Episode 9: In which there is no (dam) road

Location: Atatürk Lake
Date: 25.05.06

We were told by the guy who rented us the car that there was a bridge across Atatürk Lake, the huge man-made-money-spinning body of water that lay in our path.

There is no bridge.

None.

Luckily the mechanic who we had to take the car to gave us directions and general information about the ferry we needed to take instead. Apparently the road or bridge had disappeared with the creation of the dam (and the) lake.

While we were waiting for the very helpful mechanics to check over the car (something wrong with the the gas intake valve), I noted the slightly pimp maroon curtains all the way around the black towncar that was parked in the driveway next to our little Mermet.

After they charged us a miniscule 20YTL (approximately 20AUD (the NZD is too unstable) or 8GBP) for the adjustment and oil top-up, we were on our way. We weren't sure of the way at a fork in the road - the map wasn't helpful and we didn't know which town we were aiming for anyway - so we stopped to ask an old man squatting by the side of the road (this is a reasonably common occurrence). He had no idea what we were talking about, even though Turkish for ferry is feribot, not that hard to understand for either party.

So we picked a road and crossed our fingers.

A few hundred metres down the road, we noticed a car coming up behind us, fast. Thinking it was just another crazy Turkish driver, we pulled over a bit to let them go by. It turned out to be the curtained black towncar from the mechanic's, being driven by the mechanic himself. He told us we were going in totally the wrong direction, so we did a u-turn and made the ferry on time.

We passed back through the intersection where we made the wrong turn, and wouldn't you know - the old man was squatting just metres from the sign that said "Feribot"!