Istanbul, where I left my heart

I haven’t written in forever, and now I have so much to say. Quality over quantity. One of life’s biggest lessons and one that eludes most. So, I recently went away on holiday. It was for a mere 2.5 weeks, but felt like a year. Maybe because I spent what I may have spent in a year were I to have remained in Cape Town. Maybe because I discovered, learnt and had the amount of revelations I would have had in a year were I to have remained at home. Maybe because for 2.5 weeks solid, I felt alive and hopeful, anticipating of tomorrow and thankful for the day. This is  how one should live! Should being the operative word. Most of our realities are not this way and we don’t take life seriously enough to accept nothing less. We should.

I spent 5 days in Istanbul. I travelled there alone. My best friend met me at the hotel and off we went for a 5 day shopping, discovering and learning experience...

Top 5 tips for travelers to Istanbul

-          Don’t eat at restaurants. They are unnecessarily overpriced. Go to the foodhall type spots. They have various hot meals and you can get a good balanced plate of local cuisine and a drink for under 10 lira (approx R46 at the current exchange rate). The food quality and taste is exactly the same as the restaurants, except these spots don’t serve wine This same plate, plus 2 glasses of wine will set you back 50 lira. Yes.

-          Buy a 10 trip travel pass. It will cover subway, ground rail and trams.

-          Don’t expect the taxi drivers to know street names. They will not and your charge will increase proportionally with his annoyance at not finding your destination. Go figure.


-          Do a cruise on the Bosphorus, but don’t opt for the sunset cruise. What they don’t tell you is that the boat stops at a random port for 2 hours. With nothing except a strip of restaurants to extort your cash, you will have to drop serious money on a mediocre meal and sour grape juice masquerading as wine, and come off feeling hard done by and stupid.


-          Don’t venture into a leather store at the Grand Bazaar until you have done some practice rounds of your bartering skills on smaller, much cheaper items. This way you will understand how they work. Generally you can get away with offering 60% of their initial asking price as your initial offer, then up it to 70-75% if he entertains that.

Istanbul had the prettiest handpainted ceramics, beautiful jewellery and stylish leather jackets. I had planned to buy 1 but walked out with two. See what happens when you are not a confidently seasoned barterer? Although Bestie assured me that our deal was good, my bargain-hunting spirit is still of the belief that we could have paid at least 20% less.

Precious and semi-precious stones go for a song, so dont be fooled by a price justification based on the stone featured in a piece. Ask about the metal used so that you don’t pay a price fitting of a sterling silver piece for some substandard metal.

Here are some photos of my Turkish treasures:

Coasters

Ruby bracelet with cubic zirconias and marquise cut ruby in sterling silver centre.

Rose gold plated sterling silver Hand of Fatima necklace

The Hand of Fatima (Fatima being the daughter of Mohamed) is believed to bring goodness, abundance, fertility, luck and good health and protect the wearer from evil forces.

Green and black onyx earrings

Pretty Precious Stones

I bought these stones on my last day there. Two labradorites, 2 green onyxes and a sapphire and ruby. Keep an eye out for their final resting places; one of a kind rings by Jinn at www.jinntrend.com.