In a country with more Greek ruins than Greece and more Roman towns than Italy, Istanbul is an oxymoron. The government pays the salaries of religious leaders and controls Muslim schools; but Playboy has a Turkish edition that is sold openly in the many convenience stores throughout the city. Young women wearing headscarves and ankle-length skirts mingle among men in jeans, loafers, and Robbie Williams t-shirts. The minarets of the Blue Mosque call the faithful five times a day, then the smoky bars compete for the same souls with the blare of rock bands once the sun goes down. Istanbul teems with possibility, excitement and adventure. However, with a population that has septupled in less than forty years it also teeters on the brink of decay, doom, and gridlock.

Divided by the Bosphorus, a waterway connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, Istanbul both connects and separates Europe and Asia. Founded around 660 BC as Byzantium, it later became Constantinople, the Roman Empire's other capital. Yet modern Istanbul and Turkey are actually the creation of Mustafa Kemal, or Ataturk. He designed a republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 and molded Turkey into a western country from this cornucopia of cultures. He restricted the civil power of Islam, granted equal rights for women, and ensured that Turkish was written with the Latin alphabet. Even today, the image of his stern, fatherly face is everywhere in Turkey. (I must say that his numerous portraits show a dandified figure. Like your favorite cross-dressing uncle, Ataturk does seem to have gone a tad heavy on the lipstick and rouge for his portrait sittings.) But, even with all the progress that has shaped Istanbul today, lingering clouds of terrorism are dampening its spirit.

We arrived in Turkey on the night train from Romania. There is nothing more pleasant than rocking along, sound sleep, in the warm confines of your own sleeper car. The rhythmic swaying of the train takes me back to the times I was rocked in my mother's arms. Warm, soft, soothing, secure. This reverie was abruptly halted when we arrived at the Turkish border at 3 am. Rather than the customary knock on the compartment door and cursory passport check, the Turks have a slightly different approach. Like the first day of army basic training, we were rustled out of bed, dressed, and standing in a line on the train platform in a matter of minutes. We waited in 37°F (3°C ) weather. And we waited. For an hour and a half we stood on the platform shivering in the early morning chill. By 5.20 am we were back on the train heading for our destination, restricting our cursing to only every other sentence.

Back home in the US we had been quizzed about how safe we would feel given the recent bombings. Of course we were concerned but, coming from a country with more than 43,000 traffic fatalities every year, I liked the odds in Istanbul. It certainly seemed safer than a Los Angeles freeway (certainly LA's drivers are far better armed than the terrorists). But the recent bombings have indeed colored the traveler's perception of this magnificent city.

On November 15, 2003, the Neve Shalom and Beth Israel synagogues were bombed. Then, only five days later, the British Consul and the high rise offices of HSBC, the prominent British bank, were struck. Over 57 people were killed, including Roger Short, the British Consul-General, and at least 800 were injured. Turkish citizens carried out this attack, which points to a striking new phenomenon. Turkish Islamist terrorist groups, once regarded as minor, have reinvented themselves thanks to Al-Qaeda's international network. Before the bombings, the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders Front (IBDA-C), an Al-Qaeda affiliate that took responsibility for the bombings, had typically conducted attacks using only molotov cocktails or handguns. The IBDA-C and other local groups such as the 'Turkish Hezbollah', a Sunni Kurdish group, are now able to carry out large-scale attacks in Turkey. This indicates a tremendous increase in their operational capabilities but does it make Istanbul the new front line in terrorism?

The other angle is that Turkey is seen as an offence to Al Qaeda. It has been reported that Osama Bin Laden once referred to the country as home to those 'infidel Turks'. A secular Muslim state with ties to Israel and the US certainly puts Turkey at odds with Al Qaeda but this doesn't make Istanbul a place to be avoided at all costs. I don't want to downplay the horror and tragedy of this or any other terrorism. But I think it needs to be put into perspective. Terrorism has been widely used throughout the world and is not likely to disappear. In fact, it is surprisingly common. Combative factions have killed in Northern Ireland and Spain; bars and nightclubs are routinely bombed in Columbia by communist guerrillas; Chechens kill schoolchildren in Russia; terrorism was used against the colonial overlords in Algeria; Tamils and Sikhs kill in India. And on April 19, 1995, a disgruntled American bombed the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. One hundred and sixty-eight innocent people were killed by a bomb-laden rental truck that destroyed the nine-story building. But I've never heard anyone say they're avoiding Oklahoma City because of the terrorism (everyone avoids Oklahoma City because it's boring).

If all this makes you want to cower under the covers, then take heart. The chances of dying from a terrorist attack are about 1 in 9 million, approximately the same odds as getting struck by lightening... twice. Statistically, we're less likely to die from terrorism than just about anything else we do: perhaps apart from driving a supply truck in Iraq. Avoiding Istanbul is certainly not the answer; being a knowledgeable and well-informed traveler is a far better solution.

Getting a sense of the city