Zim & Chris' Turkish (Mis)Adventure

In Istanbul I met a guy called Gordon Gaylord. I don't mean to mock the aflicted but ... Ha Ha Ha

Aiya Sophia

I have arrived in Istanbul and I would like to lodge a complaint about Turkish busses, more specifically their drivers as the busses are immaculate complete with steward. Turkey is blessed with motorways that any formula 1 driver would be pleased with. 3 lanes of seamless black asphalt stretching out in to the distance. It is a shame however, that the drivers are completely incompetent. Not only do they drive well within the posted speed limit, they also slow down for corners and even, god forbid, give way to let others pass. This is not how the driver of any long distance vehicle should drive as we all know. Might is right and as he is at the helm of one of the largest on the road - with an engine to match no doubt - he should surely put the hammer down and be going hell for leather. Alas such is not the case and thus the "short" journey of 350Kms from Ankara to Istanbul took the best part of 7 hours. Which if my calculations are correct means that we were traveling at an average speed of 50 Km\Hr. A measly 31MPH. This, quite frankly is not acceptable.

To alleviate some of the boredom of waiting around for my new passport I decided one evening to try and score some kind of plant based muscle relaxant. After much wandering around and not much success I ended up talking with this young guy who was handing out flyers. I use talking in the loosest possible sense of the word as he spoke no English whatsoever and my Turkish isn't up to much to say the least, but I managed to get the message across - or so I thought - and shortly afterwards we were on our way to his friend's house.
When we fınally arrive at the flat I am shown in to a room that is stacked floor to ceiling wıth all manner of pornographic plastic prosthesis and titillating toys. After a while they see that I am not really that impressed or interested and so ask me what exactly I want. Once again I make the internationally recognized hand signal for weed at which point they all shake their heads vigourously and in unison make the internationally recognized hand signal for...self love.
I am not sure at what point our wires had got crossed, or even how? Needless to say I left empty handed despite their best efforts to sell me an inflatable friend.

I remained friends with the boy who took me there and saw him on a number of occasions during the next week. He kept on trying to give me his phone number even though we couldn't even communicate face to face. I tried explaining this to him but of course it fell on deaf ears...I took his number.

Managed to waste 5 days in Ankara doing not much at all, despite the huge ammount of things to see. Had to get a new passport from embassy $100!!! The British embassy seems to be the farthest one away from the town centre and up a big hill and in the snow. But it does have good views.
On the way back stopped of at the Iraqi embassy to see about gettıng a visa. The consul refused point blank to issue me with even an aplicatıon form unless I had a reason for going other than tourism. After one look at my passport however, he laughed and said that being British I wouldn't need a visa and then wished me well on my travels.

Arrıved in Turkey to find myself in Europe although still find myself being woken up at some un-godly hour by the call to prayer and can never quite manage to drop off again. This not helped by the fact that it is snowing outside and I left both of my blankets on the bus and so am sleeping in all of my clothes - again. Took the oppertunity to sneak into an empty room and relieve the future occpant of all of their spare bedding.