Metro Bus at Esenler Bus Terminal
When I was planning my visit to the city of Istanbul, I knew that I had several days to spend there. If you have read any of my stories here you might know that I don’t like staying in one place for too long. This is the same for this trip to Istanbul. I was looking at the map and I was wondering if there is any where I can go to. I then realized that Istanbul is located in a very awkward location as far as Türkiye is concerned. Yes, yes, it is the bridge between Europe and Asia but within Türkiye, it is in an inconvenient position.
Inside the Metro Bus at Esenler Bus Terminal
It is at the north western corner of the country which makes it not very central. I think this is the reason why they made Ankara the capital. On top of the awkward location, there is a lot of water in the way so you have to avoid all this water just to get out of Istanbul. That was when I realized that I didn’t really plan my trip well. Istanbul is nice and all but it is not that easy to get to other places in Türkiye. Why not fly then? There are local airlines here which are actually quite affordable but it was too late for me to purchase any tickets and besides, they don’t fly on the days that I want to fly. This leaves me with the bus.
I went to the bus terminal in Esenler which is a massive building with numerous bus companies going to all sorts of destinations. I ended up puchasing a ticket to the city of Denizli. This is actually quite far and it would take a long time to get there by bus. I am no stranger to long distance buses but I think this is the first time I had in a long while. Metro provides the bus service here and they have big spacious buses. The seats are arranged three per row with two and single seat per row. I managed to get a single seat on the bus. From the looks of it, I was the only tourist on the bus. While the bus was very comfortable I wasn’t able to get any sleep as usual. The bus stops at several places sometimes for toilet break and most of the time to pick up passengers at the regional bus stations. By the time it was morning I have been on the road for eleven hours. Hopefully, I would have the strength to go around in this state.
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