Once the North has been seen and explored, it's time to head a little south!
Hello Istanbul.
We've been to Istanbul so many times, so many times we've changed planes for longer flights, but only rarely have we made it to the center of Istanbul.
There was a time when we even drove to Istanbul twice, but that was so long ago it feels like it was in another century.
Thanks to Turkish Airlines for the opportunity to go to this beautiful city, but it's a pity that we only have 3 days to see, enjoy, taste, and also film a little something for our dear viewers. Only three days, because we have to go further, even further East and even further South. But more on that in the next articles.
Together with Evita Eidina we fly from Riga on May 11th and arrive in Istanbul before 3:00 PM. After landing, the flight turns into a drive and we drive and drive, it feels like we'll soon be back in Latvia. The airport is so big that the plane is probably looking for a cheaper parking spot! 
Finally, a spot has been found for our plane, we all transfer to the bus and continue our journey. Luckily, this time it doesn't take so long, and soon everyone is going to baggage claim and passport control. Along the way, we meet former residents of Dobele, as well as people who watch our show and who are at the beginning of their big journey.
Despite having 2 large suitcases, one small carry-on, and a large camera backpack, we decide to go to the city center by bus. While figuring out which bus to take, we've already gotten mixed up and are heading a little in the wrong direction. The bus then gets stuck in traffic and we reach the center after 1.5 hours. We are near the Grand Bazaar, but we need to go to the Taksim area.
It turns out this is not our only adventure with transportation and getting to the hotel.
Having got off the bus, we try to call an Uber taxi, but the Uber app doesn't want to work. There's a metro nearby, but that's not easy for us either. Bank cards don't work, and we can't buy a travel card with cash. To our surprise, a Turkish man offers to help, we give him money and he pays for us and lets us into the metro with his card.
Happily, we get to the metro, look for a station name that a taxi driver had previously told us, get on the metro and, it turns out, we're going in the opposite direction again.
I really want to praise the Turkish men, who
constantly helped. One even took one of our large suitcases and helped push it to another stop, and then gave us his travel card without accepting any money that we tried to offer for his help.
With all the transportation problems and getting lost, we finally reached our hotel within 4 hours and could finally fall into bed. Already on the way, Evita and I realized how good it was that we had new travel suitcases with such easily rolling wheels that pushing these suitcases through the city center for the last 2 kilometers was no problem for us. Thanks to Roncato Latvia for the excellent suitcases.
Since our only lunch was on the Turkish Airlines plane, around 12:00 PM, we didn't stay in bed long and went to look for a place to eat. Our desire for this evening was to find a delicious kebab.
We succeed, too. 50 meters from the hotel is a small restaurant and the most delicious Adana kebab I have ever eaten. Beef kebab, onions, rice, greens, warm local bread, spicy salad, and Turkish tea. Dinner cost 18 EUR for both of us, and we will definitely go back to eat there tomorrow evening.
The hotel we are staying at is Ramada Taksim, and the price includes saunas, a pool, and a hammam, which we enjoyed after dinner.
Tomorrow and the day after, we will meet Latvian girls who have been living in Turkey for some time, and they will share their experiences about life here. You will definitely find these interviews interesting to watch, which will be available on our YouTube channel, "Ceļot bez robežām" (Travel Without Borders).
Getting to know Istanbul and Ieva Kargılı's love story!
We start the morning with breakfast. We especially enjoyed the omelet, and you could add tomatoes, sliced tomatoes, peeled tomatoes, tomato salad, tomatoes in oil, and tomatoes with cucumbers. I didn't even know there could be so many ways to serve tomatoes. Ramada by Wyndham
After breakfast, we take the metro to Yenikapi station, change to another metro, and head to the Asian continent, to Suadyea station, where we've arranged to meet Ieva, a Latvian woman who has been living in Turkey for 25 years, is happily married, and is raising three wonderful children.
You will hear Ieva's life story and how she is doing here in an interview, in our series about Istanbul, on the "Ceļot bez robežām" (Travel Without Borders) YouTube channel.
Having met Ieva, she tells us that this area is a local Turkish neighborhood, where tourists rarely visit, and it is considered a residential area. This area differs from the center of Istanbul in that it has many more trees and greenery, and it has many new and fancy houses.
Ieva suggests we go to a beautiful garden where tulips and other beautiful shrubs and plants grow. There are no masses of tourists in this park, unlike in the more popular tulip parks in Istanbul.
After a few stops on the dolmuş (shared taxi), we get off, cross the road, and before us opens a beautiful, well-maintained, and very colorful park with tulips of various colors. A few locals walk their dogs in the park, there are mothers with children in the playground, there are some nature lovers taking pictures of flowers and bushes, just like we are, but mostly the park is empty.
After walking around the park and filming part of the interview, Ieva takes us further, to the promenade, where we slowly and unhurriedly head to a cafe for coffee and to continue our conversation. The promenade is beautifully landscaped with running tracks, cycling paths, and parks for athletes, new mothers, and anyone interested in doing yoga.
We get to the cafe, take a seat closer to the lawn so that the sea is visible behind us, and continue our interview. You definitely need to hear this, there will be many interesting insights and behind-the-scenes glimpses of life in Turkey. Evita Eidina had such a heartfelt conversation with Ieva that our interview will be long.
After the interview, Ieva accompanies us to the metro and we say goodbye. We then head towards Europe, but two stops before our Yenikapi, still on the Asian side, we get off and visit Ieva's husband's restaurant, Kanaat Lokantasi. This restaurant has been operating since 1933 and has been passed down from generation to generation. Ieva's husband tells us all about their restaurant and food, and with mouths watering, we are ready to enjoy lunch. Evita chooses lamb shank with rice, and I choose kebab and salad. Together we pay 45 EUR, but we have eaten very well and feel like we can do without dinner.
We take the metro again and head to the European continent, looking for the Grand Bazaar, as we have our own shopping list of what we want to buy there.
In short, without further comment, we didn't buy anything.... The prices are high, and for example, Turkish sweets cost 80 EUR per kilogram, while near our hotel, the same sweets cost 16 EUR. The same story applies to clothes; in shops outside the market, prices are lower than in the market.
Another important point about currency exchange. We exchanged 100 EUR at the airport and happily got 3200 Turkish Lira, but in the city center, we would have gotten 4300 Lira. Therefore, currency exchange only in the city center.
After the Grand Bazaar, we arrived back in our Taksim district by metro, having walked more than 25,000 steps, and collapsed into bed, staring at the ceiling without moving.
Big cities are exhausting, and if you're from Dobele, where on Sundays you can meet at most 3 people on the street, then overcrowded metros are a big stress for us. However, on the second day, we were already riding the metro as if we had lived here for a month.
Walking through Istanbul, the best coffee in the city, and crowded metros.
A competition with the prize of Istanbul's most delicious coffee.
Immediately after breakfast, we head to Taksim Square and then along the popular pedestrian street, Istiklal, where an old-fashioned tram also runs. There are many people here, both late at night and in the morning. Last night, we went out before midnight, and this street was crowded with people, all shopping and enjoying evening meals, both in kebab shops and local sweet shops. Louder music could also be heard from disco bars, where people slowly started gathering, and the real fun was said to be right after 1:00 AM.
This morning, walking along this street, there are many people, shops are open, and cafes invite people for breakfast. We found a small cafe that Chatgpt recommended as the place that makes the most delicious coffee in all of Istanbul. The cafe is called Mandabatmaz, which translates to "bulls don't sink". This cafe has been open since 1967 and has been delighting people with delicious coffee for two generations.
Time for a little competition.
You also have the chance to get this delicious coffee, and all you have to do is:
1. Like this post,
2. Tag someone who loves coffee in the comments,
3. And follow our IG profile "celotbezrobezam_tv" and YouTube channel "Ceļot bez robežām".
After drinking coffee, we cross the street and go up to the 8th floor, hoping to see Istanbul from the balcony of the 360 Degrees restaurant, but the restaurant isn't open that early yet, so we'll have to go in the evening.
There are many different shops on both sides of the street, including many clothing stores, so we don't move forward quickly, because Evita Eidina has to see every little shop!
The old tram passes by a couple of times and stops at the end of the street, so we even get to get on and take some pictures.
We choose to go down a narrower but very colorful, interesting street, rich in various art shops, the street name is Galip Dede. We walk down this street until we see the Galata Tower and want to climb this tower and see Istanbul from above, but...
But, firstly, there are so many people, everyone is queuing and it looks like it will take a long time, and secondly, to climb the tower, you have to pay 30 Eur per person.
We decide to leave the tower for another time and head towards the sea.
After walking through narrow streets, filled with various cafes and restaurants, we build up an appetite with fish wraps. Every now and then there's a small kiosk where small fish are grilled and put into wraps. It looks very tasty.
Having reached the sea, we find the first restaurant, with the option to sit on the balcony and look at the Bosphorus Strait. Finally, the moment has arrived and we order fish wraps. One wrap costs about 4 Eur. We rest our legs, have lunch and continue our journey. Our task is to get to the Asian side, to a restaurant owned by Ieva's husband, because yesterday I forgot a filming cable and I will need it very much throughout the rest of the trip.
We cross the bridge, where hundreds of people catch small fish and, probably, then sell them to restaurants. We enter the spice market and this was our mistake, the speed of movement is zero, we are stuck and cannot go forward or backward. I don't know if people come here to shop or just to walk around, but we hadn't been in such a crowd for a long time. After 30 minutes we were lucky, because there was a small side street where we could turn off and get away from the big crowd. There are still a lot of people here, but at least we can control our direction of movement.
So we go out onto a street where there is only electronics and everything related to phones and their chargers, then we get to a street where there is everything, from clothes to army boots. Then we reach the Grand Bazaar again, we successfully get out, I wanted to say almost successfully. Evita couldn't resist and bought perfume for 5 Eur. Coming out of the market, she opens the package, sprays it on her hand and the aroma from the nearby pastry shop is many times stronger. Evita took the perfume back and wished the new merchant a good day, not taking back her 5 Eur either.
Then we go to the metro, travel to the Asian side, find the restaurant where we had lunch yesterday, get our cable, eat Turkish sweets and get on the metro to go back to the hotel.
With the metro, it's very easy for us, we just pass our station, get off the metro, wait for the metro going back and again pass our stop. Here we already understand that it's not our fault and we wait for the next metro again, so to speak, take 3. We drive, we drive and the metro doesn't stop at our stop, I approach the emergency brake and show the person standing next to me that the brake needs to be pulled, because the metro has confused something, ignoring our stop for the 3rd time. It turns out that there are large protests against the government next to our stop and the whole area is blocked, so we go to the next stop and add another 1.5 km to our 35000 steps that we have already walked today. It's not much, if there weren't shops all along the street where Evita has to peek again...
But now we are at the hotel, in bed and resting our legs, because we have to go out in the evening and tomorrow is another full day in Istanbul, but in the evening the plane to....
A tour of Istanbul, we interview Inta, a future Istanbul guide, her husband can even sing in Latvian and we pack our bags to fly further.
This morning started with severe muscle pain in my legs, going to breakfast, it seems like this will be our only trip out of the bedroom. But since we want to film as much as possible and show our viewers, we gather ourselves and head out.
Today we have arranged to meet Inta, another Latvian woman who has been living in Turkey for 18 years.
The meeting is scheduled in Karakot district, Galataport, at 11:30 AM.
Having left the hotel before 9:00 AM, we can also manage to walk through the Cihangir district. We leisurely enjoy the peaceful and bohemian streets, drink freshly squeezed juices and smoothies in a cafe, film a few sentences and head off to meet Inta.
Inta arrives at the meeting with her husband, a Turk, and we are surprised at how well he speaks Latvian. It turns out that he not only can speak, but he also likes to sing in Latvian. Here you can hear some of his songs https://m.soundcloud.com/tolga-celtekligil/1-zemenes
We drink coffee, chat about various things and cross the canal, where we say goodbye to Inta's husband, but we, the three of us, get on the tram and go to the Balat district.
Here we enjoy colorful houses, beautiful and romantic streets, and eat lamb intestine casserole with bread, called Kokorec.
After walking around the district, we head towards the canal, where we find a spot on the grass and film an interview with Inta about life in Turkey. It turns out that Inta's passion is handicrafts and she crochets beautiful bags. Her Instagram profile here, https://www.instagram.com/intac_handknit...
You can see the full interview on our YouTube channel, "Ceļot bez robežām" (Traveling Without Borders).
We say goodbye to Inta, get on the tram, head towards our hotel, transfer to the funicular and get off in the Taksim district. We go to the hotel to pack our bags, wait for our next travel companions, Laine and Raivis, and head to the airport to fly to Dubai and then to Sri Lanka.
