Another side of Istanbul.

One reason I, and I think everyone in the group, signed up for this particular tour, was because it promised to show more than just the tourist view of Istanbul. Our guide Mert didn't disappoint. After visiting most of the predictable sights, he took us to the poorer area of the city. This is what we saw.

Richard buying some fruit! There weren't many people around but the folk we saw were quite friendly.

This old fella (below) waved and gave us a wonderful toothless grin when we rambled through his 'manor'.

As we walked beneath the balcony they were playing on, the girls greeted us enthusiastically, laughing happily at our mangled attempt (OK, MY mangled attempt- everyone else sounded pretty good) to say 'Hello' in Turkish. (It's 'Merhabah', pronounced 'mehr-hah-bah).
Elections were imminent, and we saw flags and posters everywhere which suggested to me that the people are a lot more active in politics than here in the UK, where apathy prevails.

To sum up, the atmosphere was very different from what I had experienced in other parts of Istanbul, which is generally a dynamic and tumultuous city. This area was much quieter- there weren't many people on the streets. Maybe most people were working.

I can only speak for myself, but I felt a bit guilty being here, almost as if I was treating poverty as a tourist attraction. Of course that was not my, or anyone's intention. I just wanted to know as much about this city and the people who live in it as I could, and the only way to do that, is to go behind the candy-coated image and have a look. But I grew up very poor and I'm not at all sure I'd have been too thrilled with other people coming to see how we lived. So I hope we didn't offend anyone. That certainly was not our intention.