Things I don’t like about Istanbul:
- smoking everywhere, including in hotels, restaurants, indoors, anywhere.
- Homeless children eating out of refuse sacks in the streets
- The footpaths and facilities for pedestrians being wholly inadequate and decades behind most modern societies
- Motorcyclists not wearing helmets
Every time I go away I say that we in Ireland don’t know how good we have it. I know we are not perfect, and there are many problems in Irish society.
But we are miles ahead of lots of places, including Istanbul and Turkey when it comes to public health, road safety, and creating a built environment for all of society, not just motorists.