The slow crawl home: Istanbul: A quiet coffee on Istiklal Street.

The bigger girl from the group of four must be the older sister, ringleader or simply has more confidence than the others.

Sitting outside the café, we notice that she sticks her hand out first to the group of smartly dressed men sitting opposite us. In her hand is a packet of Kleenex tissues. The men ignore her for a couple of minutes. I have to admire their tolerance as I watch from another table. The rest of the girls are eyeing up the half-eaten cake, making motions with their hands at the cake then up towards their mouths. No words are really spoken, just verbal gestures.

Eventually a packed of tissues is sold and a few coins dumped into the bigger girl's now empty hand. The rest of the girls have sweet caramel sauce now coating their fingers and the cake plates are empty.

Then, out of nowhere two burly men appear. Dressed in plaid clothes but with matching camel coloured vests, one of them seizes the bigger girl by the arm. The other girls have started shrieking. The bigger girl is dragged out into the middle of the pedestrian only street. Two of the other girls follow her. One isn’t sure what to do and hides behind an empty café chair, perhaps weighing up her options.

At the same time, whilst this is all happening we notice that out on the street two guys who were initially selling perfume from their backpacks have ‘exited stage left’ up a staircase next to a women’s clothing store. One minute they where making quick sales, the next they’ve gone with the blink of an eyelid.

One of the burly men is on what looks like a walkie-talkie. I’m wishing that right now Shazam had an app where you could point your phone to the person speaking and it could directly translate what they are saying (with a high volume, as we are sitting far away). Nevertheless between us three we’ve already started speculating what that conversation might be.

We notice that the little girl who wasn't with the others decides to reunite herself back to the group and is standing with them, watching and waiting to see what will happen next. Just like us. The burly man hasn’t let go of the bigger girls arm this entire time.

A large blue unmarked Ute turns up. All four of the girls are loaded inside. One of the burly camel vested men has a short chat to the driver, then they are all gone. The Utes drives off. The burly men leave. The perfume sellers return with backpacks to the same spot like nothing happened. The smartly dressed men have left their table. The three of us turn to each other, sit back in our seats, pick up our shitty lattes and comment how someone should recommend people watching from the tables outside Starbucks on Istiklal Street for every visitor to Istanbul.

Toodle pip x

PS the following photos are not, I repeat not related to the above written content. Shame.