Cappadocia - Kars

Decided to take the night bus to Ankara. Ended up a minibus then a bus which wouldn't depart for no apparent reason. When it came to departure, a hobo came to storm the bus and ended up wrestling with the weedy conductor, until the beefy bus driver got up, pushed the conductor aside and disposed of the hobo with a solid chest level kick. Lovely vibe.

I decided that I still hated Ankara within 10 minutes of arrival. The bus station was unheated and the benches were metal. Two guys kept pacing around, one screaming, 'Çay! Çay!', the other 'Taxi! Taxi!' This continued for maybe 30 minutes, until a policeman came and told me and all the other hobos camped at the station to get up.

At 7 am I took the metro to the main train station. Bought a ticket for the 13:30 Erzurum Express and proceeded to look for a luggage room. No longer in operation. Tried to get tourist info to help, but no help there. The police also refused to take my bag. Went to the metro station, where the policeman told me to go back to the bus station. This would have cost me $5. So I ended up at the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran with a bag that could have technically contained enough C4 to send shrads of glass far enough to brake the windows in the embassy of great Satan 500 metres away.

I wasn't the only one. A Korean guy was there, and a Japanese from Okinawa, who also had his luggage. Another one of the 'someone find him a wife' species, he wore a sports bag as a back pack, a back pack as a sports bag, had a huge sleeping bag strapped on and obviously hadn't washed, shaved or possibly eaten in several days. It was a dero backpacker conference as together with the Korean guy we advised the Japanese guy where to go next (he had no idea). 1 hour, 75 Euro and I had the visa - a disappointingly unflashy stamp in the passport.

Ride to Kars was pretty boring. Woke up this morning to find the adjacent passangers gone, and a seat covered in faeces in their place. This part of Turkey is gorgeous though, with tall snow-capped mountains and many rushing streams.