East meets West

I was ignorant about Istanbul before I came, practically expecting it to be full of donkeys on dusty streets, and teeming bazaars that transport you back a couple of centuries. In fact it's a boisterous modern metropolis that makes you think you're in both western Europe and the Middle East.

One minute you can be in an expensive rooftop bar where the city's big cheeses sip cocktails, and the next a cramped but atmospheric restaurant at the top of a tower block where someone on the 4th floor has to hold two wires together with a pair of pliers in order for the lift not to get stuck. A great place of contrasts.

By this point in the holiday we were hysterical with fatigue and would regularly collapse in fits of laughter at the slightest amusing thing.