Week 5 – Limping to the finish

Turkey: Istanbul – Ankara – Cappadocia

Week five began with another visit to the parts dealer. Once I had everything I needed, I replaced the drive shaft seal at our parking spot. Thanks to a raised kerb, that went pretty well. Now the gearbox doesn't leak any more.

We also spent a lot of time looking for other ways to get to India. It became clear that shipping from Karachi in Pakistan to Mumbai isn't possible.

In the evening we met people we'd got to know in Thessaloniki in the student district of Kadıköy on the Asian side. On the way we passed the stadium of the big football club Fenerbahçe, where Eintracht Frankfurt was playing the Istanbul team at the time. It was quite something to see such a huge stadium in the middle of the city next to trendy restaurants and bars, and to hear the match.

This week we joined another free walking tour, this time in the newer European and the Asian parts of the city. We planned to be in Ankara on Monday to get our visas in person at the Iranian embassy, so we spent Friday preparing and printing the documents. We met the people from Thessaloniki again at their hostel.

There we met more travellers, mostly young people from different countries who had just finished high school and were mainly travelling around Europe. It was nice to experience that typical hostel atmosphere again. One of them had already been to Pakistan several times this year and assured us it wasn't as unsafe as the media reports. He also gave us hope that the only border between India and Pakistan, the Wagah border, might be open after all …

On the way to the capital, Ankara, about six hours away, there was suddenly a rattle from above on a motorway exit. The strong wind had loosened the solar panel in the luggage tray a little, and a hinge had broken off. Luckily nothing else happened, and it's easy to fix. In Ankara a helpful car park attendant let us park almost right in front of the Iranian embassy. With around 4.5 million inhabitants, Ankara is much smaller than Istanbul. It became the capital in the 1920s and feels less religious and much tidier.

At the Iranian embassy we really did get a tourist visa, even though – for lack of any feedback – we'd applied for a transit visa. Things just work a bit differently here than in Germany. The official website says it's currently not possible to apply for such a visa. The official was quite interested in our trip and, after handing over the visas, asked about our YouTube channel or blog. 😀

Riding high on euphoria, we went straight to the Indian embassy to ask whether we could get a tourist visa for India. We were turned away because the section had already closed. The next day, well prepared, we explained our request. The official quickly made it clear that entering overland isn't possible and offered no alternatives. He only referred us to the embassy in Islamabad, which we'd already tried to reach many times in vain – and kept trying. So that option has probably been shelved too. The only possibility is to ship the vehicle to Mumbai or Kolkata, and unfortunately we have to enter India by air. So a purely overland route isn't possible.

We also used our time in Ankara to get the HGS sticker needed for the motorway tolls. That turned out to be harder than expected: banks only issue the sticker to Turkish citizens, and communicating in the post offices was extremely difficult for us. While we were trying to get this sticker – which is topped up in advance and scanned automatically – people tried to help us communicate, translate and make phone calls, because we were supposed to call the relevant road traffic hotline. Even though few people spoke English, we got there in the end, and the odyssey ended successfully.

In Ankara we visited museums too and were lucky again to get what was practically a private city tour. The guide was very open and took us to the impressive mausoleum of the founder of the state, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. We spent five hours together, the three of us, and then ate İskender – lamb with yoghurt, bread and aubergines. After the tour we wanted to drive to touristy Cappadocia. The region is famous for its old houses carved into the rock and for the up to 175 hot-air balloons that take off simultaneously every day.

Up to this point the bus had run flawlessly, apart from the little throttle hiccup and the slightly leaky drive shaft. But literally 30 m before our destination, a campsite in Göreme, I could no longer use the clutch – and so couldn't change gear. With a lot of effort I managed to get it into first, and we drove to our pitch in the dark. A quick inspection at a crisp 2 °C made it clear that this wasn't something I could fix in a hurry. Something in the gearbox was broken.

So ends the fifth week of our trip, in which we've covered about 3,500 km and crossed 10 countries. Repairing the clutch will probably keep us here a bit longer. My goal had been to be in Armenia for Christmas, so that we could enter Iran between Christmas and New Year and make use of the full 30 days of the tourist visa.

Journey from Germany to Nepal - VW T3 - Week 5 - Istanbul, AnkaraWatch the video on YouTube