On Saturday evening your Fauquier Times-Democrat will be one of the few -- maybe the only -- American newspaper covering the Dubai World Cup live from the track at Nad al Sheba in Dubai. This reporter is eager to see the event -- first made famous when the mighty Cigar won in 1996.

One thing: while the purses for the races tops out at over $21 million, there is no betting. Wha? What is the deal with that?

People who have been say that the fashionistas are out in force, with some ladies' hats fetching $3000, and that there are contests for the best dressed, best hat, etc. What a waste of good racing. Sounds like there was a fashion show going on and a horserace broke out.

In any case, catch next week's Fauquier Times-Democrat for the article. Think I should buy a new outfit?

We had lunch in Asia today. Took a ferry across the Bosporus and ended up in the Asian part of Istanbul. Even though it's 15 minutes away, there was a different feel to the place. There seemed to be fewer people who spoke English as we wandered through the streets looking for a restaurant that had been featured in a story in the New York Times, and the people looked different physically. The ones we saw seemed more Slavic, more Russian looking They all looked like they could be Chicago Bears fans, but then again, we were only there a couple of hours.

We did find the restaurant, and the food was quite good, though I hesitate to add that it didn't seem any better than most of the other meals that we've had here. They were all quite good, though I think I'll have to spend some time soon in a kebab-free zone. On some menus, that's all they had.

We also found a classic old bookshop, the kind that used to be in every big city, the kind that said out loud, “Yes, we are a major metropolis.” It carried a strong scent of tobacco, though nobody in the place was smoking. The books were in Turkish on the first floor, but downstairs there were a ton of English language books, from Shakespeare to the latest trashy novel, they all seemed to be there. I found one that I couldn't resist. It's called: “I Paid Hitler,” and it's the story of a major German industrialist who bankrolled the Nazis and Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s but who broke with him when he invaded Poland, and who left Germany – and all his possessions, it seems – and went to Switzerland and then to France, where, I think, the Germans finally caught up with him and pitched him into a concentration camp with the usual results expected. The book was written before America got into the war, so it is interesting to read a contemporary account of what Hitler and the Nazis were like, from an insider.

Standing outside the bookstore, I chanced a look across the street and saw a pleasant sight. It was a small shop with a picture of a couple of horses racing to the finish line.

“Ah, a betting shop,” I said as I walked over. Inside were all the familiar sights. An electronic odds board, racing papers pinned to the bulletin boards on the walls and denizens of my world – though a world away – trying to figure out which horse was going to win the next race. I looked around the room and a thought came to me: I can take these guys. Even though I'm 7,000 miles from home, and I can't read the Turkish racing paper, and I've never set foot on a Turkish racetrack, I was confident that if I stayed there, I could walk out a winner. But, alas, I didn't get to prove out that confidence. The first race was more than an hour later, and we had to keep moving.

Another good day in the area of the Golden Horn. One more and then we head back to the UAE.

We went into the Blue Mosque today, which is an enormous house of prayer for Muslims. Astonishingly large and beautiful, the place is open to non-Muslims as well, which isn't the case with many mosques in this part of the world. The only thing is that you have to remove your shoes before you enter. They give you a little plastic bag for your shoes before you go in, and you see people carrying them around like they're ancient relics. There you are, looking up at the incredibly beautiful and colorful arches, with your trusty pair of boat shoes by your side in a plastic bag. Takes something away from the moment, I think.

Today was cool and rainy, so you can imagine what sort of odor a couple of hundred people wearing wet socks and carrying wet shoes could make. Think of your dog having been outside all day in the rain, and now he's come in and lain by the fire. Now let's say he brought 100 of his doggy friends with him. It was something like that.

We also went to the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul and spent several hours wandering around in that place. It seems that Istanbul has 8,000 years of history, and this place has items from pretty much every era. There are a ton of sarcophagi that Turkish archaeologists found in places as far away as Lebanon and then shipped to Turkey and put them in the museum, a curious pattern as the Turks passed a law more than 100 years ago that banned people from coming to Turkey, finding some antiquity and taking it back to their museums. That discrepancy aside, they are impressive. They have Egyptian tombs, Turkish tombs, Roman tombs, Greek tombs ... about everything but the Tomb Of The Unknown Archaeologist Caught Trying To Smuggle Something Out Of Turkey. One is called “The Alexander Sarcophagus,” in honor of Alexander the Great. No, he's not actually inside the thing. He was killed in Babylon – or died of malaria, poisoning, typhoid fever, viral encephalitis, or from the consequences of alcoholism, the encyclopedia isn't sure. I mean, it was 2,331 years ago, and the encyclopedia writers' memories aren't as sharp as they used to be. Think you could do better? What did you have for dinner last Tuesday?

It's called “The Alexander Sarcophagus” because there is a carved relief of Alexander killing someone on the thing, and what the hell, why not throw the guy a bone? He may have been poisoned, after all. Or he could have died at the age of 32 from too much booze. In either case, let's show a little sympathy to one of the greatest conquerers who was married to two princesses at the same time. “Alexander Tomb” it is.

Walking back in the rain, we passed the Hippodrome, where they used to hold chariot races to amuse the sultan. He could sit high above the crowd in a little box attached to a palace, eat dates, drink tea, crack jokes with his posse and win bets race after race, even when his horses didn't finish first. Who would be man enough to say, “Hey, Sultan, you know, your chariot didn't actually come in first in the last race?” You do that, and I'm betting that your spouse wouldn't have to worry about what present to get you for your next anniversary. The Hippodrome sports a great obelisk in the center of the track, sort of a miniature Washington Monument, but with hieroglyphics on it. Not withstanding the Turkish law mentioned before, it originally came from, that's right, Egypt. You know, there are laws and then there are laws. And somebody other than you, Mr. Foreign Archaeologist, gets to decide which ones get enforced and which ones get winked at.