Hello. I'm Richard Ayoade.
As the figurative head of the ground-breaking series Gadget Man,
I'm justly renowned for using technology to take the terror
out of modern life.
Now I'm widening my already considerable horizons to hack out
the heebie-jeebies from travel.
Although I view holidays as a wanton haemorrhage of both time and coin,
even I can be seduced by the thought of fleeing these shores
before the drizzle dampens my shizzle.
So I'm putting aside my innate aversion to quitting my homestead
and travelling to some of the most attractive and, crucially, nearby
tourist destinations known to man...
..to reveal how, with the teeniest outlay of bread,
faff and effort, you can enjoy one precious weekend away.
This time - 48 hours amidst the historical beauty of Istanbul.
And as holiday costs are best halved
I've employed comedian Adam Hills to joint shoulder the burden.
'We will experience new cuisines...' It's fine.
'..ancient wonders...'
It calls for a brief pause in glibness.
'..and intense barbery...'
Clench!
'..as we claim to reveal how to conduct the perfect weekend away
'in this particular segment of Turkey.'
We're here, but should we have come?
Istanbul can be reached via the annual
Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train from Paris.
Or if you're coming from Greece
you could saddle up on Cappadocian horseback.
But because we've got
a mile per minute quota to make up,
we elect to fly.
Have you been to Istanbul?
I've never been to Istanbul.
It's one of those places that sounds really exotic. Yes.
It sounds...Turkish bazaars...
and rugs, carpets. Yeah.
I'm assuming there'll be a lot of that.
We're hopefully just going to go to Dixons and try
and do a compare and contrast with the one near Rotherham.
So why come to Istanbul at all?
Istanbul - not Constantinople -
is the eighth most popular tourist destination in the world,
and the only city on Earth that's spread across two continents -
as opposed to non Earth-based cities - straddling Europe and Asia.
It's been the capital of four of my all-time favourite empires -
Latin, Roman, Byzantine and, my personal soft spot,
Ottoman - was once famous for having a reassuringly
world-beating 1,400 public toilets.
And if you holiday efficiently, costs can be contained.
A budget weekend away here can be
had for approx 135 per person.
You go in, I'll go round this side. Sure.
But our first task on this schlep is to find a place to bunk down.
Ten million tourists a year visit Istanbul,
so the choice of hotel is vast.
But to give the illusion of balance, we've chosen the mid-price sub.
Located in the said to be hip and arty district of Karakoy,
it's one of the cities "trendy" hotels
with lobby ornaments that are "upcycled."
It's a posh word for "scavenged."
But nicely scavenged in a loving way.
There is something I have heard about Istanbul
is that it has become very trendy,
and I think this is one of those areas
that is about to become very trendy.
Well, let's see if we can knock that on its head.
Is that the most convenient suitcase you could find?
Yeah, I just chose the case that fits my lifestyle...
of trying to make everything as awkward as possible.
We've dropped our bags and the night is already enclosing.
And no attempt to holiday with an Australian is possible
without resorting to tired national stereotypes,
so I'm taking Adam Hills to a bar
to try Istanbul's national fire water.'
Do take a seat because we're going to try raki. Raki? Raki. OK.
This is the drink that Turkey is associated with.
60 million litres
are consumed annually.
Now, bear in the mind, the population of Turkey is 70 million.
And some of those people are children. Yes.
It's called lion's milk. It turns cloudy when mixed with water. Right.
Serefe.
Of Nottingham.
Oh, I like that. That's idiosyncratic.
Little bit of, almost like vodka...
aniseed, liquorice.
There's more to come. Really? It's over this way.
Just neck it.
Our cultural tourism must now career into foodstuffs
because after a "big night"
the Turks extol the virtues of...
tripe soup.
Sheep's stomach is boiled in milky water then flavoured with garlic,
chilli, black pepper, salt, vinegar,
and a blend of local spices.
This is volcanic rock from the original series of Star Trek.
I wish I could keep some of it on my spoon, it keeps falling off.
There we go. Here we go.
It's fine. Um...
ADAM COUGHS
I'm going to say this is too Turkish. We've gone too far...
We've gone too Turkish. That's sounds like your safe term -
"too Turkish".
In the bedroom, yes, that is how my wife knows we've gone too far.
"Lights on. It's become too Turkish."
ADAM LAUGHS
What am I doing? I had...
I tasted it. Why did I have a second taste - I've tasted this?!
LAUGHING: I know!
I'm going to have more as well, cos maybe it grows on you.
So, you've had a big night, you've had way too much raki...
What do you want to bring you down?
Maybe this can only be truly enjoyed
if you've had a certain quantity of raki.
I think any food that requires you to be drunk should be reassessed.
That is not how you get Michelin stars.
Too Turkish.
And now, with a gutful of raki and tripe,
we must attempt to get some REM.
Day two begins with clear heads and a desire to straddle as much
Turkish square footage as poss in the minimum of time.
The fastest way to take in the city sights is from the River Bosphorus.
Most people do this by a standard boat tour.
But because Adam aggressively insisted,
I've booked a yacht,
allowing us to be in Turkey AND a yacht at the same time.
Look, here's the thing - this is Asia and that is Europe,
and this is the only city in the world that straddles the two.
Does that mean that any song written on that side of the river
cannot be entered in the Eurovision Song Contest?
That's one of the many terrible things
about being on that side of the river. It must be.
Our restrictive schedule permits only the briefest of landings
in Asia, giving us just enough time to reboot a holiday ritual.
OK, I'm going to send a postcard now.
How? From the phone. Of course!
I'm going to select this app, we take a photo of ourselves...
in this manner, with the modern gesture.
Here we go.
We send the photo, select the address,
and hit send. And it will be sent as a physical postcard?
It's sending. It's done.
It's both instant and technologically up to date,
and yet old-fashioned at the same time.
Yes, it's got an up-to-the-minute redundancy.
With Asia but fleetingly sampled, we must return to Europe.
And, in order to offset our yacht costs,
we're chugging back on a public ferry.
So this individual journey - 84p per person on the Istanbulkart.
I can also go on a tram. I can go on the bus. I can go on the subway,
which goes up and then there's a counter train going down. Yeah.
The ferry is a cost-effective joy.
84p allows a bod to see three of Istanbul's biggest attractions -
the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia
and Topkapi Palace without having to waste valuable time
actually visiting them.
Bang, done.
You've just covered it all in a second. Brutally efficient.
I'm now wondering why Duran Duran didn't film any videos on a ferry.
Idiocy is the answer. Why didn't Bryan Ferry?
That would have made even more sense. I think he was trying to get away
from the whole haulage ship image
that he'd built up in the early '70s.
And now, with our feet back on European soil,
our drama only part way played out,
convention dictates we must pause and celebrate other ways
to part us from our earnings.
Still to come - our Istanbul odyssey continues with grooming...
You look more terrified than I've ever seen you.
..fortune telling...
That's a bad cup.
..and man-on-man manipulation.
Oh! Wow!
'Comedian Adam Hills and me,
'nasal non-event Richard Ayoade,
'are attempting to cajole you through the perfect Turkish weekend.
'We've voyaged between two continents
'and partaken of new fares.'
Too Turkish.
'But we need to sharpen up before we hit the streets.
'Turkey is so famous for its barbers
'that in London, a Turkish shave is a lavish splash-out.
'But in Turkey, many people shave every day, and I'm joining them.
'Foreseeing the universal holiday problem of the linguistic laziness
'of the non-English, I've tooled up with tech.'
I would like a shave and my friend would like a haircut.
I would also like to know the price.
ELECTRONIC VOICE IN TURKISH:
OK, that's not gone into the system here.
Sorry, it's now translating this conversation. Me... OK? Hair.
Him...razor, throat.
Good. Yeah.
What I like is that he hasn't even asked what you want.
ADAM LAUGHS
He knows what you need.
What's Turkish for a "trim"?
I'm going to see what "skinhead" translates as.
'Thus far, prog neg. But Anand won't leave this cake top without cherry.'
Oh, hey, there. Hey, there. What the...?
'Anand assures us that ancient Turkish belief insists that hair
'is alive and therefore logic dictates that burning it
'is more humane than cutting it.'
There's no...
I can smell my own ear hair. That's a sentence I've never said before.
That was like a Robert Duvall smell.
OK? Ah, beautiful. Yep.
You look more terrified than I've ever seen you. Mm-hm.
Is that a good description of how you're feeling right now? Mm...
This app, by the way, is remarkably sensitive, because it now seems
to be translating everything that the men outside are saying as well.
Seems like the man with the moustache said,
"I can't believe Barry's pretending to be a barber again."
Oh! Yeah.
Yeah, you do feel that.
For the rest of our lives, we'll always know that
we have smelled each other's burning ear hair.
This is excellent.
APP TRANSLATES
THEY LAUGH
'Onwards to more Turkish traditions.
'Turkish coffee, which is made unfiltered by boiling
'ground up beans in water, is world famous.
'And after it is drunk, fortune tellers oft scrape through the dregs
'to hazard highly suspect predictions
'of what fate may befall you.
'Tellers like Ilin perform in countless city centre cafes.'
If it's terrible news...
SHE LAUGHS ..tell me.
Oh, you want it? Straight out, tell me. OK. OK.
So I see here the shape of a man.
Right. It's probably you.
And you're gonna jump into something...
OK. ..unexpectedly, like a new job, for instance, or a new life.
Something new? Yeah. But it's a good thing. OK.
But nothing bad?
Uh...there is one chronic topic in your life.
Chronic? Chronic topic. It's gonna be important in the near future.
Do you have any health problems?
My life is a health problem.
THEY LAUGH
OK, I'll turn mine. How's that, is that ready? Yes, that's right.
Can I say, please don't give him loads of good news.
Cos I will just feel terrible. OK. Stick in a couple of bad ones. OK.
Thanks(!) No, I'm joking.
I will start...
That looks too dark. I'm worried now. That's a bad cup.
You will have a very romantic meeting with your wife. Right.
That's very nice.
We've got a young baby, so that hasn't happened for a while. Wow.
Well, it was worth booking that Novotel.
ADAM LAUGHS
It costs, but you can't put a price on romance.
Well, you can. It is 179 for the superior suite.
'Oddly spooked, but lacking facts, we must move on.
'I must urgently investigate the unfathomable tradition of haggling,
'and palm off the fruits of this experiment as a gift.
'Istanbul has a vast array of shops,
'from designer malls to ancient markets like the Spice Bazaar.
'But we're heading to the biggest hagglefest of them all -
'the Grand Bazaar.'
Look, "Grand Bazaar." Yep. It says "built in the 15th century..."
"It's the oldest and largest covered bazaar in the world."
Thank God that was all written for us.
That was some very conveniently placed signage. Do you know what?
It also has 21 gates, 17 inns, 66 streets, nearly 4,000 shops.
It employs more than 30,000 people. That's good to know at this stage.
Especially seeing as we're trying to introduce the whole idea
of the Grand Bazaar.
It's not an exercise in minimalism.
'Turkish rugs are considered to be the best in the world,
'and many tourists, including Adam, want to possess one.
'I selflessly decide to act as support.'
Before I left home, I checked with my wife what I'm allowed to buy,
where we need a rug. Hallway. What do you think of this?
That's nice. That's lovely.
So, I will make this 1,600 euro. 1,600 euros? Yeah. Tap in the pin.
HE SIGHS
My question is, if you go with this,
what would be the number that you can afford?
9 euros, final offer.
THEY LAUGH
500 euros. You're killing the prices.
500 euro... No.
Let's do this - let's make it 12.
12? Yes. No, I can't do 12.
1,200 euro? Yes. No.
I could do 800. I could do 800 euro. Really? Yeah.
Really? Give me your hand.
Never been so excited in my life!
I just spent 800 euro on a friggin' rug!
Yeah!
You've made an unsupervised rug purchase. You're out of your depth!
I can't even do a Sainsbury's shop without running it by.
'Keen to avoid a steep slide into the red,
'I resolved to circle less costly goods.'
Hi.
'The Turkish tea industry employs 200,000 people
'and everyone wants a slice of my tea party.'
Hello, good to meet you.
I have noticed that you have... Natural Viagra tea.
Something to make you like a wild horse in five minutes.
Like a wild horse? Yeah, you would like to smell it? No, I would not.
Why? It's nice. You don't want to be like that?
I don't want to run rampant in this covered market.
It's nice to be like that. Like an ungoverned stallion.
OK. I'm going to get some...
Some of the pomegranate with orange. How much is this?
Let's see... 33? Yeah.
33 Turkish Lira? Would you accept 3 Lira? I don't know. 30?
So you got a 50% discount... Yeah.
I'm looking at maybe a 10% discount. 25.
THEY SPEAK IN TURKISH OK.
OK. Is this the most anyone has ever paid you for this amount of tea?
Yeah. OK.
ADAM LAUGHS I thought so.
Invest the money in stocks or something.
'Haggling thankfully over, I decide to keep all my shopping online -
'where it belongs.
'With our mini-break drawing to a close, there's time for one more
'tourist attraction.
'And because we have no intention of avoiding the obvious,
'we've chosen Istanbul's most popular sight of all.'
Here we go. This is the Hagia Sophia. Built in 537.
Pretty good.
'The Hagia Sophia, or "Holy Wisdom" in Greek,
'receives 10,000 visitors a day.
'To avoid the clash of human cargo, we arrive just before it shuts.'
OK, this is clearly amazingly impressive.
But we've got a schedule to keep to so we're gonna have to whip round.
Do you have any gadget that could help us? Now you're talking.
I've got an app...
I'm going to be able to feign knowledge at an alarming rate here.
Great. OK. Former Greek Orthodox patriarchal basilica,
later an imperial mosque, now a museum in Istanbul.
I think for 1,000 years, this was the largest cathedral in the world.
Until Seville rocked up.
How many people worked on this? 10,000 people.
10,000? 10,000.
'It's like I've got access to Wikipedia.
'Apparently, that team of 10,000 took six years to build this place,
'and when a massive earthquake toppled the dome in 558 AD,
'the original architect's nephew designed a new one that was
'both stronger and 20 foot taller.'
It calls for a brief pause in glibness.
I think so. It's what it calls for.
You know what I love, though,
is that as much as everything has changed
and the world around it has changed,
the light coming through that window
is probably the same as it was in 537 AD.
'It is time to draw our holiday to what could be termed a close.
'So we must repair to a venue specifically designed
'for contemplation, thought and soapy scrub downs.
'Istanbul has over 100 public baths where locals come to gas with buds.
'We've chosen the mid-price Aga hamami.
'As one of only two unisex baths, it's husband and wife friendly,
'so ideal for two emotionally closed men.'
So, Adam, how do you feel about our trip to Istanbul?
This is a personal low point for me,
but what have your favourite or least favourite bits been?
We packed in a lot, but I didn't feel like we were stressed at any point.
I certainly don't feel stressed now. OK.
Here's the best compliment I can pay you - I now feel like a local.
Your credibility is being slightly undermined
by your extremely sudsy face.
ADAM LAUGHS
It's like an off-duty Father Christmas telling me something.
ADAM LAUGHS
Wow!
Oh! Oh! Wow.
Clench! Just clench.
It's like starting a speedboat.
Too Turkish.
ADAM LAUGHS
'With time and dignity slipping away, we must grope for our verdict.
'Although you can mini-break here for ?135, we've spent ?480 each.
'But that does include 120 smackers on a yacht,
'which proved less rewarding than an 84 pence ferry.
'So overall, we will reward Istanbul
'with an '80s era Macca-style double thumbs up.'
Well, unequivocally, you're hearing it from me
and Shaving Foam Head Man,
Turkey has been conquered in two days.
I don't mean that in a martial way,
I mean that in a travelly kind of way.
'Next time, I'm in Iceland with Jessica Hynes.'
This seems a steep descent. This seems too steep!
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd