Cycling on the sly

We're overwhelmed with joy; it's great to be in Istanbul. Our hotel is in the quarter Sultanahmet at a walking distance from the historical towncentre. Despite the tiredness caused by the cycling our bed doesn't tempt us at all. We've already been out twice to gaze upon the sights. Finally we're in bed, dead-tired, when the town pulls us out again.
"This is the last time," I say, "I think it's beautiful, but I'm very tired by now."
"Okay," Peter says, "we're just going to taste the atmosphere and then quickly back to bed."
"I think that's very dangerous, that atmosphere is far too sweet, I bet we're not able to just taste and not eat."
"Good, we won't taste, just walk around a little bit."
Ten minutes later we walk in the park between the Aya Sophia and the Blue Mosque, we stand still in front of a terrace where a whirling derwish performs.
"I accidently tasted," I confess with a guilty face, "And now I want to stay here a little while."
Relieved Peter looks at me. "I didn't want to admit it, but I already ate three great bites. Come, let's sit down here."

In the Grand Bazar and the Egyptian Bazar our eyes are as big as saucers. Gold shines everywhere, there are thousands of stalls with nuts, fruit, cheese, Turkish delight, sponges, waterpipes, spices, herbs, tapestry, ceramic, textile, boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl, praying-beads and original plastic rubbish. The salesmen only pay attention to the western people that stroll around.
"Hey, my friend, how are you? Come here, drink tea with me. What's your name? Where are you from? I want to talk to you."
Being cyclists is fairly easy in these circumstances. We cannot take anything with us, so we can't buy anything. The difficult part is that the salesmen can't see that we're cyclists when we're strolling through the town. When we tell them, they think we might as well buy something anyhow. Even if it's something small. Some salesmen are very direct and honest in their sales-tactics: "Hey hello, how can I help you to get rid of your money?"

In the course of the day we make exaggerated enveloping movements whenever we see a salesman comes in our direction. This creates a lot of laughing faces. Even more fun is approaching the salesmen with their own sales-technics: "Hey, hello, where are you from? What is your name?" Their surprise is enormous at the next question: "Where can I put my money?" Their faces simply radiate and we're left alone.
Moments later we're standing at the waters of the Golden Horn between the stalls that sell fish, roasted corn and pistacchio. We're staying there for hours watching the cheerfull bustle of people, cars and fishingboats.

Monday we take our bicycles to find the stadium of Fenerbahce, the richest of Istanbul's three footballclubs. The next night Feyenoord - Peter's club - plays against them in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League. Via the Yeni Galata-bridge we reach the quarter Karakoy in the European part of Istanbul, north of the Golden Horn. From here we cycle along the Bosphorus in the direction of the two intercontinental bridges that connect Europe and Asia. After a steep climb and some searching we find the road to the Fatih Sultan Mehmet-bridge. Unfortunately there is no cycle-path, so we have to cycle on the four-lane with its heavy traffic that's roaring past. We see absolutely no other cyclists or pedestrians. Trucks and cars pass us at fifty centimetres and we can't get rid of the feeling that we're not supposed to be here. To be honest, we do not want to be here. We decide to carry our bicycles to a lower part of the bridge, on the empty lane that resembles a footpath. When we're halfway an armed soldier meets us and gestures us to stop. "It's prohibited to cycle on this path," he says, we have to go back to the busy road. With combined efforts we lift the bicycles over the rail again and head towards the dangerous mealstrom. One and a half kilometres further we're on the other side of the bridge, where a second soldier looks surprised at us. Now we know for sure that cycling and walking is prohibited here. How are we going to return?

We cycle in the enormous quarter of Uskudar and try to stay as near to the Bosphorus as possible. This way at least we know where we are. Between the hundreds of minarets and palaces we perceive Kiz Kulesi, the Virgin-island with its Leandertower.

A Byzanthium emporer built the tower for his daughter because a seeress predicted that the daughter would die of snakebite. The emperor hoped his daughter would be safe on the island. A witch managed to smuggle a basket filled with fruits and a snake to the princess though, so despite all precautions the prediction was fulfilled. That's life for you: you cannot escape evil, just like the good things in life it's unavoidable. Maybe it would have been better if the emperor hadn't locked his daughter up; she would have had a nicer life before she died.
It takes some, but then you have some: we actually do find the stadium after a while. For this occasion Peter especially wears his Feyenoord-shirt. Fearless we enter the lion's denn, the supporter's shop. There are just men and boys walking in there, looking suspicious at Peter and his shirt. Most of them can hardly surpress their smiles, they think it's daring to come in here wearing the enemie's shirt. One or two of them hiss that we're going to be finished of tomorrow. We'll see about that.

It turns out that cards for the game can only be bought at special ticketbooths. An elderly Fenerbahce-fan is prepared to bring us there, by car. With our creditcards we buy two tickets, unfortunately in the Fenerbahce partition. When we say goodbye to our benefactor we wish him a good game, but not too good.

On our way back we reach the intercontinental bridge again. This time we see big signs 'motorway' and 'forbidden for cyclists and pedestrians', signs that were missing on the other side. When we go on anyway a policeman who repeats what the signs already told us stops us. He doesn't mind if we go on, but he predicts that we will be stopped again by his collegues further down the road. We decide to take our chances, which doesn't last for long though. We get stopped again, this time by a whole bunch of policemen. Even when we tell them that we cycled over the bridge without any problems this morning they won't budge. They phone the big bridge-boss and he decides: we're not allowed to cycle over the bridge: "Yakas!" We have no other option then to return and take the footferry ten kilometres back.
At the ferry we have to lift the bicycles over the tollgates, that are only meant to let pedestrians pass. It gets more evident every minute that people do not cycle in Istanbul. From Karakoy we pass over the Ataturk-bridge back to Sultanahmet. That's bridge number three. Only one more to go, the Bosphorus-bridge, then we've cycled all the bridges in Istanbul. That's a nice challenge for Friday, when we plan to leave Istanbul in the Asian-direction.

Later we hear that the two high suspension bridges over the Bosphorus (over 60 metres above the water) are prohibited for cyclists and pedestrians because in the past they were used a lot by people who wanted to commit suicide.