A Bump in the Night

This is a story about my 2nd night in Istanbul, where I stayed in a hostel after my first unpleasent (understatement?) night which I've written about here:

A not so Turkish Delight

So after leaving my couchsurfing host's home, I checked myself into a hostel in the old city. As I settled in my dorm to gather myself and recover from the recent events, I met two of my roommates. Two Aussie blokes, one blonde and the other brunette. There were 3 bunkbeds in the room. I was on the top bunk of brunette Aussie, and blonde Aussie was in the bottom bunk opposite us. There were three Italians taking the rest of the beds, two ladies and a guy. The guy was in the top bed on blonde aussie's bunk. You'll see why I've explained this soon enough.

The Belly dancer with Blonde Aussie

I then headed out for lunch with my friend and did more sight seeing. It was a good day of happy snapping on my camera, dodging the local men asking me to have coffee/tea/dinner with them, and meeting some cool Portugese guys (both named Miguel) at dinner as we watched a local 'belly' dancer (she wasn't very good at all!) perform as part of the evening's attraction. I think the girl was working for the local mob or something of the like, as she had a handler who discreetly sat in the corner. Throughout her performance, the belly dancer would pull guys up to dance with her. Both Miguels got pulled up and later told me that the whole time they were dancing with her, she was saying 'Money! Money! Money! Money!' and wouldn't let them sit back down until he gave her money. She would then look over at her handler for permission to stop dancing and wait for the cue.

As I was tired from the previous nights events I went to bed at a reasonable hour only to be awoken a few hours later by the sound of our drunk aussie friends coming back from their night out. Brunette basically passed out on his bed but Blonde had decided to bring someone back with him. A girl!!!

'Oh dear lord,' I thought to myself, 'This is gonna be the first hostel dorm sex encounter I'll be exposed to.'

Blonde and his friend get into his lower bunk bed and start making out. I try to block it all out and go back to sleep, but was unsuccessful. I can hear them shuffling and moving. I can hear sucking noises and soft moans. At this point, I can't help but wonder if they're rooting or not. I try to block it out again and go to sleep. Minutes later I decide the effort was futile and decide to check my mobile for the time. It was 5am. I put my phone back down and what happens? It falls down the side of my bed and under Brunettes bed with a great parading clatter of noise against the wall and onto the floor. Great. GREAT!! Blonde and his friend stop for a few moments probably to look to see if I'm awake. I lay still and pretend I'm asleep, asif I had knocked my phone off my bed in my sleep.

Soon they are at it again. I roll around and face the bunk they're in. Yes, I admit it, I tried to take a peek in the dark. I was curious. Shoot me. It was too dark to see anything though, which was a good thing. What I did see though, was that Mr Italy was awake on the top bunk. The poor guy!! The bunk bed was moving and squeaking as the horny two were at it, and he was in the top bunk feeling it all!

At this point, we can hear them whispering. Skanky girl must be getting cold feet. I couldn't hear the conversation clearly, but I did hear skanky girl say 'No. I can't. We shouldn't.' Eventually they went back to fooling around and then finally went to sleep.

The next morning, the Italian ladies are the first to wake up having no idea of last nights events. They shower and get dressed. Once the bathroom is free, Blonde gets up and goes to the bathroom. The Italian ladies look at him strangely. Blonde has a bandage wrapped around his whole head! As he shuts the door to the bathroom, the ladies notice there's still a body in his bed. Mr Italy is awake now, so they ask him what's going on in Italian. Mr Italy retells the events in their language and the ladies burst out laughing. They look at the bed, then at the bathroom, back at the bed and then again at the bathroom. Blonde comes out of the bathroom to meet the stares of the Italians.

'Oh, it's not as bad as it looks,' Blonde remarks. The Italians look at him quizzically.

'My head.' He continues to explain. 'It's just a small scratch. I bumped my head when we were out last night and it started bleeding. This was the only way to keep the bandage on, so I had my whole head bandaged.'

Awkward silence.

'But I'm ok. Nothing serious.'

'Next time you want to FUCK,' Mr Italy angrily remarks in his thick Italian accent, 'GET A FUCKING HOTEL ROOM!'

Yes!!! You tell him! OMG this is HILARIOUS. The dumbfounded look on Blonde's face as he realises that he wasn't as discreet as he thought was pure gold. He gives Mr Italy a sheepish look and apologises, then crawls back into bed with skanky girl who is hiding her face under the blankets in shame.

The Italians finish getting dressed and leave the room. I jump down, crawl under brunette's bed to get my phone and go to brush my teeth. As I look into the bathroom mirror brushing my teeth, I see the reflection of skanky girl walking past to leave the room. We make eye contact through the mirror as she walks out redfaced and embarrassed.

You want to show me what...?

"Welcome to Livingstone, Zambia, where it is a humid 35 degrees. We hope you enjoy your stay here and looking forward to seeing you fly with us again."

The Captain's final announcement blares through the speakers on the plane as I look out the window. What I see amazes me, there are baboons running along the tarmac chasing the aeroplane. What? Not just a few baboons, but up to 30 darting in and out of the bush around the small Livingstone airport. And so begins my 5 day adventure in Zambia to experience the Victoria Falls.

There's a bit of a line in Customs but I eventually get through. On the other side I'm greeted by dozen of locals asking if I need help with my bags. I've been through this enough times now. They all pretend to be nice and friendly, 'just here to help' but expect a tip at the end. I'm packing light so I don't need their help. I spot the a guy holding a sign with a list of 5 names on them, one being mine. I introduce myself to him and he takes me to a minivan where I'm the last person to arrive. Soon we're heading to the hostel we're all staying in, the Jollyboy Backpackers.

Once we've checked in and shown to our beds and rooms, I meet Andrew who I'll be sharing a four bed room with. Andrew turns out to be a really nice guy from America who is interested in doing the same activities, so we decided to hang out during our stay.

We decided to head out into the local town to explore, so we step out of the hostel and enter a time portal...

It is now four days later. My new friend Andrew has left to continue on his journey. It's been a hot and humid few days, and I decide to take it easy and just chill at the hostel. At this point, I should describe the hostel to you. The set up is awesome. There's a swimming pool, a bar area, pool tables, a little kiosk and Internet cafe and this huge chill out pit dug into the floor which is covered with cushions. This chill out pit is where I spend most of my time. Rolled up in the cushions with a book and my ipod.

  

This afternoon I kind of have a date. I had gone on a lunch tour to Livingstone Island and one of the tour guides offered to take me to dinner and show me the town. I accepted, but we didn't exactly confirm when and where to meet, hence kind of a date. I think we're suppose to meet at 430pm on the bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe where they do the Bungy jumping from. I decided to take the chance and head out there and see if he's there. If not, I can hang about and watch people bungy and then watch the sunset. Romantic time for one.

Four o'clock rolls around and I take the shuttle bus out to the bridge. It's the first time I've head out here alone and now that I'm not with a male escort (Andrew), I get approached by every sales man offering to sell me things I don't want or need. Unlike their approach to foreign men, whom they treat with respect and camaraderie, they become rather aggressive and won't take no for an answer. It gets to the point where I stop firmly telling them I'm not buying anything and just ignore them and pretend they're not there until they go away.

By five o'clock, my friend hasn't shown up, which I'm not surprised about since I really didn't know when and where we were suppose to meet. So I hang out near the Bungy jumping and watch people leap off the bridge. One of the boys working the rig start striking up a conversation with me.

'Hey! What's your name?'

'Ronda'

'Where's your boyfriend?'

'Who?'

'The American man you were here with the other day.'

'Oh. He's  just a friend. He's left to continue his travels.'

'Ohhh. We thought you were his girlfriend, so didn't talk to you because we don't want to be in trouble.'

Hmmm interesting, I think to myself.

'So what are you doing here?'

'Just came to watch the sunset.'

'I finish work in half an hour. If you want, I can take you to where we do the gorge swing to see the sunset.'

I think to myself, 'Well he seems a respectable guy with a job. Can't do much harm.'

'Sure, that sounds good,' I reply.

*For the rest of this story, I'm going to refer to this guy as M. Mainly because I can't remember his name but do remember it starting with M.

Shortly after, I'm sitting on a bench with M watching the sunset. He starts to ask me questions about my life, my family, and trying to get to know me. I give him short answers to avoid giving away too much.

'Why don't you take your sunglasses off?'  M asks.

'Because the sun is in my eyes,'  I reply.

'Take them off please so I can look into your eyes.'

Um awkward. OK, let's see where this is going, I think to myself and take my sunglasses off. He then proceeds to look deeply into my eyes and tells me, 'You really can learn so much about someone when you look in their eyes.'

I stifle a laugh. Is this guy serious? I get up, put my sunglasses back and tell him I'm ready to head off.

On our walk back to the bridge, I spot the numerous monkeys running around. For the first time in the 4 days I've been here in Livingstone, I notice that they have blue testicles. Yes. Blue. Testicles. I try to capture these testicles on camera, but keep scaring the monkeys away as I try to get close to them. So I give my camera to M and he manages to get up close to take some photos for me.

The infamous blue testicular monkey

M offers to take me to dinner, which I accept. I'm not totally sure why but figured it would be an interesting experience. We end up at a pizza place where he tells me his life story. M is 33 years old. He has a 17 year old son with an ex girlfriend who accidentally fell pregnant.  He takes care of his mum whom he loves very much and is now looking to fall in love again and get married.

'You should come back here in February or March after the wet season. That's when the waterfalls will be at their fullest and most majestic,' M tells me.

'Yeah that does sound amazing.' (It's currently November) 'But I don't know if I can afford it. I'm running out of savings and need to find a job once I arrive in London,' I responded.

'Well you can always stay with me. Free accommodation.'

'That's an idea. What about my friends? I would love to bring them with me. Do they get free accommodation as well?'

'Oh well...'

'It's a great idea. We can all stay at your place for free. That's awesome. Can we get free bungy jumps too?'

'Ummm I was suggesting you stay with me. Your friends will have to find somewhere else.'

'Oh right. What about the bungy jumps? Can we all get freebies?'

'Maybe I can ask for you, but not your friends.'

'Well this isn't so appealing now.'

'If you come back to Zambia, I will show you what it's like to be loved.'

What? WHAT? Inside I am laughing so hard. Is this his seduction technique? It's hilarious. Outwardly, I smile politely as I think of something to say that won't mock him or piss him off.

I finally come up with something like, 'Well that's an interesting notion. I'm quite full now. I think it's time I head back to my hostel.'

M offers to walk me back to the hostel. I accept it because I don't know where it is from where we are. So we walk, I try to keep the conversation as neutral as possible. We get to the hostel and M gives me a hug, then whispers, 'Can I kiss you?'

I answer, 'No.'

'Oh please, why not?'

'I don't want to.'

'What about a peck on the cheek?.'

'Nah.'

'Ok. You make me sad. But I will say goodnight now. You have my number. Call me when you are in London.'

'Ok. Sure. It was nice to meet you.'

And as casually as possible, I step through the gate of the hostel into its warmth and safety and thankfully never see or hear from him again.

**There wasn't really a time portal, I just needed to skip the first 4 days of the trip.

Livingstone Island  - At the edge of the Falls

**Livingstone Island is an island in the middle of the Zambezi River which Victoria Falls flow from. On this island, you can either swim through the rock pools or climb along the rocks to get the Devil's Pool. Devil's pool is a little rock pool right on the edge of the top of the waterfall. You can literally lay on your stomach on the edge and look right over the waterfalls into the gorge that is falls into. An amazing place.

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.

Predators and Wildlife

A few years ago, I went to the Whitsundays with a girlfriend for 5 days.

During that trip, we decided to hire a Moke and drive an hour to a waterfall. Now, hiring a moke seemed like a good idea at the time. In hindsight, not so much. These vehicles are OLD, there are no doors, the seats aren't comfy and the gearbox was not in the best condition. I don't drive, so I can't explain further.

We get to the waterfall around 11am and are the first ones there. Lets paint a picture. Imagine a quiet little place in the rainforest. The waterfall was perhaps 10 meters high and ran into a natural pool that was about 15 by 15 meters. The sunlight shines through the break in the tree foilage and all you can hear is the rushing of the waterfall. We find a sunny spot on the rocks around the pool and dip our feet into the water. Every once in a while, our feet would jerk in surprise as a fish decides to have a nibble.

Slowly other explorers start to arrive as the day wears on. After a swim (or in my case, a wade - I can't swim) in the water, we have a picnic lunch and decide to explore some more and head back to the carpark. Now, being the first people there, we had parallel parked the moke. Everyone who came after words were parked 90 degrees to the curb.

There was a ute infront of the moke with the driver side facing us. As I packed all our belongings into the back, my girlfriend had gone to the bathroom. Minding my own business I put our things away, but out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw the driver touching his crotch. Doing an uncontrolled double take, my suspicion was confirmed. So I pretend I don't see anything and keep my head down.

Unfortunately, the guy had noticed that I noticed and decided to make sure I noticed some more. Within minutes what I noticed was that the driver door is now wide open and that he's now facing full on in my direction, legs spread apart and going for gold. Once I noticed, my brain paralysed. I did not know what to do or how to react. So I pretend I didn't notice.

By the time my girlfriend had come back to the car all I could do was whisper, "Now, when you get into the driver's seat, you're going to have to look straight ahead to drive out. I just want you to know that straight ahead is a dude jerking off."

Her reaction, in frantic whispers, "OMG why did you tell me that???? I'm gonna look now!"

Of course, if I didn't tell her, she would've been so shocked she might have ended up staring.

So we quickly got into the Moke, avoiding eye contact with this guy and trying our hardest not to see what was unfolding infront of us and went in search of another destination to explore...

A Moke - Our vehicle of choice for the day