Getting Grumpy in Izmir

A very frustrating day — most of it our own (read my) fault!

We left Ilica on the 9:05 a.m. bus to the İzmir Otogar main bus station. Easy and straightforward. We then took a few minutes longer than we would have liked to find the local public bus into the city centre. It wouldn’t have won us any Amazing Race legs, but we found it eventually. To be fair, the place was massive, with multiple levels.

We hopped on the right bus and then discovered they didn’t take cash. I tried to swipe my Wise card at the reader, but it flashed a red error — twice! Lack of prep! İzmir has a public transport card system, like the Snapper card in Wellington, NZ.

We (meaning me) had become too confident, assuming that with all the buses and dolmuşes we’d taken so far in Turkey being cash only —  that that would continue. Not in Izmir! You have to buy a card from a main station or agent and top it up. Never ASS-U-ME! 

We were on the bus that was already moving and had gone three or four stops.  The driver didn’t seem to speak English. I wrote a message in Google Translate explaining that we were sorry and didn’t know we needed a special card, and that we’d buy one when we got off. He indicated that was fine so we stayed on the bus. 

We got off at the right stop and walked a short distance to our hotel (Alves Hotel). It looked nice — a standard small room but very modern and rated four stars. $136 NZD with breakfast included, and they even let us check in early as our room was ready at 11 a.m.

We unpacked and decided where we wanted to go to see a few city sights. But first, we planned to find the airport shuttle bus stop, as that would mean we wouldn’t need to buy a transport card for a single journey to the airport tomorrow. Yes, I know I told the bus driver we’d get one, but it seemed pointless when we’re only here 24 hours. Don’t worry — nothing turned out to be simple.

We eventually found the shuttle bus stop, which, according to five minutes of online research, had buses every hour. But A) It would be a long 1.1 km walk tomorrow with our bags, and B) the scheduled bus times weren't hourly and meant there was only one possible option — too risky! So we’ll need to buy a card and use the metro and train to the airport. Yes, everyone else would just take a taxi! I am not everyone else! ☹️

We walked along the waterfront from the shuttle stop, which was pleasant, although the water colour looked pretty disgusting. I don’t know why so many people were trying to catch fish in brown water. Yuck.

We left the waterfront walkway to visit the main town square (Konak), which had a lovely old clock tower and a beautiful mosque. Sarah had pre marked that on our map as POIs. The only other two things on the map were a city bazaar (which Sarah was now having second thoughts about) and an ancient ruin site called the Agora of Smyrna. Everything now gets compared to Ephesus and doesn’t look so impressive, so we decided to skip it.

We did, however, find a lovely lunch stop. It was 2 p.m. by now, so a late lunch: a round bread pretzel-like thing and a donut for me. The bread was coated in sunflower seeds and was surprisingly good — even though it was just bread. The donut, stuffed with chocolate, was the best thing I’ve tasted in weeks. I’ve tried a few of these donuts over the last four months, hoping they’d taste like the ones I remember from years ago in France and Italy, but they’ve all been disappointing — until this one. Delicious! The whole lunch was only ₺220, including two Coke Zeros (₺60 each).

Back near the hotel, we went searching for somewhere to buy an İzmirKart. There was a train station nearby, but it seemed to have only overland trains. The lady there told Sarah we could buy a ticket to the airport, which didn’t make any sense to me — Google Maps didn’t show any such trains departing there. It said we needed to take the metro and then an airport-line train after that.

So we went to the metro station. You need an İzmirKart there, but we couldn’t find anywhere to buy one. Why is this so bloody hard!? Back to the hotel. Google said we needed one of these cards. Oh — and there’s an app! Great, we’ll just use the app so we don’t need to find a physical card. Download the app... and it only works with Turkish phone numbers! Feck, really?

We asked at the hotel desk. They said, “Use the app.” We can’t! They said some places had run out of cards and they weren’t sure where to buy one. “Try the train station.” It was dinner time, so we went to the train station first. No, you can’t buy cards there. But again, the lady said you could pay cash to take a train to the airport. She took a photo of the train times and destinations for us. She also said you might be able to pay for the metro with a credit card — though I wasn’t sure if she meant scan and board or pay at a booth. We hadn’t seen any booths earlier.

Let’s have dinner and think this through some more. We went to a local restaurant that had great reviews on Google. The owner was lovely. He seemed to speak English but that didn't mean I understood everything he said. There were no menus or prices, but he suggested a selection we might like. Sounded good to me — I was already worn out from all the train/metro nonsense. Sarah seemed a bit grumpy with me that she couldn’t look through a menu to choose for herself. I just wanted a simple solution at that point.

The two plates of food arrived, and it was delicious (see photo — it doesn’t do it justice). The food was excellent and plentiful. Probably the best meal we have had in Turkey. But when we finished and went to pay: ₺1,400! What?! Not wanting to seem surprised, we just paid it — $57 NZD! — we left feeling we’d been taken advantage of. Not a great end to an already frustrating day. But after checking prices back at the hotel, it turns out other places nearby charge similar prices. Turkey isn’t as cheap as we might have thought. We should know this by now, right!?

One thing’s certain: it’s rice and beans for the next week to recover from that meal. But hey — the meal was lovely. Get over it, Aaron!

OK, I think I understand the train thing now. You can take a regional train (which Google Maps doesn’t seem to know about), pay ₺65 cash per person at the station which is very close to our hotel, and get off at the airport stop. The train continues on to a regional town much further away. I checked this with ChatGPT, which suggested you can’t get off at the airport station. Far out! This is turning out to be very hard. Further Google research suggests ChatGPT will hopefully be proven wrong tomorrow.