When travelling, I only pack the when and the where. My travelling companion – the who – then completes the itinerary with the what and the why. Sometimes she forgets. Which explains why at the end of some five-hour flight, I sometimes turn to her and ask in which time zone we have landed. If luck is not on my side, I will then proceed to spending the following five days testing whether my swimming trunks can withstand sub-zero temperatures.
But that’s a good thing because in my book of travelling, there’s just one rule: if you want to live a city, then you need to get lost. There is a footnote to that rule: when you get lost, some cities will invite you to dinner, while others will kill you.
Four years ago, I got lost in Marrakesh. Everyone does. So after having paid a gang of boys – all thin legs and arms – my weight in dirham to take me to my riad in the Medina, I unpacked, went out, and immediately got lost again. Which was fine. Until, of course, I decided to walk back and get friendly with the little chocolate on my pillow.
After wandering lonely as a cloud, a good soul offered to walk me back to my riad. Which, of course, he didn’t. A long and winding walk later, I was outside the city walls telling the thug-formerly-known-as-good-soul that the wallet was mine. He was trying to convince me otherwise using a six-inch blade. I don’t like blood. The three pastillas I had eaten earlier gave me courage and fuel as I ran and ran until, miraculously, I found myself in Jemaa el-Fnaa square and asked for directions at the Argana cafe – the following day a bomb at the same cafe would kill 17 people.
When I eventually found my riad, I knocked and a young boy opened the door. He didn’t look familiar. I probably didn’t as well, so I just ignored him and started walking to my room. He followed me like a thinner shadow. After looking into half a dozen rooms, and not finding mine, a vintage English gentleman exited his bedroom and, with the politeness that his silk dressing gown could afford him, asked me what exactly was I doing in his house. Realising that I had just broke and entered into the wrong riad, I explained myself, apologised profusely, and the young boy led me to my riad, this time for real.
Moral of the story: get lost in Marrakesh at your peril.
On the other hand, if you lose your way in Istanbul, you will discover a magical city. Miss a step in Cukurcuma and you will find yourself in Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence, falling in tragic love with Kemal and Fusun. Turn left instead of right and you will be seated, unclothed, in a marble-clad hamam. The soundtrack of wet slapping cloths and a travelling circus of whispers will make you feel like a villain straight out of Jason Goodwin’s The Janissary Tree.
If you get lost in Beyoglu, look up to the sky and the Galata tower will be your guide. In Sultanahmet Square, the thousands of people chasing their personal errand will lead you here and there until you slumber on the grass and look up at the Aya Sofya: the grand dome and the minarets guarding it look like they are holding the weight of the fat sky. Follow the directions to Fatih, throw away your map and let the smell of sizzling lamb guide you to one of the best meals of your life.
Domes flutter, mosaics play a crossword puzzle with no clues, and lanes come to the abrupt conclusion of an alley
On my last visit to Istanbul, I decided to get lost in the Grand Bazaar. The morning was still thin on the horizon when the taxi dropped me off at the Galata Bridge. The dark, grainy coffee at Hafiz Mustafa woke me up and the fairytale sugary treat gave me the energy to start walking uphill towards the Grand Bazaar.
Now most guidebooks will tell you about the 11 entrances to the Grand Bazaar and which is the kindest on your sense of direction. My advice: find a breach in the ancient walls and just walk into the gilded, sizzling, shouting, tea-slurping, haggling world of the bazaar. With more than 4,000 shops and 30,000 people working there, the Grand Bazaar welcomes around 350,000 daily visitors. The shops and stalls grow organically, lean against walls, cross the narrow streets. Stairs lead to somewhere. Domes flutter, mosaics play a crossword puzzle with no clues, and lanes come to the abrupt conclusion of an alley. Which you will discover is just the beginning of yet another covered street echoing with laughter, shouting, summons and a bit of begging on the side.
Close your eyes and you are in Ligos, Constantinople, Byzantium, Istanbul. Imperial capital, Ottoman caliphate, largest city in the world. Close your eyes and someone will step on your feet.
Underneath the apparent confusion is a system, perfected since 1461, when the Grand Bazaar opened: there are leather goods along the Bit Pazari, jewellery and gold in Kalpakecilar Caddesi and Kuyumcular Carsisi, the wicked glint of copper around Buyuk Han, the knotted delights of carpets in the Sahaflar Caddesi, and spices and sweets everywhere.
Ignore the system. Because while a system is good for shopping, you’re here to get lost. Which is what I do. And when I finally emerge from behind a stall, the sun is colouring the city in purple, yellow and orange. The cry of the muezzin from the Rustem Pasha mosque is simultaneously a lament and a yearning. And the flapping wings of thousands of birds are drawing precise cobwebs in the sky, trapping my eyes.