It’s amazing how easy it is to get yourself into the shit, but what I like the most about this story is the poetically just way that it ended. The moment that I first looked into Talat’s eyes, I knew there was possibly a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock, but how much trouble can you possibly end up in when all you are doing is trying to order a kebab?
After farewelling Hannah, I’d caught a nice little tailwind and cycled a pretty decent 80km south of Göreme in just four hours, coming into a mid-sized town by the name of Niğde. It was possibly only going to be a short lunchbreak, but then I noticed quite a number of travel agencies all lined up in a row and figured I’d try my chances at getting a bus the rest of the way to Antakya. It was after all stiflingly hot and very dry countryside, and I needed to catch a bus at least part way in order to stick to schedule. I struck gold, wandering into an agency that sold tickets for the ‘Süha’ bus company which had been pretty calm about transporting bikes the first time I’d used them, and had a bus ticket departing at noon the following day. So the only thing I had to do was lay low for 24 hours, save my last few remaining lire and then I’d be pretty much knocking on the back door of Syria. The most logical thing to do next was to grab a feed, then look for a hotel. I got the feeling that tourists were somewhat of a rarity in Niğde, so a hostel full of hippy backpackers was probably out of the question, I’d just have to try my luck at the first regular hotel I came across. But first, food…
I walked into the nearest kebab joint near the travel agency and met Talat. He obviously owned the joint, and was talking with a few other locals, though the novelty of having a foreigner in his shop quickly won in the competition for his attention. Talat was probably in his 50’s, had very short cropped dark hair with a streak of grey, sported a typically thick Turkish moustache and he had a bit of a paunch belly, obviously he was a man who enjoyed the finer things in life – quite to excess apparently. He was definitely friendly enough, but it was his blue-grey eyes that said the most. They projected an intense happiness and cheekiness. But there was something else as well… Talat was quite possibly a bit mad. Still, I was hungry and I asked for the price of a kebab and salad. Five lire so I was told, which wouldn’t break the bank. No worries.
I opted to sit outside on the wide footpath, in a table under the shade of the high apartment block above. Clearly this is where Talat and the various shopkeepers in the main street gathered on a daily basis to drink their chai teas and shoot the breeze, watching the world go by. Talat bought out a large salad and a plate with an absolutely delicious mangal lamb kebab on pita bread. I’d had similar feeds in Turkish takeaway shops back in London – notably the Best Mangal chain in West Kensington. They were meat skewers cooked over an open coal fire and they taste wonderful. Talat certainly knew how to cook a good bit of meat. With nothing better to do, I ordered a chai tea and sat there for a while, humouring Talat in some form of conversation where neither of us could really understand each other but kind of got along anyway. He was pretty excited to be showing me off to anyone and everyone that walked past. I would not understand what they were talking about but every now and then I would hear him say ‘American’ in the middle of a sentence. I didn’t bother to correct him, it was close enough for all I cared at the time. I gradually noticed that the other locals seemed to take Talat with a grain of salt, so to speak. Or perhaps, he was alright in small doses and naturally he did own one of the local shops so he was essentially an unavoidable part of the local social circle. Perhaps Talat spent some time with some of the more undesirable folk in some less-than-kosher establishments.
I managed to get a word of English in with the bloke who owned a convenience store next door to Talat’s mangal shop. With a bit of translation assistance, I tried to correct the misunderstanding that I was American, however I don’t think Talat really cottoned on, or chose not to thinking that it was more impressive if I was American when he introduced me to people?? I was asked if I like to drink beer, which of course I replied yes, but that I didn’t really want one just now, maybe later. Truth was, I didn’t really want to have to withdraw any more Turkish money if I was less than a day and a half from being in Syria. And I was still dog tired from a lack of sleep after a whirlwind 4 days with Hannah in Istanbul and Cappadocia. We chatted some more, I got across that I would be in town for the night and if one of them could point me in the direction of a cheap hotel, that would be fantastic. Talat certainly seemed to know just the place, only a block up the road. Suited me fine, and he would take me there later. No worries.
My English conversation came and went as he often had to leave to go serve customers in the shop, but Talat became more interesting still. Over another chai tea, we ended up talking about women. I figured from his gestures and actions and tone of his voice that he was definitely a bit of a ladies man, and loved the company of a good Turkish woman. He was asking if I had liked a Turkish woman, to which I insisted that no, Talat could keep all the Turkish women to himself and I showed him some photos of my balloon flight with Hannah. Everyone around the table seemed pretty impressed with the blonde English woman on the small screen, as they should have been because she is amazingly beautiful, of course. Talat himself had a wife, possible two I think, and I also met his son, his brother (who was delivering a wheelbarrow full of tomatoes to the shop) and then figured that he probably had a whole host of mistresses in the local area.
Some more interesting conversation revealed that the bloke who owned the convenience store had an interesting love-life himself. He showed me a photo of quite a stunning woman with long, mouse-coloured hair. She was definitely not Turkish I figured, and I was right. Turns out she was your typical Russian mail-order bride. I couldn’t believe it when I heard the story – they’d met over the Internet and then in person three times; he’d flown to Moscow to meet her and she had also visited Turkey once or twice. Now she was probably about to make the move to Turkey – she really wanted to get out of Russia. The guy had even divorced his Turkish wife (two kinds from that marriage) and where he had once owned a shop selling mobile phones, he’d had to sell that business as part of the break-up and now had moved to a new town and started up the mini-mart that he now currently operated next door to Talat. I couldn’t believe the story, but couldn’t fault it for being anything but completely true. Fair dinkum! Anyway, he finally changes topic, and says to me, “Talat wants to know if you want a drink now, there’s a bar under the street” and I notice the set of stairs leading down into what is some kind of underground mall, or if you didn’t look closely enough, it might even appear to be just some kind of subway entrance, though there was no underground railway in Niğde. I can see Talat getting all excited about taking the foreigner for a drink and figure, what the hell. But I’m still wearing my cycling shorts and jersey, so the next thing you know I’m standing behind the counter of the kebab shop next to the oven, getting changed into jeans and a collared shirt, then following Talat downstairs to the bar.
“Crikey” is all I can think when I walk into what is clearly some kind of day club. You wouldn’t find a seedier place in Kings Cross back in Sydney. It’s about three in the afternoon, and the place is full of blue and pink disco lighting, a mirror-ball rotates above a stage and there are dodgy looking characters everywhere. Turkish women who look like they are dressed to head out on some kind of hens party are sitting around tables applying copious amounts of makeup, in preparation for what I don’t know. But I have a pretty good inkling! Still, I’ve told Talat that I’ll have just one beer, then I need to find a hotel to dump my stuff. The local Efes comes cold in a tall, sturdy pint glass and it’s amazingly beautiful. A plate of complimentary (I think) nuts and things comes out at the same time. At first I think they are peanuts or something, but then it dawns on me – these are the seeds of the pumpkins that I’ve seen everywhere around central Turkey. Hannah and I had overheard a conversation about the pumpkins whilst on a minibus one day. Some backpackers were asking why there are so many pumpkins in the fields and also left in mushy, mangled piles on the side of the road. Apparently, unlike regular pumpkins where you actually eat the bloody ‘pumpkin’ bit, these fiery yellow looking ones are grown specifically for their seeds. The locals remove the seeds and ditch the rest of the pumpkin. I’m not sure if it tastes bad or is completely inedible or what, but it did strike me as being a bit weird and a waste of food at the time. However, sitting in the bar with a beer it now made perfect sense (many things often do make sense when you are sitting in a bar with a beer, though often they don’t the next morning of course…). I was eating the dried seeds from pumpkins, just like I’d be eating a handful of peanuts. How many pumpkins they needed to grow to provide enough seeds for all the Turkish men in all the Turkish bars I don’t know. A bloody loot I suppose!
We finish the beer, Talat hands over some money and we go upstairs. I think he says that he’d shout me the beer. We go back up top, and Talat has some errand to do, so I sit back down at the table on the footpath and I order another chai tea. As you do in Turkey. Some of Talat’s ‘friends’ came along to share a chai whilst they wait for some bloke to polish their shoes. The convenience store owner also popped back over and we picked up the conversation in English. “What did you think of the bar?” he wonders. I had to explain that it was definitely interesting, not what I was expecting, especially at this time of day. “It’s not my type of bar, I don’t like it much” he says. That should have rung home but it didn’t, at least not until it was too late. I just assumed he was a bit more of a conservative guy that Talat was. Too right! I noticed that Talat had an intercom hooked up outside his shop door, with a wire strung across the awning up the road five shops to another shop that was obviously the provider of the teas for this particular stretch of road. Whenever anyone needed a new glass of tea, he simply pressed the button and barked a couple of numbers into the microphone. Within a minute they were delivered to the table. “How many chai teas do you drink in a day?” I asked. But convenience store guy miss interpreted and thought I was asking for the price. “Oh, five cups for about one lire.” That was still very interesting information. So I now had an answer to something that had been on my mind, after seeing so many Turkish people consume cup after cup of the stuff. Tourists generally paid one lire, maybe two if you were in a total tourist trap. The locals drank it at 0.20 lire a cup, or about 0.10€ cents. It was virtually free, but to be expected I guess.
Finally I made a move to the hotel, but not before trying to pay Talat for my lunch, which now came in at a total of fifteen lire. Hmm, that was an awfully expensive beer you shouted me, thanks buddy. I don’t suppose those chai teas were on the house either, but no worries you can show me off like your pet American to all your mates. Anyway, it wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things and it was quite an interesting experience. I did make a move to check the price of the hotel room first however, just in case I was being taken for a ride there too. “Just 10 lire” he wrote on a piece of paper. Good enough for me, so long as he kept his word this time.
We walked literally about 400m down the road and there was a dodgy looking place called the ‘Stad Otel’ or the City Hotel I guessed it meant in English. The room was basic, the bed good enough, the toilets about as grimy and filthy as anything else in a budget hotel in Turkey. But for the equivalent of 5€ it was better than wild camping. My only concern was that Talat lived quite literally in the apartment building next door, and obviously knew the hotel owner. He was keen for another drink, but I insisted later perhaps, I’d been cycling all day and I needed to rest my legs and get some sleep. I was left alone, but couldn’t for some reason actually get to sleep, being the middle of the afternoon. So I was fiddling with my laptop when there was a knock at the door, and the bloke running the desk downstairs wanted me to pay for the room there and then. No worries, I only had a 20 lire note, I handed it over, kind of knowing that I’d never see my 10 lire in change, ever. With no Talat there to back me up, the price of my room had instantly doubled. Trying to get it back later on was nigh on impossible with the language barrier.
After a cold shower – again one of those wonderful varieties where there is simply a hose hanging above the squat dunny –I finally drifted off to sleep, only to be woken up at around 9pm by a loud knocking on the door. Talat.
“Alright, let me get changed and I’ll come downstairs…” which I did, and then sat down next to him on the lounge in the lobby. I looked him up and down trying to figure out what I was getting myself into. It was possible that he had already had a few beers, I wasn’t sure. His blue-grey eyes looked a bit distant and glazed over, but he seemed genuinely excited to take me out for a few beers, I just hoped that he remembered well that I wasn’t particularly interested in any of his Turkish women that he was talking up with such passion and gesticulation. I counted off on my fingers, “one, two, three beers, then sleep”. He got the message, and I checked that the reception would be open late to which it was 24/7. Checking that I had nothing on me to get stolen or lost – I even left my camera in the room upstairs – I followed Talat out into the streets of Niğde.
At least this time I was under no illusion that I was paying for my beers, as Talat showed me where toe ATM was if I needed some money. I grabbed myself 50 lire, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to have a bit of extra cash and I could always exchange it for Syrian pounds eventually. And to my relief, we didn’t go back to the same bar. Talat let me down a dark alleyway (I know what you’re thinking!) and into a back door, which actually was clearly the same underground arcade as the other bar was in, but a different, more open bar. The place had a similar feel to it – lots of blue and pink mood lighting, a disco ball and the women were all there also. This time around however, they had all finished applying their makeup and were wandering around to different tables, looking for business. I recognised a few of them from the conversation that Talat was having in the shop when I’d first walked in, and started to wonder what his relationship with the establishment was. At 10pm at night, there were also lot more men patronising the bar, both young and old. And there was also a live band playing traditional Turkish music. Interesting.
We sat down in a booth and were brought our first beers of the night. Talat also ordered a few plates of food – fresh fruit including watermelon, rockmelon and peach slices. He also slipped a coin into a few hands and shortly later eventuated a few more plates – an odd combination of grapes and cheese flavoured CC’s (Doritos for you pommies reading this). When the music started up after a short break, I picked up on the fact that it was actually the girls that were doing the singing – kind of a weird karaoke show provided by the in-house escorts. Not all of them were very good, but one or two were ok. Clearly however, the Turkish men were mesmerised and couldn’t take their eyes of the ladies. Personally, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near any of them with a ten foot pole. Well, alright, there was one pretty good looking one. But for the most part, they were no oil paintings. Still, when anyone came over to the table – male or female – it seemed to be custom to look them in the eye and shake their hand, even if you didn’t know them or never said another word to them.
As I began on beer number two, Talat seemed to be getting into the crappy Turkish karaoke, singing along in short bursts to the music. I tried to joke with him, if he would end up getting up to sing himself. I think he kind of got the joke, and muttered what sounded like a ‘later on perhaps’. I wondered if the guys here ever did sing, or if it was just a show put on by the ladies, when all of a sudden one Turkish man was indeed handed the microphone. He was sitting in a booth on the opposite site of the restaurant, wearing a bright pink business shirt, smartly dressed like all Turkish men; long shirt and trousers at all times, despite the heat. The music started up and he began to sing one of the most beautiful Turkish or Arabic songs that I’ve ever heard. It was a very intense, almost sad performance sung in a minor scale with a wailing vocal over a single unchanging chord. His voice truly was brilliant and the whole place gave a resounding round of applause when he finally finished several minutes later. I even went over to shake the bloke’s hand, it was that good. He seemed pleased that I’d acknowledged him.
We were joined at the table by another well heeled Turkish bloke, quite large. After an initial greeting, I managed to figure out that this was the owner of the establishment. Was he Talat’s acquaintance, or simply interested to know what he was doing here with a foreigner? Either way he didn’t seem to mind and was quite welcoming, even going out of his way to find a couple of the younger guys who spoke a limited amount of English, so I wasn’t totally out of the loop. Beer number three and four went down pretty well, and Talat seemed quite keen for me to get up and dance. I was a little reluctant – it normally takes a few more schooners to get me up to embarrass myself. But his insistence won me over when he arranged for the band to play an English song – a Tom Jones number. How could I say no? The next thing you know, the ‘karaoke’ had stopped and the place went into disco mode – but the ladies weren’t dancing of course, it was a complete sausage fest on the dance floor. The younger Turkish guys seemed to be having a great time and I have to admit, it did get a bit infectious. The next thing you know, they’ve opened up an enormous box of napkins and are literally throwing them everywhere, showering the dance floor with flying bits of tissue paper, almost like some weird Turkish wedding celebration of oversized confetti. It was sensationally fun!
Well, the dance floor finished after a few songs and the various girls once again picked up the microphone and continued on their rounds of the tables. Talat seemed to be getting a bit fidgety and quite keen on getting a woman to share my company. One eventually came down and was invited to sit at my seat. I didn’t mind of course but I made sure that she kept her hands to herself, and it’s not like I could be accused of talking to her. I gave Talat a look of “hey buddy, I don’t want this” and when it was clear that the girl wasn’t going to win me over, she quickly moved on. Beer number five would be my last. I needed my wits about me and I was starting to pay particular attention to the piece of paper that the staff slid under the tablecloth, notching up the number of beers you consumed at your table. The bill, in other words. Then, another woman came by the table, and Talat once again insisted that she should join us, on my side of the table of course (it was legitimately the only seat left). This particular woman I once again recognised from the shop when I was there at lunchtime, and I got the feeling that she might have actually been the most senior of the ladies, perhaps the ‘madam’ in charge? Despite being a little older, she was arguably one of the more attractive ones also, but that didn’t change anything for me. I wasn’t going to get caught up in some strife with some hooker or escort or whatever these girls were.
Eventually they gave in, though this time it took a bit longer. The woman hung around long enough to be absolutely certain that I wasn’t going to play ball – even going in for the tackle at one stage! Enough was enough and I eyed Talat, shouldered the girl to the side and then eventually she moved on. At this point, I wasn’t sure if Talat was getting a bit miffed that I didn’t want a lady to please me, or what the story was. Had he promised the ladies that he would bring a rich foreigner down in the evening for some interaction? I couldn’t know of course, I think Talat assumed a lot of things that evening which he shouldn’t have. That I was an easy, rich ‘American’ target was definitely one of those assumptions. A staff member came over and notched up a couple of lines on the bill, and then I thought I might take a look at exactly what was going on. Nobody had actually ordered another beer, and I’d definitely only had five. Looking at the bill, they had written what looked to be the name of one of the girls on the bottom of the paper, and tallied two notches next to the name. Yeah, I didn’t like where this was leading and it was time to go. I drained the last of the beer, but it would be Talat that suggested would I like to go back to the hotel. And so we made a move.
I did the rounds of the bar, saying goodbye to a few of the younger Turkish fellas that I’d had a good time dancing and conversing with, then moved to the desk at the entrance. Talat was there discussing the bill with the doorman. I had a look at the slip – our table had notched up something in order of about 20 beers somehow – twice as many as what both Talat and I had probably drunk – and he was also querying the mysterious name on the bottom of the slip. In the end however, I think they decided to see how I would react, and presented me with a number written on the back – two hundred lire. Yeah, like I didn’t see that coming you pricks, let’s try this again. I gave Talat a stern look – too much mate, sort it out, and he went back to argue the point. The main bone of contention was clearly the woman’s name. The establishment was trying to pin me down for the ‘services’ of one of the women, which clearly was a load of bullshit but then, here I was trying to make a case in a foreign country, in a strange bar of dubious credibility. The figure very quickly dropped to 120, then I looked at Talat again, shaking my head. Even in a place like this, in the middle of Turkey, surely a bloody beer doesn’t cost more than 10 lire each. We settled on 100 lire and went to pay. I threw my fifty lire note on the table and then it was clear that he wanted fifty more. And I couldn’t help but laugh at the same time as be exceptionally angry, as I thought to myself “so that’s how you want to play it, eh Talat? You’ve dragged the ‘rich American’ out for a night on the piss so that he could pay for everyone. Thanks a lot you f*cken prick.”
Of course I didn’t have enough money. Nowhere else in Turkey had I ever been stuck with some drongo who wouldn’t split the bill down the middle. Even this being the case – even in the most touristic venue in the heart of Istanbul, an Efes beer would cost no more than a fiver. To my calculation I should have had enough even to pay for Talat’s half. So I was stuck in the embarrassing situation of waving a VISA card in front of the doorman, even though I knew that they wouldn’t have the facilities to take it. It was also my last vain attempt to get Talat to stop being a jew bag and open up is wallet. Well this was about as likely to happen as a snowflake in hell, so I was marched over to the ATM across the street with Talat and the doorman in tow, to withdraw another fifty, which solved the immediate problem. It might have not actually been much – a hundred lire is still only 50€, but it was a bloody expensive five beers I’ll tell you that. It was more that they tried to first rip me off, an secondly that I was expected to pay for the whole table, which really grated with me. I immediately made a beeline for the hotel with Talat in tow, intending on hitting the sack. It was about 2am after all – where does the time go when you’re having fun?
We reached the lobby and the hotel manager was in with a couple of young blokes, watching tele and drinking tea. Talat seemed happy that everything had worked out and I’m not sure if he even realised that I was a bit pissed off at him. In fact he had the audacity to then ask if I was still hungry and pointed down the road, rubbing his stomach. Truth be known , I’m pretty much always hungry and at first I thought Talat was inviting me back to his kebab shop. What was he gonna do? Open the door, fire up the oven and cook another mangal kebab? Not in his semi-pissed state I thought. But turns out he knew a good, cheap soup venu that was open late at night in the centre of town, not far away. Even the boys at the hotel suggested that it was pretty good grub. I had nothing to lose and I didn’t have to buy anything when I got there, but with six lire left in my wallet, I figured it was probably enough to buy several soups so why not check it out?
We went outside and I began walking towards the centre of town, when Talat pointed to his van. After a few minutes he managed to get across to me that he would be able to drive me out of town to the bus station around lunchtime tomorrow, when my bus was due to depart. This was actually pretty handy because I had no idea where the bus station was – it was not in the same place as the travel agency where I purchased my ticket. Maybe Talat would have a final use after all. But then, he also opened up the door to the huge truck and jumped in. I thought out loud in English, even though I knew he wouldn’t understand. “Talat, are you sure this is a good idea mate?” He would have had at least six beers in the time we were at the bar, and good knows how many before that. Possibly even a shot of raki, truth be told. But apparently this was no drama so I hopped in and we headed out for late night soup.
I was sitting in the passenger seat wondering to myself about the differences in cultures. The fact that in places such as Montenegro you are just as likely to see a man riding a donkey, using the same highway as the cars. In Albania, people are crammed like sardines into the back of utes, or standing up like cattle in the back of trucks – no seatbelts or anything like that. There were plenty of other weird and fascinating cultural quirks that I’d encountered, and I figured that drink-driving in Turkey was probably something that was as yet to be taboo, just like smoking indoors or in public places. And right at that moment as that thought crossed my mind, two young police officers stepped out into the middle of the main street and stopped Talat’s truck in its tracks.
I don’t know why they chose to pull us over. Perhaps he’d forgotten to turn on the headlights or something. He definitely wasn’t speeding from what I could tell, but something had given him away. I remained in the passenger seat as Talat jumped out to have a very animated discussion with the Turkish cops. By now, about six other cops had turned up, and dozens more were wandering around in the street. “Jeez that was quick” I remember thinking. Where the bloody hell did they come from in such a hurry? Looking over towards Talat, my question was answered. He’d driven right past the police station. What a fair dinkum boofhead. Two senior police officers arrived on scene in a swish looking police car and then a few minutes later, it was evident that whatever Talat was trying to say to get out of the mess had failed, and they had him blowing through the little white pipe into the little black machine. It took him about three goes to even get it right, and then the tell-tale red light and beeper indicated that this was not going to be a good night for Talat. A second test also failed.
Interestingly enough, a few moments later, Talat was back in the driver’s seat and we were heading back to the hotel. What the hell? How did he manage to get off that? But then another thought crossed my mind and I looked in the revision mirror – the cops were tailing the van. Interesting cultural difference noted – even if it is illegal to be DUI in Turkey, the cops will still let you drive your vehicle home drunk whilst they follow. Don’t try that one at home, kiddies.
Talat jumped out of the truck and made a scene about going into his apartment to collect something. I figured he needed to find his license. By this time I was a bit tired and wanted to hit the sack and I could literally see the door to the hotel about 100m away. I jumped out of the van and approached the cops, trying to find out if there was any reason why I had to hang around as clearly I had nothing to do with Talat’s stupidity. I thought they gave me the nod, but as I walked off across the road, they called me back. I think I was their insurance that Talat would actually do the right thing and return. When they found out what nationality I was, minutes later I found myself on a phone to a police translator, who was trying to find out what I had to do with the situation. Nothing I explained to him, I was caught up unexpectedly. Though it did sound like he was trying to explain my rights to me as if I was also being arrested for DUI. “It’s very similar laws in Turkey as it is in Australia, and you know that in Turkey you are not even able to have one drink and then drive or be over the limit.” I got all that, but didn’t understand why he then wanted me to hand my drivers’ license to the attending police officers. It was no good anyway, it had expired. Finally Talat returned, waved his license and made another scene, a bit of show and dance. And then I was waved off… “you can go” said the head police officer.
I walked over to the hotel lobby, where the manager and the two boys were watching from the front door at all the activity down the road. It didn’t take long for me to explain with a bit of gesturing that Talat had been caught drink driving and was being arrested, or so I thought. They seemed happy enough that I’d gotten away, especially without having to pay money to the police, apparently. Did I even get my soup? No. That provoked a few good laughs. And what did I think of Talat? “He’s crazy” I said as I twirled my finger around my head, the universal identification of a nutcase. All three of them cracked up laughing, and I think that I’d hit the nail on the head. I wasn’t the only one in town that thought that way! I was about to head upstairs to hit the sack, when Talat made one final appearance. He sat down, carried on for a bit, probably telling his side of the story to the Turks, then promptly disappeared. He had to be up again in three hours to open his shop. Too bad you’re gonna feel like crap tomorrow you dropkick, I’ll bet you don’t even show your face before lunch from the sheer embarrassment of getting arrested.
After he left, I asked the hotel manager what had happened? “Oh he pay police money, get ticket.” Whether or not he would need to go to court I wasn’t sure. And if the money was a fine or a bribe I wasn’t sure either – a bit of both most likely. Either way I didn’t give a stuff; I was silently glowing inside that the bugger who’d taken me for a ride had paid an even bigger price in the end. It was poetic justice. It was karma at its best. I drifted off to sleep that night with a big smile on my face knowing that all in my world was even.
The next morning, it was hard to avoid Talat’s kebab shop since it was so close to the travel agency. I figured that he wouldn’t be driving me to the bus station any longer since he was probably without a license. Still I wondered if he was up, and popped my head into his kebab shop. He wasn’t there and I didn’t recognise anybody. Likewise, convenience store man was also nowhere to be seen. I left it at that, happy enough anyway that I’d never see crazy Talat again.
A free minibus managed to get me to the bus terminal – close enough I could have actually cycled there in 10 minutes had somebody actually been able to give me directions. The only hassle was when I loaded my bike, only to have to unload it again until the last minute. Some Turkish family rocked up with literally an entire van full of luggage. They must have been moving house or something because they literally had bags of clothes, mattresses, boxes full of food and cooking utensils, everything but the bloody kitchen sink! I couldn’t believe how much crap they tried to ram underneath the bus. Thankfully the Turkish buses have extra large storage space – Bessie just managed to squeeze on, resting nicely up against one of their soft mattress. And right on twelve noon, the bus left on schedule, and I was on my way to Antakya – spitting distance from Syria. I didn’t care to look back as we left the town of Niğde. Once again, I like to think I’d learned one of life’s valuable lessons somewhere along the way. I’m not exactly sure which one, but I like to think I’m a little more the wiser now that I might have been otherwise. At least Talat was good for something! The thing about travelling is, you never know what will be thrown up at you sometimes, and this was certainly proven true this time! But that’s exactly why we travel, isn’t it?
