Overnight bus from Istanbul to Goreme.

Goreme, Turkey

 

When I last left you all, I was just about to board an overnight bus in Istanbul bound for Goreme. The bus left the massive Istanbul "Otogar" bus station shortly after 8.30pm Tuesday night, stopping at close to a dozen other stations before we had officially left Istanbul. Along the way, I started to strike up a conversation with the person sitting beside me. (Actually, he started the conversation by pointing out where the rich people in Istanbul live as we crossed the Bosporus Bridge into the Asian side of Istanbul, a bridge which incidentally has a striking similarity to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.)

 

Turns out he knew very little English and since I don't really speak a word of Turkish, conversation proved challenging. That said, he seemed genuinely interested in conversing so I figured I'd dig a little deeper into the effort category and see if I can't find a way to get through to him. So, with a scratch pad, map of the world and my Lonely Planet in hand, we started to chat. After a few struggles, I learned the following:

• He just finished University in Istanbul
• He's 22
• He's got a girlfriend named Tugba waiting to marry him in Germany
• He's about to enter the army for his mandatory 15 month tour 
• He has 5 sisters, no brothers
• And his name is...

Well, that's where things get a bit funny. You see, I started off by saying that my name was Kenny. I tried just about form of sign language I could think of to indicate that I when I said "Kenny", that I was referring to myself. Every time I did that he just smiled and said "OK". After a few minutes of this I just decided to move on to something else. Well, once I got the scratchpad out I decided to try one more time and wrote down my name, then pointed at myself. Again he smiled and said "OK", only this time he took the pen from me and wrote down his name, which just happened to be "Okay Aliser". So, all along he was actually telling me his name, must of thought I was the idiot for constantly repeating me.... /sigh

 

So it didn't take too long before we sort of exhausted what we could talk about but it was kind of surreal to be scratching stuff down on a pad, pointing at a map of Turkey while looking up basic Turkish words in the back of a Lonely Planet. Sadly, it never ceases to amaze me that it's always English that is the language of choice that people resort to when they can't commuted. For some reason, the burden was on Okay to find the English word to describe what we was saying, since there wasn't a chance I was going to just magically come up with the proper Turkish word (unless it was in the back of the Lonely Planet).

 

So the bus ride continues relatively smoothly, stopping a few times here and there to pick up some stragglers and for food breaks. It must have been the Canadian in me, but Jesus the bus was hot. I was sitting there in a t-shirt with my pant legs rolled up, while most of the Turks around me had at least sweaters on. Around 4am, we stopped at some bus station and like all the previous ones I took the chance to get out and stretch. This time I was craving something cold and sweet and too my surprise they had a few ice cream bars for sale (chock full of freezer-burn ice I might add). So there I was, standing outside in the cold (just below freezing) in a t-shirt eating an ice cream bar. Needless to say, I got a few strange looks from the locals but at least I was no longer sweating on the bus.

 

Eventually, the bus pulled into Goreme around 8am, dropped us off and I quickly found the hostel I was looking for called the "Shoestring Cave Pension". There are literally dozens of hostels in Goreme, all right beside each other so it's not hard to find a bed. Right now is the off season, so the town is pretty quiet and in fact many of the hostels are closed, but thankfully the Shoestring was open and had a bed in the dorm room available. (For less then 5 USD per night!) Hot water and a warm bed is pretty much all you need...

 

So, that gets me to Wednesday morning in Goreme...

Kenny