Last 24 hours

Once back in Istanbul we had a final 24 hours before we had to fly back to London.  After navigating the crazy traffic from the ferry to our hotel in the torrential rain we were ready to head out and see a bit more of the city.  First stop on our list was another visit to the bazaars, as we seen a few things we were interested in purchasing at the start of our trip, but had decided to wait until we were back again to avoid lugging them half way around Turkey.  The bazaars were super packed with both locals and tourists trying to escape the rain, but we managed to pick up a few souvenirs at quite good prices using our expert bargaining skills!  We made a visit to the Spice Bazaar as well where Tim got himself a real Turkish coffee pot and some coffee to go in it.

Unfortunately I had not been feeling that well so it was not the best day of our trip.  I had been suffering from an odd chest pain since we left Capadoccia and had started getting weird tingling in my arms and generally felt a bit dizzy.  It did not seem to improve that afternoon, so by the time we got back to our hotel that evening I was feeling worse and pretty worried, especially as we were due to fly the following morning.

So after asking advice from our hotelier we jumped in a taxi to the hospital A & E, only to discover it would probably have been faster to walk, with the driver using his horn liberally and at one point getting out of the car to see what the hold up in front was!  Eventually we arrived and were immediately spotted by a kind porter (we stood out as foreigners) dressed in bright orange who took us straight through to the reception where I explained (with lots of gesturing) my chest pain.  We were taken through to A& E where a doctor came and checked me out, took my blood pressure and did an ECG, before sending me off for blood tests and an x-ray.  No one spoke fluent English, not even the doctors!  But after parting with a bit of cash they decided that I was well enough, told me to wait two hours for the results!   The hospital was pretty awful, with no real waiting room and a very basic A& E, with patients being carried in and out.  So we decided to get out of there and whiled away some time in a cafe, before heading back to the hospital where they explained (with the help of  google translator) that I had a chest infection and needed to start a course of antibiotics.  After drawing us a map to get to a nearby pharmacy we were sent on our way.  Once we got back to the hotel with the pretty serious looking drugs we immediately got on google ourselves, but they looked pretty okay so we decided it was okay for me to start taking them.  Pretty exhausted by our experience we went straight to bed, not the greatest end to our trip.

The next morning it was still raining solidly so after a soggy breakfast on the tarpaulin covered roof terrace of the hotel we managed another quick wander through the Bazaars and a bit of lunch, before allowing ourselves plenty of time to get ourselves and our rental car out to the airport.  It was a real shame such an amazing trip had to end on such a bad note, but we have very fond memories of Turkey for its friendly people, fascinating history and rich culture - an amazing country.