Travelling in Turkey

"As usual we walked to the edge of town and started hitching. Within 10 minutes we got a result when an Opel Record with German international plates stopped. The two occupants didn't seem to care where we were going but just kept asking us for a fuhrerschein. We couldn't understand what they were talking about as neither Louis nor I could speak any German. Eventually by sign language we realised that they were asking us if we had a driving licence. We quickly produced our international licences and they both leapt out of the car, put our packs into the boot and held the back doors open for us to get in.

Neither of them could speak any English, but we still managed to find out that they both all from Iran and that they had been working in Germany. The driver's name was Mahmoud and the passenger was Khalil. It seems that they didn't have a licence to drive in Iran, and that is why we now had this lift. At Agri we stopped for lunch which Khalil paid for, and before setting out again we picked up a Turkish hitch hiker who was going as far as the border. "

"On the way to the border we could see Mt. Ararat over to the North. Mt. Ararat straddles the Iran, Turkey, Soviet Union border and is reputed to be the place where Noah's Ark came to rest after the great flood mentioned in the Old Testament. The snow capped mountain in the middle of such a desolate area looked so beautiful. We stopped to take a photograph and generally admire the view.

When we were ready to move off again I was put in the driver's seat and told to drive. I suppose you could say that this was my driving test. It was the first time I had ever driven a left hand drive car and it seemed very strange indeed having the bulk of the car on my right hand side. The car handled well, and I quickly got the hang of it. The strangest thing was the gear lever, which was steering column mounted. In the past whenever I had driven a column gear change the gear lever was on the left of the wheel. Being a left hand drive car the gear change was positioned on the right, and felt very awkward indeed.

Just before we reached the border a flock of birds flew across the road in front of the car just as we rounded a bend in the road. It happened so suddenly and the car hit quite a few of the birds. We stopped to check for damage, but fortunately the car had fared better than the birds and was undamaged. We then set off again to drive the rest of the way to the frontier with Mahmoud driving. "


A Diary of my overland journey from England to Australia By Steven Abrams

Link: http://www.oland.co.uk/turkey.php