A weekend in Istabul

So, I thought I’d finally post something on my travel blog again! It’s long overdue… Then again, I’ve not been traveling much lately. I started my Master in September last year and it’s been quite demanding… Now that I’m almost done, I finally have some time to write about my last vacation!

In February I traveled to Istanbul for a long weekend with three friends from Rotterdam, Annemarie, Kelly and Bianca. Even though it was just a weekend trip and at the time it was still winter in Turkey, we had an amazing time :). Especially because the months before and after the vacation were quite stressful, I really appreciated this trip!

Early in the morning we took a plane from Amsterdam and arrived in Istanbul in the early afternoon, leaving us half a day to get some first impressions of the city. Figuring out how to get to the hostel by metro turned out to be a challenge. In the end, we walked along the famous shopping street to get to the hostel. After leaving our luggage at the hostel, which was in the modern and vibrant part of Istanbul, next to the Galata tower, we decided to take a ferry to the Asian part of Istanbul. When we arrived at the ferry pier next to Galata bridge, we got the first view of the Old City:

We took the ferry just in time to see an amazing sunset.

Istanbul’s skyline is very unique due to large array of both mosques, churches and other ancient buildings. Especially in the light of the setting sun it looked amazing.

After we arrived at the shore of the ‘Asian part’ of Istanbul, we took a short walk around and realized there was not much to see. So we decided to return to shore and watched the rest of the sun disappear into the sea.

In the evening we enjoyed some good Anatolian food and some cocktails at a rooftop bar (after we briefly got stuck in an elevator and heroically escaped).

The next morning we took on the Old City with all the famous tourist sights. We started at the Galata brige. At almost any time of the day, it is the meeting point of the hobby fishermen of Istanbul. It’s amazing how many people fish at this brigde, especially since they didn’t seem to be able to catch any fish.

Then we walked through two of the famous bazars. First the Spice Bazar, then the Grand Bazar.

While it all looked nice and the bazar buildings themselves seemed ancient with colorfully ornamented ceilings, we didn’t get the best impression from the two bazars. It seemed like a tourist trap, and the pushy vendors were annoying us.

After the bazars we walked up the hill, through a labyrinth of small streets, to the university.

At the university we relaxed our feet for a bit and enjoyed the view.

After returning to the center of the Old City, we took a break at a cute bakery, where we tried an array of Baklava, Turkish Delight candy and my very first ‘real’ Turkish coffee :). Delicious!

Then we moved on to the probably most famous sight of Istanbul: the Hagia Sophia.

We immediately saw that this former church turned mosque was a very popular tourist destination. Even though it was winter, masses of tourists were filling the corridors. Therefore we decided to move on after a short while inside.

Right across the street was another famous sight of Istanbul, the Blue Mosque. It was the first mosque we visited in Istanbul, but, just like the Hagia Sophia, the inside of the building was not as exciting as we thought. We preferred looking at the interesting architecture from the outside.

After a short walk, we arrived at the Sultan’s palace, which was located on a hill right next to the Bosporus. The Sultan’s palace was my favorite sight of the day. Though it was also quite popular, the masses of people were spread out over the whole palace, so it didn’t seem too crowded. I liked the small courtyards, the oriental architecture and especially the many views on Istanbul from the balconies and gardens.

After walking the whole day, we were tired and decided to go back to the hostel. Unfortunately we got lost on our way and when we finally arrived at the hostel, we were exhausted. 

Still, we wanted to have a special dinner that evening and we soon walked out on our quest to find a nice restaurant. Somebody at the hostel suggested a restaurant near Taxim square, so we walked in that direction. On the way, we noticed tons of policemen with machine guns and people all around us seemed sort of edgy. Still, we stayed on our path and shortly before the square, we found the restaurant. And walking there despite the unrests around us was definitely worth it! It was a typical family restaurant, with the grandma sitting in one corner rolling out pancakes. The Gözleme we ate there were amazing! In terms of food, it was the highlight of our trip :).

At night we joined the pub crawl of the hostel, experienced the busy party streets and went to a bunch of Istanbul’s numerous night clubs.

After a couple of hours sleep, we got up on time to catch the ferry to the Prince Islands. On our way to the ferry we got to know yet another part of Istanbul.

The Prince Islands are about two hours of a ferry ride away from Istanbul and are a popular vacation destination for both tourists and locals. The ferry ride there was an experience in itself. The boat was very busy, a couple of people were walking around with huge plates of Simits, handing out Turkish tea in tiny cups. It was hilarious to watch a couple of street vendors loudly praising the advantages of their potato peeler over a regular one.

We passed by several of the islands before arriving at the biggest island where we wanted to spend the day.

On the island we rented some bikes in an attempt to cycle around the island. Soon after leaving the bike vendor we noticed that we hadn’t been very fortunate with the bikes that were picked. None of them worked properly, some were loosing their chains, another bike’s break didn’t work. Not very convenient when you’re trying to cycle around an island with continuous hills. Therefore we decided to walk, rather than cycle, around the island. At some point, we decided to take a small route that wasn’t noted on the map of the island. As you can imagine, that was not a particularly good idea ;).

At first, we really enjoyed the quiet and the nice views from atop the hill.

 Soon we were confronted with the first ‘wild life’ of the island:

After walking a bit further, we had a more extreme encounter. A couple of ‘wild’ cows started fighting in front of us (to impress us?) and were almost pushing us off the edge of the cliff! Too bad I didn’t film this, haha.

After they finally left we tried to get the hell out of there, but soon noticed that the path we were walking along was leading us to a dead end.

After walking back for a bit, we found an extremely steep path that, after some sweat and tears, lead us to the top of the mountain.

The next hours were spent enjoying the amazing view and watching the sun melt into the infinite sea…

On our last day, it was foggy and rainy. Therefore we decided to visit one of the famous hamams (Turkish saunas). What’s so fascinating about these is that you have a relaxed spa experience in a historical setting. Though the water systems of the building had been modernized, we could really imagine what it was like having the same bathing experience hundreds of years ago.

However, staying in the extreme temperatures over 40 minutes might not have been a good decision. We all felt a bit sick for the rest of the day, which meant that we didn’t manage to visit another sight after we left the hamam. Instead, we just walked around the city some more, shopped for souvenirs and in the evening, we traveled back to the Netherlands.

A vacation in the North of Vietnam

Hey everyone,

While the temperatures in Shanghai are rapidly dropping and the rain is splashing against the window, I decided to start writing about my trip to Vietnam in an attempt to make me feel like it's summer again.

During the Golden Week, a week-long vacation that celebrates the Moon festival and the National Day, I was told it would be wise to get out of China, which is usually invaded by tons of tourist groups during that time. So I joined my parents and younger brother on their Vietnam vacation, starting in Hanoi. The first day we arranged a guided tour to the so-called Perfume Pagoda, which is located outside of the city. On our almost three hour drive we passed through many small villages. We were very lucky, because it was the time of the rice harvest and all the village streets were lined with tons of rice grains. Everybody in the villages seemed to be participating in working on the fields, spreading the rice for drying, operating grain machines, and many more activities. In hindsight, seeing these everyday-life scenes was the highlight of the day.

Burning the leftover hey:

Sweeping and packaging of the rice:

Then we arrived at a river and took a small boat to get to the trail leading to Perfume Pagoda:

After a couple of peaceful minutes passed, we noticed some water on the floor of the boat. Soon we determined the source of the water: four little holes that got bigger by the minute. It turned out that the boat owner had just 'glued' some mud on the holes before we started our journey. As soon as all the mud was gone and water was flowing in fast, we were handed a cup and had the task of getting rid of the water. When we arrived our feet were wet and we had learned our lesson on choosing the right boat...

After visiting an old rebuilt temple, we took a cable car up the mountain.

Some shots of the temple:

Finally we arrived on top of the mountain and visited the Perfume Pagoda, a sacred cave. It was however very touristic and not a great motif, so I won't include any pictures.

The next morning we took another bus (this time for five hours...) to get to the Halong Bay, our next stop. We had planned one of the infamous cruises that offered a 24 hour experience on board, cruising through groups of cone-shaped islands rising from the sea.

By then we were a little doubtful of ship-quality in Vietnam... But our cruise ship was very nice and made up for the experience from the day before:

After tanning on the sun deck and a mediocre lunch at the fancy dining room, we and our fellow travellers were dropped off at a little fishing village. At first we were a bit sceptical of the authenticity of the so-called 'fishing' village. It did turn out to be more of a tourist village, but we still had a great time. We did a little tour on a rowing boat (Thankfully it had no holes!) , slowly passing by some turquoise house boats and the iconic islands:

Then we watched the sun set and enjoyed the calm atmosphere of the surrounding sea:

After getting up early to watch the sun rise, we had our final stop and explored one of the several famous caves in the area. It was impressive, but at the same time it was much more crowded than the day before. When we reached the end of the cave, we had a nice view of the bay:

And then our 24 hour cruise was already over... After another 5 hour bus ride, we were back in Hanoi.

The next day, we spent sightseeing in the city center. Hanoi is a bustling and busy city. There are some historic or cultural sights to visit (we went to the Ho Chi Min Mausoleum, the Temple of Literature and the 'Hanoi Hilton'). Except for the mausoleum (which was terrible) the sights were interesting, but it was not the main reason why we liked Hanoi so much. The most interesting gain of our visit came from walking through the small alleyways and street markets of old Hanoi. Since the life of people is happening on the streets, we got a detailed view into the city's both restful and busy character: a group of workers sitting at a small cafe, three old ladies playing cards in the middle of the streets, a mom cooking dinner on a little gas cooker in front of her house, shopkeepers haggling, a butcher chopping a 'hot dog' (this was so disgusting that I don't dare put up a photo on this blog...) and, most importantly, the noise from the thousands of motorcycles. Here are some pics from the streets of old Hanoi:

In the evening, we watched a traditional water puppet show and the next morning our vacation was already over...

... and now it's time for my thoughts to go back to rainy Shanghai.