Turkish Delight

(Picture not available on account of it costing 4YTL to upload! So imagine a very big mosque with lots of minarets and an old guy sitting knitting near the entrance.)

When it comes to eye candy, Tal of Tel Aviv still has to be the current prize winner. An extremely handsome young man, Tal had the dubious fortune of meeting me at the airport when I flew to Israel on a press junket many years ago, and ushering me into a taxi before I could get lost or blown up. So gorgeous was he that despite my hair swishing and eyelash batting, his presence made me feel as though I were the ugliest, smelliest creature to get off a plane.

Don't get me wrong, I am far from interested in sampling the local produce these days. But a handsome man always makes travel a bit more interesting, even if they just enhance the view a little bit. So as I like my eye candy to be tall, dark and with a bit of a welcome mat in the chest area, I wondered if my airport greeter in Istanbul would match up to Tal. But sadly it was not to be. Instead, I was met by a young man who looked as if he were still slowly emerging from puberty, and used margarine to style his hair.

"Welcome," he told my breasts. I thought I had put those away, but as I ventured into Istanbul it seemed not.

Margarine man was soon replaced with a driver; a sweet chap with a shy grin who took on the look of a maniacal six-year-old as he screeched around the corner of the airport car park to pick up his fares.

Arriving in Istanbul at night leaves little to be desired. Driving in from the airport, the city looks like so many other places except for the large Turkish flags fluttering gracefully in the wind, reminding you where you are. And so I decided to write off the first night, find some food and relax for the evening.

I'd booked into Hostel Bahaus, a tiny backpackers' favourite near to the Blue Mosque, where I was shown my functional dorm bed, the free internet (so why am I paying for an internet cafe now? Duh!) and the bar upstairs. My host, a dude with long hair whose name I shamefully forget, introduced me to the kebab cook and gave me the grand tour. Already upstairs a dozen or so backpackers sat chatting companionably so Dude turned the music up loud. "People can't talk over music," he explained to me later. "But this is a bar!" he complained. Dude also showed me where breakfast would be held the following morning, and the places where the roof had leaked the day before, before unsuccessfully trying to close a window with sticky tape. It was then that I noticed the large metal pots hanging from beams on the roof. At first I thought they were for decoration, but soon realised that they were there to stop the guests being dripped on.

After settling myself in to the dorm I headed back to the bar. There a young Turkish man looked at me as though I were the sexiest creature to sashay into the room since time began. "Helloo!" he smiled at me. "What's your name? Where are you from?" And yet my gaydar was going off like crazy.

T (I shan't name him) was busy flirting with all of the women, playing with their hair and trying (unsuccessfully) to hand-feed me nuts. As a dear friend once told me, apparently I can have an air of f*** off about me; and sometimes I think it just helps, especially when one doesn't wish to be hand-fed nuts by a pest.

But it was still a pleasant evening. I ate kebabs and drank vodka and cherry juice while chatting to Yoel, a Finnish chap who claimed he has never vomited on the streets of Tallinn, and who giggled sweetly when telling me of the time he sampled the beer in Belgium.

But after a long day of travel I soon heard bed calling; climbed into my top bunk, wondered what on earth the piece of wood hinged to the wall was for (I don't think I will ever find out), and fell asleep.

And so ended night 1.