Istanbul

I flew into Istanbul this afternoon, seated beside an old Dutchman with a Hari Krishna haircut who began talking about his prostate trouble and former benzodiazepine addiction by way of an introduction. It was an interesting flight. He was on his way to India, claimed he had been a close personal friend of George Harrison, and now lectures in Eastern Philosophy. He advised me to get in touch with my inner 12-year-old, to never get married, and to take pumpkin oil every day, then suggested we might meet again via astral travel. In Berlin yesterday I took the guided tour out to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, the first camp of its kind and the model for Auschwitz and others. It was liberated by the Soviets, was reappropriated as an internment camp for political prisoners, subsequently partly destroyed (of Station Z where prisoners were murdered and burnt, only the foundations and some twisted oven frames remain). I'd never heard of Sachsenhausen before I came to Berlin but tens of thousands of people were kept in disgusting conditions then systematically murdered there. Some of the torture devices remain intact (the well where people were left wallowing in excrement for days on end; the poles where people were left hanging from dislocated arms; the all-terrain running track where prisoners were made to test army boots until they collapsed dead or were shot for stopping), and there was the "pathology lab" where prisoners were infected with gangrene or inflicted with grenade wounds for the purposes of experimental treatment. It was a truly spooky place, still amazingly desolate despite the swarming tour groups. There were a lot of Australians in my group and I bonded with a guy from Melbourne over RM Williams boots. It was late afternoon by the time we were back in Berlin, so I just walked around a bit... The vitality of Istanbul seems so daunting. I came from the airport during peak hour and nearly had a panic attack on the incredibly crowded tram to Sultanahmet: bodies pressed against each other everywhere and me keeping a paranoid eye on my backpack, struggling to stay upright. I've bought a Lonely Planet, realising I had no idea how I was going to see the country in the fews days I've allowed. It hasn't clarified things for me. I figure I might just take the budget package tour option down the coast over the weekend, although it feels like a cop out. Gallipoli is not an easy place to see without private transport. I've done a bit of walking but the backpacker district seems pretty expansive here. The Grand Bazaar tomorrow should be a blast.