Gardens in the Sky

Hyatt Regency – no roughing it for KE passengers... from the immaculately navy suited driver and bag boy to the navy and gold, airconditioned “limousine” coach, spacious accommodation, and amazing restaurant food, our (as in all the stopover passengers) importance was affirmed. Inside the hotel and despite my constant rushes to the nearest convenience (I didn't cope well with the descent – short and violent airsickness at ground level!!) we were treated as if we were most famous; a condition I could easily get used to...  

After first impressions of concrete and steel and a completely man-made landscape; finding a full garden complete with winding paths, tall trees and name tags for each and every plant, on the first floor was a welcome, albeit surreal, relief. A very calming way to spend the morning. Nothing defies possibility in the Future City.

Arrival at Istanbul couldn't have been more of a contrast; an entrance to jangle the nerves if ever there was one. People piled upon each other, cramming to get to the seemingly never-ending processing of one's passport – the nice gentleman, with a completely deadpan face, comparing my passport with the dishevelled looking character in front of him, over and over again. After what seemed like an eternity, he looked all through the rest of my passport with a critical and faintly disbelieving eye before carefully finding an empty page (there are only about 47 of them!) on which to place his precious stamp. My excitement with my beautiful new NZ passport, one of the latest design, had abated with every page scrutiny he made. I fully expected him to tell me it was a forgery. The drive into the city was a development of what we'd already encountered – jostling traffic and interminable waits in queues relieved by the entertainment; of all things, flower sellers wandering through the traffic hopefully trying to encourage some late and guilt ridden driver to purchase a bunch of red roses and gypsophilla for his beloved on the way home. Then came the lady with the baby, wandering through the 4 lane expressway with her hand out to every car she passed.

Now we are in the midst of this jostling and cacophonous city, a 16^th century mosque at eye level across the street (regularly and stridently calling us to prayer), built on the remains of some Byzantine architecture; the Hippodrome walls only metres up the narrow cobbled street and only a short walk to a 3,500 year old Egyptian obelisk. History here is literally layer upon layer – amazing and almost incomprehensible with our short colonized time frame.