You have an email in your gmail account from the Istanbul hotel (Tashkonak?) saying it should be OK to use their shuttle from the hotel to the airport.
On your other email you got a message from Joris asking how the Koleos is getting on. I put in an interim reply saying you are away and that you were happy with the car. You might add more when you get back.
You are a wonderful person! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWe have just got in to the hotel after driving most of the day. Kars strikes me as a very poor place. The road here wasn't a four lane highway like all the other link roads. We have gone down some terrible streets on the way here. One was being dug up for its entire length while another was rough cobblestones. There are a number of ruined buildings in the same street as the hotel - roofs caved in and others with enormous holes in the front.
People said the buildings were Russian. The city is far less compact than any other Turkish city I have seen but the gardens are bare, the walls are unkempt and the houses have seen better days. It just looks very poor.
Apart from having no lift, the hotel is good. It is wooden and has beautifully decorated ceilings in dark wood. Instead of ordinary ceiling lights it has chandeliers along the corridors. These come on via movement sensors individually so it is easy to be in a totally dark corridor. The door to the room opens and locks with a key but the room lights only go on when the card attached to the key is inserted into the slot, so again you are stuck in the dark. However apart from the furniture downstairs and those perculiarities it is everything a good hotel should be. Actually I don't think it has air conditioning, but it was only eight degrees when we arrived, so I don't think we will need that.
ReplyDeleteThe drive here was interesting. We saw Mount Ararat and for a couple of minutes the clouds parted so we could see the whole mountain. The border with Iran is very busy, with a never ending stream of trucks. By contrast, the border with Armenia is heavily defended with guard posts very close together on both sides of the border and no traffic. Wikipedia says the border is closed and has been for years. I guess that's part of why the area is so poor. Another reason could be that it is probably the worst part of Turkey for farming. The fields are full of stone and it is a very cold place, with only time for one crop a year whereas everywhere else seems to have enough time for two.