5th and 6th of April, 2022.
I walk a long way from the bus station to a possible hitchhiking spot. Which is not even good! I have this feeling that my chances are not very good. Luckily for me I am wrong and in a few minutes, Dinos stop his car.
Dinos is a very nice and simple man, military man, he is also dressed as one, who has the dream of building a campervan and travel to Asia. He already travelled a little in Europe. Dinos is smart and kind and I enjoy my time with him. He drives me to the border and I am finally leaving Schengen area and Greece on the right day. The only thing is, when I cross the border, the police officers tell me I cannot walk to the Turkish border. What? That is ridiculous! Is that for real or they were just worried because I am a woman? They say something about “the army”.
There are no cars coming but some trucks. Nobody takes me though. Finally, a very old car stops. George is a Greek man going to fill up his car with petrol in Turkey. With him is Sophie, a French hitchhiker woman who he picked up a long time ago. They say I can come! Yay!
Entering Turkey is very simple and easy. George can drive me and Sophie only until the next town but he makes sure he drops us on the way to Istanbul. Oh yeah, Sophie is also trying to reach Istanbul so we will hitchhike together all the way there. She is a very simple and nice woman, travelling super light, only for a few weeks with her partner, who will joy her later in Istanbul. She has a daughter in France.
A young man in a van stops for us. We make sure to tell him that we cannot pay and he is OK with that. He seems like a nice man and is very surprised about us. He cannot speak English though, so we cannot talk too much. He is not going to Istanbul but drops us off in a intersection not too far.
Sophie and I are standing in front of a gas station. It is quite busy and lots of cars are passing. It is getting late though, almost sunset, but since we are two, we are good.
A car with 4 young man stops a bit ahead. One of them walk to us and say they are going to Istanbul. He is clearly drunk. I start refusing under the excuse that there will be no space in the car: four of them plus the 3 of us (Sophie, me and The Hulk). A second guy comes and insist we should come. When I tell them about the lack of space, again, they open the trunk and show a third set of seats, with three extra seats. So I just start to say straight that we are good, they can go, thank you very much! They insist a bit more but finally give up. It seems to me that they were all drunk or something else.
The next car to stop is Zafesh and he is going to Istanbul. He accept to take us there for free. I make sure I go in front because I have more time of travelling and experience as a hitchhiker and Sophie agrees with that. Zafesh is a very nice and sweet man, always asking us if we are OK and if we need anything. I see my first sunset in Turkey and it is gorgeous! The sun looks like a red ball of fire in the horizon. Just beautiful!
Zafesh not only drives us to Istanbul but to exactly where we wanted to go: the city centre. He drops us off at Galata Bridge.
I need to find a place for wi-fi and a plug. Sophie only need to find a hostel. We get into a KFC but they ask for a Turkish phone number to send a code for accessing wi-fi. What? Are you fucking kidding me? So we move on and try to find another place.
I tell Sophie she should go and I can find a place. She seems worried about me and tells me to be careful. I admire the sentiment but I kind of have some experience on this, you know?
I finally get into a hotel and the manager is very nice. “You need wi-fi, I help you. This is Turkey!” He is also very surprised with my story and the fact that I am going to stay with a total stranger. Oh, yeah, about that, I have been talking with this CS guy for a few days now and he said I could come and stay with him. So that’s why I need wi-fi to get his address and directions to his place. But when I call him, borrowing the manager’s phone, he says his plans changed, he is travelling tomorrow so he cannot host me. What? I tell him that it is very irresponsible of him because I was counting on him. But he try to say that it is my fault because I only sent him a message two days ago. Two days fucking ago is not enough for you, you moron?
The reception is about to close soon and the manager is going home. Unfortunately he cannot let me remain here. So I quickly send a message to a couple, who had offered to host me before and it seem nice according to their messages. You see, the ironic thing about this whole situation is: I received so many offers of hosts, but so many, and it took me a long time to choose one. I should have been more quick and simple, had chosen the first person who offered to host me, and arranged everything. But noooo… I had to be fucking selective.
The couple answer me very quickly. I ask them about the address. It is far. I can walk for about one hour to a metro station and from there the husband can pick me up with his car. The reason why I cannot take the metro is because in Istanbul the metro works only with metro cards, you cannot pay with money for a single ticket. Ridiculous! But the couple offer to drive all the way and pick me up from the hotel. They insist and I accept. In about 30 minutes he arrives.
Since the first second I see him and his first move I felt something was wrong. During the whole way I keep thinking about what they wrote in their last message, something like they love freedom in their house. Their apartment is way more far away than I thought. When we are entering the elevator, he touches me without any reason and that’s when I am sure that this will blow.
By the look his wife gives to me I know she does not want me here. She try to smile but it is clear to me that she is not happy with this situation at all. When I am to move my backpacks to the room, again, he touches me without any reason and I want to kick his ass. I enter the room and close the door.
I tell them I need to check something online so they give me the wi-fi code. They cannot speak English at all! So they keep using the translator to every word.
I am already looking for another host and for directions of how to get from their place to the centre next morning, when they start to send me messages on Couchsurfing. Long story short they want me to let my door open so I could hear they having sex. No, I am not joking. The whole purpose of having Couchsurfing guests is because this sick bastard believes that someone would like to join them. I cannot even start to describe how disgusting and absurd that sounds, so I will not.
Talking with another possible host, he gets super upset and tells me that if was not so late (it is around 1 a.m. now) I could come to his house immediately. I plan everything about how to go from their house to his tomorrow morning. I will ask someone in the metro station to pass the card for me and hope it works. I try to get some sleep.
In the morning they tell me the husband will take me with him to the centre by metro. She leaves to work before I can see her. When we are leaving I grab all my stuff and tell him I am leaving. We go separated ways after the metro.
What I don’t understand is that they had one reference from this Russian girl and it was positive! But she did mentioned the expression “love birds” which now I believe is because of their behaviour. Could she be that naive and believe that this is a “normal” behaviour? Or was she just interested on good reviews?
The first thing I do when I get to Mehmet house is to leave them a honest review about what happened, so I can help other people to not go through that. They leave me a bad review in exchange, saying something about me not having a phone and that I am only looking for a hotel. I report them to the Couchsurfing team and add printscreens of the disgusting messages they were sending me the night I arrived at their place. I demand they delete their review from my profile and do something about them. One week later, the Couchsurfing team remove not only their reference but also their profile. Justice!