We had a lovely evening in Düzce – and this place had changed our thinking about Turkey. Entering the country had been a horrible experience at the port, but as we spent time with people here and seeing the towns and culture, we liked what we saw. But we were behind schedule and had a plane to meet in Bulgaria.
At the beginning of this trip we decided to have a support vehicle and Pete & Lauren were flying out to Sofia to meet us and film the trip. And they landed today – so we had to get motoring out of Turkey to meet them.
To do this we needed an early start – we got up at 4:30am – relieved not to have been woken by the prayers from the local mosque. It seems they started here at 4:45am so at least they didn’t wake us. As we left the Quars Garden Hotel, I was surprised to find the night porter watching our videos on Instagram and keen to show me! This could mean only one thing – he also wanted his photo in the car too. He did.
After the obligatory photo shoot, we were on the road by 5.40 am with a lot of miles to cover. Roof up as it was early and a cool start. Visibility is a little limited particularly for motorway overtaking though.
We thought we’d mastered the petrol situation and with our limited mobile data access were searching google maps for Shell petrol stations as soon as we were down to half a tank. But then when you think you’ve cracked it you find only half the Shell petrol stations sell V-Power Benzine (or petrol as we brits call it) We managed to keep the car topped up and it was running so much better on V-Power fuel.
Turkey is the country that keeps on surprising. The climate did this for us today, as we approached Istanbul, we found ourselves in a fog worthy of a November day in England. And our MG was just not equipped for such weather. We headed on with care and our lights on hoping we could be seen but at times visibility was very poor.
We did the wide route around Istanbul for speed and crossed the Bosporus straights – an impressive bridge allowed us to look Northeast to the Black Sea and South West towards the Sea of Marmara in the direction of the Mediterranean. It’s at this point you realise why Turkey is such a dominant power with control of the only sea routes in and out of Russia, below the Arctic, and Ukraine through the Black Sea. A few thoughts towards the troubles of Ukraine give us pause for thought.
By mid-day we were at Erdine and had found our last fuel stop of Turkey, and suddenly feeling like we were heading for a more westernised culture. This last petrol station sold Cappuccinos and Croissants – I had not seen this anywhere else in Turkey. We didn’t yet know, but this might be our last chance to find Shell V-Power fuel for a while. It turned out that it only had it in diesel, so we had to backtrack a little way to find V-Power Benzine again.
Just a couple of hundred yards past the petrol station we’d cross the border… Or so we thought.
When we entered Turkey, we saw total chaos at customs and border control. It took hours to get in and process all the paperwork. We thought getting out would be so much simpler. But no. It seems the chaotic border entry point of Tasuçu had failed to stamp my father’s passport, and at our point of exit in Edirne they wanted to know how he had entered, and why he had no passport stamp.
As a result, the border staff in Edirne seemed to think he might be an illegal immigrant. They repeatedly wanted to know if he had a second passport and why we weren’t showing it to them. They asked numerous times how we had entered Turkey – and seemed not to believe us. Various staff members were involved, and the entire conversation was held using Google translate.
I was left outside with the car it was only dad they were concerned about. I did wonder if this was far as our shared road trip would go and I should continue alone leaving him in the hands of the Turkish authorities.
We felt like suspects or criminals, and they took my father off to be interviewed. The whole saga probably took half an hour, and it was only the car insurance in his name issued at the port of Tasucu that persuaded them it must have been a border crossing error.
As soon as we’d achieved this, he jumped in the car and said, “let’s get out of here before they change their mind!” and with that we left. Quickly.
Overall, Turkey was a great place to be, and the people and culture was warm, friendly and welcoming. But the point of entry and exit does nothing to encourage tourism of visitors. I’d have to think long and hard about trying to enter again like this. The whole process of dealing with their official process was incredibly stressful. But we were out… And Bulgaria had to be better, right?
