Around The World – Istanbul Turkey – The Arrival
My goal on this leg of the trip is to travel from Kavala, Greece to Istanbul, Turkey.
Alert readers will recognize that this is an unprecedented update format. I normally polish my journal entries and post my updates after I’ve left a place. Since Istanbul is my last visit before I get on the plane for home, and I’m here for 9 days, and getting here was an adventure unto itself, I’ve decided to push this out to the world. As you read it, I’ve got 5 days left here that I will spend sightseeing and trying not to get blown up.
I wake up in Kavala with the alarm at 9 AM, not an awful time of day but still… I packed up and said my goodbyes. I rolled down to the waterfront and through the Sunday farmer’s market which had food plus of course everything else you could possibly think of selling from clothes to shoes to plastic crap of every description.
I found the bus stop next to a kiosk right under the aqueduct, what a magnificent place! I got there 30 minutes ahead of time of course but the bus was 10 minutes late and it was chilly! I sat on a marble sculpture thing and was entertained by a local dog who was basking in the early morning sunshine. When I got on board I realized there was nobody there from the origination in Thessaloniki and I’m the only one boarding at Kavala. This is a 60 seat bus, and this will not be a cost-effective run for the company!
The bus man points me to a seat which is not my number but hey, it doesn’t really matter. Each seat has a small entertainment screen like an airplane. It looks impressive but sadly no… None of the TV channels work, the USB socket is broken, the user interface froze up so the bus man had to hard reboot it with a screwdriver, there is no Wifi until we cross into Turkey, there are many movies listed but only about 5 unique ones with about 10 duplicates of each and none in English or with English subtitles. I did find a Jason Statham movie and for those of you who have seen his work, the dialog is normally irrelevant. The fold-down tray is so small I can’t put my laptop on it so I have to put it on the seat next to me. You know, I’d rather just get on a shitty bus with nothing but a chair that gets me to my destination rather than be taunted with fun stuff that doesn’t work. Hmm, that applies to several other aspects of my life too…
The bus stops at a few towns on the way and we end up with about 12 people. A man sits directly behind me, reaches forward and tells me to put my seatback up. I look around and note there are 50 empty seats for him to use but he won’t move so I pack up all my stuff and go to my assigned seat number, far away from everyone and recline my seatback as far as it can go. Take that, beyotch.
We stopped for about 15 minutes on the highway due to a farmer blockade. I finally got caught in one! I think the cops let them blockade at certain times because we pulled up to the line of cars and the cop said we have to wait 15 minutes, and the traffic started moving right on time.
We arrived at the Greek side of the border and while it’s usually a breeze to get out of a country, not this time. All of our passports were taken by the bus man, we piled out and were wavied over to a restaurant/duty free shop for “Wait 10 minutes”. I bought a resealable bottle of DC and spent my last 10 euros on a huge bar of Toblerone chocolate and a roll of cookies. The bus man finds me inside and says come talk to the police about my Canadian passport. I tell him it’s at home, I travel on my US passport. Standing in the frigid air talking through a window, the policeman flips through my heavily used passport and asks me how long I’ve been in the EU. I say since November 1. They ask how long I was in France, I say I don’t remember exactly and I begin to list out each country I’ve been to since landing at Heathrom, after 6 countries they say OK OK and waive me away. Not sure what all of that was about. I don’t look like a refugee do I? I realize now that I left the EU from Spain when I went to Morocco and then returned to the EU in Italy just a couple of weeks ago. Oh well, not an issue now… And this is all just to leave the country.
We get back on the bus and roll across a bridge to the Turkish side of a shallow river. We stopped at two armed soldiers, the bus man opened the door, leaned out and gave them a glass bottle and some plastic cups and we are waived through with big smiles. A little greasing of the locals never hurts I guess.
The bus parks and we are all gestured off the bus and walk again in the frigid cold over to a drive-through immigration window. Of course there is no concept of a line, everybody starts going around the sides so I make myself really wide to hold my place. The border agent talks on his cell phone for 10 minutes while we stand in the cold. When it’s my turn I lean right into the window to keep the people to my right and left out of the way. He flips through my passport, stamps it and hands it back and motions to the next person. I waved the printout of my tourist visa at him because I knew it needed to be stamped. He hands the paper back to me and puts my passport in a pile with the others. We get on the bus and our passports are returned. We drive forward literally 10 feet and the bus stops again! We are all gestured off and we have to put our luggage through an X-ray machine. As I collect my bag, the X-ray man says something to me, I say sorry I don’t understand he says never mind and waves me away. Not sure what that was about. We get back on the bus and roll into Turkey, only 5 hours left on the road to Istanbul. This was with a bus using only 1/5 of its capacity. I can’t imagine the chaos with a full bus or 4 buses in a row.
Welcome to Turkey and my 44th and last new country on this trip!
We rolled into Istanbul, or Constantinople as I like to call it, I’m old school that way. The bus station on the far western edge of the city is crazy beyond belief. I got off and got my bag and went inside a small building to ask for the promised shuttle bus into the city. I was directed to a small van for the drop off in Askaray, as directed by the Crazy Holiday lady back in Kavala.
Jumping off on the side of the road in Askaray, I quickly found an ATM and withdrew Turkish Lira notes. The exchange rate is exactly 3:1 to the USD, so it’s easy to divide by 3 to determine value in context. Flush with cash I found a taxi and the driver spoke decent English. I explained that he should call my “hotel” for directions. He tried to call my host over and over but there was no answer. I had the street name from my Airbnb reservation but no street number so I figured we should get closer and try to call again. Seeing the pattern?
We drove to the street and at 9 PM it looks like a slum and I’m getting worried. The driver called again, no answer and again and again. I decided I’m going to give up in 5 minutes and have him take me to a hotel, fuck it, it’s my last destination. The driver called again and a lady answered! He got directions and off we go. And, we’re lost again. It took 3 calls to find the place. We had to go to the bottom of a hill and I walked up about 100 stone steps to the entrance. The lady is vaguely Asian-looking, surprising here, and doesn’t speak any English. I’m in room #4 on the top floor of course, heaving my bag up the stairs.
She shows me the room, the wall-mounted heater is broken so she brought me a portable heater to take the frost out of the air. She also turns on the water in the shower and makes “I’m sorry” motions. I figure it’s about the water pressure up here on the top floor but it looks like I can live with it. I get set up on the Wifi and crawl into bed.
And there you have it, I’m safely ensconced in Istanbul, with over a week of leisurely eating and seeing ahead of me. Stay safe, my friends.
