Larry, Moe and Curly Work the Border Once Again

I have been meaning to update for awhile (again) as things have been busy here with finishing up work and entertaining visitors (life's tough, i know)...But the one thing I have meant to write about for awhile, because it's amusing, at least to Chris and I, is the latest "border fiasco" that took place when we went to Kalymnos a couple of months ago...

Getting to Kalymnos requires about 2 days and several transport changes...First, we flew down to Bodrum, in the South of Turkey, and then had to take a ferry to the Greek Island of Kos and from there, another one to the less touristed island of Kalymnos. We flew to Bodrum one night, stayed in a hotel and headed to the ferry first thing in the morning. Because we were taking the boat to another country, we (along with the other passengers) had to navigate x-ray machines, metal detectors, passport control and customs agents before getting on the boat. This being Turkey, it was more haphazard than was really necessary. First, as we were going through the metal detectors, there were children on one side of the detectors, handing large wooden boats bearing the names of local beloved football teams to their parents, around the metal detectors. The guards at this post were merely raising their fists in the air and shouting in agreement "Galatasaray, woohoo!" Let me clarify the size of these boats - they were at least two feet long, definitely large enough to hold large weapons and/or many, many drugs. After passing through this checkpoint, we then were able to decipher (despite the lack of any signs telling us about this) that we had to head to another, slightly out of the way building to visit passport control. After getting our passports stamped for exit from turkey, we got in line to get on the boat. Well, first our visiting friends showed their passports and moved onto the small ferry. Then I showed my passport, with no problems. Chris was behind me in line, and as the humorless and stereotypical customs agent flipped through his passport, he stopped at one page, looked up at Chris and said "Where is your car?" In Turkey, foreigners who own cars have that information stamped on their passport, I think so that they won't abandon the car in the country and disappear forever (which seems to me to be less of a problem for the government, who could just reposess the car than for the owner who would be out their money and a vehicle, but that's just my opinion.) As Chris was the owner of lovely Renault Spring (and still is, if any foreigner you know in Turkey is interested...) this fact was stamped in his passport. He incredulously looked at the customs agent and said "It's in Istanbul" to which Customs replied "You cannot leave the country without your car" which was of course in sharp contrast to our Bulgaria trip, when we couldn't leave the country WITH the car." There was an exchange in which we explained that we lived in Istanbul and flew down to Bodrum, and besides how would we get the car on the small boat. I was getting frustrated by the lack of sense of what this man was saying, and started to get a bit, well...mouthy. As Chris, who has much more experience with this sort of thing than I do, later informed me, you want to be polite and deferential to these official and things will generally work out much easier. Of course that didn't occur to me at the moment though, when, after asking if we understood what he was saying, I replied "I understand the words that are coming out of your mouth, but it doesn't mean it is making any sense" and "Does that mean that any who ever wants to leave this country via an airplane has to find a way to take their car with them." At one point, after we had been pulled out of line, waiting on the back ramp of the boat, unsure of whether the climbing trip that Chris had been planning and looking forward to for months would actually occur, Customs said to him, absolutely deadpan "These are our RULES" - it was all very intimidating and infuriating, and also of course mildly amusing. About twenty minutes later, once every other person had made it onto the boat, Customs called over his buddy, who looked like any tourist, and certainly not a customs boss with his big belly, comb-over and gray Member's Only jacket, who took a look at the passport, grunted and said "It's okay. They can go," we got on the boat, to the stares of all the British package tourists and sailed off to Greece.

The best part is that we thought we were being very funny once on the boat, saying "Yes, like we're supposed to bring a CAR on this tiny ferry (who's bottom floor had enough room for the passengers' luggage and a couple of plastic chair,) haha..." When we walked back downstairs to get off the ferry, we saw that there WAS in fact a car that had been driven on before we departed. It was a VW Golf-type thing, and was barely on the back the boat, being held up by the boat's raised ramp, and had a few suitcases resting on the hood...

And one more quick customs note: Greek Ouzo and Turkish Raki are very similar, anise flavored drinks. Also, there is no love lost between the Turks and the Greeks. Both of these facts came into play when we arrived at the port in Greece, and while waiting in line for passport control, saw signs hanging all over that said "Yeni Raki (a popular brand of Raki) is not allowed to be imported into Greece for health reasons"

Besides the initial passport problem, the rest of the trip was amazing and our photos, which I can't remeber if I have previously posted, are here...

Next up, a report on our evening living like the rich and famous...