what could be better ❤️
Gümüşlük
The morning after the wedding was spent in bed, but once we crawled out of the house we headed to a village in Bodrum called Gümüşlük. In this village is a sleepy artist’s market on the beach that we spent some time browsing. Ceramics, jewelry, shoes, and other artwork of various forms were all tucked into small booths along the street. We found a small woodworker’s shop who makes neighborhood scenes out of wood and ended up getting a small piece with key hooks for our future home.
The main reason for going to Gümüşlük though was for a restaurant reservation. I think this restaurant experience is my favorite of all time — the food was delicious, the vibes were upscale backyard picnic, but the VIEWS?! stunning.
Rugs!
Our final full day in Bodrum we went rug shopping 🤩
A rug was on my potential souvenir list and I was stoked when we walked by some small rug shops away from the touristy area. The first was an antique shop, where we walked away with a rug for my future studio and an antique dinner bell (which was actually a liturgical bell) made in Gaziantep, the coppersmith capital of Turkey.
Our friends found some rugs at this shop too and another small shop down the road!
On to Istanbul!
Enter the bulk of this letter. Bodrum was vacation vibes, Istanbul was tourism vibes, so there’s a lot more story telling on this side of the trip!
Our average milage for the six days we were in Istanbul was nine miles of walking per day (oh boy was I happy to go to the hamam our final day). The first day the guys went to the hamam (bath house) in the evening and us gals did some wandering around our airbnb’s neighborhood.
Istanbul in general is very tourism centric and our airbnb was a three minute walk from Galata tower, so our wandering was through tons of shops and stands packing the streets (and down the very steep hills). We got some fresh fruit, found a weaving shop we ended up returning to several times, and had a snack at the artists cafe around the corner from our airbnb.
One of my favorite parts of Turkey: a salad means cucumber, tomatoes, red onion, olive oil, and lemon — maybe with some feta thrown in. A salad does not always equal lettuce 🙌🏼
We also got some of the best cake ever at this little cafe (savory, kind of like cornbread, with caramelized sugar on top 🤌🏼✨), and the vibes were immaculate — our airbnb was in the music district, so there was a group of people playing hand drums and guitars the *perfect* distance away.
CATS!
There were a lot of cats and dogs in Bodrum, but holy moly there are *a lot* of cats in Istanbul. I must spam you with cute cat photos now (you’re welcome).
Tour day
We decided to hire a tour guide for a day to take us to the Blue Mosque, the Basilica Cistern, Topkapi palace, and the Hagia Sophia. I’m so glad we spent the money, because the history is so complex and enhanced our experience tenfold.
(If you’re ever traveling to Istanbul, I highly recommend John as your tour guide!)
I won’t bore you with ALL of the historical details (many of which I’d probably get wrong), but I will spam you with photos and my favorite facts:
The Blue Mosque
Do you see the bright blue lines? That’s the original color of the Blue Mosque ceiling! Over time light exposure has faded the paintings. There are only a few lines painted because the restoration effort was paused by the government due to concerns tourists wouldn’t want to see the mosque if it weren’t the original paint. Personally, I think the mosque would be so striking to see in it’s intended coloring.
Fun fact #1: The Blue Mosque has six spires! It was built by a Sultan (think emperor, leader, king) who wanted to have one of the spires made out of gold (when a mosque is built, the number of spires is significant. One means it was built by a wealthy family, two: a family member of the Sultan, three: a son of a Sultan, and 4: the Sultan himself). The architect knew this would be far too expensive for the economy to sustain, so he built six spires instead (the word “six” and “gold” sound very similar in Turkish)!
Fun fact #2: In Islam, cats are known to be clean animals and are therefore allowed into mosques. Pigeons and spiders are also sacred animals, and are not to be killed! There was even a pigeon nest on one of the lighting structures when we visited 🪶
Fun fact #3: Traditionally mosques were built with a community surrounding it. This includes a school, hamam, and bazaar! The bazaar (shopping center) pays for the community services.
The Basilica Cistern
Fun fact #1: the cistern was built to hold water for the entire city and could maintain the city for 30 days if attacked and aquifers were damaged or taken hold of by the enemy. (I may be off slightly on this fact — I couldn’t find this statistic online but it’s what I remember from our tour 🤷🏼♀️)
Fun fact #2: built for function over beauty, the columns were repurposed from fallen buildings (I loved them)
Fun fact #3: the cistern now displays sculptures from Istanbul artists and hosts classical music performances!
Topkapi Palace
The palace of the Sultan.
Fun fact: Those who worked in the palace were eunuchs. There were white skinned eunuchs and black skinned eunuchs working in the palace, and only the Black eunuchs were allowed to work within the area the wives and daughters of the Sultan resided. You can imagine the reasoning.
The Hagia Sophia
This stop on the tour was where I was really grateful for having a tour guide share the history and current situation.
The Hagia Sophia is of equal significance of Vatican City in Christianity. This is the location where the meeting took place to split the church into Catholic and Orthodox sects. In the 1400s it was converted to a mosque and all of the mosaics were plastered over (in Islam there cannot be faces of humans or animals where you pray). In the 1900s the mosque was converted into an art museum and archeologists removed some of the plaster which had perfectly preserved the mosaics beneath. Bringing us to most recent history: in 2020 the building was converted back into a mosque by the current government.
What this looks like inside: The church is faced toward Jerusalem to pray, but in Islam you pray toward Mecca so the prayer carpet and a makeshift altar are at an angle. The mosaics that were uncovered in the early 1900s have been covered with wood pieces and sheets (one of which has fallen off the left angel’s face on the ceiling).
There is a lot of outrage over the most recent conversion amongst the general population in Turkey, and seeing the disrespect first hand, I understand it. I wish I could have seen it as an art museum.
Knife maker + our best meal of the trip
My partner, myself, and our friends who we traveled with are big cooks. So we’d been searching for *local* food spots the entire trip. One of the ways my partner wanted to remember the Turkish food was with a handmade kebab knife. The shop he picked out was only a 10 minute walk from our airbnb, so we walked over and got some knives!
*don’t read the next bit if you don’t want to hear about meat or lamb — see next italics*
Turns out the knife maker also happens to be a foodie, and he recommended a spot for dinner (with ordering instructions). We headed over on the spot and walked the 40 minutes there to build up an appetite. This spot was local. To get there we walked through a meat market full of brain, hooves, lamb heads, and spices. When we got to the restaurant, there was not one person in the space that spoke a word of English (this spot was an eastern Turkish restaurant, so the main language spoken was Arabic). Everyone had eyes on us the entire time to see if we’d actually like (or could eat) the food.
What we ordered: a mix of the lamb that gets slow cooked in a pit in the ground. And I swear this was the best meat I’ve ever eaten. Falling off bone, tastes like butter, *perfectly cooked* meat. The four of us ate one kilogram of lamb in one sitting. Of course it came with sides — a chutney, flat bread, and fried peppers to eat the meat with. But we definitely had the meat sweats after that one.
*folks who didn’t want to read about meat can start back again here!*
The dessert for this place was also *incredible*. This was by far the best baclava we had the entire trip — and we tried a lot. Not too sweet, a large amount of pistachio, and just so f*cking good. I need the recipe.
It was a fantastic dinner, and the hour line wait when we left solidified this spot as a local favorite.
A fun surprise: we told our friends that got married about the restaurant and knife spot, and it turns out the knife shop owner is best friends with the bride’s uncle. The groom’s in-laws gifted him a knife from the same maker for their first wedding in 2021!
The Asian side
Istanbul is the only city that spans two continents: Europe and Asia. We’d been staying on the Europe side, but wanted to venture to the Asia side via ferry for a day! We were feeling the meat from the night prior all morning, and turns out our American “early start” is too early for the Turks. So by the time we were over there, nothing was open. We ended up walking around, grabbing a bite, and heading back because we weren’t feeling the *best* after lunch.
We’re sick?
After a few hours back at the airbnb, it was official: we’re sick from something. Either from lunch, some bad water, or a stomach bug — but all four of us were feeling it. Unfortunately, we still hadn’t ticked the Grand Bazaar off our todo list, and it was going to be closed on our last day in town. So we rallied and made our way over to *The Grand Bazaar*
It was incredibly overwhelming with very minimal airflow. Some context: there is a lot of smoking in Turkey — so much so my throat felt scratchy by the end of the day just walking around outside. Smoking is no different in the Grand Bazaar — but with minimal airflow, we couldn’t be inside for too long. Lots of people and lots of overpriced items we saw for 1/5th of the price elsewhere. So with that plus us already not feeling great, we left pretty quickly. It was incredible to think that the amount we saw was a small fraction of the bazaar though! It truly is massive.
The Turkish Hamam
Our final day in Istanbul!
At this point we thought our tummy aches were a minor case of food poisoning from lunch the day prior. So we took some pepto bismol and rallied for the Turkish hamam.
The mornings are for women only, so we split with the guys for our appointments. This was honestly one of the best experiences of my life and I really want to find a hamam in the states of equal quality.
Traditionally the hamams were one of the only places for muslim women to have some freedom. Muslim women wouldn’t be allowed to go out without a man present (either their husband or son) and wouldn’t be able to uncover their heads. The hamam was one of the only places men were not allowed, and they could be fully uncovered. Women would spend hours a day here! These practices are out of date for modern times and do not apply today for most muslim people, however the bath house continues to be a significant place.
To start you’re brought into a room where you’re given a refreshing drink (we had plum juice!). Then you’re given some sandals to wear and a locker key. After changing into a towel and sandals you’re taken into the bathing room!
First an attendant rinses you off with the *perfect* temperature water and then you lay on heated marble. After about 20 minutes of laying on the most relaxing, bone warming marble you can imagine, your personal attendant takes you to your bathing spot.
They seat you down on some marble, pour warm water over you, scrub the dead skin off your body, and then the washing starts. A cloth resembling a pillow case goes into a soapy mixture which they then pull out, fill with air, and squeeze the bubbles onto your body. The soap is SO SOFT and then they massage your entire body: back, shoulders, arms, hands, calves, and feet. It sounds like it’d be awkward, but when there’s 15 other naked people around you and the attendants are so desensitized to a naked body that there’s no hesitation, it’s not awkward. The whole experience was so incredibly relaxing and my skin has never felt softer.
Afterwards they wash your hair, dry you, and wrap you in fresh towels. You’re then taken out of the bathing room back into the waiting room where they seat you on couches and serve you hot tea to enjoy!
I need a Turkish hamam in the states. I *need* it.
10/10 best experience, highly recommend. It was the perfect ending to a truly incredible trip!
Back to the states
A full circle moment: The final song played on our transfer to the airport was Eminem Mockingbird 🤌🏼 ✨
Our 22 hour trip home was a slight nightmare as my food poisoning/stomach bug/bad water issue was at it’s height in *trapped gas*. No relief was had, and I’m sure the altitude did not help. Pepto bismol and tylenol were my best friends, and they continued to be for the days following our travels home.
All in all, I’m grateful it didn’t happen at the beginning of the trip — I’d much rather be sick at home!
Honorable mentions:
The Turkish lira to American dollar was extremely favorable. 26 lira = 1 dollar, so eating out for meals was between $5-$15 per person depending on how nice it was. This made the trip incredibly affordable on the day to day, beyond the plane tickets + airbnbs.
My favorite bag of all time that kept my stuff safe from pick pockets all trip: huck phinn. I used the trail kit literally every day; it held my phone, wallet, sunscreen, sunglasses, and snack and went with *every* outfit. Highly recommend. (Bonus: I’m running a giveaway for this bag + a pair of huggie hoops on my Instagram! They also gave me a code — use MEGHAN for $15 off 🫶🏼)
Next letter
We’re back on the road! Making our way south + we get stuck in mud for 2 days 🎉
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Thanks for reading, friend!
