Monday 18 August 2014

Malatya, not really comin' at ya...

This is where I should tell you about our time driving around Southeastern Anatolia.


Instead, here's the rant that Nicola sent her Mum:

Woke up at 3am, 30min walk with packs, shuttle to airport, flight to Malatya, shuttle into town, killed 3 hours before picking up car, car place closed at 11.30 when we got there, arrives 12.15, worker speaks no English, have 5 of his friends explaining to us in broken English that there are no cars available despite our printed booking confirmation and full payment having been made, there will be cars available in a week, ask at 3 other car rental places - no cars available, walking around Malatya in the midday sun with packs and getting starred at a ridiculous amount. Moral of the story... No cars in Malatya, having a fight with cartrawler who we booked through to try and get a refund (they told brim on the phone that because we were reporting the issue after the start time of the booking that no refund could be given....how could we have known that they wouldn't have a car available...wankers!!!)

What I'm trying to say to you here is next time you're looking at booking a rental car, look no further than cartrawler.

Thankfully, we managed to catch the end of apricot season in the apricot capital of Turkey. I thought that I knew what a good apricot tastes like. I didn't.


Figs that cost .50c for half a kilo went a long way to easing the pain.

And having shop owners insist on having photos taken with us strange looking characters also made us fell pretty good.