Izmir or bust.

[kemerkid]

Today my wife and I drove up to Izmir. We passed the Bafa lake it was flat as a pancake/millpond. The windmills overlooking Didim were motionless, not a breath of wind.
The roads were very quiet and we had a half hour nosebag in Soke. All in all a very enjoyable experience...... until we headed into Izmir. We came in through the less salubrious part of town, there were many road closures and diversions. I think we will have to take a more in-depth look at it all again.

 

[35pluschips]

Today my wife and I drove up to Izmir. We passed the Bafa lake it was flat as a pancake/millpond. The windmills overlooking Didim were motionless, not a breath of wind.
The roads were very quiet and we had a half hour nosebag in Soke. All in all a very enjoyable experience...... until we headed into Izmir. We came in through the less salubrious part of town, there were many road closures and diversions. I think we will have to take a more in-depth look at it all again.

Yeah KK its a bit of an eye opener going into the city of Izmir but I love the place. Its old meets new all over that city, something different around every corner.
Happy days when the wife & I ate in Soke……….

 

[yalimart]

The road down to Bodrum in the late 80s was not so good, bumpy and ragged and mainly single lane, the journey was 4 hours to the point where you would get off the big bus and transfer to the smaller buses to navigate the narrow roads of Bodrum, The big buses were not that comfortable and you felt every bump, but the journey was was always interesting, Soke I think was the place where you bought tractors and farm machinery and may even have had a railway line, going past lake Bafa was fabulous and even better if you stopped for a comfort break then of course it was the run into Bodrum with every year a new section of road and eventually becoming 2 lanes nearly all the way, nothing worse than being behind a tractor and trailer for mile after mile, other than a crazy bus driver trying to overtake the tractor and trailer on a blind bend. One other memory was driving by miles of agricultural land being tended by the women and going by the tea shops where the men would be. Great memories looking back !

Martin

 

[kemerkid]

My first road trip to Bodrum would have been 1993 in an old taxi I had blagged from a guy in burhaniye Balikesir. It was a six hour trip in the dark. We got stopped by the police for a faulty headlamp after about a 30km road chase. Funny thing was he then directed us to garage owned by his brother in law. Between us we sorted it, I thanked him for alerting me to the problem and bunged his bil. As we passed through Izmir we got a puncture, another delay as we had no spare. The onward journey was long and dangerous without proper lighting and no road lights but we got there in the end.
We only stayed 3 days then headed back but in the daylight this time. The old wreck struggled but kept going. It had sustained a little damage which we got dodged up in a sanayi near our journeys end.
Bus journeys were always nerve wracking in those days with many of the busses being driven by retired F1 drivers or that's the way it felt.

 

[SLEEPY]

I enjoyed reading those posts.
Cheers.

 

[shash]

Can you put these posts in the Turkish Living section. Very interesting.

 

[kemerkid]

We arrived at our hotel in Konak at 5pm, Konak is a district of İzmir Province in Turkey. It is the most densely populated of the eleven main urban districts of İzmir, and has historically acted as the administrative and economic core of the city.
We arrived at the entrance and were immediately greeted by the concierge, they took our bags, the car keys and led us inside. Our room was up on the 3rd floor it was well laid out, clean and will serve us well as a base during our stay in Izmir. The purpose of our visit is to see a medical team who will hopefully repair some of the internal damage caused by my cancer treatment and my open heart surgery of last year.

 

[Akasya]

Load and lock mate , get it fixed .

Best of

Steve n Jackie

 

[kemerkid]

Today was a very busy day, we attended my appointment with the first doctor who was to look at all the hospital records we had brought with us. He confirmed that the argon laser treatment was probably what I would benefit from most under the circumstanses. My wife wanted him to refer me to 9th September hospital as that would be covered by the SGK scheme. He gave us the name of the doctor doing the treatment. My wife phoned his secretary to make an appointment to see him, she was told that he was fully booked and would not take any more patients this year.
Back to the first doctor who told us there was only one other doctor in Izmir but he was in a private hospital on the other side of Izmir. We jumped in a taxi and after a half hour high speed drive we arrived. We paid 350tl and saw the doctor. He explained the procedure after looking at the notes. He didn't commit himself as to whether or not it would be successful but inked me in for treatment at the end of October.
The treatment will cost about 3000tl and involve a stay in Izmir of four days minimum. I will have to go and see my heart specialist in Bodrum. He will have to assess whether or not it will be safe for me to have the treatment.
Back to Bodrum tomorrow.

 

[Kanga]

Gecmis olsun!

 

[kemerkid]

Arrived back at 2:30pm.