How to Walk in Istanbul

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When walking in Istanbul, one must constantly look in all directions but up.

Looking Down: Downward observation will provide you with the necessary road/sidewalk/footpath information you will need to insure safe passage and ample ankle protection. Main roads in Istanbul are asphalt, but side roads are cobblestone, often with a broken-away asphalt covering. Pot holes and uneven surfaces are common. Sidewalks are uneven cobblestone, and frequently feature large unmarked trees growing in the middle of them. Curbs are high, serving as barriers against torrential rainwater, and to discourage sidewalk parking (see below). If you do not look down, you will soon fall down. However, one cannot only look down or one will walk into a tree.

Looking Left and Right: Lateral observation will lengthen your life. In Istanbul, all vehicles, including tricycles, have the right-of-way over pedestrians. Looking both ways will heighten your awareness of approaching vehicles. On busy streets, dodging between cars and buses to get to the other side is the norm. Do not expect cars to stop for you in a crosswalk: crosswalks are like targets and are completely ignored by all vehicles, including tricycles.

Looking Straight Ahead: Full frontal observation will keep you from walking into Istanbullus who instinctually know how to navigate the streets while side-talking to one another or operating a cell phone without bumping into one another. However, since we non-Turks lack this innate ability, they will bump into us, and then look at us as though we are retarded. We be tards not!

Due to the narrowness of the streets, Turks frequently choose to park on the sidewalks, half-on, half-off. This forces pedestrians to walk in the streets, which is not especially dangerous because the drivers expect to see people walking in the streets. (NOTE: I recommend walking in the street—the surface is flatter so one can occasionally glance upward—not recommended for newcomers, however.) Some streets discourage sidewalk parking by placing metal pylons at short intervals along the curb sides. Most are just menacing, black cylinders, but some are ornamental in design and give you something to appreciate while looking down. Full frontal observation will assist you in avoiding these toe stubbers and shin bashers.

Looking Up: This behavior will expose you as a tourist, thus making you vulnerable to hawkers and pick-pockets, as well as to the dangers of not having looked down, left, right or straight ahead. While dangerous, looking up in Istanbul is very enjoyable. There is much to see in this direction since houses, apartments and businesses are conjoined and rise steeply skyward. As in a tropical rain forest, there is much activity in the occupied canopy. (NOTE: When the urge to look up overwhelms you, find a bench and have a sit-look—it’s restful and doesn’t look touristy. Benches are usually available at bus stops.) Frequent sightings: drying laundry; rugs being shaken out; buckets being lowered to other apartments or to the street level where money is replaced with groceries; elderly onlookers; children waving; nesting birds; business advertisements; hair salons on the 9th floor; cafes on roof tops; and everywhere, satellite dishes pointing heavenward, making the buildings look like the rigid, rectangular tentacles of octopi frozen in prayer.

The Waters of Istanbul

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Istanbul is surrounded by water, yet it is not an island nor a peninsula. I think it may be an isthmus. I hope it’s an isthmus, because isthmus is such a cool word that one does not get to use often. To the north (on a map, up), lies the Black Sea, which is blue, but which contains a high degree of sulfur, giving it a distinctly blue hue whether seen from the sky, hills or shore. Sulfur or not, the Black Sea is blue. Fact.

To the south (down) is the Sea of Marmara, a word that seems to sigh “sea.” When one says “marmara” softly and slowly, one can almost hear the lapping of the waves on a warm, solitary beach. (Hint for Transcendental Meditators: Find a comfortable, isolated spot, close your eyes and murmur ‘marmara’ slowly in time with your breathing. Soon you will attain a level of such deeply serene boredom that you may actually want to get up and do something useful with your life).

Connecting these two seas is the official, certified, stamped and approved dividing line between Asia and Europe, called the Bosphorous. The word is Greek and means “breath.” It is a narrow, deep salt-water strait that features major shipping traffic, no tidal action and dangerous, unpredictable currents (the raisins are safe, however, after being washed). The reason there are no tides is because the Sea of Marmara is somnambulant and the Black Sea is blue. Fact.

Stuck between these aquatic attention-getters is the so-called “Golden Horn,” a deep, brackish river depository with a distinctly horn-like shape that splits the European side of Istanbul in two. I surmise that it was given its name either because the Europeans saw it as a metaphor for a trumpet used to call Christian Soldiers to attack the infidel, or the Turks saw it as a rhinoceros horn shoved up the Austrian empire’s eastern end.

The city has over 16,000,000 inhabitants, not counting the unofficial homeless persons nor the officially non-existent homosexuals. The reason for this remarkable fecundity is simple: no pubs. When not at work, the men stay home at night and make babies. Or they go fishing.

Every waterfront is moustached with a bristling fringe of fishing poles that from above looks like half of a giant, overturned centipede (take that Camus!) The poles are long—at least 12 feet—and telescoping so that they can be carried on a bus. The fishing tackle consists of several small baited hooks attached at intervals to a main line. The reels are large and the line high test, as though intended for handling heavy fish. The fishermen (this appears to be an exclusively male activity, although I have seen women sitting about) don’t appear to use weights, hence the need for long poles (apparently the Istanbullus who have been fishing these waters for centuries have yet to master the mechanics of casting.)

I have only seen maybe six fish caught, small silvery things that make a bait herring look large. In fact, the only containers I have seen for carrying home the day’s take are medium-sized buckets (again, they have to be bus-worthy). And now that I really think about it, these small fish must be the goal, otherwise people wouldn’t be fishing from bridges well above the water. “Why?” you ask, eyebrows arched like a cats in a spat (take that, Seuss!). “Why spend so much money and time to maybe catch a few tiny fish?” Answer: no pubs. Fact.

P.S. One final word: “Isthmus.” Yes!