Turkish Adventure By Jim Buie

Driving in Turkey: One-Way Street? No Problem. Ignore Sign. Sideswipe Pedestrians

In Turkey, drivers are crazy but public transportation is excellent, efficient and inexpensive. Americans could teach the Turks how to drive, if they would teach us how to develop cost-effective mass transportation, even to and from small towns.

By Lucia Holliday Buie 

When I am carrying my groceries on my back and by my side and feeling sorry for myself, I remind myself that plenty of others here are also trundling their grocery sacks. Factoid to consider: for every 1,000 Americans, there are 473 cars. For every 1,000 Turks, there are 133 cars. So, walking, utilizing the excellent public transportation system, and pooling money to hire a service bus is common practice here.

Turks are not careful drivers. We've seen several (thankfully, small) accidents since we've arrived. Stoplights are regularly ignored. Drivers follow too closely, and routinely slam on breaks with about an inch remaining between vehicles. U-turn regulations? Forgetaboutit. Both Jim and I have been in vehicles that lurched out of a parking lot and drove the wrong way down a one-way street for a block or two until they happen to find an opening in the median. I have made Jim vow we will never, ever drive a car in Turkey. We've asked the Turks about this, they laugh and say they are better drivers than the Italians and the Greeks. Probably true.

We have to be extra careful crossing streets. Pedestrians do not have the right-of-way like they do in the states. Jim was crossing a small street downtown when a truck driver sideswiped his backpack.

Related:

• Traffic Fatalities We Could Do Without: (Hurriyet Daily News) "To be sure, traffic safety per kilometer traveled has improved in Turkey over the last 20 years. Expansion of divided highways, electronic surveillance systems and improved compliance with seat belt regulations have all played a part. But Turkey remains at the bottom of the list of the 24 “developed” countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD. The United States and most of Europe all have rates of fewer than 10 traffic deaths per billion kilometers driven. Turkey has 73 deaths for the same amount of a driver’s time behind the wheel. The next closest is the Slovak Republic with a traffic fatality rate of 46.9."

Book Flights to Turkey EARLY

When do you want to visit?  Turkish Airlines (generally the best carrier) will advertise tickets at 10 different prices; obviously, the cheapest go first, so the earlier you know, the better.

Bus Rides Offer Windows Into Turkish Life, Economy

One of the delights of traveling in Turkey is the cheap and efficient bus service. You can get most places by bus, and the experience is very pleasant. A "host" offers drinks -- water, tea, coffee, soft drinks -- as you ride along the highway. The cost of the 10-hour trip from Istanbul to Kayseri was only $40 a person. 

It was a very pleasant ride and gave me a good introduction to the nation's economy and the landscape. For part of the trip, just outside Istanbul, we rode along a superhighway not much different from what one would find outside a major U.S. city. As we moved away from Istanbul, in the outer suburbs, I saw rolling hills, a big river and cooking cutter-monopoly-size houses packed close together and Soviet-style high rises.  We passed strip-mined hills, a Hyunda plant, a Mitas plant, and other huge factories of one kind or another. 

I saw villages not unlike what you'd find in New England or the Southern United States, except where we have church steeples, they have minarets and domes of mosques. 

The Turks seem not to have as much money for landscaping as we do in the states. You see a lot of buildings without any grass around them. I also saw shacks akin to what you'd see in Appalachia, or worse. Turks live more modestly than most Americans, but they seem to take care of each other in ways we don't: you see fewer homeless people, and less drastic disparities between rich and poor than in America.

A bus ride to the mall is little different from a bus ride to a mall in America, except that malls here seem to encourage a genuine sense of community, with bowling, skating, and indoor sidewalk cafes more prominent than in American malls. 

How Not to Travel in Turkey: An American Woman Spends Too Much

I struck up a conversation with a middle-aged American at a restaurant in Goreme, Cappadocia, Turkey. She had paid something like $1,200 to come here for a long weekend. Having read that it is unsafe for a woman to travel alone in Turkey, she hired TWO male bodyguards or escorts as part of a package that included round-trip flights from Istanbul to Kayseri, hour-long taxi ride from Kayseri to Cappadocia, nights in a hotel in Goreme, an hour performance by whirling dervishes, and a few other introductions to Turkish culture. I overheard her asking naive questions of her hosts, such as "Who was Ataturk?" "When was the Turkish Republic formed? 1960?" and "I've heard that you Turkish men do not like women who challenge or disagree with you." How was a Turkish man supposed to respond to that?

She did not get her money's worth. From our observation, it is not unsafe for a woman to travel alone in Turkey. The bodyguards were unnecessary. She could have booked a flight from Istanbul to Kayseri for $60, a bus from Kayseri to Cappadocia for $14, a night at a hotel in Goreme for $100 or less, a performance by the whirling dervishes for $40. In other words, she could have spent less than $500, or paid for a friend to accompany her from the states, for less than what she paid.

If at all possible, Turkey should be savored, not crammed into a few days. If you can't spend at the very least a week in this country, don't bother coming until you can spend the time...unless of course you're here on business and your boss is paying the tab.

Turkish Bus Companies Take Care of You

I was a little apprehensive when Alex and I arrived in the Southeastern Turkish town of Hatay at 1:30 in the morning without a hotel reservation. Where would we sleep? No problem, the bus driver explained. There was a "hotel" right in the bus station, and it was only $15 a person, or $30 for two. He led me to what looked like a storeroom. I could hear a man or two snoring away. He led us to our "room" -- two cots surrounded by furniture and a makeshift glass wall covered in newspaper. Photo below:

 
Who was I to complain or ask for something better? There was a bathroom down the hall. We needed to be up and about by 8:00 AM, so we could surely endure this for a few hours. And indeed it proved quite convenient. Alex slept soundly.

This is just one example of how the Turkish bus companies take care of their passengers. They offer you snacks, tea and drinks aboard the very comfortable buses. The buses are almost always on time and they're cheap. Because they're so reliable, we just don't feel much need for a car here in Turkey. The buses are also quite modern and comfortable, often connected to satellite TV, showing movies or with headsets so you can listen to music. Riding a bus is a great way to see nearly all of Turkey.

 
Photo taken from my seat aboard Suha bus line.

Since I don't speak much Turkish, riding a bus can sometimes lead to confusion, or in one case, a near heart attack. Alex and I understood when the bus was stopping for a dinner break that the bus would be parked at a particular stop for "yermi bec" (25 minutes), just enough time to grab a bite to eat and go to the bathroom. But when we emerged from the cafeteria into the parking lot, there was no bus to be found. Had we been left and abandoned, with our luggage still aboard the bus? We certainly thought so. We looked around panic-stricken, and tried to communicate in very broken Turkish. Just as we had given up hope, the bus pulled up into the parking lot, returning from God knows where. Alex placed his hand on his heart in relief that we had not been left behind.

 
  

On another bus ride, an 11-hour overnight trip from Kayseri to Istanbul using the Metro bus company, we stopped in Ankara and the bus driver babbled something in Turkish I didn't understand. I figured we had at least half an hour to grab dinner. I hurriedly got some fast food, gobbled it down, then returned to the gate where the bus had let us off, but...NO BUS. I walked up and down the busy terminal, looking for the bus, but didn't see it anywhere. I began to get nervous, but really didn't think they would leave me. 

My faith was maintained when the "host" or concierge of the bus -- the young man who was assigned to supply drinks, check our tickets, seating arrangements -- who happens to speak a little English -- came over from the other side of the terminal to fetch me. I followed him down a winding path -- I never would have found the place the bus was parked on my own. Thank goodness this host was attentive and doing his duty for a hapless non-Turkish speaker!