A Day at the Palace

To find a reasonably priced hotel is easy from the internet. The hotels are not as expensive as in Western Europe. Our hotel is ideally located for visiting as well as if looking for meal.

The famous Topkapi Palace is just a few streets away about 200m from our hotel. We were quite surprised to see a huge crowds of tourists today, indeed it is Sunday. There were long queues everywhere. We decided to do a self tour rather than following any organised tour as we are quite familiar with this part of the city.

One thing that has changed is the Turkish Lira. It used to be 5 million Lira for US$100. But nowadays the Lira has been revalued and is almost on par with Brunei dollars.

To enter the Topkapi Palace cost 20 Lira per person. We spend over three hours inside visiting the many interesting buildings and collections. One of the best place is the collections of the Prophet's and his Companions' relics. These are the relics that were brought from Mecca and Medina to Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was the ruling empire over much of Middle East including the Arabian Peninsular back then from 1300 to 1900 AD.

Much of the power resided behind the gate of this huge palace. The concepts, customs and palace hierarchy of Sultanate were born and evolved in this very place. These were later replicated everywhere where ever a sultanate is established, from Oman to the Far East.

Another interesting part of the palace is the Harem or the 'forbidden' where only the Sultan and his family could enter. This is also where concubines were kept. But it is so ironic that such things exist during the Ottoman in what was always protrayed as a true example of great Islamic Empire and leadership. Indeed the walls were clearly and beautifully decorated with many Quranic verses and yet all the information plaques on the wall clearly explain the role of concubines and attitudes of the rulers there then. I could imagine what would be in the minds of foreign tourists who are visiting this place - Islamic artichitecture and caligraphy but here they also kept concubines.