Best wishes Lee

[Scoular1]

For a long and happy retirement.

[pompeylee]

Cheers schoular, just celebrating my 49th birthday as well, If any of you get out to the fetiye area of turkey let me know & you can buy me a beer.

[lovedeanblue]

Yes well done Lee. When Scully pays a flying visit I'll buy him a Beer.

[Scoular1]

Lee. you have a PM

[pompeylee]

If anyone's interested below is a brief breakdown of our journey to FETIYE in Turkey.

After a 2 hour tunnel delay France, Switzerland, Italy passed not to bad, after being told w e had the wrong class ticket for our van at Ancona & some Greece boarding staff arguing finally got the all clear to drive on , I managed to fall whilst going up 4 flights of stairs with 3 heavy bags but luckily a female member of crew ran down 2 flights & carried 2 of the bags up as if they were light, we were then quickly showed to our cabin(myself, wife and dog) by another member of crew, couldn't fault the ship crew attall all very friendly and helpfull.

After grabbing a bite to eat and a couple of drinks retired for the night for the majority of the journey.

This is where it went bad, At the turkish border none of the border staff appeared to speak English & after unloading some of our load that was looked at a little bit guard asked for the vehicle passport, what he meant was the V5 but as we had a rental vehicle the van owner had the original & the rental agreement had the van details & serial number on so we should if been ok to carry on, oh no & despite getting two of our Turkish friends to speak with them no luck, In the end I got the V5 sent to my email for the guards to print & after going from pillar to post another 4 times being told we needed one month's car insurance as minimim for Turkey he wrote a figure down of 1700 lira ended up paying 450 & picking up 2 peices of paper along the way van had to be x-rayd, by then there was a q of lorrys aporiximatly 3 hours long, we managed to sneak behind the lorry that was due to be x-rayd next so only another 40 mins.

Once through x-ray one more trip to another office for paper to be stamped before finally heading to the last gate although there is still armed guards after this gate.

By then it was 8pm & we needed to find a place to sleep before getting the ferry to cannakele in the morning, managed to find a nice little hotel that let us have a room for 3 adults and our dog for 200 lira with breakfast.

The next day we headed into Turkey

Once on our way we made good time & were within 40mins of FETIYE going downhill & my brother who was* driving said the brakes were not stopping us properly, luckily there was a viewing area on the next bend which we pulled into to see both rear wheels smoking and One actually with flames coming out, tried to extinguish with bottled water we had but luckily there were some Turkish guys taking selfies who went to there car for there extinguisher to put the flames out.

After calling Mercedes Benz breakdown approx 30 times even after we were told recovery was on its way & to be asked what vehicle we had, how many people, is it loaded etc several times and* to be told Turkish law recovery can only pick up 2 passengers, luckily by then I had asked one of our Turkish freinds (gungor) to collect the wife and our dog which he managed to borrow a car & do so.

Eventually (10.30pm) the van was recovered & taken to* a dealership in dalaman there was a tecnition (Mustafa) who was excellent despite speaking very little English managed to get us on our way by 12.15 & we were home just after 1am, most goods now unpacked and managed to see calis see around 9am from nil bar as my brother wanted breakfast before starting the drive again taking the van back, he & the van are now back in pompey.

[lovedeanblue]

Crikey makes my trip down to Fp (after I've cut my grass) pale into insignificance. Tt's going to be a busy Eastern Rd today for sure. Glad you all made it though. P.U.P.

[Scoular1]

Great story Lee...glad all ended well.

[pompeylee]

Sorted out our residency today so an official pompeyturk, pool filled so may take a dip tomorrow.

[lovedeanblue]

It will have to warm up a tad before I take my 1st Hayling dip of the year for sure...

[pompeylee]

Bump for blueadder