6 February

What a difference 8 years make!

Calls to prayers echo from a thousand minarets just on sunset over Galata Hill as we listen and watch from our balcony. Last time we were in Turkey was 8 years ago. The sound of the call to prayers is still a powerful memory.

Yesterday we managed to get ourselves to Malta airport by 4:45am for the 6:45am flight to Istanbul – although it seems like days ago now! After a bit of a mix-up about the pick-up arrangements at the airport (the driver was late) we headed off, at speed, through this city of more than 13 million people.

Our memories of our last visit were of dirty crowded streets, frantic, unregulated traffic, goats on the road and all the other trappings of an over-crowded 3rd world city. It was an exciting and very different place for us!

Was this the same place?

Slick airport, uncrowded motorway to the city, motorists keeping to their lanes, flowers thick on the median strips and block after block of new housing developments set in parklands; was this Istanbul?

In short – yes and no. Many parts of the city are new or renovated. Traffic is much better controlled, streets are clean and systems and services seem to work. There is no rubbish on the streets anymore. Dusty lanes are now paved and regularly washed down. (The city is cleaner in fact than Paris!) All this is very different. The people, though, are much the same. There are always enormous crowds in the streets. People are uniformly friendly and happy.

Today, after we did a few touristy things, we went looking for the old Istanbul that we remembered. After searching through streets lined with banks and modern offices, we eventually found it (sort of). In the back lanes behind the New Mosque near the Galata bridge, we came upon the garment district and the spice market. Narrow streets packed with people, noise, smells – just as we remembered - but now, oh so clean. Glass shop fronts are replacing the roller shutters – very clean glass at that – streets are all paved, with not a paper or a cigarette butt in sight. The excitement of the crowds built as we walked through these streets down to the ferry docks under the Galata bridge. Hundreds of thousands of people teemed through the streets on this mild and sunny Friday afternoon as packed ferries came and went at a rate that would make Sydney's Circular Quay look like a sleepy Murray River town.

Our apartment in Galata, the newer part of Istanbul, is within walking distance of the old city. And it's the richer part. Streets around here are lined with all the big name fashion shops and the usual crop of western franchises. Strict Muslim dress is rare, almost non-existent here. Everybody under 30 could have walked off the street in any major city in the world.

What a difference almost a decade makes!