Notes on Turkey

NOTES

We use a Greek rental car broker in Europe called Economyrentalcar.com. How they do it I do not know, but they always beat all other quotes by 20 to 30%.  You never know what rental car company you will get, but if it is a unknown like this one, Almira, I do a little more research just in case. We were supposed to pick the car up at Istanbul's newest, but still secondary, airport Sabia Gokcen. (Sabia Gokcen was the worlds first female combat pilot. In 1938 she dropped bombs on insurgents in Turkey.)

I could not find the car rental firm on the airport map so I called them. They are not at the airport they said, but the good news is that the car was coming from the European side of Istanbul and they would pick us up at 9:30 with the car and bring us to their office. They showed up right on time at 11:20. Glad they did, we would have never found the office nor gotten on the toll road without a big fine. The driver showed us you have to have a credit card like thingy, with credit, to get on the highway. No toll takers. (In fact I did know this from my research. I did not want another fine like the one from Slovenia with the same system. I just did not know how this one worked)

He drove to a half empty 8 story shopping complex, parked in the basement, and took the tiny elevator to the 8th floor, walked down a hall, around the corner, to a door with no name, and entered and office with one old metal desk, a computer, and a water cooler. There was the man that we had spoken to, Caner Karagoz, who spoke English. The driver had not.

After he completed the paper work, he sent the driver with us to get gas or diesel really.  That was a mere $100 for the fill up!!!! Damn, this thing better get good gas mileage. Then we went to get the toll card thingy. Without his help, we would still be lost.  You have to go to special gas stations and this one was in the middle of a huge road construction project.  Without local knowledge we would still be trapped in it.

Now that all the logistics are complete we are off for the hinterlands.

We have found were the 10,000,000+ people live in Istanbul. As we left the city with the driver and crossed over a hill, there, as far as the eye could see, were apartment buildings.  Some where probably 50 stories high. After taking the car we drove for many miles of these and then large industrial complexes.

Driving through the center part of the country the landscape enroute looked just like the southwest U.S. Scrub pine on the hills and mountains and brown grass in the valley floors.

I new that Turkey had mountains, because they have skiing.  I did not realize how mountainess and ruggied it is. In the last few days we have driven on everything from dirt trails to 4 lane highways. Turkey is spending a lot of money to upgrade their highway systems, but some areas you are still on narrow roads with lots of switch backs.  I love it, Vicki, not so much.

 detour

 The road was so slick he even slid off.

As you drive east along the coast there is more rainfall and the forest begin to look more like the US northwest area.

The sheep

 The shepards

 Tea stop

Red pepper anyone?

Alot is said about the how poor the Turkish drivers are.  I find them no worse or better than anywhere else I have been in the world. One comment is they drive in the middle of the road.  So would you if knew that any minute you might encounter any of these......

 The scary part...the road caving in. There were a lot of these.

I am not a GPS person except on boats and airplanes. However, on this trip I brought Gladys aka Fahmet along.  I bought her for the Vespa trip across America, stuck it on for 30 minutes and put it away. Don't like them.  I am a paper person and I had bought a good map for Turkey.  But with language and lack of information (I thought) I brought her along. Her maps are good but as always she is confused alot and we really don't need her. Besides, she does not speak Turkish. Roads are well marked with plenty of signage. There are not that many roads to chose from anyway.  In the cities and old towns nothing will help you but asking for help.

Random Acts of Kindness

Know what this is?

Neither did I, but a gentleman had explained it to his family and when the family moved on and he stayed I approached him and asked if he spoke English. He indicated that he did not but someone in his group did and he would go get them. I protested as I did not want to trouble him, but he insisted. He found the English speaker and he, via her, explained it to me. She sincerely wanted to know if she answered all my questions.

Seeing me talking to this lady,Yusuf Baykan approached me. He had served 25 years in the Turkish Army and spoke some English. He now ran or owned the restaurant in a former jail. He took us by the arm and led us all through the restaurant explaining the history of the jail and what various rooms were used for. A genuine nice person.

That is Yosuf on the right.

This Japanese girl walked up to this shop keeper an asked in English what he was eating and where she could get one. He did not speak English, but pulled up a stool, motioned for her to set, and ripped off a huge hunk of the beard with cheese and gave it to her.

Guide books. None has just the right information. They are going the way of the newspapers and I will not miss them. The internet has tons of info and it is a lot more current, with people ready to answer your questions and give you ideas for free almost instantly. Besides, if a guide book says it is a good place to eat, avoid it.

Phrase books.  They suck.  All of them.  Our Turkish Bertlz book has such important phrase's as

"Do you prefer boys or girls" and "where is my gynecologist".  But do they have "thank you"? Guess that was to basic for the Basic Berltz Turkish phrase book.

European hotels have low, mid and high seasons. By mid-September most are low or med season rates. So I was a little surprised that Turkey hotels indicated a high season until November 15. Even more so when right next door Greece literally closes it's doors on October 31. I have come to find out that the Turkish are just trying to squeeze a few extra nickels out of you. Istanbul had lots of tourist when the cruise ship crowd was in town but after they left, there were tourist, but certainly not high season numbers. The hotels we have stayed in have had no more than a handful of guests.

In Istanbul we spotted one of those rare sea creatures, a large yacht with a US flag. As you know one of my hero's in life was Jim Moran who made a large fortune on Toyota cars and owned many, many large yachts. He, unlike the other "job creators" of America, who register their mega-yachts offshore for "costs" reasons, registered all of his mega-yachts in the U.S.. He said he was a proud American, made his money in America, and with the fortune it takes to own and run one of these things, the extra costs of registering in the US was a small price to pay to be able to fly the American flag on his yachts. A true American.

This is not the mega-yacht we saw. But we saw several smaller boats flying the American flag. This one is a bit confused.

Now..... back on the open road.