We had looked forward to Bulgaria but found it dour. The hotel, that in the old Soviet times would have been very grand was now down at heel and the Turkish owners saw us coming and right royally ripped us off. In our tiredness we forgot the golden rules of checking rooms and costs. Nuffield said, lessons learnt.<\/p>\n
We hadn’t gone far when our split charger monitor started indicating a problem with alternator. First overcharging then dead. Two bits of luck were we had a spare alternator (thanks to Paul and Sally at BG Landrovers) and secondly we had a brand new Optima red top. We therefore drove all the way to Istanbul without turning engine off and using minimum amounts of electricity.<\/p>\n
The journey though Bulgaria was much as previous day minus the rain. We arrived at border and saw a marked contrast in countries. Bulgaria all dour and grumpy and the Turkish side all smiling and helpful. Took about an hour and then we were on Turkey. Roads were really good although we were meant to buy some system of paying but carried on regardless. Hope that number plate readers are all low down and so won’t catch us.<\/p>\n
Arrived through hectic Istanbul traffic to the Radisson Blue near the airport. (Atle had booked it). They seemed a bit nonplussed to see two expedition Land Rovers and we had to go to the staff car park as we were too tall for the guest one. Room was amazing. Two floors plus all the gizmos you could want. We started with a chilled beer before Atle and I got sorting the alternator. A simple job made difficult by the bottom bolt been seized. A half hour job turned into a three hour one but it was done and charging well so really it did not cause us any delay.<\/p>\n
Isabel and Hilda go shopping for supplies, only to find sweet shops. Dinner in hotel, rushed through our courses by over zealous waiters. Hilde insisted upon copious amounts of red wine.<\/p>\n
Up early next morning in attempt to get Turkmenistan visas sorted. Took taxi to consulate. We were not allowed to apply, don’t think clerk really understood the purpose of our visit. Atle contacted the Ambassador in Tehran, so we spent the morning completing forms on line. If this doesn’t work we will have to go to Plan C.<\/p>\n
Know we will not have time to visit the park or Blue Mosque, another time maybe? Drive through back streets of Istanbul. Other three shop for antibiotics, supplies and T joint for Hilde’s car. Only thing they didn’t find was a gas mantle. I gaffer taped the driver’s door together. All four of us had unbidden help from locals, children and adults alike. Amazing kindness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We had looked forward to Bulgaria but found it dour. The hotel, that in the old Soviet times would have been very grand was now down at heel and the Turkish owners saw us coming and right royally ripped us off. In our tiredness we forgot the golden rules of checking rooms and costs. Nuffield […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3bX1q-6x","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1754,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/1754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}