"Turks, Turkey and a load of Turkish Delight!
30Mar08
OK, so the title stinks of cheese, I know, I’ve got writers block. I suppose you could say that Istanbul is where east meets west, and that therefore the old cliche is true. Yet Istanbul lacked a magic for me that I had expected and hoped for, yes the kebabs got cheaper and were no longer made of pork, the people got more charming and had swapped iced cappuccinos for chai. My bizarre preconceived images of snake charmers, ottoman bazaars and a sudden abundance of rutted and potholed roads were not met in the slightest. Perhaps it was a result of driving to Turkey, that the culture change was less sudden and more gradual , but the city is like any other European city, albeit with more mosques and a lower quality of road etiquette. Nobody was wearing a fez."
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