Istanbul-Prelude

So how did I decide on Istanbul? Did I recklessly pick a city on the map to discover, hardly. 😏. I had to go for a wedding in India. Normally I would do just that, trip to homeland and back but this time I decided to be adventurous? Foolish? At that time I was being foolishly adventurous, and every family , I believe, needs to travel together and go through stuff together to be close, is what I thought. This was before. Now as they say hind sight is 20/20. Here's what I think, traveling with kids is always unexpected, yet it must be done, just so they can be resilient, and learn to be a little out of their comfort zone.

I got a great deal on tickets to Greece and decided to go to Istanbul from there, on my way back from India. Yeah I said that.  I didn't just say it, rinsed and repeated it to my bewildered other half and kids. 'Coz Going to India wasn't enough, going to Greece wasn't cutting it,  I needed to schedule another trip in the three weeks of winter break. BOY! if I was seeking adventure and out of ordinary trip I got that and some. Was it worth it? Yes - the short answer, but it's a complicated yes.

Me: We're going to India, Greece and Turkey.
Them: All at the same time?
Me: No for the next three weeks
Them: We're stuck with each other for three weeks!!!
Them: Do you still love us?
Them: Wat did we do?

So me and my unwilling, unenthusiastic sidekicks got on this long journey to mystic lands, and they for one  - couldn't wait for it to be over. They had no choice, I had their passports! Our journey to the homeland was very eventful. I was stuck in Greece for 5 hours, and then in Turkey for 20 hours. We landed 2 days later in Delhi. In the course of my journey I had lost a hand bag, 2 jackets and lil bit of sanity. Every single visa counter we encountered made us feel like we belonged in a different planet and no one should grant crazies like us any sort of passports.

Me and my jetlagged family went through the wedding and the niceties like Zombies. Weddings in India are such a fun time with family and a chance to be body shamed over and over again, sometimes by people you've met the very  first time. I felt like I had to hide my food from people becoz I was being judged on my current body on wat I was eating now. Us women are so much worse on our own kind, just saying. I was there for 10 days and I was body shamed on most of those days by my acquaintances and un-acquaintances, all women, all ages..😉 

I still miss it all, and it was all worth it. I loved eating out while I was there. No amount of body shaming could keep me away from the yummies 😆. The picture below is at a restaurant in Aligarh, India. One wall of this joint is full of personality. Instructions and visuals galore, and so was the food. I let go of all my diarrhea fears, here. I felt safe buying food there, like they had standards, and they wished me luck. If not here then thealternative was the street food, which any given day is the best no matter how much your stomach brain tells you not to. Getting back to the picture, though.

Right of Admission reserved in a restaurant. Made me wonder, what is the qualification to be able to enter a restaurant? Do you have to wear a certain look? Meaning do I get to order if I'm not chic enough? This wasn't even that  kinda food joint, if you know what I mean, this is a take out kinda place. I wonder what prompted that sign? I guess I was the lucky one who had a right to be admitted.  I ordered and then thought about the wishbone. Am I gonna get lucky on my order today?  Is that why the wishbone was on the wall of this restaurant that reserved the right to admission yet wished them luck .

Where did we go in India that was most noteworthy? Why Taj Mahal of Course.

Beautiful serene Taj, monument of Love, ageless wonder. I discover something new about it every time I go. I 've been there a lot. Ever since I was little and it always stops me in my tracks and makes me think and observe.

I'm jaded y'll and it takes me by surprise, every time, all the time.

On the way to Taj, I saw them:

My favorite daring roadmates, riding on the back. Holding on to their dear lives with a hand in their pockets! 😅 Oh the humanity!

I have to say that this would be my dare ! Riding the back of a truck with a hand in my pocket. Who needs snowboarding when you can have all this fun for free. Its like being upside down and looking at the world from a different lens, you have to turn yourself in order to get the point of it all. Travelling out of our comfort zone sometimes does that.I could have planned for a lot of variables and driven myself crazy with all the scenarios of things that could go wrong. How much can you plan? A lot, more than I did, but you cannot possibly plan for everything 'coz you don't expect diplomacy to go awry and the country not give visas 'coz the politics in US gets in the way. I mean I wasn't expecting that. I didn't plan for that. Like I said, curveball; but like everything else, there was a loophole, I couldn't get a Turkish visa on US passport in US, but I could do the same thing from India, go figure, twisted diplomacy. I'm sure it all makes sense in some Diplomatic Manual, somewhere. Hence India was a precursor to my Istanbul trip, hence the title readers.😊😍


Best Laid Plans are that- Plans. Is Life ever like the pictures we paint it to be? Look deeper for the imperfections and crevices that makes us the human picture of the portrait. Travel makes us human and uncomfortable and rewards us in unexpected ways. I'm happy to have taken all that in order to get to Istanbul and still think that I would do it all again to get to Istanbul.