panorama of the view from our balcony
the area of istanbul we are staying in is the greek and jewish quarter of istanbul and is a rabbit warren of narrow cobblestone streets overhung with narrow fronted, tall buildings in various states of decay and dilapidation. it is quite reminiscent of our time in havana, cuba.
in the morning we hear the sing song calls of the vendors with handcarts selling hot pastries and breads walking the streets. tourists are few and seldom seen. all are just visiting the area, we havent seen any others staying here. its very much a living local community and a great insight into turkish life in this ancient sity.
the cafes, restaurants and street food vendors have only one price – there is no tourist markup, pretty clearly because tourists are so rarely customers.
because of the narrow, steep and winding cobblestone streets its much quieter here, much less traffic than most areas of the city – you dont drive in here unless you have to and you know where you are going! there are always kids playing on the streets, mainly very young syrian refugees – turkey has about 2 million syrian refugees.
(for australians reading, ‘refugees’ are displaced people who are fleeing violence and persecution in their own country. the rest of the world, even very poor countries like turkey, give these people safe refuge and look after them.)
as far as i know, no other country demonises them, imprisons them offshore, allows the children to be sexually assaulted and then forcibly returns them to the violence and oppression they were seeking to escape. australia perhaps should start pulling its weight and comply with international law on the treatment of refugees.
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- balcony view
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- food cart
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- char grilled köfte roll
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- yummy!
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- looking across towards gallata tower
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- kai in gülhane Parki
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- İstiklal Caddesi looking up to Taksim square
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- thats what i call a kebab!
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- on the tram
this is a little video of my favourite street vendor, he has a great call and comes through about 10am each morning, so i know its time to get moving! he is selling Poğaça sade which are hot little, flakey, plain pastries – not unlike a croissant.
Small correction, Rick:
not only Australia, but also Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia reject refugees looking for shelter and a safe place to survive or at least trying to be accepted as refugees , where there is no prosecution or discrimination against them. Right now thousands of refugees from Burma are not allowed to enter these states. All these people are denied medical help, shelter and a place to survive! Many of them will surely die on their boats without fuel, and enough food , starving to death, the first ones will be the young and the old people.
And we here are onlookers, our European countries will not be able to help them. sad story again.
Carl
Carl, yes you are right they also are not very friendly to refugees, but they are still much better than australia. we actually turn refugees around and send them back to countries like indonesia and thailand. Also our relative wealth means we should be allowing refugees into our country. we have amongst the lowest per capita intake of refugees in the world and its a national shame.
Sure, Rick, Australia has to change ist policy towards refugees-but what does “better” really mean?Cointries I mentioned also turn refugees around and send them back to their homelands where they can`t live under decent human conditions. So actually these refugees are lost and homeless.
Of course we “Westerners” should(again a mattger of ethics) be allowing refugees-from Syria, Irak etc. into “our” European countries., but as you may already kniow, only Sweden and Germany allow most asylum seekers and refugees from war regions into their countries-Germany will be accepting half a million asylum seekers and refugees, mostly from Africa, Syria and Irak this year. Britain simply denies any contrribution and has already indicated NOT to accept all, or even any of these refugees from abroad.
It`s a shame, too.
So again Europe is divided into many fragments, there is no common ground on this vital question.
Carl
Better means many countries actually accept refugees into their country. Even indonesia, thailand and malaysia all have refugees living there in the tens of thousands. We do not even allow refugees to be on australian soil, in contravention of international law. The simple fact is we have one of the lowest intakes per capita in the world – that is a terrible indictment of us. Nearly every country in the world is better than australia in this regard.