The strait between Samos and Kusadasi is only 20 miles wide. But it's a universe apart. Turkey feels like Turkey. Rough edges, cruddy restrooms, crazy bus stations, whacky taxi experiences and a rough frenetic feel that is nothing like Greece.
Of course, the roughness began with the addition of a bag. Emily is bringing things home to Los Angeles. To make this work, we decided a second bag that she can check in would be a good idea - so we bought a small duffel. However, the way it's packed, it weighs about 50 pounds. It's also the fifth wheel - or bag and it's heavier than my small backpack. So, we plodded down the streets of Samos Town with our bags in the humid heat - me balancing the weight of a large dog on top of my front pack. When I set down the bags, I felt like I won the Biggest Loser.
Greece said goodbye to us in typical Greek fashion. We lined up to go through "Customs" which consisted of a man in a uniform who did nothing and another man - wearing nothing at all more official looking than one of the guys smoking at a cafe who stamped our passports. No looking, no computer scan. He just stamped away.
We sailed away under Turkish flag. The first shock of the day - the boat left on time. We had forgotten - Turks care about time. That was a pleasant surprise.
The port at Kusadasi was also a pleasant surprise. It had a beautiful new, waterside mall with seaside restaurants and cafes - including a Starbucks and a Burger King. After five weeks without chain stores and restaurants, we were back in the real world. The good news is we found a cafe and were able to work there and have a light dinner before heading off to the bus station.
There we we ran into our old friend, Turkey. The real, unvarnished Turkey. The bus counter woman who didn't get off her cell phone the whole time she issued our reserved tickets. In fact, she initially tried to send me to the competition at the next counter because she didn't want to interrupt her phone call. I felt badly, but we had prepaid our ticket and I really needed her to do her job. Luckily, she was very competent despite attitude.
Getting on the very nice bus to Istanbul started off with the usual chaos. The bus pulled into the station, everyone rushed it with their bags while the attendants waded their way through checking in everyone's luggage. The bus showed up on time and left on time. In Greece, people would have shown up ten minutes late, everyone would have known each other and if we left within the hour, it would have been a good day.
As nice as the bus was, we came to agreement that we are done with ten hour bus rides so long as reasonably prices options exist. Next time, we take a domestic flight.
After a night of hot and fitful sleep on a bus, traveling through a lightening and rain storm and waking up at one point to our bus being on a ferry (which we can't explain), we arrived in Istanbul fatigued but fine. We also found our first day of autumn weather - cool, overcast and breezy with some falling leaves in the parks (or parkis) we passed.
When the bus station people unloaded our bags and called over a taxi for us, we were thrilled. Instead of lugging our stuff out front to find a cab, one pulled up right to our bags. Little did we know those taxi doors were the portals to hell.
Our taxi was much like the Hotel California, you can never leave. Despite us telling the driver the hotel name, showing him the route I had pulled up on Google Maps on my iPad, and showing him the address, he was clearly very confused about how to find the hotel.
He went to the right part of town, but had to pull over to ask directions for at least five different people. I gave him the number of the hotel and they explained too - but it didn't seem to register for him. Several of the people he asked for directions read the address and looked at the map I provided and understood precisely. But they seemed to have trouble getting the driver to understand.
It seemed as if he wasn't so literate because he needed others to read him the address and information. He made wrong turns, got stuck in traffic and actually became irate with the traffic since he too was frustrated. The man was genuinely trying. Somehow, we got the only taxi driver in town with a severe learning disability.
When we finally turned down the right street and got out - Emily fully loathed this man. I just wanted to pay (overpay) him and be done. But just when we thought it was done, he tried to literally short-change us. Emily demanded the correct change and then as we walked away released her feelings of venom and hatred for this man which took her hours to get past.
The positive aftermath was that our hotel is in a very cute and cool European-feeling area with cobblestone streets, lots of shops and restaurants, other hotels and very close to the water. The hotel itself, however is clean, pleasant, has great WiFi, friendly people and the nicest mattress we've had yet. We had only booked this hotel for tonight, but have no asked if we can book here for our two and a half weeks in Istanbul coming up. This may be the best deal in the city.
When we arrived it was too early to check in, so we instead went around doing errands and seeing the city. Luckily, we had already seen so much of Istanbul in the taxi, that I had no problem navigating us around. Among our tasks was to check out the hotel we reserved for our late-October stay. It turns out it's really not close at all to the area it claimed to be in and our walk was very long and down some very steep hills. The area was less attractive, further from the heart of the Sultanahmet District, and the hotel's Internet "sometimes doesn't work....sometimes it's the city..." Not a way to sell your hotel.
However, the long walk gave us some first-hand views on Istanbul life on small, side streets with bustling businesses and very non-touristy goings-on. Istanbul truly is East meets West. Streets that look almost European with beautiful buildings and shops lie blocks away from streets with men carrying boxes of goods on their backs like in Nepal. People push merchandise and furniture around in wheelbarrows and hand-trucks right in the street with the cars. And on side streets, beautiful old Ottoman houses and mansions sit side by side with dumpy cement structures that could easily be found in Bangkok.
But every last person we stopped to ask for directions as we walked was kind and helpful. Our taxi driver who took us back to our hotel was intelligent, capable, fair and nice.
This massive city of incredible street traffic, chaos and grand monuments and mosques standing aside shabby, blackened cement block buildings reflects the strange mixture that is Turkey.
Literally and figuratively, Turkey has one foot in the Western World, one foot in the East and remains jumbled and confused by its past and present and the consequent indecision about what it wants for its future. Turkey is a secularly governed, muslim predominant nation with modern aspirations sandwiched between two worlds - neither of which fully welcome it. Neither the European Union nor the Arab League are inviting Turkey to lunch - because Turkey is something altogether different from either of them.
We have only today here for now. But what a fantastic teaser for our return later in October.
Of course, the roughness began with the addition of a bag. Emily is bringing things home to Los Angeles. To make this work, we decided a second bag that she can check in would be a good idea - so we bought a small duffel. However, the way it's packed, it weighs about 50 pounds. It's also the fifth wheel - or bag and it's heavier than my small backpack. So, we plodded down the streets of Samos Town with our bags in the humid heat - me balancing the weight of a large dog on top of my front pack. When I set down the bags, I felt like I won the Biggest Loser.
Greece said goodbye to us in typical Greek fashion. We lined up to go through "Customs" which consisted of a man in a uniform who did nothing and another man - wearing nothing at all more official looking than one of the guys smoking at a cafe who stamped our passports. No looking, no computer scan. He just stamped away.
We sailed away under Turkish flag. The first shock of the day - the boat left on time. We had forgotten - Turks care about time. That was a pleasant surprise.
The port at Kusadasi was also a pleasant surprise. It had a beautiful new, waterside mall with seaside restaurants and cafes - including a Starbucks and a Burger King. After five weeks without chain stores and restaurants, we were back in the real world. The good news is we found a cafe and were able to work there and have a light dinner before heading off to the bus station.
There we we ran into our old friend, Turkey. The real, unvarnished Turkey. The bus counter woman who didn't get off her cell phone the whole time she issued our reserved tickets. In fact, she initially tried to send me to the competition at the next counter because she didn't want to interrupt her phone call. I felt badly, but we had prepaid our ticket and I really needed her to do her job. Luckily, she was very competent despite attitude.
Getting on the very nice bus to Istanbul started off with the usual chaos. The bus pulled into the station, everyone rushed it with their bags while the attendants waded their way through checking in everyone's luggage. The bus showed up on time and left on time. In Greece, people would have shown up ten minutes late, everyone would have known each other and if we left within the hour, it would have been a good day.
As nice as the bus was, we came to agreement that we are done with ten hour bus rides so long as reasonably prices options exist. Next time, we take a domestic flight.
After a night of hot and fitful sleep on a bus, traveling through a lightening and rain storm and waking up at one point to our bus being on a ferry (which we can't explain), we arrived in Istanbul fatigued but fine. We also found our first day of autumn weather - cool, overcast and breezy with some falling leaves in the parks (or parkis) we passed.
When the bus station people unloaded our bags and called over a taxi for us, we were thrilled. Instead of lugging our stuff out front to find a cab, one pulled up right to our bags. Little did we know those taxi doors were the portals to hell.
Our taxi was much like the Hotel California, you can never leave. Despite us telling the driver the hotel name, showing him the route I had pulled up on Google Maps on my iPad, and showing him the address, he was clearly very confused about how to find the hotel.
He went to the right part of town, but had to pull over to ask directions for at least five different people. I gave him the number of the hotel and they explained too - but it didn't seem to register for him. Several of the people he asked for directions read the address and looked at the map I provided and understood precisely. But they seemed to have trouble getting the driver to understand.
It seemed as if he wasn't so literate because he needed others to read him the address and information. He made wrong turns, got stuck in traffic and actually became irate with the traffic since he too was frustrated. The man was genuinely trying. Somehow, we got the only taxi driver in town with a severe learning disability.
When we finally turned down the right street and got out - Emily fully loathed this man. I just wanted to pay (overpay) him and be done. But just when we thought it was done, he tried to literally short-change us. Emily demanded the correct change and then as we walked away released her feelings of venom and hatred for this man which took her hours to get past.
The positive aftermath was that our hotel is in a very cute and cool European-feeling area with cobblestone streets, lots of shops and restaurants, other hotels and very close to the water. The hotel itself, however is clean, pleasant, has great WiFi, friendly people and the nicest mattress we've had yet. We had only booked this hotel for tonight, but have no asked if we can book here for our two and a half weeks in Istanbul coming up. This may be the best deal in the city.
When we arrived it was too early to check in, so we instead went around doing errands and seeing the city. Luckily, we had already seen so much of Istanbul in the taxi, that I had no problem navigating us around. Among our tasks was to check out the hotel we reserved for our late-October stay. It turns out it's really not close at all to the area it claimed to be in and our walk was very long and down some very steep hills. The area was less attractive, further from the heart of the Sultanahmet District, and the hotel's Internet "sometimes doesn't work....sometimes it's the city..." Not a way to sell your hotel.
However, the long walk gave us some first-hand views on Istanbul life on small, side streets with bustling businesses and very non-touristy goings-on. Istanbul truly is East meets West. Streets that look almost European with beautiful buildings and shops lie blocks away from streets with men carrying boxes of goods on their backs like in Nepal. People push merchandise and furniture around in wheelbarrows and hand-trucks right in the street with the cars. And on side streets, beautiful old Ottoman houses and mansions sit side by side with dumpy cement structures that could easily be found in Bangkok.
But every last person we stopped to ask for directions as we walked was kind and helpful. Our taxi driver who took us back to our hotel was intelligent, capable, fair and nice.
This massive city of incredible street traffic, chaos and grand monuments and mosques standing aside shabby, blackened cement block buildings reflects the strange mixture that is Turkey.
Literally and figuratively, Turkey has one foot in the Western World, one foot in the East and remains jumbled and confused by its past and present and the consequent indecision about what it wants for its future. Turkey is a secularly governed, muslim predominant nation with modern aspirations sandwiched between two worlds - neither of which fully welcome it. Neither the European Union nor the Arab League are inviting Turkey to lunch - because Turkey is something altogether different from either of them.
We have only today here for now. But what a fantastic teaser for our return later in October.
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