From Bus to Bus to Anywhere

The people on Turkish buses are the kindest you will ever meet. Exhausted from a long day of travel, my friend and I took one look at the complicated food ordering system at the night service station, turned and bundled ourselves back on to the bus to wait for the other passengers to return. Two followed us straight back on. ‘You are hungry? ‘ they asked, ‘come with us’. They lead us back inside and sat us down with warm tea and toasties, refusing to let us pay. ‘You are guests in our country’ they insisted. My friend and I travelled the whole way down the Western boarder of Turkey by bus. At first we were unsure; foreign transport systems are always an effort to work out, are often unreliable and unlike the more tourist-friendly ways to travel, tend to be exclusively run in a different language to your own. However, choosing the buses of Turkey was the best decision I ever made. The buses run from one city to another. Each day we would set off, not knowing where we would sleep next. Nothing quite beats the excitement of packing up everything you have with you, walking to the local bus stop and taking off without knowing where you will next lay your bag down. The buses in Turkey run differently to those in England in a number of ways. First, your fellow passengers are happy and willing to talk. Second, while there are main stations, passengers tend to just be left individually at the side of the road, often with no buildings or other people in sight. Third, if your experience is anything like my friend’s and mine, your journey may include your driver reversing back down a motorway for about five minutes towards the previous junction. Fourth, it will almost definitely include repeated instances of drivers telling you your journey will be 1- 2 hours, only for your fellow passengers to inform you 2 hours later that there are another 3 to go. It may seem strange to choose a transport system as a hidden treasure, especially considering all the wonders Turkey has to offer, but so often the sights are documented whilst the journeys are overlooked. The sights of Turkey are nothing short of incredible, some of the greatest I have ever been fortunate enough to travel to. However, nothing will ever quite beat the feelings of anticipation, of freedom, of empowerment that I felt sitting on the back of a Turkish bus, with the sun streaming through the windows, completely in control of my own fate, having left nothing behind me and having no idea what lay ahead.