Morning light slowly filled the
bus as we journeyed towards Istanbul. It
was our last overnight bus journey for the foreseeable future and I’m
glad! The driver smoked, played loud
crackling Turkish music and talked incessantly to the host or ON his mobile
phone whilst driving the bus. A twelve
hour trip in an overheated bus was not the most comfortable night. It is the smoking that gets to us the most. It seems that nearly all Turkish men smoke
and chain smoke at that. So in the
middle of the night when we hopped off the bus for fresh air we had to walk
through a smoky haze. The worst part is
that they take a huge lungful of smoke, stub out their cigarettes, board the bus and THEN exhale, filling the cabin with smoke. We had be allocated seats right at the front
of the bus so we copped the full impact of the smoke. Karl took photos of the driver smoking (which
attracts a 1000 Turkish Lira fine, apparently…) and coughed loudly but this
really had no more effect than us asking him to stop smoking which seemed to
fall on deaf ears. I am clearing my
chest as I write!!!
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| One option for travel...just a bit tricky with the backpacks! |
Having said all of that, we were
excited to drive over the great bridge which spans Asia and Europe across the
Bosphorus. A mild early spring morning
with a real nip in the air greeted us as we alighted the stinky hot bus – so
that’s both Metro and Kamil Koc bus companies that will receive poor reviews
from us on Trip Advisor! Other
travellers need to know and learn from our experiences.
 |
| Adieu Asia, Hello Europe! |
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| Going over the mighty Bosphorus |
As we could not have access to
our apartment in Istanbul until 2 PM, we had 5 hours to spend fruitfully. Prior to our bus ride from Istanbul, when we
had travelled with Metro, we made use of their great waiting room and free
Wi-Fi. We expected Kamil Koc to provide
the same but NO – no Wi-Fi and a very basic waiting room AND they wanted to
charge for left luggage. You live and
learn and we quickly decided that today was NOT a school day!
Annika and I, rather boldly, went
into the Metro waiting room, used their free Wi-Fi to check a few emails and
then , as Karl was more than happy to read in peace, the kids and I walked to
IKEA which was close by and had breakfast there.
Now, that was a surreal
experience. We could have been back in
Victoria Gardens IKEA. We even saw our
doona covers and all the familiar IKEA furniture and toys! The signage was in Turkish and the food
counter on the other side, but EVERYTHING else was the same. In our foggy sleep deprived states, it was
comfortably familiar. We made good use
of the free refills and toilets!
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| IKEA in Istanbul...mozarella sticks are different - at first we thought they were fish fingers! |
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| Queuing for breakfast! |
Walking back through the huge
Otogar (bus station) I was struck by possibilities. Signs to Macedonia, Kosova
and Bulgaria, Syria, Sofia and Romania adorn the doorways and the bus company
representatives bellow out their destinations to attract custom. “Oh, the
places you will go…” (or something similar by Dr Suess – again).
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| Care to go to Saudi Arabia or Bulgaria by bus? |
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| Or Greece or Albania? |
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| Or Macedonia or Kosova? |
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| Or......? Visas may be a problem for Aussies but WOW, the possibilities! |
We journeyed on the familiar Istanbul Metro to our station, Osmanbey, and walked to our apartment. Always thankful for dry weather. We had a lovely chat with our host Mustafa and then settled in and finally put the washing machine on. After living in the cave in Goreme for 5 days, we are full of grit and particles that fell on our clothes and selves so the washing machine was an essential!!
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