It was a breeze getting out of Istanbul – we still can’t work out why the sat nav brought us in on the crazy roads. For at least an hour on the motorway it was all still city. It’s vast. I have never seen so many skyscrapers, still with mosques dotted between them.
We followed the coast round as far as Terkirdag, then cut across to the border at Ipsala with lunch in a lay-by thrown in somewhere along the way.
We reached the border at 2:30pm and finally got through at about 11pm!!! So glad we weren’t in a car – we waited it out in relative luxury really.
From what we can gather a big delay is normal but surely eight plus hours can’t be right. People wandered up and down the road along with a load of poor stray dogs looking for scraps. We’ve learnt that if they have a tag in their ear they’ve been vaccinated against rabies and then put back on the streets. Yesterday, we saw two young lads probably about eight years old, sitting on the pavement sorting through a bag of rubbish, dusting off chips and putting them back into a McDonalds box. Couldn’t work out if they were then going to eat them or sell them, but they went as unnoticed as the stray dogs…it’s sad stuff to see.
Back to the border. At around 9pm everyone thought it would be a good idea to beep their horns in order to let the border guards know about the inconvenience…of course it had zero effect.
Eventually, we had leaving Turkey passport check, then vehicle check then I cooked some pasta in no-man’s land before Greece passport check, then Greece vehicle check then passport again! Hurray! We’re through, but still no movement. Armed guards Turkey, then armed guards Greece held up the traffic. I know these two countries aren’t the best of friends but wow, what a palaver!
Twenty minutes down the motorway, we pulled into a service station and collapsed. Not sure why it’s so exhausting doing nothing!