Day 11 – 22nd September

Up at 7am, all packed and by 8am we were breakfasted and ready for our return to the road. We have had a great week in Turkey, Darren and Rachael’s apartment is brilliant, everything you could want is there and the pool and views are fab. Plug plug … if anyone wants a last minute winter deal, please speak to Sam or Andy and they’ll rustle you up something.

During our week in Turkey we uncovered a few traits of the Turks which we thought we’d share with you in the form of a list of idiosyncrasies.

The most significant trait of all Turks unequivocally without a doubt has to be that they are smiling, friendly folk. But even so, we have a slight inkling that this may have something to do with number 2.
We’re sure of this one, the Turks have cunningly exposed a weakness in the British tourists, that we like to spend money. Since they’re desperate to have our money it all works out rather well. Moreover, in an attempt to get said money they employ cunning stealth tactics such as putting ‘BEST’ before their shop names… e.g. “Best Barber”.
The Turks, possibly to achieve 1 and 2, have clearly studied in detail the British culture and language. For instance, it’s not uncommon to see an iron mongers named “Del Boys”, nor to see the shopkeeper (a 12 year old boy) sat outside saying “Cheap as chips!” as you walk by. Yes, they really have picked up on the more sophisticated of English idioms. In fact, judging by the calibre of some of the British tourists we met we think the Turks may be pitching this a bit high!!!
Randomness. Having driven from north to south, and all around the middle of western Turkey we feel we have experienced a cross-section of Turkish life; from mountain villages to large cities and yet one common characteristic appears throughout. That is their randomness! They just seem to loiter in the most strange places. From central reservations of motorways, to sides of deserted mountain roads miles and miles from civilisation. Occasionally they will be walking, sorry ambling along the barren roads, but more often there will be a wheelbarrow involved, or they will just be standing or sitting doing apparently nothing. Why? After days of deliberation we have a few of theories. a) They’re bored b) they’re lost c) they have a death wish. Other suggestions via comment!
Smoking. As mentioned in our ‘health’ spa day, the Turks seriously enjoy the odd… no the compulsory cigarette.
Car tooting. This is continuous and we have no idea why. It’s never more than a short ‘toot’ but that seems enough to cover ‘get out of my way’, ‘hi there!’, ‘good morning’, ‘thanks’, ‘go on then, pass me’, but overall perhaps it is linked to 1.

Back to today’s story. It’s now 11:11pm and we’ve had quite an eventful day.

It started at about 8:30 this morning, having done a good half hour’s drive, we got pulled over by the police. Fully expecting this, Sam leaped out of the car while Andy dug around for passports and driving licenses. When Andy turned around, Sam was already shaking hands (or was he palming something across to the copper)… either way it seems to have done the trick as he said we could go, it was actually the car behind that he wanted!! Oops!!

About 6 hours later a similar thing occurred. Yes, we were pulled over again, this time for real. The copper came and talked through the passenger window to Andy, expecting it to be the drivers side, managed to totally confuse himself as there seemed to be no steering wheel, even when Andy told the nice man that it was Sam that was driving he still seemed unable to grasp this so booked him anyway!!! However booked may be the wrong term to use when describing the actual event! The police man wrote 12% on a bit of paper and 222 YLT, which we interpreted as, 12% over the speed limit and 222 YLY (Turkish Lira) fine…….. Andy managed to negotiate paying 40 YLT and pretty much getting off scot free, making a bit of a joke of the whole debacle.

20minutes later we were on the road again. We were soon at the ferry crossing the channel from Asian Turkey to the European continent side of Turkey. Arrived and glanced at the sailing time (or so we thought) which was 2minutes ahead of our car clock! Thinking we were about to miss it we hurriedly withdrew the needed cash and rushed to the ticket office, only to discover the clock was showing the current time, not sailing time! The boat was like something out of an Ian Flemming novel, full of smoking men wearing thick overcoats stood ‘round in small groups. We were wearing shorts, t-shorts and flip flops and got stared at the whole time. We ate our only meal since breakfast – a bag of crisps and biscuits, at 4pm. Despite boat’s efficiency and surprising ability to float, toilet facilities were not up to scratch! See photo!

We were soon on dry land again and heading for the motorway that would take us to Greece…… Andy was map reading and thus in total control of our route….. he also had the compass out so Sam was sure he was in safe hands……. HOWEVER, we ended up on definitely the worst road all trip, or possibly ever. The car was scraping on the uneven tarmac, and our speed was down to about 2mph. Worse still there was a man with a rifle standing by the side of the road, about to embark on some target practice … put in to perspective the radar ‘gun’. Andy determined the road would join the highway (which we could now see to our left) insisted we continued… 20min later Sam turned around! We swapped driving, so Andy could have a go at the ‘off roading’ also, and Sam took over navigation, and a video for memorability!

Once on the correct route, we thought we might need some Euros for once we entered the Greek toll roads (which in hindsight we didn’t need at all! So much for trying to ‘plan’). We entered the last town before the border and headed for the nearest cash point… what we hadn’t anticipated was we were actually on the set of Borat! The in-bred, backward town came to a standstill as Sam managed to jump out of the car and head for a cashpoint as the car zoomed off (apparently driverless). The horses and carts summed up the town, and the fact that our cards weren’t going to work here.

However, we eventually crossed the border into Greece. After 5 stops from the Turkish passport control, customs officer and whoever else, and 3 stamps in our passports. The Greek controls simply glanced at our passports and let us through! Thank you Europe!

Finally we made it to our hotel… a cheap place in Kabara, roughly 100miles inside the Greece border. It’s like something out of Alo’ Alo’/Faulty Towers. The barman was the funniest; when we asked for a bottle of wine he presented us with a dusty antique, and said ‘I think this one’s red??’! When he tried to open the 1998 bootle he managed to break the cork. We took the corkscrew and headed off with a bottle we’d bought as a souvenir gift .. sorry Nicole!

Thus ended a very long day, but hopefully with less to do tomorrow to get to Igumenetsa for our Ferry at 9pm.