Just arrived, got 5 full days here before I go to izmir. I'll spend one day seeing the mosques and the bazaar obviously, but other than that what can I do that is actually authentic and has SOVL(TM)? I've walked around for an hour and I'm already sick of seeing white boomers and overpriced restaurants.
P.s. Turkish men really are unfortunate creatures, the roach memes weren't lying.
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 It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
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Dude Turkish people are subhuman and are going to try to scam the frick out of you everywhere you go. I wouldn't really recommend walking around the non-tourist areas by yourself, there's nothing to see. Turkey is all the same shops and restaurants on repeat, most of the locals don't speak any language besides Turkish at all. At best people will ignore you.
yeah cab driver already tried to charge me 300 lira for a ride we explicitly agreed beforehand would be 100, still a rip off but i couldn't be bothered arguing after the long flight. get in the cab, tell him to stop, he starts yelling about 300 and scrunching up the 100 note i gave to him and throwing it at me etc, eventually i just opened the door and he told me to go frick myself. to be expected i guess.
Kek in the future, make them run the meter so they can't frick with you. I had a similar experience in Alanya where the guy charged me 100 lira for a 20 lira trip but I didn't give a frick because I wanted to get to my hotel. They literally make their living exploiting tired westerners like us.
Not sure why he agreed to 100 lyra. Their economy is absolutely fricked. The cost of living has nearly tripled in most parts of the nation. Gas is insanely high for them and pay is low.
Not to defend the absolute pieces of shit most turkish men are, but they kinda have to make their living that way. If you don't graduate top of your class from the best university, you're pretty much guaranteed to live in poverty. You can't just start your own lawn mowing business like in the US and live comfortably. It's 6 day work weeks to make what would come out to $3 an hour in comparison to the US economy. You and I would be ripping off tourists too.
>Not sure why he agreed to 100 lyra.
Because the entire point is to get you in the car and then start haggling when he's got you in a weaker position.
I had the same happen, it was pouring rain and no one could help me find the right bus, and a cabdriver offered a reasonable price to go to Istanbul. Then the very moment he got on the freeway he started babbling a stream of turkish into his phone which translated to me in english the hundred different reasons why I had to pay half more, double, triple, road tax, bridge tax, tunnel tax, so much traffic etc and all manner of lies. First he offered me wifi, but everything about taxes and so on I read up before and told him he was wrong and found turkish government sites on my phone so he turned the wifi hotspot off. It was absolutely laughable, but I was riding with my mom and she buckled and gave him 200 lira more than first agreed.
Anyway, there's Uber to and from the airport, so just use that. Again the cabbies will lie and say it is illegal but that is not the case.
Hahahaah yeah exactly the same thing with google translate with me, he just started yelling into his phone and showing me the English text even though we were speaking perfect English together 15 minutes ago.
>Uber
>Turkey
The taxi drivers have literally beat the shit out of and killed Uber drivers. It's basically nonexistent at this point.
I tried it with zero success. My girlfriend (Who's Turkish and lived in Ankara most of her life) told me they basically shut it down because of how many people were killed by taxi drivers. They are the scum of Turkey tbh.
There is Uber, but only the taxi drivers serv in it. Still, it's a better option instead of jumping to a rando taxi
You care more about authenticity and being a real traveler tm than actually travelling, learning history and looking at art. Only simple minds call visiting the great churches of Constantinople "touristy"
There is a crapload of beautiful and worthwhile things to see in Istanbul. I have heard the Chora church is being renovated? If it’s open again or still it’s definitely worth checking out if for nothing but the Byzantine mosaics. I also had a great time just bumming around the Cihangir neighborhood, just off Taksim Square—lots of really good cafes and bars, a few excellent restaurants, more than one really good Turkish-French bakery, healthy population of Turkish hipsters.
A lot of people recommend bumming around some of the more suburban neighborhoods on the Asian side—grab a ferry to Kadıköy.
The Princes Islands are a bit tourist trappish but have a lot of charm.
And a Bosporus cruise can show you a lot of cool things, although yes, it is mostly a tourist activity… there are also locals on board, and you could get off somewhere like Kanlica and have a wander.
We get it. You don’t like cities. It’s very original and forward-thinking of you.
But Istanbul was at the heart of three global empires, one of the most important spots on the planet for centuries. If you see nothing of value there, there are plenty of other non-urban places you can visit. But you can hardly be surprised that other people might be into it.
You can’t even make the traditional anti-city argument of “all cities are the same” realistically about Istanbul—it’s unique if only because it straddles the Eurasian divide (but actually for many more reasons than that). I’ve been to a lot of big, nondescript concrete shitholes that might match the urban-hater’s prejudices, but Istanbul isn’t one of them by a long shot.
>overpriced restaurants.
Eat at lokantasi, preferably away from the old center.
>5 full days
You have time to go to Cappadocia
Yeah I'll definitely go there too, looks really out of the way though and doesn't really fit nicely into my itinerary of İzmir, Pamukkale, Antalya, and mount nemrut
>mount nemrut
That is quite the jump. I'd do Izmir, Pamukkale, Lycia into Antalya and go home from there, unless you have 2 weeks to do the entire route, and in that case Cappadocia is halfway between Pamukkale and Nemrut.
I'm going to double down on what
said. I imagine when they said Lycia they mean Olympos, about an hour outside of Antalya. I stayed in the bungalows (Koala Bungalows if you're wondering which exact one, cheap, comfy, amazing breakfast.) You hike a few miles through the mountains, which is gorgeous, with plenty of rest stops along the way. Eventually you hike through the ancient capital of Lycia, and then a bit more through the woods and you get to an awesome beach where the Caretta turtles lay their eggs. Absolutely beautiful and probably my favorite part of my tour of Turkey. Also, while in Antalya, try the Adana kebab at Sultanyar. I had some friends that were from Adana and said it was as good as any you'd get in Adana.
I lived in Turkey for 6 months last year (mostly in Ankara) if you've got any questions.
Go to the Ciragan Hotel and have a Turkish breakfast there. If you're a baller you can stay at the $30,000 a night Sultan suite, but even just having breakfast there is nice.
Head down to Gallipoli and wander the WW1 battlefields. Should be pretty quiet there at the moment and it's a nice day out.
Bang some Turkish pussy
Restore the Hagia Sophia into a church and rename the city Constantinople
Just had the time of my life in Istanbul, brother. Check in to a hostel. Say whattup to the homies at Chillout Lya. The nightlife on Taksim Square is out of this world. Ill tell you where to go to a club if you have the balls. After I went there last, some jealous Turks put up some vandalism telling tourists to frick off. If you're pasty white like me, they envy you and it will show. But get in a fight, it's part of the Istanbul experience
here's some proof
You’re full of shite. There are only two cats in that photo, so that is obviously not Istanbul.
That shirt and haircut are not doing you any favors, brother. Pro tip: Wear blue jeans and basic t shirts. Flat black v neck that actually fits you properly. Get some hair growth laser surgery while you're in turkey, it's cheap as frick and actually good. Then get a haircut. Now bam you're not going to get instantly denied by any woman you ever meet.
>Walks on your path.
There's nothing wrong with "touristy" stuff, it's quite often the best a nation has to offer
I recommend you to go to Antalya. The tourist season is over and it is calmer at this time of year. And in general it is a better city to relax and enjoy your time.