Turkey was indeed a special place. It was one country right smack in between Europe and Asia. We’ve spent a good part of the day in Istanbul, situated at the European part of Turkey and we were heading towards Bursa, the Asian part.
It was already more than halfway through the day and my eyelids felt like sacks of stones hanging from the top part of my face. I looked out of the window and saw a port and a ferry boat parked at the edge of that port. When the bus drove through the port and literally onto the ferry boat, my eyes instantly perked up. NO WAY.
Our bus were one of the many cars, trucks and other buses parked on the ferry service that would take us away from Istanbul across the Marmara River and onward to our journey into Bursa. The journey across the river took 40 minutes and we were very well occupied throughout.
Accompanying us on our 40-minute ride were a flock of seagulls. They flew patiently alongside the ferry and waited for tiny chunks of food to be tossed at them.
This is a Simit. A round, savoury, Turkish bread encrusted with sesame seeds and best eaten fresh off the oven. It is essentially, a @sesamebagels. Geddit, geddit? Now do follow me on IG! :P They were 1 Turkish Lira (1 TL = ~ SGD 0.55) each and were as big as my face. I bought some to feed the seagulls, and as much as the seagulls loved them, I did too.
And were they polite! Unlike crows that peck at you if you didn’t give them food, the seagulls take their share and back away when they see you didn’t have any more food to throw at them. Of course, there were snatchers and I felt terrible for this one seagull who didn’t manage to catch the three chunks I threw at them so I made sure he caught the fourth one. I swore he squawked his thanks my way before flying away.
People old and young were seen tossing simit pieces to the seagulls, visibly entertained by the whole experience. Across the horizon, the sun began to set. By the time the ferry reached its destination, everyone had boarded the bus and ready for the 2-hour drive to Bursa.
