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Turkish town booms as ‘the end of the world’ looms

ISTANBUL // A small Turkish town nestled on a hill near the Aegean Sea is finding that the end of the world is good for business.

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AD200910712099864AR-The Mayan prophecy of the end of the world was

■ Debating the end of the world – if time allows

In Sirince, hotel bookings for the days around December 21 have reached record proportions and some in the town think emergency shelters for visitors that cannot find a roof over their heads should be considered.

The boom in Sirince is connected to a doomsday scenario based on the interpretation the Mayan calendar that has spread on the internet and predicts that the world will end on December 21, the winter solstice on the northern hemisphere. Yet somehow, Sirince is supposed to survive the apocalypse.

An old Greek town near the ancient city of Ephesus that was settled by Turks after a population exchange between Turkey and Greece in the 1920s and that is famous for its fruit wines and old Greek houses, Sirince is usually quiet around the end of the year.

But these are not normal times.

“There are many more guests than usual,” Engin Urer, the owner of the Mystic Konak hotel in Sirince, said this week. “There is this rumour that the world will end, and so people are coming here.”

Sevan Nisanyan, a writer who owns the Nisanyan Hotel, estimated that demand for hotel rooms stood at about 10 times the town’s capacity of about 400 beds.

He said the town had been known as a “place with a special energy” among new-age groups since the 1980s, because some believed it to be the birthplace of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and the forest, and the place where, in Christianity, that Mary, the mother of Jesus, ascended to heaven.

Mr Nisanyan said there was also a connection to expectations among religious sects that a planet called Marduk would pass close to Earth next month and trigger widespread destruction.

“Bookings have been up since about a month ago,” Mr Nisanyan said. “I have people in my hotel from as far away as Indonesia, and they say that they are coming” to try escape the possible end of the world.

“We receive about 10 phone calls a day from potential guests, and we have to turn them away.”

Ilkan Gulgun, who runs the Kirkinca Konaklari hotel, said some of his guests believed that a ship like Noah’s Ark would arrive in the town after a flood on December 21. “People say a new age is beginning,” he said, describing the demand for rooms as “unbelievable”.

Doomsday predictions based on the Mayan calendar have become so widespread that the US space agency Nasa has posted an official denial on its website.

“The world will not end in 2012,” the statement says. “Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012.”

But official denials have not stopped the run on supposed safe places in the midst of the expected catastrophe.

Like Sirince, Bugarach, a village in the French Pyrenees, has become the focus of some new-age groups that expect some sort of cataclysmic event around the same date. They believe a mountain near Bugarach has magic powers and are convinced aliens will arrive and take them to safety.

The municipality in Bugarach is stepping up security and has called in police to seal off the village between December 19 and 23 to keep doomsday groups out, according to news reports.

No such preparations are underway in Sirince, but Mr Nisanyan said the town should prepare for the worst – not the apocalypse, but an onslaught of visitors that could overstretch Sirince’s resources.

“It’s a contagious madness, and it’s spreading,” he said. “I am very scared for Sirince, the world will come to an end for Sirince if we have 10,000 people here.”

Mr Nisanyan said the town should think about erecting tents for visitors who could not find shelter during the cold December nights. “Clearly there will be chaos here.” Ozgur Aydogan, the chairman of a local mountaineering club, said his group was preparing to organise a camp outside Sirince to take visitors on mountain tours in the vicinity and to put up guests who were trying to flee the impending doom.

“We are not commenting on whether the prediction is true or not,” he said. “Some people believe that the end of the world is near and they come here to flee from that. People who believe that are welcome to our camp as well.”

Residents would not be drawn on whether they themselves believed the doomsday predictions.

“No one knows what will happen,” Mr Urer of Mystic Konak said. “It’s that Mayan calendar that says so.”

Doom or not, some in the town are happy about the spike in business.

“If only we had those rumours all the time,” Ibrahim Katac, a Sirince resident, told Turkey’s semi-official Anadolu news agency. “Those rumours are bringing more visitors to us.”

via Turkish town booms as ‘the end of the world’ looms – The National.

December 14, 2012
A Walk Through Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar | The Daily Meal

Eat Your World’s favorite items in Turkey’s best spice market

By Laura Siciliano…

Credit: Laura Siciliano-Rosen / Eat Your World

Eat Your World spotlights regional foods and drinks around the globe, from New York to New Delhi.

It’s true we’re biased toward food markets, but the Grand Bazaar — with its expensive gold jewelry, leather jackets, and endless rows of mass-produced evil-eye tchotchkes — just wasn’t our thing. Much more fun and interactive was the Misir Çarsisi, or Spice Bazaar, aka the Egyptian market, established in Eminönü in 1664 (it once specialized in goods brought from Egypt). It’s the market you walk smack into if you approach the Old City from the Galata Bridge, as we did most days from our home base in Karaköy.

Over the years, the spice market has become plenty tourist-friendly; in fact, some of those same Grand Bazaar tchotchkes have shown up between the nuts, olives, Anatolian honey, and lokum (Turkish delight) here. Someone who knows the market well will warn you that not all vendors are created equal, which surely goes without saying in any popular market. But half the fun is going there and figuring it out for yourself — most of the vendors encourage sampling, so you can taste all the goods before you buy.

We admit we let ourselves go a bit inside the spice market, buying dried fruit and accepting hunks of cheese without recording prices or even paying much heed to vendor names (for shame!). What we do have are some photos of favorite items and the remaining piece of pestil (fruit leather) we “forgot” we had in our luggage.

Spices

As its name suggests, this market specializes in spices, with cumin, cinnamon, sumac, paprika, mint, coriander, curry powder, Iranian saffron, several types of pepper — black, white, red, whole, or ground — and more competing for display space in a riot of color. Tea drinkers might skip the packaged apple tea sold everywhere for the dried hibiscus, jasmine flowers, lemon, vanilla, and delicate dried rosebuds peddled at these stands, too.

Nuts

If you spend more than 10 minutes in Turkey, you’ll know that nuts are big here. Actually, scratch that; they passed out bags of Turkish hazelnuts (findik) on the Turkish Airlines flight. Pistachios and hazelnuts are among the native nuts you’ll find in spades at this market, joining almonds, pine nuts, and flavored or candied nuts. These are good ones to try before you buy, as most of the nuts are shelled and freshness can be an issue.

Dried Fruit

Dried fruit proved an indispensable road-trip item, ideal for a quick hit of sugar when the craving struck. Papaya, guava, kiwi, pineapple — clearly these were not all local fruits, but we loved them nonetheless, especially the super sweet strawberry (çilek) and chewy apple (elma). They weren’t the cheapest purchase, but the bag we bought inside this market lasted us a full week of driving around Turkey. Note that customers often just reach right down and pick up a piece from the bin to taste; if you’re buying, you might request the fruits under the top display layer.

Lokum

Turkish delight (lokum) was one of the biggest surprises for us in Turkey, as our expectations, based on the ho-hum jellied squares we’ve tried elsewhere, were pretty low. In Istanbul is a whole new world of lokum that starts with your basic sugar-dusted sade (plain) and rose; graduates to lemon, mint, and chocolate, coated in coconut; and moves on to the pistachio- and hazelnut-studded, adding a layer of crunch to the logs of chewy sweetness. Available in a rainbow of colors and shapes, lokum is among the most photogenic of Turkish foods, and the spice market proved a great place to taste a few new flavors freely.

Cheese

These vendors are set up on the outside perimeter of the market, ready to slice off samples from huge white blocks of peynir, or cheese. Whether you like yours salty, crumbly, mild, or stringy, it’s a must-stop for any cheese fan.

Fruit Döner, Pestil, Sucuk

One of our favorite bites was shaved off what’s called a fruit döner, a vertical block of fruit paste studded with nuts (say, pomegranate with pistachio); like its much more common meat counterpart, it is sliced off in thin pieces with a knife. Also look out for pestil, or dried and pounded sheets of “fruit leather” — the thin, plastic-wrapped apricot variety we bought tasted like a more natural Fruit Roll-Ups from our youth — and its sausage-shaped cousin, cevizli sucuk, not to be confused with actual sucuk, which is a spicy sausage. This fruit-and-nut version consists of a string of walnuts (cevizli) dipped in a jelly of thickened grape must, with the end result — a long stick of chewy fruit and crunchy nuts — tasting better than it surely sounds.

Laura Siciliano-Rosen is the co-founder of Eat Your World, a website that spotlights regional foods and drinks around the globe. Follow Eat Your World on Twitter @eat_your_world.

via A Walk Through Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar | The Daily Meal.

December 13, 2012
Solo Travel Destination: Istanbul, Turkey

We are pleased to present a new Solo Travel Destination Post from Alison, a member of the Solo Travel Society on Facebook. Alison is from Australia, and submitted the following report about Istanbul. Do you have a solo travel destination that you would like to recommend? Submit your description here, along with a few photos, and share it with fellow travelers!

Solo travel rating: 1.5 (1 is easiest, 4 is most difficult. Please see chart below)

Languages spoken: Turkish, French, English, Kurdish

photo, image, fishing, Istanbul

Fishing on the Bosphorous Bridge.

Reasons to go: Istanbul is fascinating, culturally and historically, and an absolute visual feast. One of the world’s great waterfront cities, it has the Bosphorous, the Golden Horn & the Sea of Marmara on three sides. There is great shopping, a plethora of historical sites, a rich live music & night club culture, and wonderful food.

You can tour palaces and museums – Hagia Sophia (once a church, then a mosque, now a museum), the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace – and get a glimpse into the opulent life of the Ottoman Empire. Cruise up the Bosphorus to the Black Sea or out into the Sea of Marmara to the Princes Islands.

The Roman mosaic museum and the nearby Rasta Bazaar are full of beautiful silks, embroideries, leather goods, and carpets, carpets, carpets! Check out Kumkapi for freshly caught seafood, Haci Abdullah for classic Ottoman dishes, or take a ferry ride to the Eastern side for fabulous regional foods at Ciya. Visit Yanothererebatan cistern or the hamam for a turkish steam bath and a good scrub down and massage. If you have more time to spare head to Cappadocia for a balloon flight, or the Turquoise coast for a gulet cruise.

Solo Travel Destination Rating System

Safety – 1 (1 very safe, 2 safe in most areas, 3 be cautious at all times.)

Language – 2 (1 English is first language, 2 English speakers easy to find, 3 English speakers rare)

Navigation – 1 (1 easy to navigate by transit or car, 2 poor transit, car necessary, 3 not easy to get around)

Culture – 2 (1 Similar to North America or Western Europe, 2 Different from above but relaxed and easy, 3 Challenging)

Average Rating – 1.5 (1 is easiest, 4 is most difficult)

via Solo Travel Destination: Istanbul, Turkey | Solo Traveler.

Source : https://solotravelerworld.com/solo-travel-destination-istanbul-turkey/

December 12, 2012
Insider’s Istanbul | The Australian

Buyukada, the largest of the Princes’ Islands, an archipelago in the Sea of Marmara. Picture: Alamy Source: Supplied

YOU have done the sights – the Hagia Sofia and the great imperial mosques, the Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar, the Bosphorus cruise and Basilica Cistern. With the tourist boxes ticked and the past squared away, it’s time to start exploring the real, living city.

You may have had enough of museums, but Orhan Pamuk’s new Museum of Innocence in the bohemian neighbourhood of Cihangir is worth a visit, if only for the abiding oddness of the concept as much as anything in the exhibits. The museum and Pamuk’s eponymous novel were conceived at the same time, and as Turkey’s Nobel Prize-winning author wrote the book about love and obsession set in 1970s Istanbul, he also collected artefacts.

The result is a charming confection of the paraphernalia of bourgeois Turkish life, from a collection of cigarette butts supposedly smoked by the novel’s heroine to toys, cinema posters and Victorian-era family photos. It is a monument to whimsy, a great literary project and a vanished era all at the same time.

Digital Pass $1 for first 28 Days

Istanbul is one of the gourmet capitals of the world, but you have to dig a little to find its most interesting vernacular food. To really get to grips with the authentic tastes of the city, spend a half hour or so browsing istanbuleats.com – a site and, for the old-fashioned, a book compiled by passionate connoisseurs of Istanbul’s waterside fish-grilling joints, its raucous raki-and-mezze restaurants (known as meyhanes) and its endless varieties of street food.

You can trace the social history of the city through its restaurants, or take a gastronomic tour of the rest of Turkey and even the old empire, with its Balkan, Middle Eastern and Caucasian influences. Anatolian soul food restaurant Ciya is definitely worth a trip to the Asian side of the city, while the newish bread-and-stew restaurant Datli Maya is as brilliant and tiny as its owner, culinary wizard Dilara Erbay.

Those committed to exploring Istanbul’s gastronomic underbelly can even find directions to a famous pair of rival sheep’s-head restaurants located on opposite corners of a crossroads. One sells the heads boiled, the other roasted (counterintuitively, boiled is better).

Of an evening, don’t get stuck in the Old City, which is a ghetto of touristy restaurants and pushy carpet pedlars. Istanbul’s real life is elsewhere, in the mile-long strip of pedestrianised streets around the old Grande Rue de Pera, the heart of the European quarter now known as Beyoglu.

Start at the House Cafe by the Tunel funicular and work your way down Istiklal Avenue though backstreets crowded with tables and revellers. One can go high-low, literally and metaphorically, from flashy socialite-packed rooftop bars such as 360 to grungy live music venues such as Haymatlos, concealed in a crumbling Ottoman office building.

A full tour of all the hidden bars and restaurants would take about eight years. At 2am you’ll find Istiklal Avenue still packed from end to end, a sight that beats even Barcelona’s La Rambla into a cocked hat.

After a heavy night in the city you may wish to escape to the Princes’ Islands, an archipelago in the Sea of Marmara where the Byzantines exiled their surplus royals and the Levantine bourgeoisie of the late 19th century built large wooden summer villas. But one has to be smart about planning a visit, because on hot summer days they are also the equivalent of New York’s Coney Island – a place where every local who can’t afford to go anywhere else crowds on to packed ferries.

If you’re rich, take a 10-person sea taxi from central Istanbul. Or take the public ferry from Kabatas, but on a weekday. On Buyukada, the largest of the islands, avoid the rip-off tourist restaurants on the seaside strip and hike (or bike) up the mountain to the monastery of Aya Yorgi, with its charming open-air restaurant and breathtaking views of the whole giant city of 15 million souls, now spread at your feet, distant and silent.

The Spectator

via Insider’s Istanbul | The Australian.

December 10, 2012
How to find local experiences in Istanbul

Of course when you go to Istanbul, Turkey you’ll be drawn to the ancient sites and Ottoman history in Sultanhamet – the old part of the city. However, many career breakers are looking for more local connections and experiences the longer they travel. If you are looking for local experiences and a chance to escape the tourist crowds in Istanbul – here’s how!

Local Markets

Skip the Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar and if you really want to go local – then head to the Sunday market in Tarlabasi. Just down the hill from the glitz of Istiklal Street is what many locals might refer to the ‘wrong side of the tracks.’ This is a neighborhood that has not quite succumbed to gentrification yet – but I’m pretty sure in a few years it will look very different. However, if you are looking for an authentic experience – this is it. I spent a few hours at this market shopping for produce and taking photos. Every single vendor and person there were a joy to interact with. I was constantly stopped and asked if I would take a photo or simply try food – as a foreign traveler, I was definitely in the minority. Plus the best part is that I walked away with bags of produce and only spent about $10 US.

Local Getaway

Go where the locals go to escape the loud, crowded streets of Istanbul – Princes’ Islands. It’s a short 50 minute ferry ride to the string of 4 islands – Kınalıada, Burgazada, Heybeliada and Büyükada. Ferries depart from Bostancı, Kartal and Maltepe on the Asian side, and from Kabataş on the European side and cost about 2 Turkish Lira per ride ($1.10 US). During the Byzantine period, princes and other royalty were exiled to the islands which is why they are referred to as Princes’ Islands. But these days it’s a pleasure to escape to these islands where little seafood restaurants dot the perimeters and there is no motorized traffic. You’ll hear (and smell) plenty of horses, though, as horse and buggy are the main forms of transportation for people. Go spend a day at the islands and soak up what it’s like to be a local Istanbulite escaping the city!

If you really want to experience the local life on the islands, then go out on a weekday as the islands are filled with the people who live there as opposed to just Istanbul day trippers that head to the islands on the weekends.

Go to the Outskirts

Most tourists stay in Sultanhamet and Beyoglu – but if you want to get really local then venture out further past the old city walls! I took a very in depth walking tour of the Balat and Eyüp neighborhoods and quickly realized that they had a completely different vibe then what I had so far experienced in Istanbul. Most notably the Eyüp Mosque is one of the most sacred places in Istanbul. The mosque of Eyüp is a place of pilgrimage for Muslims from ancient times. In addition, Eyüp has some of the most spectacular views of the city and Golden Horn if you ride the cable car up the hill. Tourists seldom get to this part of the city.

In addition, if you want to see modern Istanbul then head to the Cevahir Mall and neighborhood just a short metro ride past Taksim. There, you will be amazed by what modern Istanbul is really like – businessmen and women in suits, chain stores, and even an amusement park inside the mall. I rented this room in an apartment behind the mall and seldom saw another tourist around!

Take Opportunities

Lose your shyness and take any opportunities you can to meet locals as odds are you will end up with a new friend who will take you around to their favorite places and share their favorite foods. Before I went to Istanbul I reached out to friends who had been there before to see if they could introduce me to any local contacts they had. I ended up meeting 3 or 4 different locals through this course of action and had my own personal tour guides to Istanbul! The Turks are extremely kind and excited to show you their city and culture, so be sure to take advantage of your connections.

Stay Local

I stayed in a couple different neighborhoods while renting apartments through Wimdu. Each neighborhood had something different to offer – but each also had one thing that was the same – a real local culture that I quickly became immersed in. Wimdu has all kinds of neighborhood choices in European and Asian Istanbul that get you out of the tourist areas and hotels and into real neighborhoods. Plus, by staying in an apartment, I was lucky enough to meet the apartment manager, Fatih, who also showed me around the neighborhood and made sure I knew where the market and restaurants were.

Local Transport

Skip the taxis whose drivers seldom speak English and rarely get you to your desired destination. Instead get comfortable using local public transport. Get an Istanbul Card and it will be your gateway to buses, ferries, trams, metros, and funiculars. The transportation system in Istanbul can seem confusing as there are so many options and none really connect exactly with each other – but they all do work together to get you across the city. In the evenings around 6PM the trams can be very crowded with locals going home from work – but it’s a fun experience to see and interact with the commuters!

By going more local in Istanbul, your time there will be more rewarding and you’ll leave Turkey feeling as if you know more about the modern day culture of this fascinating country and city!

Disclosure: Sherry Ott was a guest of Wimdu.co.uk during her stay in Istanbul. However all of the opinions expressed here are her own.

via How to find local experiences in Istanbul | Briefcase to Backpack – Travel Advice for Career Breaks or Sabbaticals.

November 29, 2012
Guardian Camera Club: Richard Brittain’s portfolio

A review of Richard Brittain’s portfolio.

These images seem to play with shafts of light, starting with ‘Refreshments’ in Istanbul where a sales man sells drinks. His face is in the shadow as is the majority of the scene, but the light on the cups helps to draw us in. Swimmer is awash with beautiful grays and blues, the intricate and successful composition really places the viewer in the frame. ‘Dusk’ silhouettes birds and people against an evening sky, it’s pleasant but doesn’t really say too much. ‘Tour Guide’, again from Istanbul is expressive in terms of the subject and dynamic in it’s use of light. ‘Pigeon’ sees the subject in the shadows next to a shaft the light. It’s a poignant image but the lack of light on his face leaves us cold. ‘Bus’ severs the heads of tourists, but with the addition of the image of the mosque it works! A quirky set of images

via Guardian Camera Club: Richard Brittain’s portfolio | Art and design | guardian.co.uk.

more : https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/nov/26/photography1#/?picture=398627339&index=5

November 27, 2012