The cat’s out of the bag

‘Why are you looking at me like that old woman?’ It really was the most unpleasant look anyone had given me since we’d left the UK… I looked defiantly back. ‘It’s okay to carry a rucksack and two bags, and a guitar, and be dragging a really big suitcase!’ My look said…

Maybe we were taking up quite a lot of space in the queue for passport control, but even so, did she have to look at me like I was a piece of garbage stuck to the chewing gum covered in dog poo on her shoe?

It wasn’t even a casual piece of dislike, she’d had to turn round to deliver ‘the look’ – and it lingered after she turned back, fuelled by her utter disdain.

It was quite impressive actually and we all practiced our versions of it later as we waited for our bus to Istanbul, but none of us came close – her ‘look’ was in a class of its own.

We made it through the Georgian border control without anyone else being deliberately horrible, I even had a laugh with the passport control officer about how bad the Sheffield football teams are.

I was born in Sheffield and he could see that on my passport – ‘Sheffield’  he said, ‘crap at football’ I said taking a wild guess that he was a footie fan, ‘bottom of the Championship’ he said grinning. ‘Typical’ I said and my passport was stamped – I was done.

We had some money left to spend so I went into duty free and then I saw my nemesis again, ahead of us on the long corridor between the two borders…. ‘Come on’ I said, ‘we’ve got to overtake her!’

‘Why?!’

… it was a perfectly valid question.

I told them about ‘the look’ and Theo wondered if maybe she could be in pain?

‘That was not pain Theo!. That was a look of pure contempt, and I’m taking her!’

My family, loyal to the end, walked past the old woman, albeit slightly apologetically… I looked back and smiled, my friendliest smile.

Revenge, petty and sweet! Goodbye Georgia…

We started looking for cats as soon as we got into Turkey, but our first animal encounter was a big dog, we gave him some of the bread we had bought at the station and he followed us as we went to find somewhere beautiful to eat breakfast.

We were on the edge of the Black Sea and I wanted to put my feet in it…

We looked out over it’s vastness as we left the last building. The sea had that soft quality water has in the early morning light when there’s no wind, almost like velvet.

We found a beach really quickly and went down a slithery bank of stones onto the pebbles, leaving Suitcase at the top, making friends with Dog and keeping an eye on our rucksacks.

We had six hours until our bus left so we took our time, sitting there by the sea that wasn’t black – and if it had been black? I would not have been putting my feet in it, or probably wanting to go near it at all…

Rosa and I wanted to know why it’s called the Black Sea and while there are disputes as to the origin of the name, there seems to be little argument about the fact that it is one of the most polluted sea in the world. Four major rivers are bringing industrial and mining wastes into its waters, so much so that Ukraine banned swimming in it last summer because of the risk of Cholera, botulism and anthrax.

Sitting there looking out at the inky beauty in the early morning light I’m glad I didn’t know any of that…

We took Dog a few more scraps as we headed back up after breakfast, a quick tail wag and a promise to keep in touch with Suitcase and he was gone.

The minibus to Hopa was right there at the top of the stone slope. We didn’t have any money but that wasn’t a problem – the driver was happy to wait for us to change some when we got into town, so we piled in.

When we arrived at the bus station a tall friendly man walked over and showed us where our bus was going from, he also paid our driver for us so he could get going – I owed our new friend 150 lira – he was willing to do the exchange himself but I reckoned I could get a better deal in town. He didn’t seem too put out, ‘pretty relaxed place’ I thought.

Rosa was up for walking into town with me so we dumped our bags, left Theo with a tiny cup of Turkish tea, and set off.

We knew the way, we’d done it before. Even Hopa, a small town in the North East of Turkey, was familiar to us. Rosa and I remembered feeding kittens with cream cheese the last time we’d come this way.

We found an ATM but the extra mark up was a lot so we headed further into town looking for a money changer.

There was a mega friendly dog by the minibus stand, he was hard to walk away from and we had hours so we allowed ourselves some proper love time with that dog. He was so healthy and vibrant – living his life on his patch and happy to wag his tail and be stroked by us as much as we liked.

We found somewhere to change money at an excellent rate, thank you instincts, bought some huge nuts in their shells (our stocks were running low) and on the way back we were shown some fish swimming in the river by an excited local…they really do seem to love animals in Turkey.

Theo and I went into town next, so he could meet the lovely dog. The time passed pretty quickly going for more little walks and living in the half state that comes from lack of sleep.

We knew the journey was twenty hours long, we knew it was on a bus, but we didn’t know the route…it could go via Erzurum, many long (dangerous) hours through the mountains, OR – if we were very lucky, it might drive along the edge of the Black Sea for half the journey.

A route both flat and beautiful – that would be Shannon heaven…

Our bus pulled up and to our absolute delight it had the words ‘Kamil Koc’ emblazoned across the front.

Twenty hours on a ‘Kamil Koc’ here we come.

The bus was comfortable, the drivers were friendly and sedate. We were given water, tea, and little snacks at regular intervals. We went the beautiful scenic route and all in all, and I am as surprised as you are to hear me say this, the bus was better than the train.

Although we hadn’t had a bed in the train either so the comparison like for like wasn’t hard to make and this journey was a lot quicker and not happening on my birthday : )

We stopped at Turkish service stations in the middle of the night…with shops full of tacky trinkets for holiday makers, fridge magnets and dangly ornaments, place mats ans mugs with Istanbul written on them (I quite wanted the mug with a cat on it) and other shops selling Turkish Delight with sacks of rice, flour and beans and wooden crates full of spices, nuts and delicious sweets. I bought some crystallised coconut, mango and kiwi…the colours just looked so good together – like the Irish national flag (funny what goes through your mind at 2.45 in the morning : )

We arrived into Istanbul half an hour early, thanked our driving team for their excellent care of us, and made our way down into the subway. We had metro cards from last time but we had no idea how much we needed to have on them to be able to use them. We asked a local who told us 70 Lira for any journey

We put enough money on each card for three journeys and then discovered he meant 17.

Worse things have happened.

We headed into the metro – Rosa figured out our way off one subway train, up and out of the station, and back down to our next underground station nearby – and slowly we made it back to our part of Istanbul.

Kadikoy, with its relaxed pace of life and heaps of cats everywhere. The hotel we stayed at last time was full so they’d recommended another near by and we settled in happily.

It was a joy to be in Istanbul – every street had at least one cat, often three or four, watching them hang out with each other, go where they want to, lie wherever they want to – they were at ease amongst the humans. Sleeping in shop displays, on the seats of motorbikes, inside back packs – waiting for scraps of food in restaurants – not desperately. They knew the food was coming it was much more about whether they would like it or not…

We weren’t here for long but we needed a break before our next overnight bus/overnight train combination and one of our plans for that last bit of the journey hit a bump in the road in Istanbul.

Theo and I both needed dental work, work that we couldn’t afford in the UK and we had been told about a good dentist in Budapest and we planned to pop in on our way back and see what we thought, and get an idea of prices, but when I emailed them to make an appointment it turned out they weren’t open the day we were passing through…. They told me that the first thing we needed to do was send them ‘a panoramic X-ray of our whole jaw’ – could we get those done in Turkey?!

Turns out we could. So, we had a clear plan for our time: stroke as many cats as possible, eat some delicious food in a few different restaurants, get one or two small gifts for people we loved back home and get some panoramic dental X-rays done…oh and try and get some money back on our travel cards – we had put way to much money on them 🙂

We ate well and stroked a whole bunch of cats that first day but we were tired and sleep claimed us early that night.

The next day all our plans were in play – we found out you could use the metro cards in supermarkets so that was easy. We got the address of a dentist on the European side of Istanbul where all the fancy mosques are and where we wanted to go and be tourists anyway – and on our way to do that we approached several hundred cats to see if they were willing to be stroked.

Many of them were not keen – or were clear they’d had enough of humans for today – we picked up the signals pretty quickly, some leaping onto our laps as we approached some turning and skulking away if we came too close, most just staying asleep wherever they lay.

I really don’t think the Turkish love of cats has been shared widely enough – if you are a cat lover it’s a fabulous holiday destination.

We enjoyed the sights and the smells of the markets on that other side of Istanbul – making the most of this world before home claimed us in all its complexity – back into an election and a world situation requiring brave and urgent action… and our cat getting her beloved Rosa back and Suitcase finally making it all the way to our home to meet Wardrobe – that would be a joyful moment.

We bought small beautiful things that we hoped would be loved, we walked up to the mosque on the hill and fed the cats we met there…and then we went to find our dentist.

…and for the first time in our whole journey someone tried to deliberately scam us. We were used to inflated prices and choosing to haggle with taxi drivers or street vendors but this was on another level. The man we met intentionally tried to use our situation to con some money out of us.

We had been walking for about an hour and were close to the street our dentist was in when a casually dressed man asked us if we were looking for a dentist?

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t help overhearing you, my brother is a dentist!’

Now I have a radar that picks up scams and deliberate attempts to part us from our money and this did not really fit the bill – either he knew a dentist or he didn’t.

Did he lurk on this street casually listening to conversations waiting for someone to mention dentists and then pounce?

It just didn’t seem very likely so we decided to trust him a little. If we didn’t like his brother we could always walk away.

The casually dressed man told us his name was David and we chatted easily with him, He was a seller of posh handbags in the market and a likeable companion. I had a couple of tiny spider tingles but only small ones.

We walked past the street we had been going to go down and he assured us his brother’s place was not much further. A couple of streets later we turned left and there it was, a big tooth sign high up on the wall of a building.

After the next twenty minutes I wonder if the dentist was his brother or not but at the time we had no reason to doubt him…

David was enthusiastic – telling us it was his day off and his pleasure to help us. So many people had gone out of their way to help us on this journey that it was easy to believe…

His brother clearly was a dentist and we used iTranslate to explain what we needed – the dentist nodded and wrote on a piece of paper which David took from him. David told us the x-rays weren’t done here but his brother had a laboratory just round the corner and he was very happy to show us where to go.

We thanked him a lot and followed him back out onto the street. He had asked us earlier, as we walked along, if we knew the prices of the x-rays we needed – he’d emphasised the need for ‘shopping around’ I’d told him we’d looked online, wondering very slightly at his line of questioning.

As we walked down the street he told us his bother said the x-rays should be about 2000 lira – a little over £50, quite a lot of money but roughly half what they would cost in England, still worth doing here.

We walked with him to the laboratory and on the way he told us we needed to let him do the talking because ‘places like this charge tourists extra’ and this is where my first proper spider sense kicked in.

Interesting I thought, in his brother’s laboratory…?

We walked in and there were two young women behind the desk – he handed them the paper his brother had given us and talked to them in rapid Turkish.

On the walk I had prepared an iTranslate – I wanted to make sure we were going to get what we needed. I leant round him and showed my phone to one of the woman and she nodded.

Okay.

Time to go and get cash – they couldn’t accept credit cards here according to David.

As I got the money out he jokingly said I should get 400 lira more out for his help – I reminded him that it was his pleasure to help us and then as we walked up the stairs he told me I needed to sit down, he would handle things from here.

Well, that’s where David and I started to not get on quite as well.

This was our money and I would be handing it over. I told him ‘it’s okay David, I’ve got this!’

He tried hard to get me to do what he wanted…using phrases like ‘I need to be in charge ’ – ‘you don’t understand how things work here’, and when that didn’t work on me, he escalated it –  ‘you’ve ruined it’ ‘they won’t treat you now, but if you sit down I will speak to the boss!’

I steadfastly refused to sit down – the women behind the desk looked uncomfortable and at one point one of them shook her head – was that for me or David? I turned towards him.

‘This is our treatment and our money and I’m not going to sit down!’

At that point he finally gave up and left with an ‘I tried to help you but you disrespected me…’ thrown back over his shoulder. Theo called ‘thanks’ to his retreating back and I turned back to the desk.

One of the women spoke perfect English – ‘is it possible to have panoramic x-rays?’ I asked.

She smiled slightly ‘yes’ she said. ‘The cost is 400 lira.’

‘…what for the both of us?’ I stammered.

She smiled more broadly, ‘yes, passport please.’

It took just ten minutes and we had both been emailed copies of our panoramic x-rays and had our actual hard copies in an envelope in our hands – total cost just over £10.

It took a while for me to explain what had happened when we got outside. I was a little nervous that ‘David’ would be waiting for us but I’d stood up to him once, I could do it again.

Theo was pretty angry when he understood what had been going on, and Rosa was impressed that I hadn’t backed down – I was struggling to understand what had happened.

Was it a deliberate attempt or just an opportunity that had fallen into ‘David’s’ lap?

We talked about it for a while, processing it all and we realised that actually it was incredible that in nine months, through twenty-one countries, this was the first time someone had deliberately tried to con money out of us.

It wasn’t a nice feeling but we had stayed safe and actually would never have found the x-ray place without him. His ‘brother’ had given us the referral we needed and I was sure that the dentists with the expensive shop fronts offering the ‘perfect smile’ on the street we had been heading to wouldn’t have been cheap…had we ended up saving ourselves a whole load of money with ‘David’s’ inadvertent help?!

And part of me wondered how David was. Theo couldn’t understand my compassion, and neither could I if I’m honest – I just saw it as complicated and I wanted to understand, why had he tried to do that, was this his regular way of making money or a random act of unkindness?

Most con men are charming and easily liked by their victims – they are good at saying the things that people want to hear…is that what David was?

…his plan had been simple, tell us a price. Be the middle man ‘for our benefit’ pay the 400 lira and then keep the other 1,600 – and if I had been generous I’d have given him an extra 400 as well.

Reflecting back, as we inevitably do when we write down our adventures and experiences in life, it seems much more likely to me that David’s official job is ‘con man’. The likelihood is that he knew what he was doing, and how to make it work…my compassion was beginning to slip away.

We found our way back to our side of Istanbul and looked for a new restaurant. We found somewhere just around the corner from our hotel,  serving thirty different types of meze salads for just £2.50 each for a piled high plate of whatever you wanted! It was fabulous food, and thanks to David we could afford an ice cream afterwards as well!

Tomorrow the journey back through Europe would begin. We had an eleven hour overnight bus to Bucharest and then a walk through the city to the train station to catch our overnight train to Budapest.

…and then, we would only be, one (very) long bus ride from home.