I awoke after significantly more sleep as it was much quieter than the night before. Still full after our huge dinner, we skipped breakfast and made our way thru the narrow streets towards Galata Bridge.
We were looking for the ferry terminal and discovered there were multiple. After several false starts, we finally found the correct one. I left Brenda holding our place in line while I went to get some light breakfast snacks. I came back with some bananas and a marriage proposal from some Turkish guy. We boarded our ferry and were lucky enough to find seats outside on deck right by the water.
We started our 90-minute journey up the Bosphorus Strait to Kavagi, a small fishing village where we would stop for three hours. The Bosphorus connects the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and divides Turkey between its European side and its Asian side.
We made several stops on our journey to let passengers on and off.
We were sitting across from each other on benches with three defined seats each. Suddenly, this group of about six 20-somethings plopped down next to us. They were obviously on some kind of tour because the guide would not shut up. So not only were they cramping our quiet time, they had way too many people on the bench and were cramping our space. We decided to go in search of another seat. There were plenty of seats inside.
We sat there for a bit but the view wasn't very good. We ended up on the bow deck but it was semi-enclosed. Nowhere was as good as the outdoor seats we had given up to the rude people. 
This seagull had the best seat.
The Asian side of the strait was lined with houses. They weren't very fancy but I imagine they had a fancy pricetag.
We arrived in Kavagi around lunchtime and we decided to head straight to lunch.
We picked a seafood restaurant right off the dock. 
We started with midye dolma, a Turkish specialty of mussels stuffed with spiced rice.
And some of the best french fries I've ever had in my life.
For the main, I went with the waiter to pick out some fish from the fish counter. I picked out turbot because I didn't know what it was and had never had it before. Turbot is a type of flounder native to this part of the world which is why it was new to me. They fried it up for us and brought it out.
What was also new to me was the price of this fish. It never occurred to me to ask but it turned out to be about $100. Lesson learned.
After lunch we walked around the village for a while visiting the shops. Brenda took our fish leftovers to feed the many cats about. She basically caused a cat fight and almost got hurt. Thankfully the cat owner stepped in. I ended up sitting at the dock waiting to re-board the boat because I was getting hassled too much shopping. I really wish shopkeepers would understand that I would likely buy something from them if they didn't accost me as soon as I came around the corner.
Around 3p, we boarded the boat to head back to Istanbul.
As we pulled away from shore, we had a great view of the castle ruins on top of the hill above the village. There was an option to hike up there but we already walked so much the last few days, I thought we should give that a pass.
The seagulls hassled us on the way home which I don't mind nearly as much as the people. I took several pics trying to get a decent one.
We were able to get our outside seating on the way back but it was a fairly hot ride. In my readiness to get off the boat, I got us off one stop too early. I didn't realize this until we were off the boat and it was too late. You would think this would not be much of a problem but it turns out we were on the Asian side of Istanbul. Our hotel was on the European side. This meant finding a taxi to take us across the bridge. Taxis in Istanbul were already a pain and this far out of the tourist center, English was barely spoken. We did find a taxi who agreed to take us for a set price. I showed him our hotel name on my phone and we set off. After driving a little ways, he did a U-turn in the middle of the street. We drive a ways again then he did another U-turn. By now, I'm starting to freak out a little bit. Was this guy trying to kidnap us? He couldn't communicate well but I think he was trying to tell me that he was avoiding traffic. But he also didn't seem to know where he was going. When I travel, I always follow along on GPS on my phone so I know if we are on/off course. He asked for my phone so he could follow the GPS. At first I refused because I didn't know his motivation. How does a taxi driver not have GPS? Was he trying to kidnap us and take my phone so we couldn't escape? It was a fairly scary 45-minute ride but he did get us back to the vicinity of our hotel. Like some of our other drivers, he did not want to drive down our street so he dropped us off several blocks away. In theory, this would piss me off because I've paid to be taken to my hotel but given the sketchiness of this situation, I was just glad to be out of the car. It was a short, leisurely walk back to our hotel.
By the time we got back, we both needed a drink so we walked down to the corner to the restaurant associated with Ernest's Bar called Cok Cok. It was a Thai restaurant. We both ordered shrimp pad thai and a drink and it was the most expensive, smallest portion of food I've ever had. That dinner was close to $100 for about five bites of food. Ridiculous. It was good we weren't that hungry.
After dinner, we hung out at the hotel, repacked, showered, and changed in preparation for our late night 2a flight to Bali. We were picked up for the airport about 945p in another tricked out vehicle.
For Bali, we needed all of our snorkel and beach gear and we were limited on our luggage requirements. So once again, we dropped off a suitcase each at the left luggage counter (we knew where to find it this time) and then tried to stay awake until boarding. We were glad when we finally boarded so we could try to get some sleep on the 12 hour flight.
This featured blog entry was written by zihuatcat from the blog Escape from Reality.
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