Bangkok to Istanbul (9008km)

We flew with Etihad from Bangkok to Abu Dhabi, departing at 2am.
The flight went smoothly and the two of us were seated in a centre row of 4 seats without any other passengers, so once we were up in the air we were able to spread out and get couple of hours sleep.

Our next flight from Abu Dhabi to Istanbul was unfortunately not as smooth as Matt suddenly started feeling really ill with a fever, headache, chills and shivering the whole flight.

Once we arrived in Istanbul we jumped in a cab as we just wanted to get into our accommodation as quickly as possible for Matt to rest. Our accommodation was booked through Airbnb and this would be our first experience with Airbnb. The apartment was cheap but unfortunately the cleanliness left a lot to be desired as there was a lot of dust everywhere. Being a split level apartment with a lower level in the basement it was also extremely damp and the whole place just smelled mouldy.

It would have been fine if it were just a place to sleep and shower, but with Matt being so sick all of a sudden there was no way we could stay in that apartment. Fortunately there was another much nicer studio apartment in the same building on the next floor up.
(Photos: studio room at Vintage House apartments Taksim).

Once I managed to get Matt and all our stuff up to the apartment we were much more comfortable and and apartment was relatively clean and dry with a functioning kitchenette.

The first day we mostly spent resting in the apartment with the exception of a quick trip to a local convenience store for some food, water and essentials. Matt was so sick he slept most of the time, and I had an early night as well as I was exhausted from a long day and night of travelling.
The next day Matt seemed to be a little better and we suspected he must have a bad flu. We managed to take a short walk around our neighbourhood but Matt really wasn't able to walk too far as Istanbul is nothing but hills. Within a five minute walk of our apartment in Taksim we managed to find a fantastic little alleyway full of delis, bakeries and fresh produce and seafood stalls, plus the main shopping street Istiklal Caddesi was only another 100m up the road. We stocked up on some supplies from a small grocery store and took home some boreks (Turkish pastries with meat inside), then went back to the apartment to allow Matt to keep resting.

(Photos: our view including cats; shops around Taksim).

On our third day in Istanbul Matt seemed to be getting worse again, and he also started complaining of pains in his chest when breathing. So we decided it was time to see a doctor. In Istanbul medical centres and GP's are not the norm, generally if people have a minor illness or ailment they go to their pharmacist who can provide a diagnosis and prescriptions/basic treatments. Anyone too sick for the pharmacist gets referred to a hospital. Turkey has both public and private hospitals, but according to the expat blogs I read online the public hospitals are best avoided. So we looked up a local private hospital and grabbed a taxi.

We were so glad that we chose the Memorial Hospital at Sisli. From the time we arrived we had an English speaking interpreter with us from the International Patients Department.

Dilara (originally from Kosovo) stayed with us for the next 2.5 hours while we saw the doctor, had chest x-rays and blood tests done, then ultimately helped us to arrange Matt's admission to hospital. It would have been really difficult without her as most of the staff spoke limited English (although the doctor had quite good English) and the hospital was huge and it was very easy to get lost.

The doctor diagnosed Matt with pneumonia pretty much right after examining him, but then it was just a matter of doing the tests to determine how bad it was and what treatment would be required. Patients with pneumonia are given a PSI score (Pneumonia Severity Index) to indicate the severity of their illness. Any score above about 130 is considered high risk. When he was first admitted Matt's PSI score was 490 so he had a very severe case of pneumonia.

The Memorial Hospital is an excellent hospital, all the rooms and facilities are new and modern and the staff were all excellent. Matt had a private room with a comfortable fold out couch bed to allow me to stay with him the whole time. Plus the view from the hospital room was much nicer than the view from the apartment!

Most of the staff spoke limited English (although Dr Ozgur and the infectious disease specialist both spoke good English) but this gave me a good opportunity to pick up some Turkish, and we found Google Translate to be essential. Matt ended up spending 6 nights in the hospital receiving IV antibiotics, vitamins and pain relief before we were able to go home.

We had originally planned on travelling by bus from Turkey to Bulgaria, then Serbia and Croatia. But when we discussed our travel plans with the doctors they didn't seem keen on the idea. We ultimately decided to remain in Istanbul for 2 further weeks after Matt's discharge from hospital, to allow time for him to rest and recover and to go back to the hospital for follow up appointments. So we stayed in the apartment in Taksim for 4 more nights until the 10th of June, and then we moved into a nicer (and more expensive) Airbnb apartment in the Karakoy district for Matt to rest and recuperate.
The new apartment was fantastic, it was big and spacious with separate kitchen, lounge, bathroom and bedroom instead of a studio. It was also much more modern and had a great view over the Golden Horn. (Photos: Karakoy apartment).

We really enjoyed being able to cook meals at home using local produce and ingredients and we also had a washing machine which was great as I had previously been handwashing our clothes. The only negative thing we could say about the apartment was that it was on the fourth floor (thus the magnificent view) with no elevator so it was a bit of a struggle for Matt at first to manage the stairs.

But he quickly got used to it as Istanbul is nothing but steep hills so whenever we left the apartment we were walking up and down hills and stairs. Istanbul has an excellent public transport system which we quickly got the hang of to allow us to explore the city without needing to use taxis and thus avoiding being scammed.

We started slowly, heading out to see one attraction at a time for a few hours and then heading home so that Matt would not be exhausted. Our first trip was to the Spice Market (also called the Egyptian Bazaar). We didn't buy anything in the actual market as it is very touristy, but when we ventured into the streets just outside of the market we found the maze of little alleyways where the local people
(Photo: Spice Market).

buy their spices, coffee, sweets, produce etc. We found a great deli that we visited several times during our stay and Matt became very fond of these olives wrapped in pickled herring on a skewer, while I preferred the home made bread, peanut butter, pistachios (35 lira or $12 per kilo!) and dates. We also spent some time on Istiklal Avenue, along which we would walk every day on our way to and from the metro station.
We mostly used the tram system to get around Sultanahmet (the old city), so from Taksim or Karakoy we would either walk down to the ferry or take the funicular to the tram station. Matt loved taking the ferry along the Golden Horn and watching all the men fishing along the bridges waterfront.
(Photos: Spice Market; tea on the Bosphoros; Istiklal Avenue - vendor roasting walnuts, Turkish sweets, simit vendor, pickled herring, historic tram; ferries on the Golden Horn and Bosphoros).

On our next sightseeing adventure we got lost trying to find the Grand Bazaar, which is the oldest fixed covered market in the world and was the end point for trading caravans travelling the Silk Road from Asia. While we were lost we found an American style steakhouse and Matt could not resist having his first piece of steak since leaving home. We eventually found the Grand Bazaar and spent a few hours looking through the stalls, although we managed to resist buying anything.

(Photos: Grand Bazaar).

The next attraction we saw was the Basilica Cistern which is an ancient Roman cistern located right underneath Sultanahmet. At the height of the Byzantine empire the cistern was used to pump water up to the Topkapi Palace to maintain the extensive palace gardens. This was one of our favourite sights of the whole trip to date as it was so old, so unique and so amazing while also being a little bit eerie. It was incredible to experience the dramatic difference in temperature from a warm sunny day outside to seeing our breath fog up down in the cistern. We stayed in the cistern for as long as possible but had to leave when Matt's chest started to hurt from all the cold damp air.

(Photos: Basilica Cistern).

The next day Matt was feeling well and so we managed a full day of sightseeing and took in the Aya Sofya and then the Blue Mosque. Aya Sofya was originally built during the Byzantine era as a church and was then converted to a mosque by the conquering Ottoman empire. Aya Sofya is no longer a functioning mosque however, unlike the Blue Mosque which required me to wear a full length skirt and head scarf to enter. We spent more time in the Aya Sofya as it is much bigger and there were a multitude of centuries old mosaics to admire, but the Blue Mosque was far more beautiful as it is completely covered in colourful mosaic tiles and is still in perfect condition due to ongoing maintenance. We also visited the mosaic museum which was small but interesting.

(Photos: Aya Sofya; Blue Mosque; Mosaic Museum; around Sultanahmet).

Our final day of sightseeing was the Istanbul Archeological Museum and Topkapi Palace which we also really enjoyed. Even today in it's somewhat dilapidated state the palace is still extremely impressive and must have been completely luxurious while it was still in use.

(Photos: Topkapi Palace; a fountain in the palace outer gardens comprises a large stone book and has water gushing from a rotating bar to look just like pages being turned - it was pretty cool if you like fountains which we do).

Observations of Istanbul......

Istanbul is just a truly massive city with a population of about 14 million people. We would stand at the top of our street high up on a hill and look around us and as far as we could see in any direction was endless apartment buildings dotted with mosques. People live in very close quarters with the apartment buildings being tall and narrow with small balconies. The streets are equally narrow which would make driving in the congested city even more difficult, but it becomes nearly impossible when you see the way that people in the city drive! People just seem to stop and park wherever they like with no regard to residents or services like garbage pickup.
(Photo: view of the city from our street).

Over the three weeks we regularly saw ambulances with sirens blazing just stuck in traffic with no one really seeing any urgency to move.

We enjoyed watching the daily comings and goings of the local neighbours in our apartment building. In particular Matt would watch out the window every afternoon as the women would lower buckets out of their apartment windows to collect bread, milk, fruit & vegetables and other grocery items so that they would not have to walk up an down the many stairs in the building (most buildings do not have elevators). We regularly saw a guy from the local grocery store chain come around to deliver groceries that had been ordered, but there were also bread, milk and produce vendors who would just drive through the narrow streets yelling out to people. The women would yell back what they want, drop down their bucket with their money and then pull up their groceries. Very convenient.

(Photos: the fruit & veg man; woman with grocery bucket).

We also noticed a significant abundance of cats in the city everywhere that we went. Like seriously a ridiculous number of cats. They all seem to be street cats in that no one in particular seems to own them, but they are all pretty well fed and healthy looking. We noticed that average residents of Istanbul seem to share responsibility for their local street cats, putting out bowls of water and cat food for them, and we would even see little kennels and shelters placed out in the street for them to sleep in during the cold winters. We read that this reverence for cats may come from a story in the Quran about the prophet Muhammad being saved by a cat at some stage. For whatever reason Istanbul is just rife with street cats.

(Photos: street cats).

The street dogs however do not enjoy the same status as the cats and people really seem to fear and shun the dogs.
Apparently this is due to the fact that the Turkish historically never kept dogs as pets and so they are not familiar with their nature and tend to fear and avoid them. This lack of human interaction in turn leads the dogs to become equally suspicious of people and their behaviour can be aggressive and unpredictable. It is a vicious cycle.
There are some excellent but underfunded organisations in Istanbul who are trying to catch, neuter, vaccinate and release the street dogs and cats, but they are seriously outnumbered.
We read that at one stage the city government decided to do something about the street dogs and they rounded them all up and dumped them on some uninhabited island off the coast. Animal rights organisations were furious as the dogs had no food or fresh water on this island and so this was an act of incredible cruelty. The government them brought the dogs back to Istanbul, but they released them into the Belgrade Forest which is a large forest in the centre of Istanbul, like a national park but quite wild given it's proximity to the city centre.
People then became fearful of the forest as the dogs turned wild and

feral and killed native wildlife and would attack people visiting the forest. To say this problem has been poorly managed by the Turkish government is an understatement.

Things we loved......
The people - most people were extremely friendly and helpful and they seemed genuinely really happy when we would try to speak in Turkish to them.
The food - Matt was unimpressed with the kebabs (which are different to kebabs at home and in other countries) but aside from this we really enjoyed Turkish food, in particular their breads and meats are delicious. Crap wine though and very average beer.
Public Transport - Australia could learn a lot from the excellent public transport services in Istanbul. It was clean, comfortable, easy to use and widespread which was great because it meant we did not need to rely on taxis.
Call to prayer - I really loved hearing the call to prayer throughout the day and night. It would really remind me where I was and how far away from home I was.
Great exchange rate - 1 AUD was equal to 1.9 Turkish Lira which made Istanbul very affordable to visit.

Things we did not love.....
Taxi drivers - most taxi drivers in Istanbul are decent people trying to earn a living but unfortunately we encountered a few who just outright scammed us and one who stood and argued with us for ages when we tried to refuse his outrageous fare.
Smelling cat pee literally everywhere you go.
Crap wine.
Having to walk up and down super steep hills to get anywhere especially with Matt being sick. Although this did provide some great opportunities to enjoy views over Istanbul.