Which way to Bulgaria? The teaching system here purposely functions on the knowledge that teachers will need to renew their visa every 90 days by stepping over the border and back (easier than sponsoring work visas for the schools), so why we couldn’t get a thorough answer on how to proceed from fellow teachers or the schools remains irritatingly perplexing. We chose Edirne, which is quick and cheap to get to from here, and near to both Bulgaria and Greece.
We spent a nice night and woke up early to catch a minibus to the Bulgarian border. From downtown, about twelve of us sat quietly as the bus made it’s route, eventually leaving town. After awhile the road was just a line cutting through the plains to the horizon. At some point we began to pass parked semi-trucks in the right lane. Three or four hundred of them, lined up for five or six miles. The line was only imperceptibly moving, so drivers gathered in small groups on the road to chat, each waiting for his eventual turn (up to a day away we later heard) at the border.
It was hot out and it wasn’t yet 10 am . Still passing semi’s, we were eventually able to make out something on the horizon. As we got closer, it got bigger, until we were there. Our bus stopped halfway through a U-turn and the door opened. Things can happen very quickly in a foreign language, and the driver wasn’t rude, he just told us this was our stop, and he was gone before we knew it. No one else exited the bus. The only question I managed while exiting the bus, “When is the last bus?”, brought his one word reply; “Chance”. Standing on the gravel, in the dust from his tires, before of an arid version of Checkpoint Charlie, we were immediately set upon by a group of opportunistic cab drivers. As they loped from their shack to join us in the heat, one driver gained the lead to become the point man. Nearby soldiers were startled to attention by the activity. We began to speak with him, so the also-rans turned back toward the shack. He could take us to Bulgaria, but his price was impossible, even before we understood him to mean Euro, not Lira.
Two hundred Euro to take us over the border. Bulgaria was over there somewhere, but we weren’t sure we could actually see it. We could see we were twenty feet from a border - a white concrete wall morphed into a fortress as it crossed the road. There were soldiers standing around. The uncertainty lay on the other side of the fortress, where the road looked like a very long security canal out of some apocalyptic science fiction book. We couldn’t see the other end of it. We could see a succession of interval checkpoints in the canal, and a lot of circular barbed wire assuring that once you were in, you weren’t going over the sides. This wasn’t “step over the border and back”. We were told; most teachers go to Bulgaria.
There was a bench near their shack, and we excused ourselves toward it to think this through. Five minutes later he was on us pressing a new plan. With Turkish and stick drawings in the dirt, we were given distances and direction to the other border, the Greek border, where he promised we can definitely walk across and back. He will take us there, wait for us to cross and come back, and back into Edirne For 50YTL, or $40. We tried for a better price, and for other options, like just a ride into town, but he knew the whole deal would only be his from here, so we eventually climbed into his cab. Twenty minutes later, we were approaching the border with Greece.
We stepped up to the Turkish checkpoint window, and were told to go to Greece, get stamps, and come back. We started walking across the compound toward the road. Back at the Bulgarian border, it was hot. With scrub vegetation and some dust. Everything was yellowish, like in a scene from a spaghetti western. Here, everything was tropical green. Trees filtered the sun over manicured lawns. Flower gardens and wide-leafed bushes accented well placed statues. It had a very official silence to it; the only sound came from a dozen male peacocks wondering the grounds. The humidity gave it an added stillness, and as we walked past soldiers with nothing to do but watch us, with peacock calls stacking up in dead air, time suddenly crawled. We were the only people moving. We realized it at the same time, and it struck as too much, as if maybe we should tiptoe or remove our shoes.
We made our way to, and along, the only road. As we passed the last pair of Turkish soldiers, Lillian and I kept up some conversation, just to alleviate tension. A hundred feet more and we were standing in front of a sign, which read; Welcome to Greece (in several languages, excluding Turkish).
There was a fortified building nearby with some patrolling soldiers. It was clear we were not meant to approach it. A few hundred yards away the road curved out of site. To both sides of the road was nothing but vegetation as far as you could see. That was it. We started walking the road, but there was nothing to walk to... nowhere to get a stamp. We were worried about the cab driver leaving without us, because, well, he already had his money.
There was a moment just after the three of us arrived here when he pressed me for the 50 lira. Lillian saw this coming and tried to hurry me along to avoid it, but I foolishly hesitated. I told him he’d get it later, but he insisted, exactly as we were next to a soldier. I felt the soldiers eyes following this and it seemed to me that if he were to come down on one side or the other, it would not be ours. Any disagreement now was not in our best interest, as the cabbie knew when he brought it up. So I had to pay him and he promised to wait for us.
With nowhere to get a stamp, we decided maybe we had misunderstood the passport officer. The mind can be strange. We hurried back, past the paired-up soldiers (now in reverse order), crooning our necks to catch a glimpse of our cab driver, past some peacocks, back to the window. The man who told us to get stamps now flips through our passports and slides them back under the glass. No stamps. Clearly we don’t have stamps, there was nowhere to get them from. Where? I ask. Where do we get the stamps? Over there, he points, for the second time.
Obviously it is farther over there. Much farther than the cab driver told us, whom is still here, but whom I must know go plead with not to leave, as we don’t have any stamps, we just walked to Greece and back, but no, we don’t have any stamps, and now we’re going to walk there again, but this time much farther. And please wait for us.
Cue the eerie peacock symphony, the soldiers’ stares, and the heavy stillness, through which we must hurry toward an unknown destination. We gave the soldiers at the last gate a smile (at some point what else is there?) and made for the bend in the road. It was really beautiful, as far as we could see in any direction, but I was worried about our taxi leaving, and just wanted this over. Lillian had a better mindset - we’ll walk if we have to.
After the long and gradual bend in the road, we did see something far away. With more walking it became a building. In time it began to look more and more like a gift shop. Turns out it wasn’t a gift shop, it was a duty-free shop. Luckily, now we could see another building to the right, which was formerly hidden from sight by the tree line. It had a drive-up window with ‘Customs’ painted over it. We walked toward the woman in the window, and after mutual hellos, she asked us where we were going. Back to Turkey, we said, at which point she understood our intentions, and ten minutes later we were back on the road, less a reasonable fee, with Greek entry and exit stamps in our passports.
Twenty more minutes of walking and we were approaching the first Turkish guard post. At this point we felt like these guys must be getting some kick out of this, so we made a little fun of ourselves as we passed and they smiled and even gave a little response. It’s somewhat scary though, because at this point we don’t have Turkish visas, and we’ve been stamped out of Greece - our passports say we are nowhere. We’ve heard different stories about how to do this, i.e... certain border points are relaxed, at others you must leave for a full 24 hours. The Turkish customs officer had treated this as routine; albeit one we had failed to understand. Now we were approaching his window for the third time, and it was difficult not to wonder, how patient is this man? Exactly what provokes his prerogative to do whatever he well pleases? Which could, I imagine, be much worse than being stuck in no-mans-land. Meanwhile, over in Turkey, our cab driver is at least still here, we see.
So we walk back across the grounds to the office, straight to the window with the man who had helped us before. He looks at our passports, finds the stamps, and sets the passports on his little side table. Now he points to another window (two feet over), indicating we needed to talk to that man now. We shuffle over, and this (older and meaner looking) man says “otuz avru”. Not having 30 Euro, as we have no need for Euro living in Turkey, where the currency is Lira, I pull out at least that much in Lira. He jumps from his stool and disappears into the darkened back of the office.
We are thoroughly perplexed, just standing there, and the guy won’t come back to the window. We give the first agent our best confused look and try to ask what’s going on, but he just holds his hands up. Eventually he relents, as his partner is not moving, and tells us we must get Euros. Right then a man is walking across the drive and with urgency he says try him, he works the duty-free shop (I gathered - as he is definitely pointing at this man, and this man is walking toward the duty-free “shop”, a metal box big enough to have a service window and some shelves).We go ask this man and he says no. Now we are away from the window, without our passports, and without options back at the window, so I walk over to our taxi driver and ask him. Lo and behold, he has 30 Euro, gives it to me and says we’ll settle later.
Back to the office, waving the 30 Euro in front of the glass, and Mr. Helpful reappears. Now he will process our visas. He even attempts to provide an explanation, by pointing at the small price mark on our visas, each of which read 15 Euro. Not equivalent to providing an answer when asked the first time, but hey - we were at least in a country again. Both times prior we had arrived at the International Airport, where you could be coming from anywhere, so any currency was fine. Here, the currency of the country you were coming from was what was needed, which of course could only be Greece.
A quick passport once-over with a soldier and we’re back at the cab. With relief and elation we climb into our taxi, laughing at it all, with our driver. He starts the engine and turns to tell us he will also be starting the meter. He explains how he had promised to get us to this point, not to Edirne for the 50, which as you know, he already has, and what can you say. You can walk. Or you can give him another 20 lira, be back in town in time for a nap, a nice dinner and an hour in the perfect mosque, and say it cost you a bit more to figure out what for some reason no one would properly explain in the first place. Which we did.
A couple more photos from the trip.
Click any photo on this blog for bigger versions.
1 comment:
ALWAYS WANTED TO CROSS THAT BORDER NEVER GOT A CHANCE TOO..EMRE
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