The otogar (bus station, the name of which is a homophone of French)
is immense, with multiple dozens of companies selling tickets to go
all over Turkey. There are more than 150 ticket offices in this
ultra-modern circular structure, with some of the companies having
multiple offices. They maintain different offices for certain
destinations. So if you want to go with Company X to Ankara, you would
buy your ticket in a different office than if you want to go to Izmir.
Yesterday I came here to get my ticket, even though I was near a part
of town that had a smaller ticket office for Izmir tickets. I was
having problems being understood, though, and it was a funny story,
though frustrating.
The core of the problem was that the bus company I wanted was called
Metro ("COACH OFF THE YEAR 2005"). When I asked people for the Metro
bus company ticket office, they thought I wanted to buy a ticket to
get on the metro, which is not what I wanted, but I could not make
myself clear about that.
Once I got to the ticket office, I found out that a bus to Bergama,
the destination I wanted, took eleven hours, even though it is 110
kilometers closer to Istanbul than Izmir. Why is that? Nobody's
English was good enough to explain, but it was consistent with the
information that was printed in my guidebook.
The Turkish word for "man" is "bay." "Woman" is "bayan." This is
especially helpful while deciding which toilet to go to. When the
employee at the ticket counter was getting ready to write my ticket,
he told me that he needed my surname. I gave it to him. The ticket was
written out in the name of "BAY DAVIDSON." I confirmed this later on
and found that in this case, "bay" means "Mr."
The bus stations and buses here are immaculate and ultramodern. The
stations put Greyhound stations to shame. As for the buses themselves,
the only thing we have that compare in the USA are private tour buses.
At 9:20 I got on the bus, seated in front of two local women speaking
in a local language. They immediately lapsed into whispering, as if I
could understand what they were saying!
We left promptly at 9:30, as scheduled, and snaked our way along back
roads and a highway. I had learned that it would take some ten hours
to make the journey of 575 kilometers. Traffic on the Istanbul
highways was very slow going, which made me wonder how much we would
be delayed for our arrival in Izmir. Why else it would take so long
was something that I would find out along the way.
Part of the answer came an hour later, when, still in Istanbul, we
reached the Uskudar bus station on the Asian side of the city, so that
we could pick up more passengers. There were then three more stops at
other stations. I had obviously boarded the local rather than the
express. Along this portion of the route, the refreshment service
began. Two nattily-dressed men in crisp white shirts, black ties, and
red vests served coffee, tea, and other light goodies.
For a nice break and opportunity to move around a bit, we then boarded
a ferry in order to cross the Sea of Marmara on its eastern extremity.
As far as I could tell, I was the only foreigner (or obvious-looking
foreigner) on board.
I had asked the ticket-seller if there would be a stop for lunch, and
he told me "four hours after," which I took to be somewhere around
1:30 PM. I was getting my stomach ready for the stop, and was
extremely (and pleasantly) surprised to see that we were pulling into
a bus station at 1:31. I guess that they factored the Istanbul traffic
into the schedule, as we seemed to be there according to plan.
The driver made an announcement, probably informing all the passengers
(except me) how long we were going to be stopping. I shrugged my
shoulders and gave a pad and pen to one of the servers, so that he
could write down how long we would be there. He wrote down "14.00,"
indicating we would leave at 2:00, which was plenty of time to get
some lunch.
Once again, the station was extremely modern, clean, and efficient,
with lots of choices for lunch. I found a place with lots of options.
As I was asking about the meatless ingredients, a Turkish man came
over to interrupt the proceedings, telling me in excellent English
that he lived in London. He made a few suggestions, and I got a
spinach dish, beans, and yogurt. Everything was delicious.
When I had eaten my meal and went to the cashier to pay, the Turkish
Londoner once again appeared, telling me that he wanted to be sure
that I was charged properly for the meal. Seeing the price at 9.5 YTL
(new Turkish lira, a little more than $8), he assured me that I was
not overcharged.
I got back to the bus at 2:00 exactly, only to find that there were a
few agitated bus employees waiting for me. I showed them that my watch
said 2:00, whereby one of them showed me the display on his cell
phone: 14:06. He said, "My friend, you are late." But when I got on
board, I could see that the bus's digital clock itself said 14:00.
We were barely were riding for an hour and a half when we stopped for
yet another rest break. This time it was not a bus station, but a huge
building with food concessions, toilets, and the like. Toilets seem
never to be free here, unless you are within the confines of a
restaurant. Otherwise, in places like this, you pay anywhere from .50
to 1 YTL, which is from forty to eighty cents, depending on the
location. Outside of Istanbul, more of them are of the .50 YTL
variety.
It was raining as we approached the building. A stand outside the main
entrance featured a fountain that the employee turned on as the bus
disgorged and the passengers approached. The fountain was spewing what
looked like milk, but was very foamy. Not having the Turkish
vocabulary to ask what it was, I simply posed the question in English.
In response, the man at the booth replied, "This is ayran, delicious
and famous."
I asked if it was milk. He said no, that it was "yogurt and water."
This rest stop lasted twenty minutes, and then we were off again. Now,
the driver turned on the two monitors that the bus had: one above his
seat and one near the rear door. First up was a commercial for Academi
Istanbul. From what I could see, it is some sort of trade school.
Subtitles showed the kinds of courses one could take there, most of
which were based in the arts. Somebody had a good time putting this
together, and most assuredly took advantage of the fact that most of
the Turkish public would not understand the English lyrics of the song
being played on the soundtrack, as the singers belted out lyrics that
included the words "the biggest asshole."
The movie was American, dubbed into Turkish: "Employee of the Year,"
which was a sophomoric "comedy." I concentrated on the scenery, which
comprised mostly of undulating hills, crops (lots of olive trees), and
towns that looked fairly up-to-date with lots of newish buildings. We
passed an outlet mall with more than thirty shops, but only a handful
of cars. It was 4:14 when we passed a sign telling us that Izmir was
still 200 kilometers away.
At 4:30 we had yet another rest stop, this time at a bus station. It
was to be our last rest stop. We arrived in Izmir at 7:31 PM, just
about the time predicted by the man who sold me the ticket.
The otogar is six or so kilometers outside of town, and the bus
companies provide a shuttle service to the center. I had settled on a
hotel as listed in the guidebook, but couldn't find it, so chose
another, just to be able to take the pack off my back and be
horizontal for a bit.
But lying down did not last long, as I had a new city to explore for a
No comments:
Post a Comment