I take my bag and go, but the agent stop me at the last time :
- You walk ?
- Yes. (very clever !)
- You can't pass by foot, it is not possible.
- Really ? why ?
- It is not possible, you have to take a bus, a taxi, or ask for a drive.
I repeat my question, but maybe his english is too limite, or maybe he thinks I'm stupid, but he give me the same answer.
Ok, ok. It's not the first time I hear "impossible", o I don't insist and go. it's always possible despite of they say...
I arrive to a bridge guarded by two soldiers :
And there, actually, it's impossible.
- But it's ridiculous, it's forbidden to walk, now ? There is a sidewalk !
- No, no, it's forbidden, ask for a drive.
I try again, but nothing to do. I am yet lucky that one guy speak english, I will not argue with them.
I come back to the greek border. There is not a lot of traffic, but it's contant and regular. The most of people stop in the duty free shop, so I can talk with them, but without success. And a lot of them don't speak english and don't understand me. A bus drive is OK to take me, but he don't want to stop before Istanbul and ask for 30 euros... he don't understand I just want to do 2 km until the turkish border.
So, 1h30 later, I'm still in the same place.
At the end, I ask to the customs officiers to drive me : of course, they refuse. But it will be usefull 10 minutes later. I have been spotted by an officier working in the visa office, and she (it was a girl) call me to ask me something I don't understand (I don't speak greek). But one of the customs officiers arrive and explian her my problem. She understand and, cleverer than her colleagues, she talks with some truck drivers waiting for their passports : 2 seconds after, she find me a transport !
I finally can cross this %+°e² bridge and go in Turkia (Thank you Mrs !)
Controle - passport - stamp, it's done.
In the meantime, I offer me my first Turkish tea ("çai") : very good.
Now, I just have to join Istanbul to close this part of my travel. Distance : 250 km.
It's 12 o'clock now, so I stop after one hour in a petrol station (Instead of developping a train web, turks have a lot of travel cars company and one of the consequences is a web of big petrol stations every 10 or 20 km with everything inside : shop, restaurant, cafeteria, wc, sometimes a hostel or a mosque, etc...) and decide to celebrate the crossing with a real lunch instead of my traditional sandwich. I choose at random a salad and a meat, and the waiter bring me a mix of green hot pepper and aubergine with with cheese. I come from Normandy : bring up with fresh cream and unsalted butter. But despite of my apprehension, it was very good, and pepper past correctly (i' iz ho', bu' 'ood!). Anyway, my stomac has no choice : it will be harder and harder until India, so, let's accustom now.
And I go. The geography is more or less the same, but there is no more one olive tree or cotton field to see : in fact, all the open country without exception is plowed and offer a naked ground to the look. The landscape is brown. with a blue sky and and a grey road.
The night fall, I find a place in a field. Like everytime, it's forbidden to camp rough in Turkia. And like everytime, I have no problem to do it...
No comments:
Post a Comment