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
Bayrampasa Otogar
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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