Istanbul

IST security makes one’s head spin. Once you step in the front doors your luggage is xrayed. Before you check in at the business counter there is a security check. Passport control is next followed by “regular” security check. Then at the gate, another security check. I guess once you have been bombed, there is no going back to simpler times.  The lounge here was a disappointment - now there is a first world complaint if ever there was one! I miss simple salads and green veggies.

This part of the trip didn’t quite turn out as expected but not to worry - its definitely a city worth returning to. Friday i crashed and burned when i arrived at my guest house in Sultanamet only steps away from Topkapi/Hagia Sophia/blue mosque. I got up mid-afternoon poked around the neighbourhood, despaired at the  lineups, had a bite and was ready to call it day again. Definitely too old for these overnight flights - i didn’t plan it that way but air canada cancelled my morning flight from Abi Dhabi and put me on a flight at the ungodly hour of 2am.

Saturday was a full day! I made my way across the Galata bridge to meet up with my food tour group. Compared the UAE Istanbul is teeming with life, history, cats & dogs. Galata bridge is a destination in itself - the lower reaches are full of restaurants and the upper, fisherfolk (mostly men,) and cats!

My tour group consisted of a family of four from California, dad was born and raised in Toronto, wine expert, Anita from france (american born) and Sean from the UK. We started out on the european side snacking along the way and exploring serious backstreets where the buildings were layer byzantine under roman under ottoman masonry and stone. Guide Zadir was a delight - it seemed like he knew everybody. In the european Karakoy neighbourhood we poked our heads in cafes, workshops, a pottery studio, delis, interior design studio, Istanbul’s 1st baklava shop and the list goes on…and that was just the european side. 

After lunch we took the ferry over to the Asian side Kadikoy - this is more residential and less touristy. Here we sampled pide, lacmancun, some fantastic fish, and went to some food stand that Anthony Bourdain made famous. (I did not care for bread or the meat - the heat killed the meat flavour and the bread had a plastic texture.) It was a nice day so the streets were packed with locals doing their shopping. Kadir had us tasting hot snacks, sweet snacks, nuts, pickle juice(!) and the finished off the day with Turkish Delight (bears NO resemblance to the cringe-worthy chocolate bar of my childhood!  

What a fantastic day…it stretched out such that i was too late getting back for the last hagia sophia admissionof the day.

A curious thing happened on the way back to my guest house. I was just turning off the street with the streetcars when one came down the hill just as a cat decided to cross the road. All at the same time the streetcar blared its horn, a young muslim women ran out in front of the streetcar to grab the cat and missed, all the traffic came to a dead stop and another two people came the cat’s rescue. The cat was “herded” to the sidewalk where is was set upon by about a dozen people who comforted the kitty after its harrowing experience - the streetcar driver only proceeded when he could see the kitty was out of harms way. I can categorize this under “things I’ll never see anywhere else.”

Cats and dogs here are mostly “strays” in the sense that no one person owns them but are in fact cared for by the city and citizens at large. The city has a neuter program for the animals and chips the dogs. Random people will bring stray animals in to a vet if they need care and vets will charge next to nothing if anything at all. Amazingly, I saw less poop on the sidewalks than I do at home. I find this care incredibly sweeeet - if only we could do that people.

Morning came and I was faced with bus loads of people in the line up for  the reason I came to Istanbul. I gave up but with no regrets. In 2020 Hagia Sophia reverted from a free public museum back to its second purpose as a mosque - muslims can access the prayer or main floor, for free. Non-muslims now have access limited to the second floor galleries at a cost of 25 EUR or skip the line for 50 EUR. I suppose I could convert - French commandos did so PDQ in 1979 when the Grand Mosque in Mecca was under siege…but i would probably burn in hell(s!)

In any case it’s a problem for another trip now - I’m heading home now on Turkish airways with an 12,000 year old bun and another amenity kit, looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.

It has been a blast and a half!

UAE

Dubai

After a 1am arrival I crashed at an airport hotel for a couple hours before heading to al qudra cycle track located in the desert south east of Dubai. I discovered this track through my covid online spin classes - our instructor put together music with world cycling vids for the classes and this location popped up a few times - couldn’t resist checking it out even though I just spent 3 weeks cycling through deserts!

What a fantastic facility - no cars, no electric rec vehicles and no pedestrians. Nothing but bikes! The paved track is a 2 generous lanes wide leaving ample room for riding 2 abreast in each lane. It’s mostly flat with some undulating stretches, the pavement is pristine - no washboards, no sand, no gravel. Mini street sweepers keep it all clean.

At the start point trek cycles has a big shop that rents bikes, there are also lockers, showers, a gas station, food trucks and a 24/7 convenience shop. The trek folks even swapped out my saddle for me - no need for my compression post with no bumps! After circumnavigating the perimeter I clocked just over 80 km. And only crossed paths with a dozen riders or so. When I got back to the start I found that my Uber driver was still there waiting - he had a Tesla and was recharging on “standard” which takes 4 hours. I’m sure he found it quite odd that a solo lady my age got up at 4:30 a to go cycling in the desert in my now grungy cycling duds!

I got a late checkout and grabbed a couple hours sleep before heading to my food tour - I chose this particular tour because it included a ride to the top of the Burj Kalifa tower, soon to be the second tallest tower in the world. Mostly I am unimpressed which with these ultra tall buildings, the building of which is an eternal pissing contest - but this one at least, has an attractive profile. 

As it turned out I was the only person on this tour that was billed as “often sells out.” 

I had a great time! My guide Amr hails from Egypt and also works as a professional scuba diver. He didn’t have anything to eat himself as he has to loose weight for an upcoming confined space cave dive. His dive master mandated a target weight for him and each of the crew or they can’t go (or fit!) He and  team of 14 others are producing videos for PADI and they are headed to Sydney in a few weeks. 

We met in the Armani hotel lobby in the Burj and headed up to level 122 where I got a perfect margarita + some artful canapes. 

I have to say the views were underwhelming when so high - the most interesting aspect was the rocket like elevator ride. 

On a lower floor in the Burj, silky hummus + crispy pita with a creamy cheesy dip, a dry saffron curried chicken and a much needed watermelon juice. 

The views were more interesting once the people on the ground stopped looking like specks. We were just above the plaza and pools where the fountain shows take place. Next it was on to the Dubai Mall where every big designer label has a jumbo store. 

The place is massive. I would still be there now if not for the guide. It was full of shiny sparkly expensive things that hold no interest for me but this fountain caught my eye. It’s an ode to the humble pearl divers of days gone by.

Typically the idea of mall food makes my skin crawl but this  place had quality eateries - next stop featured Michelin recommended Black Pepper Beef Xiaolongbao - delicate flavour with a nice lingering pepperiness.

We took a spin round the lagoon to watch the water show - very las vegas - and finished up at our desert place.

I didn’t write the name down but it was light puff pastries with an intoxicating dip of honey, date and walnut. This was accompanied by traditional Emirati coffee which is light bodied and saffron laced.

Amr had some interesting things to say about Emiratis - the population  of the UAE is 13 million but the Emirati population is only one million. If you marry an outsider, you become an outsider. It sounds very much like 1 million live in a luxurious welfare state. All businesses in the UAE must be 51% Emirati. So every Zara, every Starbucks every Hermes has to be funded and operated by the foreigner investor. The silent Emirati partner invests nothing, risks nothing, does nothing and collects 51% of profits. Nice way to look after your subjects!

The UAE is relatively safe. A good chunk of the country is monitored with video cams as a deterrent to crime. Traffic violations are ticketed by camera and there is no appeal process. Living in Toronto I find the traffic cam fines very appealing! 

Here you can’t criticize the royal families, the government or anyone’s religion. The latter I think is an excellent idea. The royal families push for religious harmony and mutual respect - one of the buildings in the design district in Abu Dhabi is the Abrahamic House which houses a Christian church, a mosque and a synagogue all under the same roof.

I grabbed my desert and headed back to the hotel for a taxi transfer to Abu Dhabi - my luggage is too ungainly now to tackle the shuttle/metro.

Abu Dhabi

My plans to go to the Falcon Hospital did not come to fruition - I wasn’t too bummed out as it gave me more time to rest up after losing a night’s sleep. Managed to grab the free shuttle into the City and got a little tour enroute to my destination: the Louvre Abu Dhabi. As everywhere in the emirates, it is very car oriented - traffic is not nearly as bad as Dubai though. Unlike North America the roads are spotless and flower lined - the only close rival for cleanliness that I know of is Singapore.

We stopped here and one of the passengers got off on said, “Is this the Grand Mosque?” (Is the pope catholic?)

Jean Nouvel’s Louvre is a lovely gallery although the experience is a bit too controlled for my liking. There are all these enticing exterior spaces that are not easily accessible - minor complaint though. The museum was conceived as an abstraction of a traditional village with a shade canopy over. The design does not upstage the art unlike other starchitected museums and galleries.

There are 2 levels of galleries with the 3rd level being an open air plaza under the screened dome. You can access cafes, restaurants and the visiting galleries at this level. It is a lovely breezy space with constantly changing light. Today there seemed to be a lot of Russians dressed to the nines taking selfies (and groupies!)

The exhibits are nicely curated - more in keeping with Japanese galleries: smallish selection, comprehensive and with lots of space around.  

There was one oddball gallery with masks and effigies from Papua New Guinea along with some Cezanne and Mondrian paintings that didn’t quite make sense.

Some very slick display case design - especially the suspended coins. 

I loved the mummy bandage with inscriptions from the book of the dead:

This is the only Louvre satellite outside of France. France did not want to franchise but apparently the Emirati’s paid $525 million USD for 30 years use of the name only. They paid another $747 million USD for lending rights to select Louvre pieces. Guess everyone has their price…also explains the inordinate number of security guards - some of the antiquities has a dedicated guard for the piece as well as another gallery guard and none of them is a slacker.

I was enjoying a selection of dim sum items in the cafe when I saw a tangled mess of frank gehry crap in the distance. It will eventually be the largest Guggenheim museum in the world. Good thing it’s being built in the desert as Gehry’s buildings are notoriously leaky.

This whole area, al Saadiyat island, is being developed as a cultural area with all the starchitects contributing. Foster, Gehry, Hadid (or at least her studio,) Nouvel, Tadao Ando…everything is so new and so sanitized it feels like Disneyland…and here’s the thing -  all the culture is being imported. This was a nomadic berber society until very recently so art and artifacts authentic to the area are few and far between. I remember one of my clients remarking on this issue with respect to the Saudi’s - they have a huge magnificent national museum but not much Saudi inside. The conundrum of new oil money.

Just enough time left in the day for a nap before my 2am flight to Istanbul.

The Abu Dhabi airport is a bit odd . It’s brand spanking new but the design makes it look very 70’s - especially the beige. The architect is a NYC firm that we’ve worked with before - I was a bit surprised as it’s a little off base for them.  Inspired by sand dunes, my first impression was “lady shaver” and my second impression was “lady parts.”

Still, it was peaceful for an airport (as mandated) and very well run.

I am glad i came but don’t ever see myself ever coming back. I found a great hollowness in the massive developments, the massive highway system, car culture and unsustainable consumerism…but that’s just me being judgy…and having said that, I may have just broken a law…