Welcome to Turkey

Our flight touched down at Sabiha Gokcen airport in Turkey late afternoon. There are actually two airports which service the city of Istanbul, with the other airport being Ataturk International Airport. We flew into Saboha Gocken because this newer airport (which is named after a female Turkish combat pilot) is serviced by the budget airlines and we were flying Easy Jet. This airport is further from the city but the cost saved by flying a budget airline was still significant factoring in transfers which can be negotiated at the airport for a cheaper rate.

We claimed our luggage and headed off to apply for our Turkish Visa. We had thought that being able to pay for a VISA at the time of entry would be easy and hassle free - but we were mistaken.

We had ready through the travel forums, Lonely Planet books and blogs prior to arriving just to ensure we could in fact purchase our Visa's on arrival. There was no problem for Aussies.

So when we arrived at the counter we were expecting the usual "your baby has so many passport stamps" jokes and we would be on our way.

Instead we met an older man who asked us for our visa fee (which was about $20 Aussie dollars) in Turkish Lira. Appeared they were strictly CASH ONLY. Oh no!!

We passed through our VISA credit card. 

No luck. 

We showed our AMEX.

No they weren't accepting this either. They wanted the EXACT money in Turkish Lira.

Prior to this point we had been very excited that Turkey was not yet operating on the Euro (although it is now) and we were laughing at the improved exchange rate having been living in London. Now we weren't laughing.

You see we had Euro in our wallets, we still had some swiss  francs and we had pounds. I even had some US dollars (we were keeping some examples of smaller notes for our nephews) but Lira - none at all.

Straight past the VISA desk we could see an ATM. We asked if Nick could walk there, with security, with me remaining behind to get Lira out.

No.

We emptied out our wallets and showed that we had NO lira and would not be able to pay for our Visa. We didn't even have the option to move from this section of the airport to take a flight elsewhere. There was also no language barrier - he understood perfectly what we were saying.

And so we sat on the floor. We had tried to negotiate for at least 30 minutes without any luck.There wasn't anything else we could do. I was really upset, Raya was happy but she wouldn't be for long. It was just ridiculous!!

Not long after a group of backpackers rocked up to the counter. Two american guys and a canadian girl. The man at the counter called us over

"You ask your friend" he shouted at us.

We tried to explain that we didn't know these people. The Turkish guy said "You speak English, he speaks English - he gives you money".

The american guy with dreads says "dude I don't know these people, I don't know these other people either, I'm by myself".

"No you pay for friends" the Turkish guy instructed.

We speedily explained the situation to the american 'dude'. He had cash on him, thankfully a large amount of Lira, but only because his mate who was already in Turkey had the same thing happen to him.

Thankfully he paid for himself, Nick, myself, Raya and the other  American backpacker.

The girl went to pay her $20 and was told "No you Canadian you pay $60".

She argued and we told her to not bother and just pay. She kept asking why and the man laughingly told her "Turkish don't like Canada" which made all of us - except her - laugh.

Once money had exchanged hands we were allowed to go and he happily farewelled us. We had been waiting at the desk for over an hour by the time our ordeal was over. Still these things become the travel stories - hence my blogging about it!

We went straight to the ATM and got cash out for our friendly american backpacker. Since we were all on friendly, money sharing turns now we grouped together and did what any group of backpackers do - bargained seriously between transport companies for an incredibly cheap group discount for our transfer into Istanbul. The Turkish tour operators didn't know what had hit them we were a force to be reckoned with and we negotiated them down to 25% of their initial price.

We were hoping that the rest of our Turkish experience was going to be a little more straight forward.