Pierre Lote, The blackout & The rolling cab down the hill

The Pierre Lote Incident

The day kicked off by catching a cab to ortakoy in Istanbul. The aim was to head to Kiz Kulesi. For thoses that don’t know what Kiz kulesi is, it’s referred to as the leaders tower. There are many myths to the leaders tower but only one is believed as evidence backs it up.

The story tells of a princess who got killed by a serpent. Apparently someone told the king that his daughter was going to be bitten by a serpent and die. So the king built this tower in the middle of the ocean to lock up his daughter from the potential of this story coming true. However while they were bringing the princess her dinner a serpent had sneaked in with it and ended up biting her. Hence the princess was killed. The evidence that backs it up is the coffin with the 2 holes at Hagia Sofia museum.

After arriving at Ortakoy, we realised that the next ferry to the tower was actually two hours later. So we had time to kill and this only meant one thing food and shopping. Slight problem the shops and market stalls were only starting to open.

Wandering the stalls like a lunatic, random items were brought; kumpir (Potatoes mashed with cheese inside with veggies on top) were eaten. This is where we spotted the mother and daughter look alike. Don’t ask what the actually story is about because I wouldn’t know how to explain it, except the fact we took like five pictures of them, of which they are both smiling like idiots. Note they have no idea we took the photos which makes it even funnier.

After a short ferry ride, we arrived to the tower with 2 other people. The tower is actually quite small. We wandered in and immediately to the top to see the beautiful view of Istanbul in a 360-degree format.

After this breath taking moment we needed a drink to cool down, so we headed to the bar and got some lemonade. While sitting next to a window enjoying our drink and admiring the beautiful view this woman manages to shove her baby in my way. She blocked our window with the view of her baby. You think this is bad. The next thing we knew she wandered in and she slammed the kid right in front of me, blocking the window to try and change her nappy.

Of all places she chooses to stick her baby’s stinking ass smack bang in my face. What the hell was she thinking? What is wrong with people theses days? Her husband interrupted her to tell her not to distract us. What is her response? She didn’t want to distract the baby who was looking at the view. Woman what drugs are you on? Instead of worrying about distracting me with your baby’s smelly shit instead you decide to let the baby watch the view. God know what she was going to do with the used nappy. Why didn’t you just rip the nappy off and shove it on my lap for me to dispose?


After this disturbing incident, one had to return to Ortakoy to stuff his face with Kazandibi. For thoses that haven’t had kazandibi you are seriously missing out. This was meant to be a simply ordering process but no. God forbid if I can go somewhere without them stuffing up my order or shoving a used smelly nappy in my face.

The waiter was using some electronic device where I had to repeat the order like seven times. For crying out loud what the hell would he have done if I spoke in English? After the order was processed they still managed to screw it up and bring me the wrong order. Wait it gets better. After they reversed the order they still tried charging me for the wrong order. After a minor tantrum, notes were slammed on the table, harsh words were used or maybe not but we got the hell out of there.

To humour myself I decided to get my fortune told by a rabbit for like $1. God knows why I get talked into this shit. Perhaps the fact we refused to pay a woman $25 to read our fortune. Hey a rabbits close enough.

After the rabbit nearly chewed my fortune I realised that my fortune read:

“ O adamdan umit ettigini alacaksin. Bundan boyle ne is yaparsan islerin razi gelecek ve yavas sahibi senet olacaksin. Sabirli Ol.”

In translation – What ever you want from that man you will get. From now on what ever you do you will succeed slowly. Be patient.

Like what the hell? What the hell does this mean? I’m going to get what ever I want from this man? Who is this man and what am I getting from him? Well I suppose we find out later down the track.

Pierre Lote Incident

After leaving Ortakoy we headed to Pierre Lote, where we were almost killed. Who was to know that this could be the last moment of our lives? We jumped into a cab and told the driver that we wanted to go to Pierre Lote. The driver drove off but soon we realised that the cab driver didn't
know where Pierre Lote was.

He grabbed his mobile to make some calls to find out where the place was. We circled the neighbourhood a few times. He stopped to ask directions at a cab rank. Only to find out we were heading in the wrong direction.

This psycho taxi driver cut lines, speeded down narrow streets and finally cut an entire intersection.

Let me try and explain the situation. Being stuck at a red light the cab driver tried turning left while the lights were still red. The taxi was stuck in the middle of an intersection blocking traffic from all sides. He some how managed to block all the traffic in the lane closest to us trying to drive straight when the lights turned green. Our cab some how block all the lanes trying to drive anywhere. No cars could drive straight, no one could turn anywhere.

Cars were beeping, people were screaming and swearing at us, its beyond me why I didn’t pull out my camera and film this. Next thing you know some guy jumped out of his car and came racing up to the taxi screaming his head off and throwing his arms about. For a minute I thought we were all going to get bashed for blocking the intersection

Random passengers from all the surrounding cars were screaming and running towards our cab. For a minute I thought a riot was about to begin. They practically forced the taxi driver to reverse back some how in order for the cars to drive past us.

After all the fuss we some how managed to get to Pierre Lote only to notice that we nearly died coming here. After climbing a huge hill to take random photos of scenery, we noticed that Pierre Lote was the man who came to Istanbul from France and had an affair with a Turkish married woman. This whole suburb was cursed but little did we know…

The surrounding were of grave stones and a cafe on top of the hill. This is the cafe that Pierre would spend his time thinking of his mistress. After collapsing at a table at the cafe we drunk some fake coke only to realise that it was the bellboy who suggested this place to us!!!

We walk back to the main road to wait for a cab. Soon some guys notice us waiting and ask if we want him to call us a cab. What do u think mate? Its like 50 degrees and were standing in shade waiting for a cab.

We jump into the cab only to be told to get out like 8 blocks from our hotel so that the cab driver doesn't get stuck in traffic. We don't argue and jump out of the cab. While walking back to the hotel we witness a guy bashing another guy with a huge bat in one hand. Trying to hurry back to the hotel I realised something biting me. When I turn around I see a parrot in a cage tugging his beak at me trying to bite me. I soon realise that this day is only getting better.

We returned to the hotel and showered to recover from the huge day we had. We went down to Hatay restaurant to have shish kebab. After dinner we headed back to Sude konak to have coffee on the terrace. We had Turkish coffee followed by a reading. Little did we know this was going to change our lives…

Erhan our coffee reader told us that there were four long roads and the 4th road was blocked - by a guy holding a gun. This struck immediate panic as yesterday the news indicated that Australia was considering closing the airport due to the bird flu. This means that no exits or entries would be made. What if we were a victim of this? What if Erhan was right and that was the 4th road closed? Little did we know that the 4th road did end up closing up but we will get to that story when its time…

After this stressful day there was only one way to shake it off – CLUBBING…
Our bellboy decided to take us to a club called My Day at Taksim.

Enter my day, people sitting at tables, about 15 people in the whole club in a courtyard. After an hour more people started to stroll in. We spent the night watching some tart shake her booty on the balcony while showing us her underpants while she pratically had sex with her self rubbing up and down the railings.

After a few drinks and some dancing we decided to head home. While walking down Istikkal Caddesi all the lights went out. The entire of Taksim blacked out. For thoses that know the busy long street, it was quite scary, as one could not see anything. I supposed this was the pickpockers dream come true. As all the streets are narrow and with no light coming from anywhere, we had to pull out lighters to find our way to the top. Whats the odds of an entire blackout in a suburb. This could only happen to us…

Wait it gets better. We crossed the road to catch a taxi. There was like 20 taxis. We got into the 2nd taxi from the front. The taxi in front was broken down so our driver had to get out and
push the front taxi out of our way. We soon notice that they were about to crash the taxi into a station wagon ahead. Luckily they managed to stop the front taxi from crashing into the park car ahead.

This is when we notice that when our taxi driver rushed out in his panic he forgot to pull the hand brake on our taxi. While we were screaming and arguing over our taxi hand brake, finally the bellboy pulled the hand brake. The worst part was we were on a slope so we could easily race down the slope.

Finally the taxi driver gets back into the cab after the bellboy saved us from rolling down a hill with everyone still in the taxi. The taxi driver tries to start the cab only to realise that the engine has died. He screams something out the window and immediately 3 or 4 of his fellow work mates rush to push the taxi down a hill after we stopped it from rolling down.

So were rolling down the hill, heading straight bang for the taxi that almost slammed into the station wagon previously when the engine kicks in and we manage to swerve into oncoming traffic and miss the parked cars.

Finally we arrive to our hotel safely and instead of going striaght up to bed, bellboy insists we go up to his terrace for some watermelon. Too tired to argue we follow him to eat watermelon around 3am to recap the day or has the night just began?