The Istanbul Diaries, Pt. III: Whirling Dervishes and Dancing with the Serbs

I think it might be slightly sacrilegious to group the whirling dervish show with my night out on the town, so to speak, but they happened on the same night and they were both different forms or entertainment sooooo...

Yeahhhhh...about the pic at the bottom, tho...

It started with a dinner show on our third night in the city. At said show, I smoked a water pipe for the first time ever! It was a cultural experience and I felt all worldly...until I started choking. I'm not a smoker of anything ever, so that was definitely a stretch. I wouldn't have done it if it included one iota of tobacco, but since it was just apple-scented vapor, I Kanye-shrugged it and said YOLO. It was nice to check that off the list of things to try in life, but I doubt I'll be doing it again any time soon.

On to the show part of dinner. We saw a whirling dervish show. It's a religious danced performed by the Mevlevi Order, in which they perform a spinning (whirling) dance as a way of reaching religious ecstasy and remembering God. I completely appreciated the sentiment behind the dance and thought it was a lovely way to pay tribute to the Most High. It is, however, quite repetitive. I mean, they're really just spinning in the same direction over and over and over and over...and over again. Thankfully, we just went to a short display that was performed twice for twenty minutes and was free, whereas some tourists pay 40-50 Turkish Lira to go to the whole two hour shebang. #iwouldnever

After the dervish show and a quick trip back to the hotel to freshen up, my travel companion and I decided to hit the town. We didn't make it to a club, which I would've loved, but we did go to a bar. Not your cheesy Irish pub that's a dime a dozen in Madrid, either. There's a street in Istanbul that two Americans recommended to us that they've nicknamed Turksih Bourbon Street (a lá New Orleans); I can't think of its real name anymore. Anywho, it's a street lined with restaurants and bars. We chose one named Cheers (the theme song from the show immediately came to mind)...and there we remained until 4:30 the next morning. 

I'm not quite sure how this all happened. This really was supposed to be one of those grab a drink or two from this bar, maybe hit up one or two more spots, back to the hotel and in bed by 2:30 things, ya know? Then we started talking to other people at the bar (all tourists from around the world) and one thing led to another...and yeah. There was Zoe from the UK who had a falling out with her friend and both of them stormed off without paying the tab (though I really do feel that they forgot about it.) Then, the amazing  duo that is Cheli and James (the former being Brazilian and latter Irish), who compromised one of the loveliest married couples I'd seen in some time. She was a counselor, he was finishing up with his Ph.D. She was the spirited one (who out-danced us all later that night) and he kind of balanced her by being a lot calmer and together they were absolutely dynamic. They were chill, deep, and conscious about real life issues.  Somewhere around 2:30, race relations became the topic of conversation and we all just had a real talk about real issues, which was extremely refreshing coming from a country that had to have the UN assign a special rapporteur to tell them not to marginalize their migrant populations in the midst of their economic troubles. But, I digress.

Anyone up for a trip to Serbia?? Mike's in the middle

A few minutes, seconds, hours (who really has a sense of time after 3?) later, the bartenders pulled everyone inside to dance and that's when I met the Serbians. They were on a group trip of some sort and had decided to go out, too. I just know that I walked inside, some American song was playing, and this Serbian guy just started dancing near me! So, of course I started dancing, too! I'm not about to let a man out-dance me! And thus began a night of dancing with the fabulous Gojko who did not stop moving to the beat until he walked out the door. I would also like to note that he and his comrades knew every word to every Rihanna song that was played (like, goodness, I couldn't even understand some of what she was saying in "Man Down," but they went in). Gojko's friend, Mike, asked about the U.S. and Alabama and, like so many of his continent's citizens, had some interesting theories on what black folk really do at church. le sigh.

The one on the left is our Russian friend. The one on the right is the fantabulous Gojko

The night ended with a rousing rendition of the Serbian national anthem, complete with melodramatic swaying; exchanging of Facebook contact info; hugs goodbye and desires to meet again one day; and a nice little walk back to the hotel at almost 5 a.m., accompanied by two dogs who walked us all the way to our door (which was really sweet once I was convinced they weren't trying to kill me.)

We saw them again our last night in the city and I was able to get a photo!

The area in which we spent that night is certainly not considered the party district of Istanbul; that distinction belongs to Taksim, but we didn't make it there since we only had two nights left, we stayed far from it, and I didn't have the energy to go out for a second night after a day of sightseeing and operating on about six hours of sleep. All of that is to say that, if we had that amazing of a time at a touristy bar in a lively area, I wonder what a night in Taksim would have been like. 

Lessons learned:

• Dervish shows should be watched only when they're free and not performing the whole two-hour gig
• Time to start planning a return trip to the 'Bul so I can experience Taksim...and eat some more Turkish delight...and buy some more spices...and take more photos of the Blue Mosque...
• I think it may be time to add Serbia to my list of places to go. If even half the people my age are anything like Gojko, Mike, and the rest of their crew, a few days there will be nothing short of interesting, to say the absolute least.