Perhaps John Lennon was right

Well, it certainly seems like things would be less complicated right now if I imagine there's no countries. Of course I might have other problems in that case, but I think he sang of the best of all possible worlds in any case.

Yes, now that I am out of the cruisy E.U. Schengen treaty area, I actually need to obtain visas to continue my journey. I knew this was the case although I perhaps didn't appreciate the hassle and cost of getting these shiny little stickers put in my little travel scrapbook.

My Iranian visa should be about ready now, I just have to get some passport photos (sounds like I'll be needing lots of them from here on in), fill out a form and cough up a tidy €100. That latter caught naive little me by surprise as I had already paid €35 to the agency which organised said visa to be sent here.
 
I am not sure at all where I will go after Iran, and it's getting close to the time where I must stop procrastinating and elect a country and route eastwards. I met a British guy this morning at the Iranian embassy and he is going via Pakistan. I think I favour going via Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and/or Kazakhstan and into China, although that's a bunch of visas, and no doubt a speedy descent into a world of bureaucracy, bribery and corruption.
 
Last night I went out with a Turkish woman who'd offered to host me last week. Unfortunately, staying with her hadn't worked out as I didn't check my email and stayed my first night here in a hotel instead. However, Emine suggested we go out instead and took me to some nice haunts in Taksim. We started with some Sage teas and then watched some humourous performance dance, playing with shadows by the Galata tower. Then we went to a great little restaurant (Ficcin) and ate deliciously simple food at good prices. She was very pleasant company indeed, a real character, sophisticated, world-wise and charming, and with a refreshing openness and honesty about her.

I had been completely unaware how different Taksim was to my part of town, which is Aksaray. Despite being the central business district, and very shiny and commercial, there seemed to be many students, bars and clubs etc. The street life was vibrant, perhaps exceptionally so given it was a Monday evening.

I am still hotel-bound as Emine now has a new housemate, and I am still sharing a double room with Vladimir until tomorrow, when he leaves to fly to Chicago. I am fairly well installed in the hotel here - I'm even getting used to sleeping with the city noise of the lively street below, and the pre-dawn call to prayer each morning.

Literally outside the front door is a bakery where for 50 kuruş (about 25 Euro cents) you can have a nice Lavaş, Pide or other freshly-baked Turkish bread. Mostly I am subsisting on a diet of these breads with fresh fruit and vegetables and some Tahini, and it is good. Perhaps eating a bit too much as my appetite hasn't acknowledged the metabolic change of having stopped cycling yet!

Beverage-wise, proper coffee, let alone 'Turkish Coffee', is hard to find outside the tourist-y areas - one day I even went to Starbucks out of desperation! I could be in campsite coffees for weeks for what it costs me to have an espresso here, although that's in keeping with the general principle of cities I guess, that is in rapidly exhausting one's money supply and necessitating gainful employment.

In terms of free entertainment though, I have managed to get a bit of half-hearted tourism in, too, but haven't been as diligent as Vlad with his daily programme of sites of interest! I think I'll get all of the visa stuff sorted and then try to squeeze a museum or two in.

To my surprise what I have particularly enjoyed has been cycling Istanbul's streets, even though nobody else does it. It is chaotic and perhaps a tad dangerous, but the tramway makes a nice cycle lane as long as you get out of the way when required, and the motorists are used to stopping abruptly for pedestrians who play chicken with them, which seems to work for cycling too. 

I also note that in İstanbul a lot less goes to waste, and that I like - the fruit and vegetable sellers put their old produce in boxes in the street, and many times a day men push handcarts up and down the street, calling for peoples' inorganic waste that might be salvageable.

Tomorrow I will be off to a travel agency to see about a Chinese visa. For some reason, all of this visa nonsense stresses me out a bit, and goes against my laissez-faire approach to planning my onward route.