Tuesday, August 08, 2006

DEAD END UPON ENTERING TURKEY???

We expected entering turkey to be a repeat of the Bulgarian sodomy experience ….and surprisingly it was all very easy …. We paid for our entry visa (10 Euro for me on my Polish passport, 10 Pounds for Pamela’s UK), and went through the formality of going through customs….. and that’s when it all just hit a dead end …..
The problem was that the Nugget is registered on EU number plates, in Jurek’s name (it would have been just too hard to do it in mine, cause I need to be a resident of Poland) … and all the insurance paperwork is also in his name.
The Turkish customs officer (too much authority for such a little man) required a power of attorney form from Jurek, authorizing me to use his car… and without it …. Basically we were told to go back to Bulgaria …. I think they worried about the car being stolen, and driven to Turkey to be sold off.
The problem there is that when we entered Bulgaria they also hassled us about the paperwork issue …. But let us through anyway …. The Turks on the other hand were pretty definite about not letting us in!!!
So … there is the dilemma .... cant enter Turkey, if we go back to Bulgaria … it will be asking for more monetary sodomy, and they can also be difficult about the car….. again….. and we already paid for a Turkish Visa.

So after assessing our options …. We decided to see the Head of Customs (the Director as they called him), and I was going to try to buy my way through the border, if that’s what it took …. Whats the worst thing they can happen, other than real sodomy in a Turkish jail??
Anyway, to cut a long story short, we explained the situation, flashed our Australian passports, told him we wanted to visit Galipoli, and he made some phonecalls (I think he checked that the car was not stolen), and told us that everything is ok, and we could go back downstairs and clear customs.
Basically without his assistance, we would have been pretty f@#ked, and this was a real surprising help, without any hint of monetary requirements. ...
And the little man Custome Officer who had to stamp our passports was really pissed off when told by the Director to allow us through.

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