Our First Trip 1997: Control the Traffic Monster Within You

Nev's younger brother Mustafa was there to pick us up in Istanbul.  Mustafa is a mechanical engineer and at the time was working on a project in Istanbul.  His job was to construct and maintain the crane used to build the tallest building in Turkey at the time, Işbank Tower.  So he was the first person in the family to know his way around Istanbul.

Before heading to Ankara, Mustafa drove us along the Bosphorus, the channel that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and separates Europe from Asia.  We ate lunch outside at the Feriye Lokantası, a restaurant converted from a 19th century Ottoman police station.  The restaurant is on the European side of the Bosphorus and overlooks the Asian side.

Mustafa showed me where the restrooms were.  At first I was unsure about how to flush the toilet.  Not finding a lever to push, I found a knob located on the side of the toilet.  I turned it and water squirted straight out of the toilet from a little tube that was sticking out.  The water sprayed my feet and got the floor all wet.  Then I noticed the button on the wall above the toilet, pushed it, and successfully flushed the toilet.

After we were done eating, Mustafa showed us the construction site of the Işbank Tower, headquarters of the Turkish Commercial Bank.  At the time the construction site was a huge pit with the growing skeleton of the building.  The tower opened in 2000.  At 52 floors it was the tallest building in Turkey until 2009.  Işbank Tower has several features similar to the Trump Tower in New York because the same architecture firm designed both.

As we drove around this part of Istanbul, we saw a lot of construction.  Many of the streets were torn up with piles of broken concrete on the sides.  The buildings had many stories and  looked run-down.  I noticed a lot of laundry hanging on many of the balconies of the high rise apartment buildings.

The traffic is insane here.  There are lines on the roads indicating where the lanes are, but they don't seem to be used.  There were usually four lanes of traffic and only three lanes painted on the road.  Cars changed lanes without much warning, if any, and horns blared constantly.  I saw a lot of big trucks on the road, at least as many as cars.  The trucks were the size of army trucks, but were brightly painted in different colors.  I didn't see any semi-trucks.  I did see a lot of billboards on the highway between Istanbul and Ankara like this:

İçinizdeki Trafik Canavarını Durdurun

which means "Control the Traffic Monster Within You".





Mustafa drove like everyone else we saw.  He passed every car and truck we caught up to even when there weren't passing lanes.  Sometimes as we were passing, there would be an oncoming car and we would fit in the middle. The scariest part of this was that Mustafa's cell phone kept ringing throughout the drive to Ankara as everyone wanted to know how close we were.  And Mustafa kept answering it while skirting traffic!

There is a new toll highway from Istanbul to Ankara.  Unfortunately, in several places they are still working on it and you have to get off the new road, pay the toll, and drive on the old road which is pitted and has only one lane each way.  Then you get back on the new road, waiting in line at the entrance to get a ticket to turn in later when you pay the toll.  We had to do this three or four times.  Sometimes there isn't any notice that the toll road is stopping until you get to the end and have to back up to get off.  This was difficult when there were cars behind us.  At one of the toll booths, none of the machines were working.  Mustafa made a comment under his breath, backed up and went around everyone, driving over the curb to do so, and then went through the gate.  Nev and I looked at each other, but didn't say anything.  We found out later that if you don't pick up a ticket at the booth, you just pay as if you drove the entire length of the highway when you get to the pay station.  On a straight part of the toll road, Nev drove for a little while.  I won't complain about his driving any more.