Istanbul - baklavas, mosques and recycling

For anyone with a sweet tooth, Istanbul is heaven on earth. Almost every second shop sells Baklavas, turkish delights and all manner of national delicacies, usually comprising pastry, honey, gelatin or a mixture of all three.

Of all the cities we've visited so far, this one stands out the most and has given what I expect will become the most lasting impressions. Hot, frenetic, lively, tactile - it's a city full of people living, laughing, struggling and surviving.

Driving in the city is a game of dodge the next car that pulls out in front of you suddenly with no warning and usually driving at break neck speed. But we had it relatively easy. Also on the roads, which typically had four lanes of traffic, were adolescent boys and men carting enormous sacks, three or four times the siye of themselves filled with cardboard or plastic bottles. Throughout the city, boys rummage through bins pulling out recyclable materials, pile them into dirty canvas sacks and either haul them on their backs or on makeshift trollies through the streets to a depot we never saw.

Mosques line the streets almost as much as the Baklava and Doener stores. After dusk, their pointed minarettes light up blasting out religious verses across the nightsky. By day, the chanting can be heard no matter where you are at prayer times. Shops close and we watched as several dozen men fell to the floor in the middle of the street in sacred worship. There is something quite poignent about this coming from the secular metropolis of London.

And now less than 24 hours later, we have arrived in Thessanoliki and checked into a humid hotel room, with a new carpet and at least a dozen baklavas in my stomach.

As the Turks say: "Güle güle"