A Military Mom's Monologue: Day 6 and Our Arrival to Turkey

Day 6 of our adventurous, ridiculous, insane, wonderful, beautiful, chaotic, delicious, uncertain, surprising and long Journey to Turkey.

Today held lots of surprises. Some bad, some good.

Our morning was pretty great! We had a nice Greek breakfast provided by our hotel. Rhapsody got to run around and play with the two ladies again, and we made some Albanian friends while enjoying coffee on the front porch.

We have met so many people on this trip from all different cultures and backgrounds! It is amazing to see how we can communicate without words, as well as how much joy children can being to people.

We were on the road by 9 am. Today was the day that we crossed into Turkey. Tomorrow is our last day of driving!!

The Turkish border came up quicker than we were expecting. Just two hours after hitting the road in Greece. The Greek side of the border wasn't too bad. We got a bit hung up because our cars title was located in our fire proof safe under the seat which had stuff packed in... After unpacking that side of the vat and digging the documents out it to about 20 more minutes before we were through the Greek border and just had to drive to the Turkish side.

The drive was interesting... It was a mere 5 minute drive, but the whole way there were these little shacks with solders (holding large guns) watching us.

I'm not prone to wild imaginations of harm and corruption when it comes to military placement, but I have to say that those guys were awful disconcerting.

We hit a Turkish passport control, he checked our passports, and sent us forward. We through another passport control line and were informed that we needed to buy a Turkish Visa.

Richard parked the car and went to buy the visas. It was 15€ each, which wasn't horrible. After about 30 minutes we had passports with Visa stamps and were sent into the next line.

This is where things got interesting.

At the same time that we pulled up to get our car inspected I got a phone call from Expedia (who we booked our hotels through). Richard got out to do the car inspection and I took the call.

Ajay (so he said his name was) informed me that our hotel in Fanari had been refunded. During our conversation I asked him if he could please check with our hotel in Ankara to see if the dogs were in fact okay. This was another hotel that had "Pet Friendly" on their website. He said sure and hung up.

Richard got back in the car, looking a little concerned, and pulled forward to park out of the way. He told me that the customs people couldn't speak English and they were confused why half our paperwork was British, our car had British plates, but we had an American car (and title) as well as American passports. Richard got out of the car to handle the customs part.

After a couple minutes he came back and backed us into the customs area to get our car inspected. Once again the staff were confused by our paperwork as well why our car was full of stuff.

The customs agent stood at the back window staring at the dogs for a bit, so Richard opened the door. He just looked more confused and none of our paperwork made sense to him. Then he came around the sides to check the back seats. When he saw all the stuff piled in the car he got EVEN more confused. He seemed to ask where we were going. This is when Richard pulled out his military ID and said "Incirlik". We should've done that way before because the customs agent got noticably happier. He started asking "Incirlik?" And Richard said yes. The customs agent had Richard close the doors with no further inspection, then brought everyone out from the office to look at the dogs before letting us head on our way with no more issues. This was better than we'd hoped! Everyone else going through had to empty their cars by we got sent onwards. Yeah!

That was exactly when Ajay called me back to say our hotel in Turkey wouldn't allow dogs.

Seriously. The "Pet Friendly" hotel doesn't allow two large dogs. Again. Someone should learn that "Pet Friendly" is not selective.

To say I was angry would be much too light of a word....

I put on my stern mommy voice and insisted on a full refund, as well as he must find me a room in Ankara for the night because we were due to be on the road for at least 7 more hours and it was already well after noon. I would be completely unable to find us a room!

He kept repeating "I understand that you are upset but there is nothing I can do."

Seriously!? Nothing you can do!? And your supposed to be a travel agency service?

I gave him quite a chewing out, maintaining a level of respect (Richard thought I should've been meaner since they had seriously messed up). Then the phone lost signal.

We were switching tower zones from Greece to Turkey. I received a text message from Vodafone saying that the cost of calls were now 138p per minute to receive. £1.38. Per. Minute.

Ajay called me back a few minutes later and informed me that he had found a hotel for us that would take our two large dogs. He mentioned that it was a bit more expensive.

"How much 'more' expensive?"

"One hundred seventy one pounds a night."

WHAT!!

Our original hotel is £56. That just got upped to £171!!

Oh, but out of Expedia's "remorse" for our situation they would take 10% off. So a whole whopping £17. I told him that was still way too expensive and I didn't think we could afford that.

He gave me a big lecture on how we wouldn't find anywhere cheaper willing to take the dogs because everywhere was booked full already.

We were in the middle of Turkey. Paying nearly two dollars a minute to talk to this schmuck. With no possible way to find another hotel. Fan.tas.tic.

I asked Ajay to call me back in a few minutes so I could talk it over with Richard.

Unfortunately we had no choice. There was nothing we could do. We were going to have to pay $200 for a hotel we would be in for less than 8 hours.

Ajay called us back and said he could take another £25 off the price of the hotel. We agreed. TEN minutes later he had us booked in. I don't think Ajay understood money very much... Ten minutes equals £13.80 on one phone call.

Thankfully the drive through Turkey was really pleasant. The landscape wasn't what we expected! There was a lot of farmland! That is until we hit Istanbul... Where traffic slowed to a stop.

It took more than 2 hours to get through the city. The traffic was crazy! Drivers didn't care about road laws or cutting in front of you when there really wasn't any space. I don't know how we didn't see more wrecks! We only saw one the whole time. Tolls through the city were horrible. The lanes would split to 12 lanes, and then back to 4 immediately. It caused for a lot of honking and angry faces. The coolest part of all the traffic was the guys walking down the middle of the highway selling fresh fruit, water, pretzels, and sweets. They didn't knock on your car windows, or bug you. You just rolled up, told them what you wanted (or in our case gestured) and paid through the window then moved on. Halfway through the traffic Rhaps started to get upset just as we drove up next to someone with bananas. Richard rolled the window down, handed over 4 Lira ($2) and we got two bananas and a bottle of water. Pretty awesome!!

After Istanbul we had smooth sailing for all of 10 miles before it started down pouring. Really. Torrential downpour. Our time of arrival had already gotten pushed back to 10:30 and now, driving at 40 mph instead if 70 we watched as the eta got later and later.

It hit about 7 pm when we decided we needed dinner and stopped at a Burger King. I know what your thinking. "Really? You ate Burger King in Turkey? Couldn't you have gotten something better?"

Turkish sounds nothing like anything English. We listened to podcasts and YouTube videos trying to learn some of the useful phrases but we found them terribly difficult. Since we didn't know anything about the area we were in we figured Burger King was the safest bet. Ordering was still difficult but in the end we figured it out. Back on the road our ETA was well after 11 pm now.

I guess it was a food thing that we booked the way too expensive hotel because trying to find a hotel in the huge city of Ankara at near midnight would've been impossible.

We got to the hotel eventually, checked in, used the "complimentary valet service" (I paid for that with the price if the dang room!) and were up in the room by 11:30.

That's when I learned that our nearly $200 hotel room didn't come with a free breakfast OR free wifi. We had stayed in more accomadating, nicer, and cheaper hotels just days beforehand! The lobby of the ritzy place was flashy and extravagant, but the rooms were merely okay for the price. The carpets were old, the blankets and towels not soft, the bed was hard. What the heck were we paying for? Absolutely disappointing. I'll take a cheap, friendly place over a ritzy one any day!

We can take heart in the fact that we gave a room, even if it is ridiculously expensive, and we don't have to leave the dogs cooped up in the car all night.

Tomorrow is the final day of our journey. I cannot wait to be done.

This has been amazing. I wouldn't have done it any other way. But I'm ready to start our new life in Incirlik.

Now enjoy pictures from our ridiculiously expensive hotel...