Day 7: İstanbul - The Hot Waiter

After staggering off the bus into a surprisingly hot İstanbul morning, I took the bus to the waterfront and caught the ferry across to the Asian side of the city. This is the first time I've been to the Asian side. The ferry was populated by every imaginable part of Turkish society. A man missing way too many teeth was walking around with a tray selling fresh orange juice, tea and cheese toasties.

The ferry dropped me off at Haydarpaşa statıon, which is where my train to Aleppo leaves from tomorrow morning at 08:55. Getting the ticket took some figuring out, but eventually the man at the international ticket counter passed it to me along with the news that my expected arrival time in Syria (14:00 on Monday) will actually be 19:00 on Tuesday. A 29 hour train ride just became a 58 hour one. Hooray.

I did some research that confirmed my suspicions. The first ferry to Haydarpaşa tomorrow morning is at 10:40, two hours after my train leaves. That means that I have to spend tonight on the Asian side, no great hardshıp except for the fact that all the hostels are on the European side. On this side there are only hotels chargıng 50 euros a night or more.

I went for a bit of a wander and, just as I was about to relent and get just any old room, found the perfect hotel for me. It's a total fleapit just up a side street from the waterfront. The receptionist was a teenage boy who was rehearsing his hip-hop lyrics to a backing track through headphones when I walked in. For 30 YTL a night (around 15 euros) I have a lovely single room that looks like a skid row flophouse from the 1930s. Part of the 30 YTL is an additional 5 YTL charge that I agreed to in order to have access to a shower. In my foolishly hopeful ignorance, I allowed myself to believe that the room would have an en-suite bathroom or, at the very worst, shared facilities. The truth turned out to be even funnier.

My room, number 103, is a regular little shitbox with a skinny, sad little single bed and a small TV propped up on a foldaway table. When Hip-Hop showed me my room, I asked him where the shower was. He pointed to room 101. Room 101 is en-suite. Since there is no-one staying there, I got the privilege of showering not in a shared hallway facility but actually in a different bedroom altogether. That was a first. When I asked him if I could have a shower immediately in order to wash off the ashtray funk of twelve hours on a smoking bus, he nodded, went downstairs and then came back up moments later to inform me that he had 'turned on the hot waiter'. Without wanting to seem as if I'm mocking him for his pronunciation, I have to admit that there was a moment there when I thought something very strange indeed was going on. While I was in the shower, I couldn't help having a puerile giggle about having the hot waiter all over my body. God I'm such a child sometimes. 'Sometimes?', I hear you cry. Ha ha ha.

Now that I've brought you up to date, I'm off to the Chillout Cengo Hostel to return the novel I flagrantly stole from them when I was last here a month ago with my beloved wife. When I return it I will also, in the style of Nasruddin, leave behind my guide book to Eastern Europe, showing conclusively that objects when borrowed often accrue interest in the process. Then it's off for a stroll around the city, a city that I enjoy more every time I come here. Hopefully I can rustle up a few rounds of crackgammon and some apple tea. If not, I'll be in my skid row hotel room, listening to the hot waiter moaning through the pipes.