Today it rained and I didn’t do too much except some travel planning. I had another good breakfast on the terrace today and surprised for the second day in a row I was the only one up there eating. I guess I found a smaller, quieter town to stay in. They said it isn’t the high season yet here (July-Aug). I was trying to figure out what to do next, go to Cappadocia (in the middle of the country) or Istanbul. Since I didn’t have too much time here, I decided to keep things simple and go directly to Istanbul. Then I had another choice, how to get there. I can take trains and ferries, or a bus. I’m going to do the simple thing again and take a direct 10 hour night bus and then get into the city early in the morning with daylight and plenty of time to find a place to stay.
It was an experience getting the bus ticket at the station though. I walked there with the name of a company the hotel staff told me about, but I ended up talking to some other companies (or they started talking to me) doing the same route. They were almost fighting over me and then saying the hotel was referring me to a specific company because they are getting a commission (that’s probably so). I ended up buying from the guy who gave me some directions and his business card the day I arrived. It is just confusing and you don’t know who to trust. The hotel said to make sure only to buy from a certain company, the others lie about a free shuttle service to different parts of the city. And then the other bus companies saying similar things and say they hate liars. I don’t know who to trust or anything, but we’ll see how it works out. It was kind of funny actually seeing these people getting mad.
Even if the hotel is trying to get commission every referral they make, they just seem too nice. They invited me to eat a home cooked lunch with a few of the staff. Later in the evening they gave me some cherries to eat. They even let me check out late since I have a night bus. It is a small place and they treat you as friends or family here.
For dinner I went back to the Turkish Pizza place to have some more of that. The guy cooking the pizzas wasn’t too busy and he had a Turkish-English phrasebook that he practiced with me for a while. Oh, another good thing they have in Turkey: Apple Tea (Elma Çay).