Shaken up

Two weeks ago I was hit by a car. It seems that this is almost a a right of passage in Istanbul, where the drivers are crazy and the traffic is infamous. Having said that, it was entirely my own fault. Plugged into my iPod, I came to cross what I thought was a one-way street. So I looked right, and failed to look left. I soon became aware of the fact that it wasn't a one way street when a load beep screeched in my ears and I was knocked off my feet, rolled over the bonnet and landed in the gutter. I was shocked but unhurt, and was quick to get to my feet and brush myself off. Since then I look right AND left when I cross the road, and thus, at the age of 22, I have finally learnt the art of road safety. Once again, silly foreign girl.

Prayer beads

Over the weeks of having lived in my new apartment in Besiktas, I have befriended the man who works at the cafe across the road, who is usually stationed outside the door of the cafe calling out to people on the street. He is a young guy and, as it transpires, strongly Muslim. He has grown tired of living in Istanbul and has felt drawn back to his home town and his family, to which he has now returned.

Anyway, a couple of nights before his departure, I stopped and talked to him on my way back from work, as has become habit. In his hand, as is not uncommon here, he was loosely holding the most beautiful set of prayer beads. It was fashioned from delicate pearls intermittent with silver beading and embellished with engravings of miniscule birds. When I expressed my admiration for the lovely thing he explained to me that was particularly precious to him as it had been a gift from his closest friend. Anyway, I went on my way and thought nothing more of it.

On the day of his leaving, I saw my friend for the last time standing in his usual spot on the threshold of the cafe, hailing passers-by. After a couple of minutes of conversation, he asked me to hold my hand out. He dug around in his coat pocket and eventually withdrew the prayer beads, which he then pressed ceremoniously into my palm. I was delighted with the gift, and after the customary one or two protestations, accepted it.

Needless to say I was extremely touched by this gesture. However, I later recalled something that I read a while back, which explained that you should never admire too fervently something belonging to a Muslim, because he will then feel obliged to give it to you as a gesture of hospitality or generosity.

I think that now forevermore every time I look at the lovely prayer beads, I will imagine the reaction of my friend's friend from whom they were a gift as he tells him that he passed them on to an English girl he met in Istanbul...

Forever young

A couple of weeks ago I saw a man sprinting at full pelt along the treacherous pavements for fear of missing his bus. This, in itself, is reasonably normal; nobody wants to miss their bus. However, what made this a remarkable sight to behold was the fact that this man was white-haired, well-weathered and easily about 75 years old.

Since having seen this I have observed multiple other examples of the elderly all over the city accomplishing the most incredible feats of strength, stamina and agility. I have seen a 60-year-old woman jogging to the ferry port weighed down with fully loaded shopping bags; an ancient, shrivelled old man carrying two enormous wicker baskets brimming with the morning's bread hanging from a rod across his shoulders; another elderly gentleman walking along, quite at ease, with a tray piled with simit balanced on his head as though it had been glued on there.

I have mentioned before the many sets of stone steps that are set into some of the steeper streets of Istanbul. Some of these number easily up to 200, and more often than not are nightmarishly steep and perilously uneven. I clambered up one of these the other day and reached the top red-faced and breathless, internally vowing to myself to work on getting fitter. As I paused at the top to catch my breath, I looked down at my ascent and was dismayed to see a sprightly 70-something hopping up the steps two-at-a-time. I then had second thoughts about that slice of cake I had told myself I deserved.

Island

As I stepped off the boat onto a splintering and weather bleached wooden jetty, I glance down the row of near deserted waterfront cafes. This was what I needed. I had just arrived on Heybeliada, one of the group of islands collectively known as the Prince's Islands, situated in the Bosphorus Strait between Istanbul and the Sea of Marmara.

Something strange about sounds is that you only really notice them when they are no longer there. I would imagine that for anyone who has grown accustomed to Istanbul's constant drone of engines, shriek of sirens and beeps of indignation, on Heybeliada these sounds are loud in their absence. For there are no cars on Heybeliada; people move around the island by foot or by bike, unless they are loved-up tourist couples, who tend to prefer a horse and carriage.

I made my way into the island’s small and only town, or rather ‘settlement’, as it is labelled in my guidebook. There I spent a happy half hour wandering around the maze of cobbled streets, taking in the ramshackle assortment of dingy cafes, little houses and Ottoman architecture, all in varying states of disrepair. I lowered my gaze and hid my camera as I walked past a line of old men sitting on stools propped up against the sun-warmed stone of a shabby old café, all of whom look as though they have been there, and will remain there, for an eternity. They stared at me like I had come from outer-space.

I spotted a set of stone steps stretching up to a summit beyond my field of vision, and I started to climb. They lead me straight up. Past the ancient little houses, past makeshift wooden fences, past cats nonchalantly grooming themselves on benches placed at random angles in the middle of the road, past a tatty looking cockerel making a strangled sound, past young boys calling out as they ride their bikes around the streets at full pelt, past a pair of women gossiping at each other across the street from the second-floor windows of their respective houses. I heard a whinny to my right and turned just in time to step out of the way of a beautiful Palomino who trotted across my path, not a tether in sight.

Near the summit the houses give way to grass and cedar trees. At the top there is a playground and a small football pitch. Beyond this the cedar forest predominates. I walked for a while along a grassy sun-streaked path, until eventually I came to a clearing in which there was a wooden bench with light-blue peeling paint and various names etched into it. Here there is a stunning view of the dark green dips and rises of the island, a little cove perfectly curved, and a dazzling expanse of ocean, stretching on and on into the haze of the sun, interrupted only by the peak of another island emerging from the shining mist of the water. All I could hear was birds and sea.