In one of my first posts I filled you guys in on the ins and outs of getting around the city of Istanbul. Well, I took my first intercity trip Sunday night to a little town on the Aegean called Selcuk to visit the Ancient ruins at Ephesus.The town is actually filled with a crazy amount of early Christian history but that's neither here nor there right now cause before I blog about that, I gotta tell yall about these dope inter city buses.
I have to say that when I found out that the easiest way to make my way down there was by bus, I was very apprehensive. Cause if America can't get its life together between Megabus and Greyhound (Don't eem get me started) then how on God's green Earth is Turkey gonna have its long distance transport game right? I had visions of me riding on rusty, crusty bus the size of Big Worm's ice cream truck. And like so many things since I've been here, your girl was wrong yet again. *Sigh*
The buses here are 10 times better than any inter city American bus I've ever been on. And being from Rochester and living in Philly, I've been on countless bus trips for innumerable amounts of hours. I booked my ticket with the Kamil Koc bus company and I was so pleasantly surprised.
Firstly, these buses were extremely punctual. As a very impatient traveler, I truly appreciated that -- Don't have no time to be messing with Megabus and their CP Time nonsense. So when you get on the bus the first thing you notice is that their Mercedes buses and each seat had a personal TV. You could watch anything from CNN to ridiculous melodramatic Turkish soap operas. The seats were so incredibly comfortable, too. This was such a relief because I had literally gone straight from teaching my evening class to the bus station with no time to rest in between. None of that funny business where your butt cheeks go numb from sitting on those God forsaken Greyhound seats. Oh, and lest we not forget the wifi.
So just as I'm getting comfortable and settled into the ride, the man who clearly works on the bus come down the isle like a flight attended with drinks a snack tray -- "Oh word? Say no mas." is exactly what I said to myself when I saw that. Of course, like a creep and complete foreigner, I snapped a picture of this for your enjoyment:
So I got me a nice hot tea and this Turkish fruit cake. At any rate, this guy goes up and down the isle I think 3 times during the trip. On top of that, though, there is a button that you can press to request his services. WILD. I know, my mind was blown too.
The trip took about 10/11 hours in total. I slept the entire time and it was a night bus so I can't really tell you about the scenery along the way. I can tell you however, that at one point the bus had to board a ferry boat for about an hour or so in order to cross the Dardenelles. I stepped out for a bit onto the ferry deck but I couldn't see anything in the dead of night and honestly I was just too tired. I got over trying to experience the Dardenelles real quick and went back to the bus to sleep -- I tried.
Even now just thinking about the subpar bus service we are used to is making me want to foment revolution at Megabus headquarters. When I go back to the states and, no doubt, have to get back on a bus at one point in time, I just KNOW Imma be mad, marinating in my own saltiness cause the buses here are simply on another level.
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