I leave my office on Tuesday at 14.30 for my 15.30 bus. I walk to the bus stop, where a terminal bus arrives almost immediately-what timing! On the way I notice that more people than usual are out and about, perhaps because of arife, the day of preparation before a large holiday such as Bayram, or maybe they all know I am trying to leave and want to get in my way, I don't know.
Traffic is as chaotic and stop-and-go as normal, and visions of grabbing a snack and bathroom stalls dance in my head. We arrive at the terminal before I get too sick from the exhaust smell that always seems to accompany riding the city bus, and I check the time. 15.27. Wait, 15.27?! I thank my lucky stars that I happened to purchase my bus ticket the previous night so that I only need to trot to the platform and hop on.
I arrive in Istanbul at 19.00 to catch my bus to Bulgaria, which doesn't depart until 22.00. Being that there are only two buses a day to Bulgaria, 11.00 and 22.00, I don't mind being early and having to wait a few hours as opposed to being late and having to wait a day.
The bus arrives, and I locate my seat next to a Bulgarian woman. As we are idling, I notice for the first time that there are four languages going on around me-Bulgarian, Turkish, and a group of Asian children speaking their native tongue, Turkish, and English interchangeably without displaying the slightest bit of effort. Incredible.
We arrive at border control at 2.00. We get off the bus in the bitter cold morning to chaos. No lines seem to be moving, there are cars and people mixed within lines, people from cars standing outside next to their cars parked in line, and everyone is just waiting to get their passports checked. One border controller gets so frustrated that he closes his booth and makes the people standing in line move to another line. Unfortunately this is my line and at this point I am only about three or four people back.
After moving to one of the three now designated "people lines," which are ridiculously long, the woman next to me who was also in the other line with me, begins to explain how silly the whole situation is. I catch that much before I confess my limited knowledge of Turkish. As we are waiting I look over to notice the bus is no longer where it was parked. It also needs to go through border control to have all of the luggage inspected. We begin the small talk I am capable of in Turkish and eventually make it through. She walks with me, directing the inexperienced foreigner, as is always the helpful Turkish manner, and explains all buses come here to pick up passengers from this large asphalt parking lot area with a strip of duty free shops. I notice that I don't recognize any faces as being from my bus as I look around at my fellow passengers-in-waiting. The woman reassures me, that is, until her bus comes and she gets on to go.
I wait for a spell longer, and I am almost convinced my bus has left me, though I keep telling myself that no bus would just leave a passenger, they must check before they leave. Scenes from the movie
Open Water flash briefly in my mind. Very un-assuring. I think I see a bus from my bus company across the ginormous asphalt area, on the other side of the fence, across another parking lot, by the other set of duty free shops driving. For some reason this comforts me into thinking that at least it hasn't left me. I know it must be my bus, because as I said before there are only two buses a day that go to Bulgaria with this company, and it's maybe about 3.00, impossible for the 11.00 to be at the border eight hours before it's even scheduled to depart.
I begin to get quite cold and decide to stand just inside one of the duty free shops. After awhile one of the two men working begins with Turkish small talk. After we have run out of things I am capable of talking about, I exclaim that I think my bus has left me at the border. My fear is again waved off with a, "no, it's just going through border control. It will come." I wait almost two more hours. The two men offer me alcohol. My nerves are a bit frazzled at this point, not really because I think I've been left at the border, but that it's just after 4.00 and doing anything about it in the middle of the night is much more daunting than dealing with it in the middle of the afternoon. The alcohol sounds tempting, but the rational part of the brain responsible for better judgement tells me I will need all of my wits about me. I politely decline.
A man comes in to get receipts or something from the duty free alcohol shop. The three men begin talking, and the third man leaves after he gets the papers he came for. The two men say, yes, my bus has gone. My fear is reality. They tell me to go to the police booth. I tell the officer my bus has gone. He tells me to walk over to the Bulgarian border control gate. You see, there are two gates, the Turkish one and the Bulgarian one. Right now I'm in the no-man's land having crossed the Turkish border but not yet entered Bulgaria.
I walk to the Bulgarian border, show them my passport after waiting for a man with a stack of passports to get his all stamped. I explain that my bus has gone. The man is not amused and wears a "it all makes sense now" attitude when I tell him I'm from the US and show him my passport. He asks what company I'm with. "HAS," I reply.
"That bus has gone."
"Yes, I know."
No shit Sherlock, that's what I've been saying this whole time. I'm trying to find out what I can do about it at this point, idiot!He stamps my passport and tells me I can go. Now I have my Bulgarian visa, but still no bus. Great. Thanks for all of your help. I begin walking and am wondering.. I glance up and see a mirage of my bus in the distance. What?! Wait, I'm not in the desert after a cup of peyote tea! My bus!! I begin running.
As I approach the bus roars to life. I am just behind it, the driver can see me in his rearview mirror, if he would only look. No such luck. The bus begins pulling away just as I reach the back. I'm waving frantically, still running. A man, who looks like the driver of the bus that is parked next to where mine was just a second ago, is telling me to stop and asking me what's happening. I don't want to talk to him, nor am I barely in a position where I can function using Turkish. I just went from utter abandonment, to pure elation at the thought of seeing my beautiful blue backpack and warm cozy seat again (I of course took all important items with me off the bus), to those dreams going up in a cloud of exhaust. I simply state that the vehicle driving away is my bus. "Run, Run," he says. This Turkish word is not in my vocabulary yet, but once I look in the direction of the bus and see it stop at the last police booth before leaving the border for good, I understand. I'm off in a flash. Run, Forrest, Run!
I'm about halfway there and I see my driver hop down to hand the man in the booth a paper and take care of the final bit of beaurocracy. He bounds back into the bus. I'm just at the back bumper. No waving, no extraneous movement outside of a B-line for the door. I fly onto the bottom step before the door closes, to the driver's look of utter surprise having someone unexpectedly jump into his bus. If I was barely in a condition to speak Turkish before, I am in no condition at this point. So I fumble around for one of those few-seconds-that-transform-into-an-eternity moments and produce my bus ticket. He looks at it, "Yes, that's this bus."
Why do people insist on explaining to me what I already know? He motions me to go back to my seat.
Nearly two hours after passing through the first border control (it's maybe about 4.45), I am walking back to my seat amidst the sleeping, head back, mouth open faces. I look down at the woman in the seat next to mine and actually feel remorse for having to wake her up to get into my seat, even though she obviously made no effort to comment on the fact that the fellow passenger sitting next to her was missing. Instead she curled up under her coat, drifted off to dreamland, and made my seat a nice new resting place for her purse. Now I know you might be thinking it really isn't her responsibility, and you would be right, which brings me to my next point, "What the hell kind of company just leaves without double checking to see if it has its passengers?!" Bloody hell!
Stay tuned for
Installment #2 - Arriving in Plovdiv
