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Troy January 3rd -4th
Miran and I hopped on a shuttle bus at 7:30 that would take us to the bus station to catch a 8:45 bus to Canakkale (a city of around 80,000 near Troy). This is when the first annoyance occurred, our shuttle bus driver was talking on not 1, but 2 cell phones while driving! Then, our bus left Istanbul at 9:45, so we spent over an hour just sitting and waiting at the bus station/on the bus. Once we got going another announcer started, the bus driver was chain smoking and texting on his cell phone for the majority of the ride; right under a pair of signs prohibiting both activities!! Things are done differently in Turkey to say the least.
We arrived in Canakkale around 4pm and went to check into the ANZAC hostel where we had a reservation. Turned out that their hot water wasn't working so they moved us to a nearby hotel. We ended up paying 40 lira for a 150 lira room! Not a bad deal at all. The first room we went to was dirty and the lights didn't work, so we got moved to a different room one floor lower.
Now the fun part. We wanted to set up a tour of Troy and Gallipolli (WWI battle site) for the next day through the ANZAV hostel. They claimed to offer tours on their brochure which was the main reason we had chosen their hostel. Turns out that in the off season they only offer tours every other day, and if we wanted to join we would have to stay an extra night. If we wanted to do that it would cost 185 liras…each, about $122. That was way out of our budget so we asked about possible shuttle buses to Troy so we could just go see Troy on our own. The Hostel manager told us that shuttle buses didn't go to Troy during the off-season and that our only option would be his tour. Shocked, confused, and frustrated we stumbled out of the hostel, and wandered into a Truva Tourism shop where we were told that shuttle buses left for Troy every hour on the hour starting at 7am and would be about 5 liras per person each way. They also said that the entrance fee was only 20 liras! YAY! We were going to see Troy. So we eat some dinner and go back to our hotel room, wake up at 6:45 to catch the 8am shuttle so that we would have time to catch the 4:30pm bus back to Istanbul. Well turns out the shuttles didn't actually leave until 9:30. While waiting we met some guy from LA who was pretty nice. Finally got going, made it to Troy and guess what, free entrance with a MUZE card, we each have one. Troy was a pretty cool place, they are still uncovering more of it. We were definitely glad we didn't pay for a tour though. We spent an hour there, avoiding the freezing wind and elderly tour groups as we walked past eh ancient ruins. Time to leave. Wait, where is the 11am shuttle bus back to Canakkale? Hmmm… the guy from LA shows up, he doesn't know either. We are all waiting at the entrance to the Troy site (where the shuttle dropped us off). An old van pulls up, maybe this is it, we hopefully stare at him. Not our shuttle. After the driver walks right past us he asked if we are waiting for the shuttle bus. We tell him that we are and he informs us that he shuttle doesn't pick us up at this entrance, but at the entrance to the parking lot about a kilometer away. The LA guy asks if we can get a ride and the van driver agrees and hurries us into the van. We drive right past the entrance to the parking lot, shoot! Where is this guy taking us. Turns out he realized that the shuttle had already left, knew the route that it took, was able to catch up to it and get us on board! Wow, we made it back to Canakkale by 11:30. We spent the rest of the day walking around the city, seeing statues or portrats of Ataturk every couple blocks. The bus ride back to Istanbul presented the final annoyance. They had the heater on full blast, and with good measure because it was below freezing outside. The only problem was that the heater was right by our seats and we were literally sweating on the bus. When we asked the bus assistant if he could turn down the heat is flat out responded "No." we asked if we could have the fans turned on…"No." Excuse me? Well we suffered through the heat for the rest of the ride, Miran suffering the worse as she was sitting right next to the heater.
Overall the trip was fun, and at least it gave Miran a great example of how life in Turkey can be!
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