Funny Things That Happened To Me On The Way To Troy
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I rarely write personal blogs. But as it’s the end of the summer holidays, I thought it only appropriate to relay an amusing story (and it’s a little painful) of 24 hours spent near Canakkale, home to the famous Trojan Horse.
The purpose of the trip was to attend a friend’s village wedding. The drive from Istanbul to Canakkale varies – it can be 4.5 hours or, as in our case, it took 10 hours. This was because of the raging wildfires in the region and the route we were forced to take gave ‘diversion’ a new meaning. The scorching of the terrain was there for all to see. A horrible sight.
I booked the 4 star boutique hotel through one of the popular agencies. It was last minute and looked decent enough. Or so I thought. Honestly you couldn’t ‘swing a cat’ in the room and it looked as though it hadn’t been occupied for some time. Strike 1. As we had arrived late, there was no option but to stay. There was a rank smell from drainage, a typical summer smell in hot countries, but we opened the windows in the hope that things would improve.
Mistake! It was so hot and, for some reason, the air conditioning unit and shower were not working either. Strike 2. And the smell continued to permeate the room.
The following morning we got up and both of us discovered we had largish red blemishes on our bodies. Not bed bugs, but bites from the not-so-friendly Huntsman spider (or family member) who also happened to be inhabiting our room. Very nasty, painful and a little poisonous. The first stop was to go to a local pharmacy to buy over-the-counter cortisone cream. Now, two weeks later, the bites and swellings have largely disappeared. The Trojan horse in my room didn’t vacate soldiers, just soldier spiders.
Our next task was to confront the hotel owner/manager. This was clearly a family business and we encountered what can only best be described as a ‘boxed’ mentality. “What smell?”, he protested. My partner, Banu, asked him in Turkish whether he had a clothes peg on his nose. He was in complete denial. He said that the shower and air con would be fixed and simply shrugged his shoulders as if these problems were minor. He then had the gall to ask why we hadn’t contacted them. Our response was simple – they disappeared the moment after we checked in. Am I running out of strikes?
So, lesson learned. The reviews of the hotel were very good (probably written by friends and relatives), but the images portrayed bore little or no resemblance to the real thing. Perception was not reality. As for the breakfast – well, it was COVID-style wrapped plastic plates, with plastic-tasting food inside. Need I say more?
We checked out immediately and then, happily, were able to find another hotel just 400 metres away that gave a 5 star experience, providing the very best of Turkish hospitality. All thanks to a local taxi driver, Zeynep. The difference was day and night.
We then drove to the village wedding. But that’s another story altogether……
