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Hahahaha... I have to laugh. Thinking of my trip to Istanbul some time back with two good friends fills me with good thoughts and lots of images from average to strange. What a great time, it really was an eye opener and had us toeing the line between safety and danger, between freedom and incarceration. We had all watched "Midnight Express" and knew it was mostly bullsh!t but it had us on our toes in any case. We filled that trip to the gills with activities and noteworthy experiences.
Off we go from Sarajevo to Istanbul for an extended weekend. We just left on a day we should have been at work. Well, we were at work according to our colleague who covered for us since he couldn't make the trip. My good friends "Simon-Claro", "Bone-Cord-EZ" and I had our stuff packed for the evening flight Thursday night.
Our arrival in Istanbul was without fanfare. We made transportation arrangements to get from the airport to the Taksim area of town dealing with the usual attempts to price gouge. Once at the hotel we immediately freshened up and went for a stroll along the nearby market street. I noticed how dark it was, very homogenous, with dark greasy hair everywhere and brown skin as far as the eye could see. Everybody appeared to be wear black. Steam seemed to rise from all of the character's heads walking through there on that cool night. I felt that it could have been like a walking cruise night along East LA's Whittier Blvd sometime in the 50's.
We stayed out for a few hours and took a shot at a Disco for a drink. Things started looking better but there was just no comparing it to the density of beautiful women in Sarajevo. I haven't yet found any place that can compare to Sarajevo in that aspect.
Walking out of the disco, I noticed something that didn't look right. A tall "lady" in a black miniskirt, wearing stockings with the sexy line up the back of the legs was walking ahead of us. She was bombed out, dressed up in dark clothes and had long wavy hair with really muscular legs. Then as I took a better look, I notice the strapless halter top type of shirt and the BROAD beefy shoulders. Oh snap!! It is a dude! Guys that's a Tranny! What the f&%k?
It became obvious that the freaks come out at night and it seemed that they were out much later than the rest of the people. I assume it was to stay off the radar or maybe to reel in a bunch of drunk horny fellas for a good time sword-fighting. Uh, no thanks, I'm open minded but not that open minded...
The next day, we were up relatively early and left the hotel in the late morning. We walked out, and after an hour or so, found ourselves down by the old part of town near the river where you can see the old converted Churches that were now Mosques. I was the photog as usual and snapped a few pics of all of us as well as some scenery.
The thing I remember most vividly about the trip besides the nightlife was the street vendors selling fresh squeezed orange juice from carts along the sidewalk. That is the best orange juice I have ever tasted, hands down without a doubt, better than Florida orange juice. Something about Turkey makes it a great place to grow sweet delicious oranges.
We spent the rest of the day seeing the sites, drinking OJ, sampling the local street food, making a (mandatory for Americans) stop at McDonald's and got back to the hotel before sunset. We chilled out for a few hours to recharge and got ready for another late night out trying to find a good time.
After resting we headed out again and were walking on the way to the market street when a local man approached us out of the blue. He was (alarm) super-friendly, asking us all sorts of stuff and saying that he could show us a good time. I looked over at Simon-Claro and said. "What's the worst that could happen? We could come out of this with a good story at least."
So, Simon, Bone and Jose head off to an uncertain evening with this old Turk talking about women, drinking and debauchery. The Turk leads us through the Market Street and fights off other friendly "vultures" along the road as we are approached by others while he led the way. Something was up, so I remember thinking and saying to the fellas, watch your back and be ready to run...
We made it to the main, old market alley, where you could still see and smell the remnants of the fish, meat, produce and spices sold there during the day. The Turk reached a very non-descript door with no particular lettering on it and led us inside. Man, it sure is sphincter-pucker time when you are led into something like that thinking you are going to get rolled, and then dumped in the river.
Instead, it initially turned out okay. It was darkly lit, there were women sitting all around, some fellas, music, lots of mirrors and drinks-a-flowing. We sat at a booth and the Turk said our first round of drinks is half-off with his on the house for leading us there to spend some cash. No sweat, we all thought and started to relax. Beer for the Turk, Juice-Vodka for Simon and Me, and Water for Bone was the drink order. They didn't have Absolut so we settled for some other no name crap. The Turk had a problem with Bone only ordering water so Bone made up some BS about being on meds and not being allowed to drink.
We asked for a pricelist and that's when things started to get interesting. The waiter and the Turk played dumb like they suddenly didn't speak English saying, "what, huh, I don't understand" every time we asked for a pricelist. Our drinks showed up, we waited for the Turk to drink before we tried ours. Bone had previously warned us to not drink it if it tasted remotely funny.
The drinks were heavily spiked, I mean super-strong, I looked over at Simon and he agreed that things weren't right. We warned each other to drink very slowly because these guys were trying to get us wasted quick so we'd empty our pockets. I noticed a few girls sitting at a table across the room and motioned at them to come over. The hottest one came over and sat down, the waiter was Johnny on the spot and asked in clear English, "buy the lady a drink?" It sounded more like a command so I asked, "how much for her drink". She answered me something like $40 for one. I declined and the Turk snapped his fingers at the girls to take off and not talk to us.
We asked for the check, it finally showed up and read something like $90 to which we all said "F&%k this sh!t! Give us a price list." The pricelist showed up and we went back and forth with the wait staff then the manager about how we were promised 50% off on the first round. The Turk didn't speak English anymore and refused to answer any questions. Things were about to get stupid but the manager tried hard to mellow us out saying "don't worry about it." "Spend some money, you're out to have a good time, no?"
He said: "You looking for a girl?"
Me: "Sure, why not"
He sat next to me and tried really hard to intimidate me by boxing me in since the Turk had boxed in the other side of the booth. I looked at the guy really closely to make sure he wasn't packing a gun, but couldn't see if he was or not.
Looking over at Simon and Bone I quietly said get ready to get up and move when this shid goes down. I am going to head out the door we came in and you guys just follow me like you can't hear anything else. I told the guy to let me get up since I had to piss, he did so reluctantly. I went to piss making sure that there was a way out down that hallway and came back, but got side tracked when the pretty staff girl looked at me.
I decided to talk to her knowing that I would draw the attention of the staff, because I couldn't chat unless I bought her a drink. She was nice but warned me that they would have a problem with us talking. The talking went on for a minute or five all the while ignoring the manager's orders to leave the girl alone.
The manager sent a waiter to bring me back to the table. As the guy approached, I waved him off and looked up to notice that all of the waiters were on the floor, manning the doors, positioned somewhat strategically around the room. The thing is that all of those six or seven waiters were skinny, average height guys that didn't look very scary to me.
Things started getting tense. The manager got up to approach me. I looked at Simon and Bone nodding in order to let them know it was time to go. They got up, and Simon broke out some cash so as to give the impression that we were gonna pay.
I shouted out "let's go, f&%k this place, we're leaving." The waiters started shouting, "you cannot leave!" I look over at the manager who was trying to look tough in case he was going to flash a gun. He didn't so we all headed for the door. They were screaming "that is not the exit" "Stop!" "You must pay!"
I found myself outside with Simon when he mentioned... "Where's Bone?" "Oh shid they got him trapped down there." Poor little Bone all 6ft-150 skinny pounds of him was stuck behind the laughing waiters saying "Help Me!"
I shouted, "push through that sh!t! Get out of there"
The manager shouted "we have your friend, you cannot leave now and you must pay!"
Simon said "F&%k you we won't pay $90... You can have $20."
There we were in the middle of Istanbul bartering for the release of our friend over $20.
The manager said "give us the money!"
We shouted "let go of our friend!"
Simon tossed the money and in the maylay to get the cash, Bone got loose to dash up the steps.
We were all laughing at them. The staff spilled out into the alley trying to threaten us. I ran back and chased them back down the steps stopping short of the bottom. One of the guys looked like he wanted to "squabble" but they backed off.
Back and forth it went until Simon, being the voice of reason, said "Let's go, Bone's out. F&%k those punks, we got what we wanted."
I looked at them and said "told you we'd get a good story."
The rest of the night was to be relatively uneventful. We headed back down the street and tried our best to stay in the shadows, avoiding police since those jokers at the disco could probably make up a big story to get the cops after us.
The adrenaline was wearing off and we started to relax so we asked some locals about a nice disco that would suit us and hopefully had some classy normal people to chill with. We were pointed towards the middle of the walking street and found ourselves at an entrance with a doorman and scrutiny, so that was a positive indicator of what was inside. The place was quite nice with a lightshow and elevated DJ booth pumping some good music.
Ahh relief, lets get a drink! They had Absolut, so it was on with the Juice-Vodka. The girls were kinda lacking and we noticed how relatively casual the place was with people wearing trainers and sporty t-shirts. Turns out that at the time this was the standard for club attire. Tight t-shirts and jeans on the fellas and mildly sporty dressed up ladies was about it.
We weren't seeing much in the form of any really interesting opposite sex but we decided to chill. Bone started breaking out the moves on the dance floor. He really liked cutting loose when we were in the clubs so it was a bit of a draw for the ladies to dance with him. Simon AKA "El Suavecito" was just smooth sipping at his drink. I was my regular oversized self, in other words, the one that looks like the Bodyguard of the group.
I was trying really hard to figure out if any of the chicks were trannies and it looked like none were since they didn't have the telltale Adams apple and beefy shoulders. So all was good, but I was still cautious. I asked around to see if anyone knew of a disco with more ladies. One sporty, nice-looking, short, blonde girl, in a sleeveless shirt, told me about a place up the street and around the corner.
I was sure she said "go out the front door and turn right then go two blocks and take a right. The place will be on your left, you can't miss it."
We stuck around for another minute, paid the tab and bailed out. I told the guys to follow me since I had a line on a better place where our odds might improve. Following her instructions to the letter, we headed for the other place. As we walked up the street it seemed that things had died down a bit since the foot traffic had eased up. We went up two streets turned right and kept walking. We started seeing some ladies up ahead and I started feeling good about my recon. As the ladies got closer, I tried to anticipate eye contact and get a good look. They seemed to be out of the light and walk somewhat face down.
Suddenly, one of them looked at me right in the eye; she did it like she had a hold on me. Her gaze was like Medusa's and I quickly was turning to stone. I felt paralyzed and terror ensued as I noticed her really strong features, plucked but protruding eyebrows, heavy makeup, chiseled jaw line and high cheek bones. I tried not to make a face in disgust but it was too late. I must have had the worst "I really got to take a crap" grimace on my face because she registered it in a disappointed he-she's expression. The fellas noticed too but played it off fairly well.
I was prepared for them to give me crap about the she-male giving me the eye but there wasn't any time. Up ahead there were more really strong looking, big-hair and makeup having "ladies" walking towards us. I was losing my cool thinking that were going to be attacked by hairy, flesh-hungry, body-building she-males in some kind of big noisy cluster-f&*k. Imagining something like lions attacking the fresh meat at a kill.
Visualizing them carrying on growling, roaring, snorting, pawing, and nipping at each other over the best and juiciest parts horrified me. They would leave nothing but a stripped carcass for the vultures to pick at.
Oh crap, I think I started to hyperventilate. I must have said we're in the wrong place because we started to look for a way out of there.
I remember breaking into a run with Bone's gazelle-like, sprinting figure, bolting like greased lighting ahead of me. Simon "el Suavecito" just casually walked out since he was too cool to run.
We found something to eat at a kebab stand and headed back to the hotel after more walking about, thinking WTF?
We all thought, tomorrow we better find a nice place to party...
Off we go from Sarajevo to Istanbul for an extended weekend. We just left on a day we should have been at work. Well, we were at work according to our colleague who covered for us since he couldn't make the trip. My good friends "Simon-Claro", "Bone-Cord-EZ" and I had our stuff packed for the evening flight Thursday night.
Our arrival in Istanbul was without fanfare. We made transportation arrangements to get from the airport to the Taksim area of town dealing with the usual attempts to price gouge. Once at the hotel we immediately freshened up and went for a stroll along the nearby market street. I noticed how dark it was, very homogenous, with dark greasy hair everywhere and brown skin as far as the eye could see. Everybody appeared to be wear black. Steam seemed to rise from all of the character's heads walking through there on that cool night. I felt that it could have been like a walking cruise night along East LA's Whittier Blvd sometime in the 50's.
We stayed out for a few hours and took a shot at a Disco for a drink. Things started looking better but there was just no comparing it to the density of beautiful women in Sarajevo. I haven't yet found any place that can compare to Sarajevo in that aspect.
Walking out of the disco, I noticed something that didn't look right. A tall "lady" in a black miniskirt, wearing stockings with the sexy line up the back of the legs was walking ahead of us. She was bombed out, dressed up in dark clothes and had long wavy hair with really muscular legs. Then as I took a better look, I notice the strapless halter top type of shirt and the BROAD beefy shoulders. Oh snap!! It is a dude! Guys that's a Tranny! What the f&%k?
It became obvious that the freaks come out at night and it seemed that they were out much later than the rest of the people. I assume it was to stay off the radar or maybe to reel in a bunch of drunk horny fellas for a good time sword-fighting. Uh, no thanks, I'm open minded but not that open minded...
The next day, we were up relatively early and left the hotel in the late morning. We walked out, and after an hour or so, found ourselves down by the old part of town near the river where you can see the old converted Churches that were now Mosques. I was the photog as usual and snapped a few pics of all of us as well as some scenery.
The thing I remember most vividly about the trip besides the nightlife was the street vendors selling fresh squeezed orange juice from carts along the sidewalk. That is the best orange juice I have ever tasted, hands down without a doubt, better than Florida orange juice. Something about Turkey makes it a great place to grow sweet delicious oranges.
We spent the rest of the day seeing the sites, drinking OJ, sampling the local street food, making a (mandatory for Americans) stop at McDonald's and got back to the hotel before sunset. We chilled out for a few hours to recharge and got ready for another late night out trying to find a good time.
After resting we headed out again and were walking on the way to the market street when a local man approached us out of the blue. He was (alarm) super-friendly, asking us all sorts of stuff and saying that he could show us a good time. I looked over at Simon-Claro and said. "What's the worst that could happen? We could come out of this with a good story at least."
So, Simon, Bone and Jose head off to an uncertain evening with this old Turk talking about women, drinking and debauchery. The Turk leads us through the Market Street and fights off other friendly "vultures" along the road as we are approached by others while he led the way. Something was up, so I remember thinking and saying to the fellas, watch your back and be ready to run...
We made it to the main, old market alley, where you could still see and smell the remnants of the fish, meat, produce and spices sold there during the day. The Turk reached a very non-descript door with no particular lettering on it and led us inside. Man, it sure is sphincter-pucker time when you are led into something like that thinking you are going to get rolled, and then dumped in the river.
Instead, it initially turned out okay. It was darkly lit, there were women sitting all around, some fellas, music, lots of mirrors and drinks-a-flowing. We sat at a booth and the Turk said our first round of drinks is half-off with his on the house for leading us there to spend some cash. No sweat, we all thought and started to relax. Beer for the Turk, Juice-Vodka for Simon and Me, and Water for Bone was the drink order. They didn't have Absolut so we settled for some other no name crap. The Turk had a problem with Bone only ordering water so Bone made up some BS about being on meds and not being allowed to drink.
We asked for a pricelist and that's when things started to get interesting. The waiter and the Turk played dumb like they suddenly didn't speak English saying, "what, huh, I don't understand" every time we asked for a pricelist. Our drinks showed up, we waited for the Turk to drink before we tried ours. Bone had previously warned us to not drink it if it tasted remotely funny.
The drinks were heavily spiked, I mean super-strong, I looked over at Simon and he agreed that things weren't right. We warned each other to drink very slowly because these guys were trying to get us wasted quick so we'd empty our pockets. I noticed a few girls sitting at a table across the room and motioned at them to come over. The hottest one came over and sat down, the waiter was Johnny on the spot and asked in clear English, "buy the lady a drink?" It sounded more like a command so I asked, "how much for her drink". She answered me something like $40 for one. I declined and the Turk snapped his fingers at the girls to take off and not talk to us.
We asked for the check, it finally showed up and read something like $90 to which we all said "F&%k this sh!t! Give us a price list." The pricelist showed up and we went back and forth with the wait staff then the manager about how we were promised 50% off on the first round. The Turk didn't speak English anymore and refused to answer any questions. Things were about to get stupid but the manager tried hard to mellow us out saying "don't worry about it." "Spend some money, you're out to have a good time, no?"
He said: "You looking for a girl?"
Me: "Sure, why not"
He sat next to me and tried really hard to intimidate me by boxing me in since the Turk had boxed in the other side of the booth. I looked at the guy really closely to make sure he wasn't packing a gun, but couldn't see if he was or not.
Looking over at Simon and Bone I quietly said get ready to get up and move when this shid goes down. I am going to head out the door we came in and you guys just follow me like you can't hear anything else. I told the guy to let me get up since I had to piss, he did so reluctantly. I went to piss making sure that there was a way out down that hallway and came back, but got side tracked when the pretty staff girl looked at me.
I decided to talk to her knowing that I would draw the attention of the staff, because I couldn't chat unless I bought her a drink. She was nice but warned me that they would have a problem with us talking. The talking went on for a minute or five all the while ignoring the manager's orders to leave the girl alone.
The manager sent a waiter to bring me back to the table. As the guy approached, I waved him off and looked up to notice that all of the waiters were on the floor, manning the doors, positioned somewhat strategically around the room. The thing is that all of those six or seven waiters were skinny, average height guys that didn't look very scary to me.
Things started getting tense. The manager got up to approach me. I looked at Simon and Bone nodding in order to let them know it was time to go. They got up, and Simon broke out some cash so as to give the impression that we were gonna pay.
I shouted out "let's go, f&%k this place, we're leaving." The waiters started shouting, "you cannot leave!" I look over at the manager who was trying to look tough in case he was going to flash a gun. He didn't so we all headed for the door. They were screaming "that is not the exit" "Stop!" "You must pay!"
I found myself outside with Simon when he mentioned... "Where's Bone?" "Oh shid they got him trapped down there." Poor little Bone all 6ft-150 skinny pounds of him was stuck behind the laughing waiters saying "Help Me!"
I shouted, "push through that sh!t! Get out of there"
The manager shouted "we have your friend, you cannot leave now and you must pay!"
Simon said "F&%k you we won't pay $90... You can have $20."
There we were in the middle of Istanbul bartering for the release of our friend over $20.
The manager said "give us the money!"
We shouted "let go of our friend!"
Simon tossed the money and in the maylay to get the cash, Bone got loose to dash up the steps.
We were all laughing at them. The staff spilled out into the alley trying to threaten us. I ran back and chased them back down the steps stopping short of the bottom. One of the guys looked like he wanted to "squabble" but they backed off.
Back and forth it went until Simon, being the voice of reason, said "Let's go, Bone's out. F&%k those punks, we got what we wanted."
I looked at them and said "told you we'd get a good story."
The rest of the night was to be relatively uneventful. We headed back down the street and tried our best to stay in the shadows, avoiding police since those jokers at the disco could probably make up a big story to get the cops after us.
The adrenaline was wearing off and we started to relax so we asked some locals about a nice disco that would suit us and hopefully had some classy normal people to chill with. We were pointed towards the middle of the walking street and found ourselves at an entrance with a doorman and scrutiny, so that was a positive indicator of what was inside. The place was quite nice with a lightshow and elevated DJ booth pumping some good music.
Ahh relief, lets get a drink! They had Absolut, so it was on with the Juice-Vodka. The girls were kinda lacking and we noticed how relatively casual the place was with people wearing trainers and sporty t-shirts. Turns out that at the time this was the standard for club attire. Tight t-shirts and jeans on the fellas and mildly sporty dressed up ladies was about it.
We weren't seeing much in the form of any really interesting opposite sex but we decided to chill. Bone started breaking out the moves on the dance floor. He really liked cutting loose when we were in the clubs so it was a bit of a draw for the ladies to dance with him. Simon AKA "El Suavecito" was just smooth sipping at his drink. I was my regular oversized self, in other words, the one that looks like the Bodyguard of the group.
I was trying really hard to figure out if any of the chicks were trannies and it looked like none were since they didn't have the telltale Adams apple and beefy shoulders. So all was good, but I was still cautious. I asked around to see if anyone knew of a disco with more ladies. One sporty, nice-looking, short, blonde girl, in a sleeveless shirt, told me about a place up the street and around the corner.
I was sure she said "go out the front door and turn right then go two blocks and take a right. The place will be on your left, you can't miss it."
We stuck around for another minute, paid the tab and bailed out. I told the guys to follow me since I had a line on a better place where our odds might improve. Following her instructions to the letter, we headed for the other place. As we walked up the street it seemed that things had died down a bit since the foot traffic had eased up. We went up two streets turned right and kept walking. We started seeing some ladies up ahead and I started feeling good about my recon. As the ladies got closer, I tried to anticipate eye contact and get a good look. They seemed to be out of the light and walk somewhat face down.
Suddenly, one of them looked at me right in the eye; she did it like she had a hold on me. Her gaze was like Medusa's and I quickly was turning to stone. I felt paralyzed and terror ensued as I noticed her really strong features, plucked but protruding eyebrows, heavy makeup, chiseled jaw line and high cheek bones. I tried not to make a face in disgust but it was too late. I must have had the worst "I really got to take a crap" grimace on my face because she registered it in a disappointed he-she's expression. The fellas noticed too but played it off fairly well.
I was prepared for them to give me crap about the she-male giving me the eye but there wasn't any time. Up ahead there were more really strong looking, big-hair and makeup having "ladies" walking towards us. I was losing my cool thinking that were going to be attacked by hairy, flesh-hungry, body-building she-males in some kind of big noisy cluster-f&*k. Imagining something like lions attacking the fresh meat at a kill.
Visualizing them carrying on growling, roaring, snorting, pawing, and nipping at each other over the best and juiciest parts horrified me. They would leave nothing but a stripped carcass for the vultures to pick at.
Oh crap, I think I started to hyperventilate. I must have said we're in the wrong place because we started to look for a way out of there.
I remember breaking into a run with Bone's gazelle-like, sprinting figure, bolting like greased lighting ahead of me. Simon "el Suavecito" just casually walked out since he was too cool to run.
We found something to eat at a kebab stand and headed back to the hotel after more walking about, thinking WTF?
We all thought, tomorrow we better find a nice place to party...
