Sunday 10 August 2014

Land Travel (Terry)



We had a very full two weeks, with:-

4 days in the chaos of Istanbul,
a trip to Eskisehir, which was supposed to be to catch a train, but our bus had a minor accident and we arrived late and missed the Ankara YHT.  We found out that it was a nice place so we stayed for 4 days to enjoy it (the town is run by an Economist, which explains why it is so nice J)
4 days in Ankara, which began badly but improved markedly once we found our way around.
6 days out to Kars and back to Ankara.
The fast train from Ankara to Istanbul (which hits 253kph but goes slow for much of the way)
Back to the Bedlam of Istanbul (an hour to go from the Asian side, 15kms from the bridge - just to the bridge!)
On the bus at the worlds craziest bus station and a 10-hour trip back to Canakkale only to find out they had cancelled our ferry and we had to wait 1 1/2 hours for the next one (the whole busload of us)
In to bed at 5.30am.


 Bayrampasa Otogar

 

 
 41° 2.409' N  28° 53.692' E  Each of the buses is an 80-seat touring bus
At the bottom, slightly left, you can see a small semicircle of buses.  These are coming out from the underground sections – there is a whole other level beneath this, with bus washing and bus cleaning, servicing, repairing.  There is the Istanbul Underground line in the middle.  This looks like a quiet day – we’ve been there 3 times and it is wall to wall buses, with the bus conductors and everyone else guiding buses in and out of their parking spots – the only acceptable communication words (to avoid any confusion) are Yes Yes Yes and Yok Yok Yok so the driver knows to keep doing what he’s doing or to stop doing what he’s doing.  Every Otogar in Turkey has a “Fat Controller”, like Thomas the Tank Engine does.  When you go to an Otogar, look like you don’t know where to go and he’ll be on you like a flash, will tell you exactly what bus you need, when it goes, tell you to go sit somewhere and when it’s ready to go, he will come and tell you.  Works well.

Blogs being prepared to detail all the above.

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