Istanbul and Dubai

Our travels next took us to fabulous Turkey. I didn't quite know what to expect upon arriving in Istanbul, but I loved it – what a great city. The architecture is just great looking, and the city has genuine character. Among it's most famous sights is the Haghia Sophia...

Once it was a church, then a mosque, and now it is a museum. But what a structure; the pinnacle of which is an enormous self supporting dome in the center. Unlike other cathedrals and mosques, this one is without any supporting columns inside – an amazing feat.

Inside the Haghia Sophia are some ancient tile mosaics like this one....

Just across the street is the equally famous “Blue Mosque”, seen just behind this fountain...

It is so named because of the liberal use of blue in its interior. It really was a stunning building to visit. However, unlike its neighbor across the street (i.e. the Haghia Sophia), the Blue mosque resorts to using four giant "elephant feet" pillars to support the weight of its roof.

Also stunning, but in an entirely different way, was this local favorite...

The label says “hot fermented carrot juice”, but our host here explained that there is a translation error. It is actually spicy fermented raddish juice. Mmmmm. Needless to say, we only bought one of these.

On the opposite end of the “delicious spectrum” were the offerings from the many sweet shops. Now these were good...

Just across from the Blue mosque (and below street level) is an ancient water cistern. A really big one. It is probably an acre or more in size, and for many years held drinking water for the city. At one point it was decommissioned, and subsequently forgotten. Not too long ago it was discovered during construction in the area, and now has been restored for its historical value. It's eerily beautiful down inside. There is a raised walkway through it (because it still holds water about 20 cm deep), and the soft lighting and many columns look very nice. Oh – and it has fish in it too – lots of them.

Typical colors at one of the many cafes

Again, in the same area as the Haghia Sophia and Blue Mosque was the Sultan's residences, known as Topkapi Palace.

The palace grounds are a large walled campus, the hilight of which was the inner sanctum called the harem, guarded and attended to by eunuchs. Not any more – I mean historically - there are no longer any eunuchs at Topkapi.

Inside the palace, the floors, walls and ceilings were elaborately decorated. Ancient Turkey was famous for its ability to produce blue tiles. Here is one of the many mosaics in the harem...

Afterwards we went to a Kurdish restaurant and had a most unusual dessert of candied pumpkin, and candied tomatoes. They were pretty good, actually.

This picture shows Europe on the right and Asia on the left. These two continents are separated here by the Bosporus strait.

We took a nice sight seeing cruise up and down the strait and really got to see what a beautiful city Istanbul is...

Take a look at this nice neighborhood on the banks of the Bosporus. I wouldn't mind to live here...

Istanbul was good to us, and we have fond memories. Thanks also to Dave and Sarah (an American couple who we met on our African safari) for hosting us in Istanbul. Dave is getting his PhD in Turkish history, and so he and his wife Sarah moved to Istanbul for a year, and they kindly put us up in their spare room for our time there.



DUBAI

After Istanbul we went to Dubai for a few days. I must say that in the past I had been a little critical of Dubai, but the city has completely changed my mind. Previously I held the opinion that it was myopic and wasteful of Dubai to be blowing its money on transient things like the world's tallest building, or an indoor ski hill, or the world's largest shopping mall, etc. I felt that their oil riches would be better spent on legitimate infrastructure such as roads, universities, hospitals, etc. Well, after having been there I see they have done that – there's lots of high quality infrastructure (hospitals, airport, schools, metro system, security, etc.) and they're also setting themselves up in other industries to be prepared for the day that their oil dries up. But with all the extra money, they're creating top quality world-attention-grabbing projects, such as the world's tallest building for $4 Billion USD, or a new state of the art F1 race track for $1 Billion USD, etc. These efforts are really getting them noticed. So it's not that these flashy projects are taking money away from the critical items – they're just using their “spare change” to make headlines around the world, and create some awareness. So, after having been there, I admit I was wrong, and I salute the Emir for his micro-nation building strategy.

Although I must say, for all the money they put into the world's tallest building (Burj al Dubai), I thought they could have benefited from a little better quality control...

...or maybe that's just my unsteady hand and a photo-stitch gone wrong. Here's another shot at it...

And just to give it the full perspective, here's a short video clip showing the building in its surroundings.

In general Dubai was fairly western, but it does stay true where it counts. There will be no tolerance for displays of affection...

But indoor skiing is encouraged.

My eye was caught by this cool moving sign at one of the shops...

In all we had just three days or so in Dubai, and we thoroughly enjoyed them. And we were surprised to see that if you try even just a little, it's not hard to conserve cash. E.G. a nice hotel was about $65 CAD per night, the metro cost about $1 CAD, and a reasonable dinner was less than $15 CAD. Of course if you're rich you can easily spend more, but it it's also true that it was not difficult to find reasonable prices for just about everything (except the Ferraris which were costly every where I checked). It was also during our time in Dubai that we reached the half way point on our trip. We're six months in now.

On a closing note, I'd like to say thanks to everyone for your concern over my arms. The surgery in Jordan went fine, and they are healing nicely. They say I might even be able to keep the right arm entirely! ;-)