Easterbul

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter I'm almost a week late. My excuse could be that I've just come back from nine days in and around Istanbul. Turkey being a Muslim country, Easter isn't celebrated. The excuse would be extremely poor, of course, since I went down there because of Easter in the first place. The UK frames Easter weekend with two public holidays, and Imperial was so kind as to add two more. Here are a few first impressions from the trip.

This was my second time in Istanbul, and of course I was comparing. Curiously, what I expected to change – the first impression, construction, new buildings – hasn't. The city looked and felt the same. On the other hand what I didn't – the tourist-trapping crookedness of Turks in and around restaurants and shops – has. The situation has improved a lot, and it is much easier and more pleasant to walk around Sultanahmet or Istiklal, the two places where tourists tend to congregate, without being constantly barraged by people dragging you into a restaurant or dingy club or hawking their wares in you face. Unfortunately, that didn't keep me from getting screwed badly on one occasion.

Hagia Sophia is still mind-bendingly beautiful. I remember it as the most amazing building I have ever beheld and been awed by and came filled with glowing memories that I was eager to relive. We got in, and I was disappointed for a few moments. The thing looks kind of run down, with paint coming off and walls crumbling here and there. While I was still trying to come to terms with that, the cathedral started to work its magic. The longer I looked at the beautiful decoration, the stained-glass windows, the warm colors of the walls that are tickled to glow golden by the sun coming in from everywhere; the longer I stood there staring at the dome hovering, as it has for close to 1500 years, 180 feet above the ground; the longer the sounds of hundreds of visitors were melting into one ancient hum, the more I was enthralled. Dazzle was being thrown at me from all sides and I just stood there, mouth agape, stupefied, speechless, soaking it up. When the guards made their rounds with their brooms, sweeping those out that had lingered too long, I was still there, not willing to leave this magnificent place.

Istanbul has two covered markets with long tradition. Is it heresy to say that the famous Grand Bazaar is not all that it's made up to be? Sure, it's impressive by its sheer size, and you can find close to anything, but it's dominated by well-organized gold and lamps shops and lacks bustle and Oriental flair. It gets busier outside where the market continues, unofficially and uncovered, and if you think about it you must admit that the entire city is really one big bazaar. I really love the other historic market place, though. At the Egyptian Bazaar, dense throngs of locals and tourists mingle to buy spices, Turkish Delight, dates, cheese, tea, olives, dried fruits, and a thousand and one other delicacies. Just outside is Mehmet Efendi's shop. The aromatic smell of freshly roasted beans draws a long line of patient customers eager to buy what is reported to be the best Turkish coffee. I'll find out just how good it is once I've bought my own cezve.

I took this holiday with a Jordanian friend of mine who got mosqued out rather quickly. So instead of doing the tourist in Istanbul, we decided to go to Bursa, the capital of the Ottoman empire before Mehmet II took Constantinople in 1453. It was also the end of the Silk Road from China and is still famous for its silk production. There were more mosques, and my friend had to suffer through my never-ending questions about calligraphy and "what does this squiggle mean?" and the like, but we also saw fine wooden Ottoman houses, peaceful burial sites for the sultans, the bazaar and the silk market.

The silk market deserves its own paragraph just because silk scarves are so cheap and so ubiquitous. You can buy them in Camden Town as well as in any high-street store. They are shiny and somewhat soft to the touch. Big deal. Well, the silk market in Bursa sells the real stuff. Infinitely light, transparent in places and incredibly thin in others, adorned by fine traditional patterns, the merchandise here was something else altogether. Mom will be very happy once she puts her hand on what I got her.

There are a ton more things to tell but I don't have the time now and can't organize my thoughts, especially after a flight where a two-months old baby, screaming mercilessly, sat in the chair diagonally behind me. His piercing and untiring organ was a foot and a half from my left ear deafening me to any other sounds in the world, blinding me to the book I tried to ready and finally feeding my head with fantasies about human sirens being fed to voracious aircraft jet engines. I'm ready for a vacation now – and envying my friend who went down to the antique Antioch near the Syrian border for another two days. I'll be back at work tomorrow.