 | Istanbul Tourist Traps | Tips 1 - 10 of 143 |  |
Popular Tourist Traps | Miscellaneous Tourist Traps Tips | All Tips (143)  | |  |  | Those darn carpet shops | Tip Rating:   |  |  | |  |
When you are in Instanbul, you will certainly be asked to come into at least one carpet shop. The salesmen speak many languages and are friendly. If you do come into the store, they will prepare tea or coffee. They will talk to you for about ten minutes, asking you about your trip and where you are from. Then, they will explain how the carpets are made. At this point, one of his assistants will start rolling out several carpets for you. They will ask which ones you like. They will try to find one or two carpets you like the most. At some point they will ask you how much you think they are worth. Then, you will probably be told that you will be given a "special price." Even if you say that you do not want to buy anything they will ask you to name your price. You might be tempted to play along, but you will be falling into a trap. If you name a price, they might say "deal," shake your hand and start wrapping the carpet. An hour later your wallet will be hundreds of dollars lighter and you will be asking yourself, "How did that happen?" If you have no intention of buying a carpet, don't go in the shop. If you are "just looking," stay outside. Look from the window. Sure, you could walk out of a carpet store without buying anything, but the carpet salesman will try to make it look like you are being rude to him. After all, you just had tea/coffee with him and had a nice conversation. How can you turn your back on a friend?
If you really want to buy a carpet, do a lot of research before coming to Istanbul. Go to a store in your own city and see how much hand-made carpets cost there. They might be cheaper than in Istanbul! Also, if you are traveling to a different part of Turkey, such as Konya, you might want to buy a carpet there as prices are not as high.
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| | | | Cab Drivers and Cheater people | Tip Rating: | | | | |
Some VT members were complaining about cab drivers and some cheater people. For Cab: When you take a cab,you will see,he will put the thing to put price on. it should starts with 1.01 YTL .it suppose to show Gunduz (Day) or Gece (Night). Night cost double and starts after midnight.
if you realise he put the wrong one.Tell him to stop the car right away and ask for the cop. Actually suppose to be tourist cops but if you can not see any around,go to any cop you see.Tell them,whats going on and let them help you.
why dont you take the bus named HAVAS? they are always waiting front of the airport and has hours to move. Tell them,where you want to go,they will help you. They are working with the airport,so thats not really possible cheating by 'em. These buses are going to Aksaray,Taksim,Kozyatagi (Anatolian side) etc etc. Another option is to take a metro/subway. If you follow the signs for metro in the airport,you can find it easy. you can see the map for destinations in all subway Any problem?confused?Ask to people in Subway ! Even if they dont speak english well,they will try to help (yes,we are very helpful people :-))) They are not like some Cab drivers,dont worry :-) Leave a Comment
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| | | | Sultanahmet is One Big Tourist Trap | Tip Rating: | | | | |
The Sultanahmet area of Istanbul (where the Blue Mosque, Hippodrome, and Hagia Sofia are located) is one giant tourist trap - there are thousands of peddlers selling the same souvenirs, and myriads of carpet and leather salesmen standing on the streets trying to get you to come into their shops. But you mustn't miss this area if you are visiting Istanbul, so you have to learn to deal with it.
Just say "No Thank You," over and over, and keep walking. If they say, "Can I ask you just one question," just say "no thank you." If they say ANYTHING AT ALL, ATTEMPT ANY KIND OF CONVERSATION, just say "No Thank You" AND KEEP WALKING. DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT. You may feel silly answering the question, "Where are you from" with "No thank you", but you have to learn to do this. Otherwise you'll spend all your time trying to extract yourself from these guys rather than seeing the sights. They are counting on your politeness to get you into their shops. You can be polite but firm. And it is imperative to learn this very early on, because there are literally no streets where you can walk in this area without getting accosted by carpet and souvenir salesmen. Leave a Comment
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| | | | The local salesmen, merchants, and "tour guides" | Tip Rating: | | | | |
This isn't a specific location, but rather a kind of person you will encounter hundreds of times as you walk around Istanbul. They are the incredibly pushy, aggressive, and pesky salesmen, merchants, and tour guides. Of these, the first two groups can be brushed off easily enough because you can simply smile, say "no thank you," and briskly walk past their stores. They can't follow you because they have to stay and watch their stores. It can be a bit like running the gaunlet when you have to endure an entire street of these guys, but at least there's an end in sight. However, this limitation does not apply to the countless "tour guides" roaming around, particularly in the Hippodrome/Blue Mosque area. These are the truly pesky men who will literally follow you trying to make conversation, when all they really want is to take you on a "tour" that ends up at a shop of one kind or another. Or they are would-be tour guides who are hoping you'll hire them for a personal guided tour of the city. We were constantly hounded by these annoying men every time we stepped foot near the Hippodrome area (i.e. every day, several times a day). If you stop walking for even a moment it's all over. You'll never get away because they'll never stop talking. After learning this reality, and after our polite attempts to get away failed us time after time, I'm afraid my wife and I both resorted to being fairly short and rude with them. Sadly, we found that the best thing to do was to simply avoid making eye contact, always keep walking, and just dismiss them with a quick "no thank you" anytime one of them even hinted that he wanted to talk to us. I know that sounds horribly rude, and perhaps people will criticize me for behaving this way, but I swear to you that I'm not normally like that at all and that I love meeting and mingling with locals when I travel. But this was just another world, and drastic measures were necessary. If you know a better way to handle situations like this, by all means please post a comment and tell me.
Don't stop to talk to these people, just smile and say "no thank you" and keep right on going. This is especially important for women traveling without a male companion. ALL the salesmen in Istanbul are, well, men. And they do not take "no" for an answer from the women they pester. We witnessed two young women get harassed (not sexually though) for nearly an hour while attending an event at the Blue Mosque one night. I came very close to just standing up and telling these guys to get the hell away from them, but with my luck they'd pull a knife on me and that would put a quick end to my vacation. These poor women told the men time after time, very explicitly, to leave them alone to no avail. I really felt sorry for them, so when the same group of men approached me and my wife afterwards, I told them to take a hike immediately.
One thing we noticed is that these pests are apparently not allowed to harass tourists inside the walls of the mosques, palaces, and other historic buildings. When one particularly persistent guy followed us into the courtyard of the Blue Mosque after we made it clear that we weren't interested in talking to him, a security guard chased him off and immediately became our hero. We also noticed that we never once got approached by anyone while we were in Gulhane Park. This made the peaceful, tranquil, and relaxing atmoshphere of this beautiful park even more enjoyable, and we sought sanctuary there more than once. Leave a Comment
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Kumkapi is the seafood restaurant district located to the southwest of Sultanahmet, just off Kennedy Caddesi and the main railway loop. I read a lot about this historic area in tour guides, but it was a huge disappointment. Our first mistake was to walk to Kumkapi from our hotel in Sultanahmet, which took us through a confusing maze of streets in a run-down, dirty, and somewhat frightening residential area. We made it safely, but I certainly wouldn't do it after dark. Once we got to Kumkapi itself we found a vast sea (ha, ha) of seafood restaurants all offereing almost exactly the same menu, with almost no uniqueness. None of the food looked particularly appetizing anywhere we looked, and it was all very overpriced. We didn't receive very good service and we found poeple to be less friendly than in the two restaurants I mentioned in my restaurant section. To top things off, when we took a cab ride back to our hotel our driver took us to the wrong part of town completely, despite the fact that I showed him the address of our hotel and the precise location on a map. He then acted annoyed when we informe him that he took us to the wrong place. Our trip to Kumkapi was our first meal in Istanbul, and one of our first experiences in the city. Needless to say, it was not the right way to kick off our trip, and it was during this experience that my wife and I began to seriously second-guess our decision to visit Istanbul. Fortunately things did get better as our trip progressed, but Kumkapi certainly didn't endear us to the city.
Just don't go. Period.
There are lots of great places to eat, two of which I cited in my restaurant recommendations. When in doubt, ask someone at your hotel. Hopefully they're as helpful as Mustafa at our hotel. Leave a Comment
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| | | | It's Picture Time | Tip Rating: | | | | |
Dolmabahce is a splendid palace that is definitely worth visiting. The entrance fee was 16 YTL in September 2006 (this is a combined ticket for the palace and harem). But don?t pay extra - another 6 YTL - to take pictures (unless you are rolling in money). It?s a rip-off. Nobody knows, or asks, whether you paid or not. It's just another way to squeeze money out of tourists. The tour is guided, and the guide says: OK, everybody, picture time. So the goody-goodies who did as they were told and left their cameras at the entrance have basically been had.
Before you leave the grounds, make sure to take advantage of the bathroom near the exit (no, folks, you can't use the Sultan's marble and gold facilities). Not only are most of the public toilets in Istanbul filthy and smelly, but you have to pay. At Dolmabahce, they are amazingly clean, and best of all, they're free. Leave a Comment
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| | | | Whirling dervishes - in a train station???? | Tip Rating: | | | | |
There are two considerations to this: we wanted to see the whirling dervishes desperately, and for the experience we were grateful. However, the setting is nowhere near genuine, so if it's authenticity you're looking for, you may want to try elsewhere (more on that below). The room appears to be an unused waiting room of a train station, and looks like.... a waiting room in a train station. But once the performance began, I managed to forget that. The dancers are preceded by a quartet of musicians, who begin with instrumentals - this lasts about 10-15 minutes. Then the dervishes solemnly walk out, abandon their long black robes, and in ceremony, slowly begin to turn in their meditative spin. It's actually mesmerizing to watch them as they slowly unfold their arms and twirl one foot around the other, gaining momentum in their rotations gradually. Eventually they slow and stop, regroup in a line, and repeat the dance, their long robes flowing elegantly in undulating waves, their heads tilted slightly, outstretched hands relaxed. But this is obviously a tourist performance, and the dancers can range from good to bad.
Keep in mind that it is for foreigner, and enjoy the movements of the dance. It really is amazing.
We managed to witness a real Sufi meditation gathering, and it was quite different. I can't give details on where it was: we gave the taxi driver directions written in Turkish, and he dropped us off somewhere way off the beaten track. But what we saw was stunning. The Sufi tradition, tied closely in Islam, involves meditation of various methods, including dance. It is not done for tourists or photographers; the fact that we were there was due to the spontaneous generosity of a very gracious man and host who went out of his way to eat dinner with us and sit with us, explaining the Sufi ways and answering questions on this private and personal expression of faith. I will always remember his patience and kindness. And while I wasn't sure if I should even mention this experience, I wish to say that if you are truly curious about all aspects of Sufism, then do some reading on it - enough to gain a basic familiarity with what it is, and if the desire to delve further persists, then investigate where to see such practices are performed. Chances are if you do, you will be a welcomed guest into a ceremony that is ancient, exotic, and thrilling, though not for the lighthearted. Leave a Comment
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