Not much time to write at the moment, but I am in India.

Brief highlights from the last 16 hours:

• The taxi ride from the airport was the best taxi ride I’ve had in my life.  It absolutely got me excited.  A swirl of people, shit-box cars, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, horns, stores, walkers, sitters, standers, bright saris, colors, chaos, wind in my face, and grit blowing into my eyes.  I like chaos.  Eye grit builds character.  (Or that’s what I’ll tell my son one day when he bitches about it.)
• People sleep in the stairwell of the building my hotel is in – in fact, they sleep everywhere.  Sidewalks are a popular option.  I nearly stepped on several people last night while walking on the sidesleep.
• Within walking around for one hour this morning, I was offered several “Slumdog Millionaire” tours.  “Sir, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ tour?  See where they make movie!  Slums.  Washing clothes.”  I’m not sure why he said “washing clothes,” but he did.  I said “no” and then he offered me drugs.  (Sidenote: That movie is all over the papers here today after it’s big Oscar round-up last night.)
• On this walk I also saw a tall, could-be-Aussie tourist with a big backpack blow up at a beggar kid, hurling a string of expletives at him and nearly slugging him.  That would be a 6′ 4″, 185 guy and a 45 pound kid.  That he nearly hit.
• You can still see some broken windows at the Taj Hotel, one site of the November terror attacks.  I went in to check out the lavish lobby and had to go through two different metal detectors.  They have an x-ray machine that luggage must go through.
• The first food I ate was street food.  Stomach bugs be damned!  Things close early here, so the only place I could find for food at 11:45 pm was a guy cooking omlettes on the street with the standard noisy blowtorch-under-a-metal-plate cooker.  I paid 20 cents for the delicious omlette, and I think I might have overpaid.
• The second food was Chicken Some-Green-Sauce Masalla, which blew my favorite Indianapolis Indian buffet out of the water.  And that’s a statement, because the Indian Buffet kicks ass.  It cost me $1 for the food, tea, an drink.  And that’s probably expensive by India standards.

Mumbai is going to be awesome. And a bit insane.

More later.  Time to go explore!

Dubai Mall. Jesus.

I’m sitting right now in a coffee shop in Dubai at the world’s newly opened, largest (and most ridiculous) mall. I keep walking in around in awe and just swearing to myself. It cost 20 billion dollars to build this place. It’s next to the world’s tallest man-made structure, the really cool-looking Burj Dubai tower (pictured right). This place pisses excellence decadence. I’ve never seen anything like this before and it’s hard to describe. It’s balls crazy.

To get to my particular table and the smiling Filipino girl that works here, I had to walk past the massive (2.6 million gallons of water) indoor aquarium, the indoor Olympic-sized ice rink with 65 foot wide video screen over it, the indoor waterfall, and a handful of the 1,200 stores. You know — no big deal.

For those wanting more fun facts, here are the Wikipedia entries for the Dubai Mall and the Burj Dubai.

Andrew’s predicts that if my wallet gets stolen here, it probably isn’t a huge concern because it will be replaced with a brick of solid gold. Spot on, sir.

I’d also say it’s time for me to consider my future in big oil?

Okay. I gotta go. It’s quite a hike back to where the taxis will take me back to the airport. (There is no bus service from the airport, but, you know, don’t worry. I think gas is free here.) I just had to get on here and express my wide-eyed awe. Holy shit, Dubai.

Reasons my trip to Ankara was awesome:

Reason #1:
First and foremost, I got my visa to India! Picking it up was mind-bogglingly simple. Just walk in the door after the now-familiar metal detector massage and get it. The guy didn’t even ask to see the reservation for the flight he told me I had to book to collect the visa.

Reason #2:
I went to a bar (exterior pictured right) with my friend Beth in Ankara that she had never been to. There were about four other women in the place and the rest were men. We sat in a booth towards the back of the room and I had a clear view of the stage.

The live music was very typically Turkish. There was a guy playing some sort of sitar/guitar thing, a guy on an electronic keyboard, and a curvy Turkish woman singing and exchanging friendly banter with the crowd. Below is half of the interior of the place.

A half an hour goes by and I feel a tap on my shoulder — it’s the manager. I look to him and he points at the singer on the stage. She is talking into the microphone, looking right at me, and upon eye contact says in English, “Hello, darling!” I grin and wave. She continues talking in Turkish and I yell out all I know to say which is “Good evening!” in Turkish.

Beth (pictured right) and I go back to our conversation for a while, though I am now a bit distracted by the woman on the stage. She keeps saying things to me, the room laughs, and I just smile and give the standard Shipley thumbs-up and wave.

Eventually, she seems to have forgotten me and several songs go by. Something up-beat and catchy comes on and I hear her yell out, “American!” I look at her as four Turkish men are dancing on the floor in front of her. She enthusiastically gestures for me to get off my ass and come dance. Great.

After 30 seconds of hemming, hawing, thinking about my abysmal white guy rhythm, and feeling reluctant to be the center of attention amongst the 50 or 60 Turkish men in attendance, I hear my dad’s voice in my head saying, “No balls, no air medal, boy,” put on a big smile, and march right up to the stage.

She takes my hand, bows to me, and begins sliding around the stage; swinging her hips, moving her hands and feet, doing that fast boob-shake thing that girls do when they shimmy their shoulders back and forth quickly, looking in to my eyes and being generally sexy. I’m right in front of her, staring back and grinning stupidly as we both take turns imitating what ever kind of dance moves the other comes up with.

Keep in mind, I am not good at this. I am white. I am from an average-sized city in the Midwest. I usually don’t care enough to let that hold me back, though. I look around the room a few times — all eyes are locked on the goofy American and all mouths are either smiling or laughing – especially when she eggs me on in to playing air guitar while I dance.

It’s was awesome. It was funny. I wish I could understand what she was saying to the crowd about me. Every time she spoke in to the microphone, they laughed.

Thanks, sexy Turkish lounge singer. That was fun.

Reason #3:

I got to use my first squat toilet in my life! No spills, nothing on the floor, nothing on my clothes, and I didn’t fall into the gross. It was a big success and an important milestone in my life. First kiss, first car, graduating from college, first job, and first squat toilet:

Reason my trip to Ankara was not awesome:

Reason #Only:

It marks the end of my time in Istanbul and leaving Bryan and Hatice; seen here in a picture taken last night on my final night out in Istanbul. Hatice cooked us dinner, then out we went.

Wow. This is the hard part of always moving. It feels harder this time than usual, too. It’s difficult to express how much I’m gonna miss these two without getting more emotional than others would care to read. What an incredible time and what amazing friends. Thanks, you two. A chance-meeting leads to friends for the rest of my life.

Okay. I’m not packed and I have a plane to catch to India. Ha.

Next stop, Mumbai! I’m really excited. Additionally, I have full faith that the Turkish squat toilet will quickly get knocked off it’s throne (so to speak) as my pooping pinacle.

Bring it, India.

Friends. Making them, meeting them, and enjoying the Turkishness.

Istanbul has turned out to be incredible. It’s been a month and a half of general awesomeness and meeting cool people. Everybody likes fun, right?

It also qualifies for a place on the coveted List of Cities in which I could See Myself Living. There is a constant energy of random possibility in the air. I never know what is going to happen when I walk out of the apartment, but it’s invariably something, invariably interesting, and, Indian consulates aside, invariably good.

With a smile on your face and the right attitude, meeting one person leads to meeting four more. At that early point on the geometric growth curve of friendly goodness, you’re only limited by your own energy and how many hours there are in the day. …That and the fact that rest of the world tends to have to work or go to class.

To wit:

Our Valentine’s Day party, No Couples Allowed, 2009, ended up being a hit. Any early fears of it ending up being six people serenely sitting on the couch, making small talk, watching television and calmly drinking glasses of wine were roundly allayed by 9:00.

I also ended up being in charge of making the advertised “Magic Punch.” It turned out to be excellent and went quickly once we brought it out. I even whipped up an animated logo loop that we played on the television during the party (because that’s what I do). This is what it looks like in filmstrip form:

There are a bunch of pictures in the Flickr photo gallery from the last two weeks. Let’s hit the highlights here for those short on time:

This man is my Turkish Unkle. He is an ex-engineer and current volleyball ref who travels around to different countries for volleyball games. He stayed at our place for a few days. Our sink broke and he fixed it.

When French Marion was here visiting for a week, we had a dinner party which included fresh fish and the Turkish drink called Rakı. (That’s an “i” without the dot. “ı” — It’s pronounced “uhh.” So the drink is “rakuh.”) Rakı is a clear liquor that is normally imbibed by adding water to it. When you add the water, it changes from clear to milk-colored. It’s good. Once we were done eating, we took a bunch of pictures.

Bryan and I go out. We meet people. These are some of them:

Sometimes people make me food. I’ve also flip-flopped like accusations in a Republican attack ad from not liking olives to craving them. Here’s a typical Turkish breakfast (and some tasty noodles):

We went to a mall called “Kanyon” to see the architecture. I don’t generally care about malls, but this place was cool:

When we go home at night, we eat Wet Burgers on the way home at the Wet Burger place:

We did a bunch of shopping for No Couples Allowed Party 2009. Items purchased include a bubble gun and a bunch of string for Bryan to make his string wall art. Unfortunately, my camera battery died on the night of the party after taking only one picture. But that picture, my friends, is classic. Thumbnail to the right. It’s the only picture I got from the entire party on my camera, but, good grief, I really can’t complain if this is all I, erm, shot.

Fortunately Juan Miguel was ready to take pictures and posted them on Facbeook:

Great party.

In other news and important observations, I’m glad I like the shirts I brought with me. One product of traveling light is I have two button-down shirts to pick from every time I go out. (It used to be three, but I’ve managed to get what I think is wine on the white one when I was in Budapest and it won’t come out. By “won’t come out,” I mean that I put it in the washer once. Probably should try a little harder.) I was just looking through some old pictures and realized that when I’m done with this trip I’ll have a year’s worth of photos of me hanging out with people in one of two shirts.

I go back to Ankara on Friday to attempt to pick up my Indian visa. It’s entirely possible that they’ll stick me with some sort of procedural red tape again and I’ll have to change my flight again, but hopefully things will work out. If I’ve knocked on wood enough times, I should be in a plane to Mumbai on Sunday night, arriving on Monday the 23rd.

Here’s a link to the entire Flickr photo gallery, should you be interested.

My arrival in Mumbai got pushed back a week because I wasn’t aware of the issues I’d have getting an Indian Visa. I’m still in Istanbul and will be here until Monday the 23rd. Thus far, I’ve been lucky and haven’t really had to even think about visas with my American passport. Not so with red tape-ified India.

Consider this utilitarian post simply a PSA for people Googling the same thing I tried rather than the usual travel stories and pictures I post. I would have liked to read it before I tried this process. If you’re in Turkey and you need a visa to go to India, read on. Otherwise, I doubt you’ll find this very interesting.

In this post:

• Go to Ankara, Yankee.
• Details of obtaining an Indian Tourist Visa in Ankara, Turkey:
• Required documents to apply for Indian Visa
• Location of Indian Embassy in Ankara
• Why the Indian consulate is a no-go in Istanbul.
• Location of Indian Consulate in Istanbul, for Americans looking to waste time.

Quick Answer:

If you’re an American, don’t try to get a tourist visa for India at the Indian consulate in Istanbul. I tried it a week ago without success and have read about others that failed with the same issues as me. (Dave’s blog post is a useful read and jives with my experience.) You need to go to the embassy in Ankara, you need to bring some specific stuff with you, and you need four business days to get it done.

Citizens of other countries should have relatively few problems in Istanbul as long as they can go to their respective embassies and obtain the “Note Verbal” letter required by the Indian consulate to issue the visa. The “note verbal,” as explained to me, is an official letter from one’s government confirming the validity of their passport, that they are free to travel to India, and that the government is requesting a visa for it’s citizen.

Go to Ankara:

The hours to apply for the visa at the Indian Embassy in Ankara are 10:00 AM until 11:30 AM, Monday through Friday. I would advise getting there a little before 10 in the morning and waiting so you’re the first in line to go in – that way you might have time to go deal with anything unexpected that comes up before they close. You can only pick up your documents from 5:00 to 5:30 PM. It takes 4 business days to get your visa. I applied on Monday morning, I get my visa on Friday at 5:00.

Required documents to bring with you to apply in Ankara:

• Your passport, which you will leave at the Indian embassy.
• 2 passport-sized photos.
• A bank statement (I just printed out the balance and account activity pages from two of my checking accounts online because I have no access to a proper statement from Turkey. The guy didn’t seem to mind.)
• Your flight information for arrival AND DEPARTURE from India. You need to show proof of onward travel. I haven’t reserved my outgoing ticket yet because I travel with no plan and don’t know how long I’ll be in India. I now have to find a refundable ticket and just book it to show him.
• $75 US Dollars in exact change. Despite the fact that the guy has a drawer full of $5 bills, he will send you packing if you try to give him four 20s. It is not his job to make this in any way convenient for you. There is a money-changing place past the mall / space needle south of the Embassy in Ankara, should you need it.

The application form will also ask you for details about proposed entry/exit dates and where you plan to go in India. There is no express option to get the visa quicker.

Location of the Embassy in Ankara:

77 A Chinnah Caddesi
Cankaya, Ankara
Phone: 90 312 4382195
Fax: 90 312 4403429

Putting the above address in Google Maps/Earth doesn’t return exactly the right location. The pointer on this map is the exact location; I just walked to it yesterday:

Here’s a link to the Indian Embassy in Ankara on a Google Map or you can see this pointer for the actual building you’re going to:

View Larger Map

Bus to Anakara

I wanted to get my visa as quickly as possible and wasn’t interested in spending time in Ankara, so I took a night bus from Istanbul. The company “Metro Turizm” has buses from Istanbul to Ankara for only 25 Lira. Useful Turkish bus details are here on the Turkey Travel Planner site. It’s about 5 or 6 hours by bus to Ankara from Istanbul depending on which part of Istanbul you leave from.

I took a night bus (Varan Bus) that left at 2:30 and arrived at the station in Ankara at 7:30. Varan is a bit more expensive than Metro, but you can book tickets online. Varan’s website is here.

From the bus station in Ankara (called ASTI, pronounced “Ahsh-tee”), follow all the people leaving the bus terminal to take the metro to the “Kizilay” station. From here you can get a cab to the embassy with the above address. It should be about 8 or 10 Lira for the cab.

Why Americans can’t get the visa in Istanbul – Don’t bother with going to the US Consulate.

According to the Indian consulate, they need the aforementioned “note verbal” from one’s government to process a visa request because they are not equipped to check the validity of one’s passport at their office in Istanbul.

The United States consulate in Istanbul will refuse to write this letter and the result is bureaucratic gridlock.

Upon speaking with the visa application desk person at the Indian Consulate, they will ask you for the note verbal, show you an example of one, and then cheerily suggest that you go to the American embassy to obtain the note, even though they know full-well that the American embassy won’t give it to you. Despite the fact that they know the embassy won’t give the letter, the send you that way anyway. Don’t waste your time with this. The American embassy is very far away and will charge you $30 for an official paper written in 1995 that says they won’t write the letter and that your passport itself is all you should need to travel.

Before visiting the consulate, I was fortunate to have read the blog entries posted by Dave the Nomad, Ben Sellon, and “akroadweed.” and expected this. Here are the links if you’d like to read more:

Consulate Conundrum, December 2008

Hell Gets Hotter, December 2007

The Indian Visa Saga, May 2007

Apparently Ben and Alaska Person were able to get schedule an interview to get their visa, but this took 3 weeks. I asked for an interview and they wouldn’t even give it to me. Perhaps they’ve stopped doing this over the last year?

For me, no amount of pleading, charming, reasoning, waiting after they told me to leave, and even talking to the big boss with squinty eyes and glasses against the visa lady’s permission were any good. Quoth squinty-eyed big boss, “I am sorry, sir, I can do nothing. I cannot help you. As one man to another, of course I want you to come visit my country, but we are not equipped to grant you a visa without a letter from your consulate, which they will not give. A thousand apologies, sir. You do realize, though, that when Indians attempt to go to your country perhaps 2 out of 10 are allowed. They must pay 8 or 9,000 rupees to enter.”

“Yes, sir, I understand this. It is very lamentable.”

“Perhaps you don’t understand,” he continued, “this is enough food for a family of four to eat for two months. The money is not returned if they are not allowed.”

“I do understand. It is the same everywhere I go. I have friends that can’t visit me for the same reason.”

“Of course. I am not trying to reciprocate this behavior, but I am simply helpless.”

After a few more minutes of platitudes and condolences, his phone rang and after more than an hour waiting and being given the general run-around, I finally left.

Finding the Indian Consulate in Istanbul:

If you’re not American or you do decide to go to the Indian Consulate anyway, it can be difficult to find. It’s half a mile (.7 KM) north of Taksim square. The location of this pointer on this Google map is the rough location of the building. I walked around for a long time trying to find number 18 on the main Cumhuriyet avenue without luck – it isn’t where it seems like it should be based on the numbers you see on the street. If you ask people for “Dortler,” a few of them should know where it is.

The building is one of the big, free-standing ones on the east side of Cumhuriyet and the entrance door is on the south side of the building — in other words, you need to go around the side of the building. Here’s the map link. Check out the satellite view:

View Larger Map

This is the address:

Consulate General of India, Istanbul
Cumhuriyet Caddesi No. 18
Dortler Apartments
7th Floor, Elmadag
Istanbul, Turkey
Telephone: +90 212 2962131, +90 212 2962132
Fax: +90 212 2962130

Good luck! Enjoy the red tape.

People don’t use the sidewalks in my neighborhood. It’s a fluid side-to-side between cars, mopeds, the garbage scourgers, the potato truck, the junk cart, little old ladies, cute Turkish girls, kids and Turkish guys with trays of tea. A little chaotic? Sure. But it works.

     » Half a block from the front door:
I have yet to see the corner store on our block actually closed and we come home late. They’ll trade 10 or 15 empty beer bottles for a pack of cigarettes. The guy working there and I have lengthy conversations with him saying things in Turkish and me replying in English. Sometimes I’ll say complete jibber-jabber just for the hell of it. “Provolone? You actually think school buses eat ducks in the bathtub?” He smiles, nods his head, and then rambles back. I wonder if he’s saying the same shit back to me in Turkish. Either way; it’s fun communication and we laugh a lot.

     » One and a half blocks from the door:
I just got my hair cut for $2 at the barber shop using the tried and true “we can’t talk to each other so I’ll show you a picture of my hair when it was short” strategy. My barber laughed and babbled on in Turkish and gave me a great haircut.

     » Two blocks away from that, to the left:
The tailor repaired my jeans for $3. This is the third time they’ve been repaired on this trip. Upon pickup, he bitched about the apparently shoddy job done by the Peruvians and Colombians on previous repairs. “Look at this – it’s terrible. They do not understand how to cut patches,” he says, gesturing to the maze of stitches that the knees of my jeans have turned in to, “I couldn’t even enjoy my work.” (He points out his specific contributions to the increasingly tattered rag my jeans are turning in to. He did an excellent job. Especially for jeans that should have been retired 4 months ago.)

“Those repairs were done in Peru and Colombia,” my roommate Hatice translated from me to him.

“Colombia?!” he replied back, “If I knew it was done in Colombia I would have just taken all the stitches out and started over.” Hater.

     » Another block; watch for the cabs that don’t slow down coming up the hill:
The guy that sells delicious intestine sandwiches that taste kind of like stromboli recognizes me. The juice guy recognizes me, too. He teaches me phrases in Turkish while squeezing juice out of fresh grapefruits and explaining the same story of his brother who is in the US illegally. The juice is $1 and stupid tasty. The brother seems to be in limbo.

     » In front of the pavyon:
The bouncer at Fantom Bar always hits up me and Bryan when we come home late from the bars. He offers a discount on beer. Right, buddy. I even saw the hot prostitute walking by on the street when I was buying a sandwich from the guy that cooks in the back of his Volkswagon Minibus. The hooker has yet to email me.

     » Three block radius:
Everything is right here. A big-ish grocery store with wine for $3, the vegetable store, the fish store, the cheese and olive store, the butcher, the baker, (the candlestick maker is still M.I.A., though I have little doubt in his existence), the random electronics store, cell phones, barbers, restaurants, a taxi stand, the subway.

The sense of community is unavoidable after being here for only a month. Don’t think I could ever go back the ‘burbs and I do think I could live here for more time. All the more reason to come back some day.