After the Turkish Delights Bellydance festival I was ready to explore Istanbul, having been here for a week and not seen anything outside my taxi window. Moving across town to Taxsim a great pedestrian mall with many fashion stores, cafes and the old tram shuttling people up and down the few kilometre long mall. Every evening thousands of young Istanbul-i's descend to Taxsim to dine in the Melbourne like lane-ways and party in the bars tucked off the main mall.
The mall itself reminds me of La Rambalas in Barcelona. So this was the start to a second dance festival that I signed up to especially to have company when attending the Hidrellez Gypsy festival held every year to celebrate the start of Spring. Apparently in the last two years its become so big that they have moved location to the seaside. So a bus load of us participating in the daily Gypsy dance classes sat patiently in the traffic at 9pm as we worked our way towards the festival. We were really excited as this was the main reason everyone had joined this tour- you could do this on your own but dancing the night away alone just wouldnt be as fun as with a group of crazy bellydancers!
Finally we arrived along with a few thousand other young people from Istanbul - it was held on the seaside just near Sultanhamet the main tourist centre of Istanbul. After experiencing Turkish obediance to road rules (detect the sarcasim) our driver found somewhere to pull over safely for us to all pile out. As we headed towards the seaside park there were young entrepenurs with their van boot open and packed with cartons of the famous Efes Turkish beer.
I wasn't sure if this was going to be a festival filled with locals or tourists - but I'm very happy to say that we the tourists were in the minority. Gypsy women were sitting along the carpark edge selling water, scarfs, beanies, cheesy muscles (no I havent tried them but heard they are yum), loads of Turkish sweets and tea. Being such a large group of around 16 women - 13 being from the same Israeli group it seems natural that we immediately split. Leeann and Karen by new roomie from Holland and our tour guide Alp started scouting out the best gypsy bands.
I was picturing gypsies dancing everywhere which I was kind of disappointed about that we didn't see any, instead there were gypsy musicians roaming the crowds between the big stages showcasing the big acts of the night. The locals would go up to these roving musicians and give them 5/10 lire and request a song. I was pleasently suprised to recognise some tunes from my Gypsy CD's back in Australia thanks to previous workshops with Tanyeli (Turkish bellydancer) and Leonie Sukan (bellydance teacher from Sydney who specialises in Turkish style). We absolutely started burning the dance floor (ok grass and dirt) once these guys would start and they would do one or two songs then stop as the money usually stopped, so they would weave through the crowd looking for someone else to pay them. We were like the gypsies ourselves, weaving the crowd in search of the next group of young Istanbuli's dancing Roman style - cigarette in one hand and Efes beer in the other.
After much stuborness I finally cracked and we bought a huge can of Efes beer each - must have been half a litre in there. Leeann promised me its delicious and my Lonely Planet said its pretty much the only beer in Istanbul and with good reason. Sorry guys it just didnt strike a cord with me.
We kept roaming around and I noticed many of the girls decked out as gypsies either with the skirt, scarf in hair or both. Our tour leader Alp said that years ago Gypies were looked down upon and it wasnt cool to be Gypsy. It seems the young generation are finally showing appreciation for the talented musicians and traditions that they bring to Turkey. Some girls were really stunning and I wanted to take a photo with them but I actually felt uncomfortable asking unlike in India were I clearly stood out and it was a novelty for both them and me to get photos together.
There was like a gypsy side show alley with big pinball machines but they were handmade from wood and papermaiche so not really machines. There were hand painted signs with faces cut out so you could pose with the characters body - there were bellydancers, wrestlers, gypsy caravans etc that you could stick you head into the photo.
One tradition of Hidrellez is to pay (yes you pay to make a wish) 3 lire and you are given a piece of paper, pen, ribbon and pin. On it you write your wishes and pin these along with an evil eye bead onto this tree that is absolutely swamped with everyone's wishes. Yes I made some but no I'm not telling! Everyone was reading other people's wishes which I thought was a little rude but it seemed to be the thing to do. One very clever girl wrote in Turkish (thanks Alp for the interpretation) that she wanted to be able to Turkish Roman dance on stage with a famous Roman singer or dancer I think it was. She listed her mobile number on there and had pre-printed them onto A4 pieces of paper and you found them stuck up everywhere throughout the festival grounds - what a clever girl I hope it comes true for her! (maybe I should adopt this strategy to dance in a Bollywood movie at the next Indian festival that I attend??).
We made our way over to a main stage where a gypsy band was getting ready and there were a few thousand people cramming in. The band started their gypsy tunes and everyone was jumping, dancing, cheering, drinking, smoking and it was definately a meat market between the young boys and girls having a perv on each other. I was very excited when I realised the male singer at one point was singing in Greek with a female Turkish singer - really just reinforced the similarities in music between our two cultures.
We had a brilliant night and I can't wait to come back next year now that I know what to expect - it really is about catching up with friends, having a few drinks to keep warm with the chilly winter nights still lingering, make your wishes and have a Roman dance with the brilliant gypsies. Until next year and include my wish coming true in your prayers! ;)
Will post up more photos of the wishing trees soon.
Next blog.... Istanbul overview.
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