Cyprus to England Part 3

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THURSDAY 7 OCTOBER

Alarm set for 0700 hours.

24°C on the car.

Up showered, packed and on the road, for real now. Terra firma all the way (apart from the ferry across the English Channel).

Pat set off and we stopped for petrol, at 0757 hrs, 100.O1 YTL, which was just over half a tank. They record your registration number against the transaction. Petrol is 3.66 YTL per litre, so it’s expensive. YTL to the pound is about 2.27.

Not much traffic about and initially we were following the coast road eastwards, heading for the motorway, to go north.

We swapped drivers about 0920. We stopped at a motorway cafe and had a local breakfast, 2 Nescafe’s, water, olives, boiled eggs, jam, flatbreads, cheeses, good simple fare. Cost 25 YTL. The petrol station had a prayer room, which caught Pats attention. This was the case at nearly all service stations away from the towns.

As we drove along they were selling bags of oranges and lemons on the verge of the motorway!

We were diverted off the Pozanti road and paid a toll of 2.75 YTL

Petrol in the middle of nowhere, 94.00 YTL, half tank. We then had a chat with the attendant in signs and gestures, the guy said he was from Bingol, which was much further north east, let him have change from 100 YTL, so he was happy, and went off to make us some çay. We sat down in chairs on the forecourt and we talked with him about our journey, showing him by the maps we had. As we left he gave us some tissues from the petrol station as a gift, very sweet. 1200 hours. 300 kilometres to Ankara.

Pat took over driving again.

The road was across a massive plain, very flat little or no human habitation, you could just see mountains far away in the distance. Wonderful scenery.

Along the way people where selling various produce at the side of the road, mainly nuts, Baden (Almonds), Findik (Peanuts), which we didn’t know what they were at first, but when we stopped later saw them close up and worked out what they were and what the words meant.

We also passed a massive salt lake, Tuz Golu.

Started raining after I took over driving at about 1330 hours.

At 1517 hours 50 kilometres to Ankara.

The journey was mainly a long long long straight road, with many many petrol stations. Took some pictures out of the car window as we drove along.

We went round Ankara on major roads and as such I am not really able to say fairly that we saw much of the place at all. It was raining quite heavily and some of the antics of the local drivers had to be seen to be believed. After that we headed in the direction of Istanbul, looking for accommodation. More Petrol 100 YTL.

Came off the motorway and didn't have a ticket so bought a KGS card from the office for 30 YTL.

Headed towards the D750 and Kizilcahamam. The road led us through nowhere for mile after mile. I said to Pat I would love to drive around the next mountain and stumble across civilisation, and that's really what happened. A large town came up and we headed for the town centre. Saw signs for the Basak Termal Hotel, and tracked through to it.

Good looking hotel 4*. Went in, they spoke no English. Cost 160 YTL. Thermal spa resort. Room 412 arrived about 1730 hours.

In the bathroom was an extra tap for the spa waters, but it didn't work.

Went to room, bathed, rested and changed. Up to the restaurant just after 1900 hours.

We had a quick look at the spa area, but they seemed to be in the middle of a flooding, so we quickly departed.

At the restaurant on floor 9, we were greeted by a Jonathan Ross look-alike, according to Pat. Had a reasonable level of English and introduced himself as Talib.

Fortunately he verbally gave us the meal options in English and he sent his minions off and running.

The Turks seem to have to sit guests facing the television in a restaurant.

We had soup, salad, chicken and meatballs.

A good standard of service, plenty of bread and water, added to and topped up often.

The waiters had very little English but said “you're welcome” every time we said thank you.

We both had diet coke's for drinks. The food was pretty good and we both had our fill. Dessert was a bread and honey thing. Talib did say what it was but we didn't quite understand, just ate it.

As we left Talib talked to us and some of what he was saying we didn't follow, but he was asking for our room number. Hopefully made all the right noises, in response to what he was saying.

Anyway later after we had got back to the room, one of the restaurant waiters knocked on the door and delivered a platter of fruit to us and we guess that was what Talib was trying to tell us he would do.

We had tipped in the restaurant so all was well.

We thought to have a drink or something in the Lobby Bar and went down. We sat for a short while but nobody paid us any attention, so we gave up and went back to the room.

We watched Turkish television for a while.

There was a car alarm going off in the night which woke me and eventually for peace of mind, I went to check it wasn't our car, at 0447 hrs, it wasn’t us and the car was OK and I then went back to sleep.

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Photos

Turkey
Driving north through Turkish plains