Hey, Taksi!

HasanTaksi,
originally uploaded by skyring.

It’s hard finding an English-speaking driver with a clean cab in Sydney, let alone in Istanbul. I asked at my hostel when I checked out, and they didn’t give Buckleys for my chances. Neither did I.

I saw no problem with finding a cab for the airport, which is hard enough in Canberra. My hostel was located only a few blocks from Ayasofia and the Blue Mosque in the ancient city centre district of Sultanahmet. There were cabs aplenty lined up for the tourists, each one with a roof light saying “TAKSI”, and I reasoned that I could walk along the line until I found one that was clean and tidy. If the driver spoke English, that would be a bonus, for if there’s one thing I love, it’s talking taxidriving with a fellow taxidriver.

Usually, I travel with four bags, including a great big rolling duffle full of books and Tim-Tams, but I’d left the bulky luggage back in London for the night. Yes, I flew all the way to Istanbul and back for the sake of a single day there. Originally it was going to be just a couple of hours in the airport, but I decided that much as I love London, I could take a day off my brief stay in favour of some real tourist time in Istanbul, and I’d still get the same airmiles. So all I had were my backpack and a small daypack. I could walk all over Istanbul in search of the right cab if I wanted.

For years I’ve been fascinated by tales of Byzantium, of Constantinople, of Istanbul. As a child I sang along to an old 78 record, telling me to a bouncy tune that I can’t go back to Constantinople, now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople, why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks!

For ten centuries, the Roman Empire declined in glory there, trading on its location on the sea route to the Black Sea, dominating the narrow passage between Asia and Europe. Nibbled away over the centuries, at last the Eastern Roman Empire was just Constantinople and a few nearby regions, the Ottoman Turks held at bey by the tremendous land walls of the city. The Turks tried a few times to take the city, but it wasn’t until 1453, with the aid of new-fangled cannon (huge bronze tubes drawn by oxen and firing rocks) that the walls were breached and the city taken, an event widely regarded as announcing the end of the Middle Ages.

Constantinople became the capital of the Ottoman Empire, an empire that spanned three continents and rivalled that of the Romans, covering much of the same territory. Hagia Sophia, the great sixth century Byzantine church, transformed into the Ayasofia mosque, and the nearby Topkapi Palace sprawled over several hectares of the central city, home to the Sultan, his vast harem and his personal army corps.

By the Twentieth Century, the empire was a sad remnant of past glories, and the great Turkish leader Ataturk (an extraordinary man who was, more than any other person, responsible for the stout and ultimately successful defence of Gallipoli) led a peaceful revolution, initiated a series of reforms, and moved the capital to Ankara.

In many ways, Constantinople is a living museum, a city stretching back to times distant indeed for an Australian, where civilisation began in 1788. The emphasis is on “living”, because the city is full of life and colour, a neverending display for the tourist, a feast for the peoplewatcher. If I hadn’t had to catch my flight back to the UK, I think I’d still be sitting there in a restaurant on the Pera Bridge, eating fresh grilled fish, pouring golden beers down my throat, watching the fishermen haul in sardines, the restaurant touts hauling in tourists, and admiring the water dance of the ferries on the Golden Horn, the neverending stream of ships traversing the Bosporus beyond, and the hills of Asia a distant and satisfying backdrop.

But I also loved the historic nature of the city. This is a place where history is in the very ground. Here is a modern apartment building, beside it a Byzantine church disused for centuries, vegetation growing on the roof. And under my feet a reservoir the size of a shopping mall, where the remnants of old Greek statues can be seen amongst the thousand columns supporting the roof, where carp swim in the shallow water, and tourists like myself exclaim at the artful lighting. I posed Ringbear on an ancient upturned head of Medusa, her snakes green in the water, and I set a book free at her temple, floating in a ziploc bag.
For now, I needed a taxi for the airport. I’d be back, I promised myself, and I’d sit with my wife in the grand square between the two great mosques, amongst the fountains and the tulips and the wild cats.

I found a line of taxis soon enough and picked one out. It sparkled in the spring sunshine. It was either brand new, or it had an owner who took pride in his cab. At that point I gave up my plan to find an English-speaking taxidriver. This one would do me fine, and I’d travel in style in a clean and comfortable cab. At the very least, I could smile at the driver, and I knew that he would take one look at me, my cargo pants and my backpack and think “Airport”. Every taxidriver in every city knows the way to the airport.

“Salaam!” I said as I opened the cab door. I might not know more than two words of Turkish (the other being “taksi”), but at least I could make a happy start, with the local equivalent of “G’day mate, how they hanging, orright?”.

“Salaam,” the taxidriver replied, probably wondering if that was the extent of my Turkish, or maybe I was a master linguist in disguise.

“Errr, do you speak English?” I asked, and his eyes lit up as he seized the moral advantage.
“A little,” he replied, and my own eyes lit up.

From then on, I enjoyed the ride. No, I loved it. Forget the politicians, the celebrities, the merry drunks – what I really like is talking to other cabbies. We talked taxis, the high cost of taxi licenses (about $250 000 in Canberra, 400 000 Turkish Lire in Istanbul, more or less the same amount, so far as I can work out), the pride of a clean cab.

I loved my driver as soon as I saw a cleaning rag ready to hand on his dashboard. I keep one in my centre console, and if I see dust or dirt, I’m out there wiping it off. And let me say it again, but this little Turkish taxi gleamed. Inside and out.

All the Istanbul cabs are yellow. And small. Maybe they have to be small to fit through narrow laneways, but my own cab is easily twice the size. If I had to drive around Canberra on a Saturday night with four drunks packed into a Turkish taksi, it would be entertaining, to say the least.

Hasan (we were very quickly on first name terms) explained some of the features of his cab. There was a swivelling spotlight mounted on the dashboard, able to point ahead and to either side, the better to illuminate house numbers at night. Canberra cabs have a couple of roof-mounted lights pointing off to the sides, meaning that the driver has to slow down and swivel his head if he is to read the number. Hassim’s light was shrouded in a bowl that hugged the windscreen, so as to eliminate reflections. A very clever piece of kit.

He didn’t have the computerised despatch system and GPS map that is now standard in Canberra’s cabs. Instead he received bookings via the ubiquitous cellphone, and navigated his way around Istanbul with his own street smarts. Maybe he had a street directory tucked under his seat. Nor could I see any credit card facilities, but then again, a Turkish taksi is so small that the card reader and printer would eliminate all of the spare room in the front seat, not to mention the backend computer and radio that would have to be tucked away somewhere out of sight.

We found our way out of the narrow streets around my hostel, and soon we were skirting the shore of the Sea of Marmara, Russian and Greek container ships randomly sprinkled over the pale blue waters, tiny marinas popping up and disappearing, parks, monuments, apartment buildings.

I fumbled for my camera. I’d goggled at the sight on my way in the previous afternoon, but I was determined not to let this second chance run by without a photograph. Up ahead was a fragment in layered red and buff stone of the ancient Walls of Theodosius. These walls had kept invaders out of Constantinople for hundreds of years until an oversight with a janitor’s door had let the Ottomans in and changed history. Originally including a moat and two subsidiary walls, the last remnants still looked imposing enough.

No longer needed. Everywhere in Istanbul I’d received a friendly welcome. The city was mine for the cost of a visa, a taksi fare and a bowl of Turkish delight.

And here was the airport. I got Hasan to pose beside his cab with Ringbear, he gave me his business card – with his email address of “sultanofthetaxi” - and I wished him a prosperous day. And then it was back into the world of airports, the same all over the world, a British Airways Boeing lifting away, a last glimpse of minarets and marinas, and the farmlands of Central Europe golden in the declining sun.

That silly old song about Constantinople kept running through my mind, and I know that one day I’m going to have to go back to Constantinople, no it’s Istanbul not Constantinople, to have another ride in Hasan’s sparkling taksi, to see again the Golden Horn and the Blue Mosque, and to fill myself to the brim with fresh Turkish delight.