I realise I was rather harsh in terms of ‘critiquing’ Turkey two posts ago. Let me explain why, and further kill the second bird by telling the story about the worst day of my life.
I woke up at 2am, got driven to Luton Airport, to get a 6:30 flight to Istanbul. I was flying EzyJet, and their procedure goes that you have to check in at least forty minutes before the flight. We (myself, my grandfather and his brother) wanted to get there with plenty of time to spare, just in case, and rocked up at 4:30am expecting check in to be easy. Now, here’s the thing with EzyJet: you don’t reserve a seat, they sell more tickets than they have seats, it’s super strict, so if you’re not there forty minutes before, and it’s thirty-eight, they will not let you on the plane.
That is, unless, they fuck up.
They announced that the check-in desks for our flight, only two desks, and a mass of people flocked. We made probably the 3/5ths mark, and stood there. And stood. And stood. And stood some more. We did not move a step forward for forty-five minutes. Then we started moving. Eventually, we made the counter, LAST, somehow, and check it … at 6am. We made a mad dash towards security where they had to scan hand-luggage, jackets, hats, boots and whatever the hell I could take off that would conceal a weapon. I made it through, and bolted towards the plan, and grabbed the first seat I could. That was at 6:20am. Ten minutes later, the plane was going, my relos were on, and we were in the air. That just started the whole day off.
Landing, you need a visa to get out of the airport. They accept EU dollars if you’re from certain countries or US dollars from others. Do note, any travelers, that they will not give you change for any amount. It was US$10 (I think, but it certainly could have been more) to get this visa, and no matter what note you were using to pay with, whether it was a twenty, a fifty or a hundred, you would not get change.
Getting stamped, after getting your visa, was just as bad. They give you the third degree about where you’re from and what have you. This, on top of the fact that my guy decided to walk off with my passport. Now, there’s the number one rule as a traveler that you do not let your passport out of sight. You lose it and you’re fucked. So there I was, having to chase this guy down back to the visa booth. Apparently the guy had stuck on the wrong one. All this government official had to do was put a sticker on one of the pages and he couldn’t even get that right. Eventually I caught the guy, watched my passport, then got through.
Bus trip number one: Sabiha Gökçen International Airport into Istanbul, over an hour in a 30 C bus in ridiculous traffic. At that time, I thought it would be the worst.
Get into the bus depot and start walking around, looking for a store that sells bus tickets to Canakkale. Immediatly we were swamped by the following people:
- A man trying to sell us “good Russian wives”;
- Numerous people trying to shine our shoes. I had suede on by that time;
- Beggars, who rank high on my list of people I dislike;
- Chestnut cart vendors;
- Taxi drivers
Escaping these people we dragged our bags across Taxim Square, which had more people there than I’d ever seen in one place before. It was bedlam. We asked approximately twenty people how to find a street and got three different ways to go, ten people just ignore us and the rest just mutter something to the person they were with. Eventually we found where we were looking for, and discovered that they were out of tickets and we would have to get the 6pm bus. That’s not that bad, right?
Wrong. The bus trip is six … freaking … hours! We knew this, and we should have somehow arranged to get earlier tickets but the person we got in contact said there would be no problems getting tickets for the 2pm bus on the day. I guess something was last in translation.
So, we had to mull around for around three hours or so. The amount of people hadn’t subsided and we were hungry. We found, of all places, a Burger King and stayed there for the time. I didn’t need to go to the toilet at that time, but I surely wish I had. But my grandfather did and said that he had to navigate the most disgusting bathroom he’s ever seen. Obviously he had never seen the stairwell.
So it’s time to get a shuttle bus to the bus station where the six hour journey starts. And it was meant to be there at 5:00pm so that we would make our trip. And time went by … and by … and by … and no bus. It came, at 5:30pm, and he made a mad dash for the depot. We made it in time for me to make the mistake of my life. “I need to go to the toilet. I’ll be right back.”
I walked one direction, I walked the other, and I couldn’t see a single restroom. I ducked into one office, they had no idea what I was asking about. I found another, asked, then had to do a few hand actions to convey what I was looking for. A shifty old man grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stairwell and pointed in the direction. He tried to make sure that I understood, but because I was expecting something that I’m used to, he ultimately failed. Though, credit to him, he did help me, and I was grateful.
I started down the stairs, and by about the second turn, the place stank. I guessed that it was a rarely cleaned toilet I was headed to. I stepped off one platform and pulled my foot up in enough time to keep clear of a puddle of urine. I looked for a place to step and realised that, well, the stairwell was the bathroom and that you just let fly off the bottom step. Having my Western notions of modesty, I stepped up to a wall, trying to, you know, look inconspicuous, and did my tour of duty. I ran out of there as fast as I could. Eventually my grandfather’s brother wanted to go to the toilet before the trip, so I warned him then pointed to the stairwell.
We get on the bus, and wait around, until close to 7pm waiting for people. Punctuality must be optional with buses in Turkey. I was praying that I wouldn’t get anyone sitting next to me, but I did. And I’m all the better for it. I could not have met a more helpful, kind and generous person on my entire trip. His name was Seljuk, and he was our saviour. He came from Canakkle, he worked for a tile manufacturing firm and he had just flown in from Spain where he was at a tile convention. We had at least four hours of conversation before exhaustion set in for me, being up since 2am. I found out that China’s economic expansion is affecting Turkey as much as Australia, that they are mad soccer fans, that he thought the people of Istanbul were rude, offensive and uncouth (a word I had taught him to describe around five minutes of trying to describe them with different words) and that he rarely went into the city because it was too crowded.
The bus trip, which was advertised as six hours, was significantly longer because we made intermittent stops in random places. Imagine a bus traveling down the M5, and then having a bus pull over, in the dark, and just letting people off where not a building can be seen at all. That’s what was happening. Then someone would see someone they knew and a conversation would ensue. So the trip stretched out.
At about the three hour mark, we stopped at a cafe sort of thing. Don’t ever ask for a double shot because these people had no idea. I needed something to keep me awake, and I couldn’t even get a strong coffee. I don’t know how easy some people find it to sleep on buses, but I can’t. I’m a very suspicious person, and was afraid someone would knock off my hand luggage that I held onto white-knuckled if I fell asleep. So my dozes consisted of me closing my eyes, two seconds later, ripping them open and checking to see if my bag had been touched. I wasn’t worried about Seljuk beside me, I was worried about the other people who hadn’t earned my trust. I was only carrying around $5000 worth of electronics and essentials to keep me going.
We got to a ferry station to cross over to Asia (I think). The bus got on, and awaited, again, until a double-barrel truck emerged from the darkness and proceeded to back into a spot that, I swear, left only an inch either side of it. It was a masterful act of REVERSING into the gap.
We made land and drove for another x-amount of hours, before, finally we made Canakkle. We got out: 2:30am. Thankfully we had phoned the the hotel to say we might be a bit later than our 8pm check in, and they said that someone would be there. I couldn’t thank that man enough who waited up four and a half hours for people who could have given him the skiff for all he knew.
So, what was my experience, that created my opinion, of Istanbul? Ten hours on buses, an hour in customs and visas (and that’s not counting the two and so that I had at Luton), ten millions Istanbullians and twenty four hours awake. So I’m hard on Istanbul because I had a pretty average experience. But Canakkale – now that’s a place I would recommend. Especially Kalyon Bar. Mustafa owns the place, he worked on a Miami cruise ship for a while, so he speaks very good English and makes mean margarita. And he has a very nice friend in Besra(?), who can hold her own at the bar … until the spirits come out. And TJ’s Tours, who do the ANZAC tours, s so frigging good! There were a whole three of us, and normally a tour group runs on a minimum amount of people, otherwise it’s not worth the price in fuel, but he went out in a bus with just us three. He gave us salad rolls (which is what I’m pinning getting food poisoning from, but it didn’t set in until we left) and a bottle of water all for AUD$40. We had the most enjoyable time in Canakkale, and I could not fault it for a single second.
Which is certainly why I’d recommend it. But Istanbul? I, personally, would recommend trying to avoid it and heading to the skirts of the country. I generally say that to anyone traveling anywhere – whether it’s Australia, England or where ever. Don’t go to where the most people are. It’s like going to Sydney city – everyone’s rude and blah. But get away, go bush, or go to somewhere like Adelaide or Hobart or Perth, and it’s grand.
Thus, please understand all you Turks out there, that when I say I don’t like Istanbul, it’s because I had a bum experience there. But the rest of Turkey, as far as I can say, is a world of difference and a great place to go.
Thomas.
Deus Lo Vult 