Troublemakers on the Bus

We made it to Cappadocia after a grueling 11 hour overnight bus trip. During the first 11 minutes of that trip we learned and violated several key rules about bus travel in Turkey.

Sitting next to us were two women from the US, which was unusual because very few visitors to Turkey are from the US. I guess we were a little too excited because the bus driver’s assistant quickly came over and told us to keep it down. I am not exactly the noisy sort, but maybe I was talking too loudly, so we continued talking in a much quieter voice. That lasted all of another minute before the bus operator came back and shushed us with more insistence. First, buses are for riding silently, not for talking. (This came up again in our bus ride out of Cappadocia when the person next to us got really mad at the people behind him for talking. Or at least that is what we assume because he kept looking back every time they talked loudly and finally said something and then they were quieter. But not quiet enough for him because he kept giving them the evil eye. I almost offered him my (unused) ear plugs but thought it would be too weird without being about to explain and maybe offering someone ear plugs would be another social gaffe.) So that was the first faux pas.

After the initial run in with the bus driver’s assistant we were eager to avoid any trouble and just wanted to go to sleep. They gave us the seats in front of the rear door, which it turns out do not recline at all. So we were sitting bolt upright next to each other with our knees touching the row in front of us. But luckily there were a bunch of empty seats. Evan got up to try to move to an empty row, which is evidently another verboten activity. The assistant rushed over and escorted Evan back to his seat, where he stayed for the rest of the trip.

Evan managed to sleep a fair amount, I managed to sleep a little, but we did get there eventually.