Location: Istanbul, Turkey
I was listening to one of the podcasts from Rick Steves. One of the callers to the radio program asked if they could take the Orient Express while in Istanbul.
The answer was that any train that went to the east was considered the Orient Express.
For me, my oriental journey is at its end and I’m heading to South America. I actually do not know what to expect, except the cold winters.
This morning, I had the breakfast provided by my hotel. It’s the usual Turkish fare: bread, olives, cheese, fruits, tomato, hard boiled eggs and drinks such as tea, coffee and artificial lime juice.
There is something about hard boiled eggs in Turkey. They are too tasty for their and my own good. I limit myself to only 2 eggs each day but feel like eating another 2 after I finish them.
After breakfast, I still had to pack my backpack. Since it will be winter in South America, I had to make sure that things such as swimsuit are at the bottom of the pack.
Packing seemed a lot easier these days. I managed to tidy up everything before check out time.
Getting scrubbed at a Turkish bath
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I still had Turkish bath on my list of To-do. On Foursquare, I found a hamam near my hotel so I walked to the place after checking out.
I saw the ladies’ entrance to the hammam. The real entrance inside was hidden behind a screen. After I stepped in, I was too embarrassed to step out even though the pricing was higher than what I wanted.
In the end, I reasoned that I was going to take a bath in one of the 1,000 Places to Visit Before You Die. So I paid my 108 lira and steeled myself for an exfoliation session with an attendant who looked very much like Rebel Wilson.
I’ll talk more about the bath in a future post so stay tuned!
Aimless walking, training around
I didn’t actually cross “Eat Turkish delight” off my list since I didn’t have much cash left in my wallet after the bath. Instead, I took the tram from the west to the east and back to the stop nearest to my hotel.
The train took about 1 hour to reach the west to the east. I didn’t really look out the window all the times since I fell asleep.
Passing the neighborhoods, I felt sad that I was leaving the city where I’ve spent 4 days. Yes, just 4 days but the store signs were already familiar to me.
Of course, my time in Istanbul had to end. I boarded the airport shuttle (6 euro) off to the airport for the third time.
This day last week…
I was on a hot air balloon in Cappadocia and it was pure awesome.
YQtravelling 