HOW MUCH?

We ended up on the wrong side of Istanbul late last Sunday night, stuck in the tourist traps around the Blue Mosque where the city is long on top end hotels and short on cheap booze joints and live music. We wandered the streets aimlessly, dodging the restaurant touts offering meals at venues more grownup than those we were hoping to come across. An hour of fruitlessly searching the alleyways that crosshatch the area between the old city’s central square and the Grand Bizarre brought nothing and in desperation we plunged down a well lit avenue of alfresco eateries and there, guarded by a phallynx of restaurants populated by chubby fingered Texans and matrons in dress jewellery, we found it. It wasn’t much but the music was loud and the man at the door was ushering us in like he had something to offer. We’d been disappointed by other venues in the area which from the outside offered so much but ultimately failed to deliver. Idaho’s Most Potent, wary of another false start, inquired cheerfully of the door attendant whether there were any hot women inside. A flicker of concern crossed the man’s face. He looked over at his partner and gabbled something in Turkish. Idaho’s Most Potent, in the mistaken belief the first man could not speak English redirected the question to the second; “Are there any hot women inside?” Concern turned to consternation as the face of the second man flushed with anger. “Women!” he said, “We do not sell women!”

The next morning I awoke refreshed from an early night and a good sleep.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson