Travelling buddy
For the first two weeks of Turkey, I get to enjoy the novelty of travelling with someone -- an old friend from Rockhampton, Amanda Palmer. It's great being part of a pair; it completely changes the experience of travelling. Ordinary little fuck-ups like missing the bus or wonder whether you've been locked in a car park after hours go from being stressful encounters to being something to laugh about. And even better than that, it stops you pathetically approaching other backpackers laden with stupid questions like "Is this the Blue Mosque?" or "Do you know the way to San Jose?" just so that you get to have an English conversation at least once every other day. In fact, I'm on completely the other end of the power equation now -- sad lonely travellers now approach US for conversation! Mwa ha ha haaa.

But anyway, a guy and a girl travelling together, it's only natural that people think we're a couple. Go on, admit it, half of you thought it anyway. And in Turkey, the thought that two people are a couple strangely cannot go unexpressed -- almost everyone has to comment on it. It usually comes to the fore when we check into rooms -- they ask if we want a double room and we quickly establish that we will only accept a room with TWO beds thank you very much. Amanda and I have known each other since we were four. Sharing a bed would be unthinkable.

And fair enough, hostel owners need to know our sleeping preferences. But does every bloody carpet seller on the street have to bring it up? I've adapted a set routine to explain that no, we're not a couple, we're just friends. In fact we've been friends since we were very young, I say, holding my hand so far off the ground to indicate that I was once very short indeed.

But for Fikret, who introduced himself to us outside the Blue Mosque, it was unsatisfactory that we hadn't moved beyond our mutual play-dough eating past. "Why not?" he demanded. "She is beautiful, intelligent girl!" In response to Amanda's cackles of laughter at this, he added "No, no. Is not compliment." Here he paused just long enough for us to wonder just where the hell he was going with this. "Is philosoph. I am philosopher. And writer. I write biography of myself one day. I was bus driver once" he said, adding "trucks sometimes too" for emphasis. And then he tried to sell us a carpet.

Istanbul
Amanda and I flew out of London at the chirpy hour of 6.20, meaning an obscene start of 3.45am. The last week in Edinburgh was still catching up with me and I all but collapsed during our stopover in Zurich, leaving Amanda to her own devices for a while. Still, we arrived in Istanbul at 2.30pm, leaving us enough time to limp painfully around the city for a few hours before sucuumbing to sweet sleep.

The touts and hawkers in the city weren't as bad as I had expected. They are pretty relentless when you have a backpack on, trying to get you into one of their hotels but otherwise you're just one Western face among many so if you aren't interested the next one might be.

We spent the second day travelling around the Istanbul highlights. The Blue Mosque was incredible, with its huge dome surrounded by size gargantuan spires that bellow the call to prayer five times a day. To uneducated (dare I say infidel) Western ears the call to prayer ringing from a single mosque sounds a bit like a tuneful Turk having his toenails extracted in front of a microphone. But in Istanbul you never hear the call from just one mosque -- they all sound simultaneously, so you hear it from all sides, bouncing off every building. Near the Blue Mosque (it's not really that blue) the noise is so pervasive it seems to emanate from every tile. And in the pauses between verses of the call you can hear the sound echoing back from all over town. It is so cool.

The next highlight was the Aya Sophia, which my extensive knowledge of Turkish tells me means Holy Wisdom. The history of this place is fascinating: some bloke (Constantine? Justinian?) built it around 400AD as the greatest church in Christendom and today it still looks a lot like a domed church in Italy. When the Ottamans rocked into town about a thousand years later, though, they converted it into a mosque. Then around 1920 Ataturk (the big kahuna of modern Turkey) converted it again, but this time into a public museum. The museum must have done some restorations of the original features because now there is a fascinating mix of Christian and Muslim mosaics. Madonna and Child looking down on some verses from the Quran; St John making a cameo next to some Arabic tiles. I felt like I was in a David Lynch movie.

Next was the 'Sunken Cistern', which brings to mind some next form of subterranian toilet architecture, but in actual fact was part of the sewerage system in the Roman era. It was deeply creepy, an enormous underground cave supported by regular roman columns and arches. It really makes you think when a civilisation's sewers are a tourist attraction today. But they were so cool, they deserved it. Do you think future civilisations will be touring Wivenhoe dam? No, me neither.