A not so Turkish Delight

This is a story about my first 24 hours in Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, back in 2009.

The Blue Mosque

At the time, I was living in London. I planned a solo trip to Istanbul for the weekend and was looking forward to seeing it. Istanbul is a city rich in history and with its own unique culture due to its location. It's predominently a Muslim country but with influences from western and asian cultures. The city sits on the Bosphorus strait where Asia meets Europe, thus you can see the influences of these cultures present in the city.

  

My planned accomodation for the weekend had been via couchsurfing. I was going to stay at a local's place and crash on the couch. At the time, it seemed like a fun and economic idea. I'd been hosting other couch surfers in London and had met a many great people. So I thought it was time I became the hostee. I had organised to stay with a guy who was of similar age and had good feedback and references on the website.

Prior to leaving London, my host had sent me an email with detailed instructions on how to get from the airport into town to meet him. He was unable to meet me at the airport as he couldn't leave work early. So I arrive at Istanbul airport and follow his instructions without much difficulties and soon I'm on a bus heading into the city. On the bus I sat next to a lovely girl who was also living in London. She was abit of a hippy and we had a great conversation during the 40 minute bus ride. She only had great things to say about Turkey so I was excited for my weekend.

The bus stops, I get off and there is my host waiting for me. He is a friendly guy and easy going. We take the train back to his place where I am introduced to his flatmate. I get shown a quick tour of the apartment and then we chill for bit and have a chat. Once I felt rested, my host took me out to go on a ferry ride along the Bosphorus and then to a cafe to have tradional turkish tea. This is how the locals bonded with new friends and people they meet. 'We have some tea. Now we are good friends.'

Dinner time came and we headed into the 'old' city to meet a friend of mine who happened to be in Istanbul as well, but leaving the following day. My host takes us to dinner at a turkish restaurant where we have Gozleme, then to a rooftop bar. Rooftop bars are awesome. You catch a nice breeze, get a great view of the city at night, and hear snippets of music floating through the air from other rooftop bars around you.

1 part Raki + 1 part water  + a block of ice

Alcohol is ordered and the drinking starts. My host orders a bottle of Turkish liquour (Yeni Raki) for us to try. It's very similar to Sambuca. Licorice flavoured. Ew!! I managed a few shots and left the rest to my host and my friend. By the end of the bottle, or possible 2..the boys are pretty tipsy and ready to party. We head out and make our way through the city to a nightclub. It's pretty crazy on the streets, people are everywhere. There's night markets, lots of cafes and restaurants and lots of promotors trying to usher you into their club.

We end up in a local club where me and my friend are the only tourists there. Tres cool. It's not another backpacker joint full of horny Europeans rubbing their productive organs against you and each other. This is a Turkish nightclub, full of turkish people and turkish pop music. The music was a mixture of house, medditeranean (bellydance like) rhythms and pop. Not too bad, but not so great too - for my taste that is. And the dancing. Oh the dancing!! Turkish men dance with their hips very loudly. It's not good enough to be on the dancefloor, they have to be elevated. So you're surrounded by Turkish men wiggling their hips on table tops, chairs and lounges. The women are happy to remain on the dancefloor. It brings to mind memories of being in a gay club but it's not a gay club. No one seems to mind, as long as there is no violence.

 

More drinks are had and my host gets a little touchy. I pretend not to notice and knock back a few vodka redbulls. By now, I am so tired. I'd been awake for 24 hours already having to catch an early morning flight. My eyes are itchy and red, I can barely keep them open. Then the redbull kicks in. Out comes the camera and happy snaps ablazing!

Fast forward to the end of the night, my friend goes back to his hotel and I hop into a cab with my host, who is plastered. The whole cab ride home, his head is out the window as he dry retches. A few times, we even had to stop so he could vomit. The taxi driver is not impressed. He's sputtering in Turkish, hands flying and sounding annoyed. I'm going to take a guess and assume he's saying something like, 'You stupid kids and your drinking! Don't vomit in my taxi! Or you will pay extra fee. Ay yai yai!!'

Reaching 'home', my host runs straight to bed and passes out/recovers. His flatmate had let us in. At this point, thinking I wasn't of sound mind, the flatmate asks if I want to sleep in his bed. No thank you. The couch is fine. Are you sure? Yes I am. You are not drunk? Why don't you come sleep with me. We can have sex. No thank you. I'm sleeping alone on the couch. Why, don't you want to have sex? No, I'm not interested.

I wasn't feeling so well anymore and ran to the toilet and vomited. During this blowing of the chunks, I thought to myself, 'Yes!! This is unattractive. He'll definitely will be turned off and leave me alone.' I was wrong. I turn to leave the bathroom and the flatmate is standing there with a towel for me to wash my face with. How nice.

I make my way to the lounge room and lay down on the couch to go to sleep. He follows me and again tries to convince me that sleeping with him was a great idea. I tell him again that I am not interested. Apparently, this is a signal for the guy to starting pulling up my dress and attempting to kiss my neck. I slap his hands away and proceed to coccoon myself in the blanket. He stands and watches for a few minutes, then finally gives up and leaves, shutting the lounge room door behind him. Hallelujah!! I can now sleep in peace. Or so I thought.

Two hours later, I am woken up by my host who Kramer's his way through the lounge room door. I wonder what's going on. He jumps on top of me. I think 'What the Fuck?'. He starts groping. I get angry and move myself into fetal position. Ok, I need to be firm in this. I don't want to have sex with this guy too. But don't get hysterical enough that he might get violent. There are two guys against me. Stay safe for the night, run away in the morning because I don't exactly know where I am.

'Look man! I don't want to have sex with you. Your fucking flatmate already tried to fuck me 2 hours ago. I'm not in the fucking mood for this. Get off me!'

His response, 'Why not? Don't you want me? It will be fun. C'mon, let's do it.'

I remained in fetal position and pretended it wasn't happening. He eventually stopped grinding against me, realising that he wasn't getting anywhere and went back to bed.

It took me ages to fall back to sleep, I was just too angry. I half dozed until the morning and packed my things to get ready to leave.

The next morning, my host acted like nothing out of the ordinary happened. So I went along with it. I pretended everything was fine and told him I've decided to stay in a hostel so that it was easier to see the sights in town. He agreed with the idea and walked me to the taxi stand. He told the driver where to go and I let the taxi take me away to a safer place as the tension from the previous night faded away.

In hindsight, that was potentially a very dangerous situation and thankfully I got away from it unscathed. I am so glad that I got angry as opposed to scared during the situation as things could have turned out very differently. There was one point where I thought giving in could be easier, but my anger propelled me to be stubborn.

Although I still love travelling on my own, and this experience hasn't stopped me from doing so, I recommend that as a female, don't go to countries with patriarcal societies on your own. You tend to stand out and attract attention. In my case, more attention is attracted as I'm also asian. I have a habit of going to obscure countries where its not common to see Asian girls on their own, but I can't say that I've had any travel regrets. I still appreciated the beauty that exists in Istanbul and the unique experiences it has to offer.