A TURKISH DELIGHT - DAY 1 – 10 NOVEMBER 2021 – Chennai to Istanbul

I had requested my cousin, Abraham, to arrange facilitation at the Chennai airport. I found this necessary as I was not quite sure of the requirements for international travel mandated by the various governments. For travel to UAE, for instance, one has to report 6 hours before scheduled departure to do a Rapid Antigen Test at the airport. Long queues and chaotic conditions were reported in the media. I wanted to avoid any last minute hiccups. Despite all the preparation and checks I was stumped by a Qatar Airways official who asked if I had registered my travel in the appropriate health portal of the Turkish Government. Given the experience of filling up forms for travel in India I doubted if that requirement would delay my departure. Thanks to the officer who was facilitating the transit I was given assistance by one of the Qatar Airways officials and the form was filled in soon enough. This was neither mandated on the Qatar Airways site nor on the Turkish travel site. Such are the uncertainties of international travel these days. Anyway, this did not become a show stopper, mercifully.

Despite having reached the airport almost 4 hours ahead of the scheduled 0320 hours departure the check-in counters had long and serpentine queues. Again, magic happened thanks to the facilitation official. Baggage was checked in through to Istanbul. The Immigration queues were manageable because the check-in process was slow. The passport was stamped after the immigration official confirmed the purpose of my travel to Turkey and the duration of travel. I had a few hours to kill before the 0220 hours boarding, which I spent in the travel lounge having dinner and coffee.

I went to the passenger hold area at the appointed boarding time and was appalled to see passengers scrawled on the floor. Apparently three flights were to board within a short period and the flights seemed to have full occupancy. Not only did the premises give a scrawny and unkempt feel the toilets were badly maintained. At least adequate number of seats must be provided for passengers to sit, especially when the reporting time is 4 hours and more. Moreover, the international terminal and boarding area had no international feel to it and I felt that the domestic departure looked and felt better. I wondered if the airport authorities are waiting for the muck to be taken over by Adani or some other tycoon!

After a while it became apparent that the flight would be delayed. I became worried because I had a short connection window in Doha, just an hour and half. Even though the inbound flight from Doha landed just after 2 am the boarding started close to 3 am. Evidently, the processes were being managed by inexperienced staff. I had to counsel one of them about the announcements she was making to page a couple of passengers. Not only was she screeching on the mic but also butchering the pronunciation of the names, due to which she had to make multiple announcements before the passengers reported to the airline staff! Face shields were distributed to all the passengers before the flight and that led to a proliferation of litter all around. There weren’t many bins to hold the litter and people didn’t care were they tossed what they did not want. 

Finally, the flight was ready for take shortly before 4 am IST. The flight was full with most passengers transiting Doha to the US. I rested easy when the Captain announced that we would land in Doha before 5.30 am. I spent the time watching a movie, “War With Grandpa”, which made me miss my three grandchildren in Botswana. Purely by coincidence the Grandpa in the movie, reprised superbly by Robert De Niro, has three grandchildren in the same sequence as mine with the grandson wedged between two granddaughters. It is a very long time since I spent time with Eva, Aaron and Sophie. The flight landed in Doha before time and the transfer process was simple and painless. What struck me most was the totally non-intrusive security check and the speed at which the hand baggage was screened and cleared. In most Indian airports the CISF personal take forever and ever.

Once I cleared the transfer process I met up with Hetal, my travel partner, who had just then got in from Mumbai and had completed the transfer a few minutes before I did. The Duty Free did not interest us and hence, spent time waiting for boarding to be announced catching up on the travel experience thus far. The flight to Istanbul was bang on time and it was full. Shortly after take-off breakfast was served and I sought a glass of red wine to go with it. As luck would have it, after a couple of sips the plastic glass toppled and I had red wine all over me! Despite that I caught a forty winks ahead of ‘before time’ arrival in Istanbul was announced from the cockpit.

As we exited the aerobridge there was a lady with placards that had a few names on them. Our names figured on the placard and we wondered what that was for. Mercifully, it was only for verifying the Covid protocol documents and that was completed soon enough. There were adequate number of counters to handle the Immigration process and we were through that soon too. After using the toilets to freshen up – the drive to the hotel would be two hours, we were told – and exchange currency (1 USD=9.500 TL) we collected the bags from the carrousel. I had learnt that the airport shuttle bus service, called Havabus, is the cheapest way to get to the city. Just as we exited the gate there was a signage indicating the Havabus terminal. We walked to it and sought out the bus going to Taksim. The bags were handed over to be deposited in the luggage area and we took seats in the bus.

What amazed us as we drove out of the airport was the top class road infrastructure. Turkey has more than 70,000 kms of highways. The roads are lane defined, electronically tolled and superbly surfaced. As we neared the bigger centres the traffic snarls began. Eventually we reached Taksim, a busy and fashionable centre of Istanbul. As we exited the bus and collected our bags a couple of guys offered a taxi to the hotel at rates cheaper than what I found on the Uber App. We took one of them. As soon as we left the young driver stopped and rolled down his window where another guy joined him. The driver told me that I would have to pay him the 35 Turkish Lira up front. When I handed him a fifty bill he told me that the bills acceptable for taxis has to begin with the alphabet ‘I’! What I had with me did not have ‘I’ on them. He started to look into my wallet and even handled a few high denomination notes. Immediately one of the taxi scams I had read online came to mind. I put the money back into the wallet and we got out of the taxi in a hurry. I would have lost all my money then and there had it not been for the online research, presence of mind and the proximity of the Guardian Angel.

As soon as we had landed in Istanbul I had connected up with Derya, a travel agent who had arranged my hotel booking in Istanbul. She is a close friend and business associate of Rajiv Shah, Hetal’s husband. When I told her of my predicament she told me to hand over the phone to any local person I could find. That person told me to take a yellow cab from the opposite side of the road. In a short while we found a decent person who spoke to us politely on the way. It was only 10 km from Taksim to the Hotel Kupeli, but the traffic was so intense that we took in all over 75 minutes to the hotel, the last three km consuming more than 45 minutes. If we did not have the luggage we would have walked the last two km at least!

The hotel that Derya had booked us into was close to the famous attractions, at the heart of the Old City of Sultanahmet, the Ottoman city. After the bags were in the room and we had freshened up we met with Derya whose office was just next door. It was surprising to hear her speak Hindi so well. She had asked Hetal to get her ‘khakras’ from Surat, which she said is her favourite snack. She is in love with India and her knowledge of Indian food and her connect with Indians astounded me. I am sure that she has a previous birth connect with the Indian sub-continent! She took us on a short familiarisation walk and got us the IstanbulKart cards we could use on the public transport. The one card could be used on trams, metros, buses and ferries. The registration done on the Turkey health portal was required to activate the card. I was told that shopping malls also would require that document to gain entry.

Hetal and I were famished and expressed our desire to savour authentic Turkish food. Derya then took us to a restaurant that was just a stone’s throw away from the hotel. The popularity of the Ortaklar restaurant could be gauged from the fact that it is on four floors. Nothing fancy, though. What followed after we sat down to dinner was nothing short of a Turkish feast. When she was ordering we could make nothing out of it, but it felt as if it was a bit too much for the middle-aged! First came the Ezme salad and Pide bread with Sarma. Ezme salad is made from finely chopped tomatoes, seasonal vegetables, onions, etc which was to be had with the warm Pide bread. Sarma is boiled and chopped veggies with bulgar or white rice and rolled in grape leaves. While we were at it came the delicious Adana Kebab and Lahmacun, the Turkish pizza. Adana kebab is made from male lamb minced meat, red bell peppers and tail fat.

Lahmacun is a round, thin piece of dough topped with minced meat, minced vegetables and herbs flavoured with spices and baked. Mushroom casserole and cheese filled Pide bread for Hetal rounded up the evening feast. The funny part is that such a lot of the food and that did not feel heavy on the tummy. Derya surprised us with her statement that she very rarely has non-vegetarian food. She loves vegetarian fare and she and Hetal tucked into those dishes and I was left to feast on the non-vegetarian items.

Later, Derya took us to Grande, the cafe where we savoured the strong Turkish coffee and a heavenly portion of Kunafe, a Middle-Eastern sweet meat speciality. It had been a long day and it was more than time to rest the weary and aging limbs.