Friday, April 17, 2009

Exploring Istanbul: A trip to Eyüp

Because I had exams the following week, I decided not to go out of town. Instead, I thought the time would be better spent exploring Istanbul (as there are just so many places to see). On Saturday, March 28, Jess and I decided to go check out Eyüp, a section of town right towards the end of the Golden Horn. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect because I didn’t know much about the place. The only thing I knew was that there seemed to be a few neat things to see according to my trusty Istanbul guidebook (thanks Eric and Stanton!). We took the bus to Kabataş first because I needed to buy the metal part of my student akbil for it to work. I love the student akbil by the way! It makes transport around Istanbul incredibly cheap! My first bus, ferry, or metro ride only costs 0.85 Lira and each transfer (up to 5 within a 2 hour period) only costs 0.21 Lira. What an incredible deal!

So after getting my student card, we walk across the Golden Horn to Eminönü and take a bus to Eyüp. A guy told us exactly where to get off on the bus and we did and we were in the center of that area. We walked through some shops until we reached the Eyüp mosque (it is actually called something else, but the name escapes me at the moment). The Eyüp district is very different from other districts of Istanbul. They are much more traditional because Eyüp is the third holiest site in the Muslim world (which I did not know at the beginning of the day). We walked past the mosque and behind it were some graves. The graves look quite different here than they do in the other places. Instead of having a plain tombstone with just a name, these graves are quite different. The men’s graves have either a fez or a turban on top. The turban is if the person was buried before 1829 (the Turban was banned in this year by the Ottoman Empire) and if the grave has a fez, it was someone who died after 1829. The female graves featured flowers. The number of flowers indicated how many children she had. Additionally, all of the graves were written in Arabic script because Turkish actually utilized Arabic script until Ataturk reformed it after the War of Independence. Interestingly, Arabic script actually was not suitable for Turkish because there were some sounds in the Turkish language that could not be written in the Arabic script.

After seeing the graves, Jess and I went inside the mosque. Surprisingly, the guard told me it was okay to take pictures while the service was going on (see the Eyüp pictures) with the congregation listening to the imam. We then went across the way to a tomb (Eyüp is famous for its tombs) and entered. This tomb was the tomb of Ayyub al-Ansari (standard bearer and companion of the Prophet Muhammad). This particular tomb had been lost during the 600’s AD, but was rediscovered by Mehmet the Conqueror on his way to capturing Istanbul. The Ottomans believed it was a sign that they were destined to conquer Istanbul and built the huge tomb that we observed to house the smaller lost tomb. He was obviously someone important because his tomb was enclosed and people could not get closer than a certain distance. Furthermore, there were actually people praying in front of the tomb. There was also a guy handing out “gifts” to tourists. He asked me if I spoke English and asked me to wait. At first I thought it was some sort of security official and that I was going to get into trouble for something. He came back with a bag and said the word “gift.” I open it up and inside is a 60 or 70 page soft cover book and front says something along the lines of Muhammad the Great. The inside contains information in English about Muhammad and all of his deeds. I haven’t read it yet, but I certainly will! There is a small sticker on the bag that said, “If you are not going to take this back to your home country and put it on your coffee table, give it back now.” It was really funny. I guess it’s a gift with stipulations. Hmm…maybe these people are more closely related to Jews than I thought!

After we visited the tomb, Jess and I decided to climb to the top of the large hill in Eyüp in search of the Pierre Lotti Café. There was supposedly a furnikuler to the top of the hill, but we couldn’t find it so we decided to walk. The hill is a huge graveyard that actually looks like a miniature Arlington National Cemetery. There were rows upon rows of white graves. The reason there were so many graves here was because of the famous tomb in Eyüp. Everyone who could afford it wanted to be buried as close to it as possible because they thought it had some religious significance. The walk to the top took about 30 minutes and it was pretty tough (the hill was about as steep and as some of the hills in San Francisco and much taller). At the top we found our way to the Pierre Loti Café. Anyone who has enough time to visit Eyüp and this area should make sure they see this café. The café is on the top of the Eyüp hill at the end of the Golden Horn. You can see right down the body of water to all of the major landmarks in Eminönü, Karaköy and Sultanahmet. It was very pretty. Jess and I sat there and had çay and enjoyed the view. Jess actually introduced me to elma çay (hot apple tea) here. It tasted VERY similar to apple cider! I was so excited to find it! Istanbul had been cold and I had been looking for hot apple cider, but no one had it. Little did I know that it had been surrounding me the whole time!

After our tea we found the furnikuler (it went right to Pierre Loti Café) and we took the skylift down to the bottom of the hill. We decided that since it was a beautiful night and there were a lot of pretty parks along the Golden Horn that we would walk. After walking for a few minutes, we came across a carnival that was going on. We walked inside and got cotton candy (for only 1.5 Lira)! It was awesome. Then we kept walking and came across the Theodosian Walls. We decided to enter in the opening (which opened up to a nice park) and see where the path took us. It took us to the left and to the exist on the other side. On what would have been the inside of the walls in ancient times, there were stairs leading to the top. Jess and I climbed the stairs and stood on top of the city walls and looked around. It was neat to imagine what Constantinople would have looked like during those times.
When we walked back though the archway through the way we came, we noticed a building with a tomb inside. It was very much out of the way and not touristy, but we were curious. We noticed two guys going in and then asked if we could visit the tomb as well. It was similar to the tomb in Eyüp except that we were able to get much closer and really see the detail. It was covered in a green cloth and the turban at the top was wrapped in a towel, probably to preserve it. Two Turkish Muslims came over to greet us. He clasped my hand with both of his when he introduced himself. When I said “memnum oldum,” which is Turkish for nice to meet you, he said “Mash’allah,” which basically means “God has willed it.” In this instance he was referring to the fact that I responded in Turkish. By the way, he could speak absolutely no English. So we had a very short conversation in broken Turkish, but in his broken English he was able to tell us that this was the tomb of one of Muhammad’s milk brothers. Jess and I didn’t know what a milk brother was, but just assumed that he probably messed up some other word in English. Later, I came to find out that he was in fact correctly translating it and that milk brothers are two men who were breast fed from the same woman. In Muslim culture, it has a high place, making the two individuals like brothers. So this tomb, which was far out of the way and probably had very few tourists visit it (we stumbled upon it by accident) is a very religious place. The Turkish guys were so nice to me that I am not sure if they thought I was Muslim. With my beard and the way I look, I have been told that I do look a bit Muslim…so its possible. After our brief conversation, the Turkish men offered Jess and I some lokum (Turkish delight). We each had one piece and refused their offers for more. It was overall a very warm and friendly interaction; Jess and I were very happy afterward.

We decided to get on the bus towards Eminönü to get something to eat. We walked across the bridge and stopped (after much persuasion from the Turkish guy outside) at one of the restaurants. He told us that we should sit down and have çay with him. Of course we got suckered into staying, but he was a nice guy. Jess wanted to get a “Balik Ekmek” (fish sandwich) because it was the cheapest item on the menu. The waiter refused to let her and told her that he would take care of her. I ordered a fish plate for 8 Lira (included salad, bread, and a couple of potato wedges). When Jess got her order, he basically gave her half of what I got and for half the price. It was certainly much classier of than the fish sandwich on the menu. Better yet, it wasn’t even on the menu, so he really took care of her. After we started eating, I remarked to Jess that I wished that they had given me more potato wedges/french fries. Not more than five minutes after I said that (and the waiter was not in earshot of me) he comes out with an order of fries and tells us that they are on the house. AMAZING! So we finished dinner and walked across the bridge and took the bus to Beşkitaş where we met Ohad and his friend for a party he was hosting. The party itself was not all that exciting and we left at 11:30pm, getting home around midnight.

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