Turkish Baths, Water Pipes and Kebabs!!!!

Well I've just realised I havn't brought the usb cable for my camera so I'm unable to put up any photos, but I'll use Matt's camera once we get somewhere that I can plug it in!!

Anyway in the past couple of days we've checked out the blue mosque. the aya sofya cathedral and the topkapi palace all of which we're really intersting but needed a sit down and a beer inbetween as it's just been too hot to keep going!!

The covered bazaar was huge and full of spices, clothing and other trinkets you'd expect to see there! It's a bit of a maze and we went in and out a few times before we worked out where we were. In the evening we headed over to Taxim which is the modern part of Istanbul where all the shops are -- not that we went in any but that's also where all the bars are so we made our way over on the tram. We sat down to relax on one of the side streets which served water pipes and I got a banana and melon one, which was ok though I did cough a few times due to not being used to the smoke but it was all fun!

Yesterday we decided to get up and head straight for the turkish bath so we paid up and went down the road to the baths. I thought you got given some shorts to wear but no it was just a cotton towel to wrap around yourself haha. It was like a sauna in there with water basins to tip water over yourself before being ordered to lay down on the massage platform where you got thumped and squeezed until your body was red raw, though everytime it hurt all I could do was laugh! The best bit was when the masseur got what looked like a pillow case and squashed it on you which made loads of soapy sods and rubbed them on you. Afterwards I felt really good. but after a lie down my muscles were aching like hell.

In the evening we decided to head to the bridge where all the restaurants were to try out the local fish. I had some deep fried muscles the start and sea bass for main which were both awesome. We were sat right next to the sea and has line dangling down right next to us trying to get crabs, though i didn't see anyone catch anything.

We're off to catch the train at 10pm tonight over to Sofia in Bulgaria which takes about 12 hours, so hopefully we will be able to get some shut eye on the sleeper beds we have reserved. I've just eated a tasty kebab for dinner and just need to top it off by grabbing some turkish delight before we go!!! yumyum!