When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.

Next morning we arrived in Trabzon, Turkey all tired due to heat in cabin. However it was pleasant  morning treated us with clear blue sky and sunny. We drove the car form deck to custom impound lot and stood in line for clearance and visa. After standing in line for almost an hour with very few people in line. Visa buying process took longer than expected. It was not due to incompetency of officers but slow computers. Visa cost us $25 and hour and half. Then we wasted yet more time –two hours- to buy car insurance. We followed this gentleman – never knew hit official duty as he was in casual attire of jeans and shirt-with 6 other car drivers in tow. I didn’t bargain or question for $100 fee for 15 days of insurance –as we were tired and hungry and longing for large cup of coffee.

We trudged back to the car and pointed it toward west and drove off from the port in busy town of Trabzon.

Happiness is a direction, not a place. First time in days we saw pleasant roads -Pure bliss. We loved it. Reached 120KM an hour for first time since we left Korea. It was beautiful coastal drive along black sea dotted with small villages. Ee relished that we were in western world. Beautiful roads, plenty of signs, Ami called it sign-galore. Now our life is organized, now we are in instructions driven world, where everything is done by rules and warning signs. We began to miss Russian driving, where you need driving skill and you are free to drive anywhere you may see fit and safe. We got in discussion over the real freedom – as far as driving is concern- if it is in West or Russia. In west we cannot function without instructions and signs While in Russia, use your common sense.

Along the highway we found a nice sport on beach and stopped for lunch- chicken shashlik with rice –which was just great. We intended to reach Istanbul by end of that day, but wasted hours at custom made it impossible. We were followed by our Russian doctor friend and his family van. At halfway in town called Samsun, we parted with them as they were heading south toward Syrian border. He insisted that we should go to Syria with him and he knows some top people and would get us Visa. We promised to meet again and parted, we now headed south toward Merzifon and then further west to Istanbul. We ended up in small village to spend a night. The hotel turned out to be in small village way off the main road. Here we bargained and got the room for $25 for spartan room.

Next day we drove through mountains and discussed about Ottoman Empire, Trojan war, current EU situation with Turkey and their struggle with secularism society which is now under criticism from rather large percentage of people. I have always wondered about these "empires", I have learned that most empire expanded mostly due to enlarge their market or find more new markets and goods. In current time we call this process "EU”. We also discussed about Mr. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk-father of Turkey who spearheaded transformation to secular society and European ways of life thus loosening Islamic way of life- a visionary leader. I would attribute Turkey stability and its economic progress to Mr. M.K. Ataturk.

The road is surrounded by farms, grazing herds, rolling hills and small hamlets. Villages were just beautiful dotted with mosques - almost three to four per town- and women with hijabs. Mosques are beautiful with bigger dome, surrounded by small domes and with single minaret. They all have single minarets and you can spot them from distance sticking out. They looked beautiful. Some of the mosques in larger cities are huge. We arrived in Istanbul around 4PM with anxiety of driving in Istanbul. I have read and heard about some bad driving in Istanbul. We had to cross the entire Istanbul to go to Sultanahmet district, where we wanted stay as its proximity to the places er wanted to visit: Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, Topkapi Palace and Grand bazaar. Sultanahmet is in old Istanbul eastern side of the Bosphorus River. Before we grappled we were already sucked in traffic and we knew we had to tough this out. Well it was hard. We drove like Turks-cutting off, nudging, honking, holding on to our spot and kept smiling. With Ami's navigation skill, we made it close to the area and began to look for a hotel. Most of them were full and some are only for package tours. We met this nice young guy who helped us to find a hotel right across Aya Sophia and Blue Mosque. We can see both of these structures from our window. 

Istanbul has the largest population in Turkey, more than Ankara almost 10 million. Three million more than London and they are all out in streets selling something. We were amazed by their selling skills. No wonder Turks are famous for their trade skills. Here is to some extent explanation of the Ottoman Empire expansion. Grand Bazaar is perfect example of this. What a place. No one walks out of this place without buying something. It's easy to get lost in labyrinth of arcades full of shops on both side massed from floor to ceiling, barely room for the shopkeeper himself. They sell anything to anyone. If they don't have it, his brother or one of the in-laws in other section has it. Carpets seem to be big sale here. Before you know you already have been invited into the shop and find yourself gazing at rolling out of the carpets. Any "no" from you will be converted in to "yes" until you have no more "nos" or "may be" left. It's a bargain hunters' heaven. We thoroughly enjoyed it and resisted all the temptation to buy the carpet. We got away without buying carpets by almost insulting them to reduce the price by 75%. They laughed and left us alone-labeling us cheap bastards. We loved the Turkish tea. Especially apple tea, it's refreshing –you get it free by just visiting any carpet shop.

There is no city like it. Much remains of ancient Constantinople, including churches, palaces, and the Hippodrome. All good ancient cities have rivers. Bosporus river divides Istanbul in two section-western and eastern.The Ottoman sultan Mehmet II constantly attacked the city and mighty western walls during Byzantine empire. No matter how heavily Mehmet's cannons battered them, the Byzantines rebuilt them by night and come daybreak, the young sultan would find himself back where he'd started. Finally he acquired a hugh canon from Hungarian cannon founder called Urban, who actually came to help Byzantine to protect Christendom from infidels, but no money and he ended up selling it to young sultan who then made a breakthrough and it was known as "fall of Constantinople”. As the Ottoman empire grew to encompass the middle east, north Africa, eastern Europe, Istanbul became a fabulous melting pot of nationalities. However, what was the most civilized city on earth in the time of Suleiman the magnificent eventually declined with ottoman empire and by 19^th century Istanbul had lost much of its glory. Nevertheless it continued to be the "Paris of east" and to reaffirm this, the first great international luxury express train the famous orient express connected Istanbul with Paris.

Aya Sofya: The Church of the Holy Wisdom, known as Hagia Sophia in Greek, and  Ayasofya in Turkish, is a former Byzantine church and former Ottoman mosque in Istanbul. Now a museum, Ayasofya is universally acknowledged as one of the great buildings of the world and an amazing place where two cultures remained side by side, thanks to the vision of Mustafa Kemal Artatuk. He converted this already converted structure into museum, thus avoiding as a full blown mosque. Unfortunately nothing remains of the original Ayasofya, which was built on this site in the fourth century by Constantine the Great. Constantine was the first Christian emperor and the founder of the city of Constantinople, which he called "the New Rome." The Ayasofya was one of several great churches he built in important cities throughout his empire. Following the destruction of Constantine's church, a second was built by his son Constantius and the emperor Theodosius the Great. This second church was burned down during the riots of 532, though fragments of it have been excavated and can be seen today. Ayasofya was rebuilt in her present form between 532 and 537 under the personal supervision of Emperor Justinian I. It is one of the greatest surviving examples of Byzantine architecture, rich with mosaics and marble pillars and coverings.In 1204 the Ayasofya was sacked and stripped down to the bare bones by the Crusaders, a desecration that robbed the church of precious relics and definitively divided the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Many of Ayasophia's riches can be seen today in the treasury of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. Despite this setback, Ayasofya remained a functioning church until 1453, when Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror entered triumphantly into the city of Constantinople. He was amazed at the beauty of the Ayasofya and decided to convert the cathedral into his imperial mosque. Ayasophia served as the principal mosque of Istanbul for almost 500 years. It became a model for many of the Ottoman mosques of Istanbul such as the Blue Mosque.When the Ayasofya was used as a place of worship, both for Christians and then for Muslims, the focus of the building was the east end, directly across from the entrance. This is because Christian churches are traditionally oriented towards the east, and Muslims always pray facing Mecca, which is east of Istanbul. Thus the bulk of interesting sights are clustered in this area of the Ayasofya's huge nave. Ami raised a interesting question about people who are already in east. My favorite spot is: mosaics are on the upper floor, in the galleries. The South Gallery, where the great mosaics are which were part of original church. The best-known mosaic is  as you enter the South Gallery through the marble door second floor. It depicts a triumphant and kingly Christ, flanked by the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. The mosaics are revealed through pain taking excavation work removing the thick paint covered by Sultan. One thing people can be grateful that they painted on top of mosaics rather than destroying and most of the church is still intact. On ground floor there hung huge wooden circular with Islamic texts on corners.

Blue Mosque: Idea borrowed from Ayasofya to rival the church, Sultan Ahmet I set out to build a monument to rival and even surpass the nearby Ayasofya in grandeur and beauty. The mosque was to be built on the site of the palace of the Byzantine emperors. To appreciate the mosque's design, we approached it via the Hippodrome rather than straight from Sultanahmet park. Once inside the courtyard, which is the same size as the mosque interior, you'll appreciate the building's perfect proportions. The mosque is such a popular attraction that admission is controlled to preserve its sacred atmosphere. Only worshippers are admitted through the main door, tourist must use the south door. As it is in use for worship, the mosque closes at prayer time. We were lucky to have good amount of time before it cleaned out of tourists in the afternoon. We just couldn’t help but sit on lush carpet and enjoy the grandeur of the mosque in every directions-including ceiling of domes by laying down. It was full of quietness and serenity despite flocks of tourists. I have always enjoyed calmness of Churches and mosques. This magnificent structure is nearly a square and covered with a dome of 77 feet in diameter and 140 feet high. There are four colossal standing columns of 16 feet diameter, which give the basic support to the building. Locals call them elephant feet. The mosque has 260 windows which let the sunlight diffuse into the building quite nicely. They were filled with stained-glass in early 17C. The pulpit and nave is worth seeing, made of marble and original. The Imam goes on the pulpit every Friday on the sacred day of the Muslims but he never climbs to the very top as a respect to Prophet Mohammed. Everybody should turn their face to the south when praying, because Mecca is located in South. The interior of the mosque is lined with more than 20,000 handmade ceramic blue tiles, hence it called Blue Mosque. We followed crowed of people hoping that they were all going to see the Topkapi Palace and got lost in this huge park behind Ayasofya and yet another tourist rescued us form going further and pointed us to right direction.

Topkapi Palace: Mehmet the Conqueror started the work shortly after the conquest in 1453. Subsequent sultans lived here till 19th century. Seeing the palace requires good day and it's divided in sections: Harem, treasury, kitchen, spoils of war collection, and wardrobe. It's a huge complex as it should be being a palace, but not as glamour as some palaces seen in India. The floor is stone paved and walls covered with tiles. At the height of its existence it housed 4000 people.

The palace is sectioned in: Imperial gate, Treasury, Harem, court yards, Kitchen, living quarters, school, mosques, and garden.One of the court yard which is full of war booties and gifts from India, China, Iran and Europe.

There is a Fountain of the Executioner where the executioner purportedly washed his hands and sword after a decapitation.

We overheard a tour guide describing Audience Chamber where viziers came here to present their individual reports to the sultan. Depending on their performance and reports, the sultan showed his pleasure by showering them with gifts and high offices, or in the worst case having them strangled by deaf-mute eunuchs. The chamber was thus a place that officials reporting to the sultan entered without knowing if they would leave it again alive.

We saw famous Topkapi dagger studded with three large emeralds, golden watch and diamonds which was subject of the film Topkapi.A jade bowl, shaped like a vessel, was a present of the Czar Nicholas II of Russia which brought the recent memory of our visit to death site of Romanovs in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

My favorite part was harem-home to the sultan’s mother, concubines, wives and children. Sultans were allowed themselves for having bunch of concubines- mostly beautiful women brought here from the countries they have won -at their disposal from which they can choose the queen. I guess because of this they produce successful heir for the empire. I really liked the idea.

The most impressive part was the rooms which were filled with Islamic promotional items. Here we saw an effort to establish Islam as main stream religion superior to others. They have respectfully admitted Moses, David and Jesus as the prophets but Mohammad is the most recent one. Why God needs yet another prophet is the question I and Ami discussed in great length. Did God really make a mistake with previous prophets?  We saw staff of Moses, David's sword, St. John the Baptist's relics- his skull and hand - kind of spooky. I still find it hard to believe that John the Baptists Hand is sitting in a room in Istanbul, and even less likely that after 2000 years it still looks so hand-like, with the remains of flesh on the bones. Perhaps this is a two fingered message to the Christians of the world?  I don't profess to be very knowledgeable on such things, but surely if his hand still exists, shouldn't it be baptizing some lucky souls somewhere?  Anyway, I apologize profoundly for my doubts if they are unfounded, but I certainly had my doubts again as we walked to toward Privy Chamber where one Special interest is the golden shrine that used to contain the cloak of the prophet Mohammed. Also amazed us were Mohammed's tooth, hair form His beard, autographed letter, swords of first four caliphs, and the turban of Joseph. His sword, stamp and other possession brought here from Mecca were impressive, brought us so close to the history and formed few subjects for our discussion later.

We enjoyed Turkey and would definitely come back to explore more. Tomorrow we drive to West to town called Ipsala which borders with Greece. This will complete our trip across whole Turkey from eastern port to most western part of the country.  We hope Turkey is allowed to join Europe thus avoiding Visa process. Turkey is a great country with full of history and amazing people. With that thought we sat down outside table under awning of the restaurant and ordered Turkish beer to quench the thrust due to miles of walking to and in palace.

Best Regards arun and ami

Coming soon Europe Journal