Ankara’s bus station, for those who have not been there, is enormous. Multiple levels, hundreds of people and buses coming and going in all directions. Just after figuring out which direction I needed to go, and rolling out, it started to snow on me. Me still wearing sandals and fingerless gloves. Get out to the main road. It’s really getting cold now. The Altura trousers can handle a little bit of weather, but I can feel melting snow coming through them now. Nothing underneath them, it’s getting colder. Which way to Ulus? People point in the other direction, on the other side of the dual carriageway. It’s choked with traffic, no chance of crossing it. Pedestrian over-bridge, way too many steps to carry my bike up, but no choice. Chock full of people, how to get through? But as I start struggling up, hands reach out, and help me haul up the stairs. It’s covered, and I’m starting to think this won’t be so bad after all.
Stop and put on more clothes, waterproof socks and sandals, a great looking combination. Head along the busy road into town, only vaguely know where I’m going. It’s Sunday, but the road is choked with traffic. Don’t know what it is about Turks, but they are just not capable of driving in cities. They’re not too bad on the open road, but they go doggo in town. Five lines of traffic squeezed into the three lanes. Because they do that, and always stop across intersections, it chokes things up even worse, but they can’t see that. Dodging trucks, going on and off the footpath, splashed by the slush, I head into town.
Somewhere along the way the sun comes out, and things pick up – traffic drops away, I’m now sweating, and there’s lots of cheap-looking hotels around. Find a room for 10YTL. Could maybe have gotten it cheaper, but 10YTL is OK for what I get. Nothing fancy, but it is my own room, and considering I ended up paying 5YTL for a campsite the other night, it’s fine.
With my crap Turkish, and a bit of German, I manage to find out what I need for today – where the main Post Office is, and how to get to the embassies district. Tried at the main post office for a package I’m expecting, no joy, but we think it may be at the customs office. Turns out that the Uzbekistan embassy has moved, but the taxi driver radioed into HQ, who gave us the new address. Found that, gave them the form and passport, should be good to go and pick up the visa at 15:00 today. Fingers crossed. Cost me US$90 for a 1 month, double-entry visa, plus around $45 for the LOI. Bastards. I can’t go to the customs office yet, as I need my passport for that, and the Uzbeks are holding on to it right now.
All going smoothly, I’ll be able to jump on a bus tomorrow night, and do an overnight haul to Erzurum, to pick up my Iranian visa. Bit worried about the snow though, we came through a lot of it on the way from Zonguldak to Ankara, and Erzurum is another 1000m higher than here. Will just have to tough it out.
You may notice that I have been taking some buses, and will be taking another one to catch up some with some other cyclists for going into Iran and Central Asia. You may even say that it is cheating. Well, it turns out that there’s only one rule to this trip – Lindsay does as Lindsay pleases. And right now it fits my needs to use some buses to sort out visa issues. So that’s what I’m doing.
If the weather works out not too bad – the forecast shows it improving later in the week in Erzurum – then I will probably do a loop ride from Erzurum, to fill in some time, and see more of eastern Turkey. There is a long weekend coming up this weekend, but I think it should be OK in the east – there’s not so many people anyway, nor is it much of a tourist area.
Time to go and see how my visa application has worked out…