Travels and Travails

As a part of my recent overseas trip I spent a week and a half in Turkey. It'd been 11 years since I was last there and I was really looking forward to going back as I'd absolutely loved the place and have spent the last decade urging almost everyone I know to make sure they went there.

Suffice to say it's changed a lot, and not all of it has been for the best. More on this shortly.

Firstly let us muse on the dubious benefits of flying Easyjet. This was a first for me and I can honestly say if I can avoid it in the future I will. I guess the adage pay peanuts get monkeys rings true because there was a lot of monkey business on my flight. This was mainly, no solely, due to a group of Turks and their English girlfriends who were making the most of the inflight bar.

Suffice it to say one gentleman over-indulged and ended up giving one of the stewardesses some aggro. He didn't take kindly to being told to stop being so passionate with object of his affection. As a result of his outburst he was greeted at Sabiha Gokcen airport by the police who informed him of the error of his ways. This didn't do a lot for his temper which was then further inflamed when he learnt his girlfriend and other companions had abandoned him at the airport. Nothing like being spurned like a rabid dog to get the emotions to boiling point.

The next thing you know he storms onto the airport shuttle bus demanding to know where his girlfriend was and who had shopped him to the police. The fact that the airline had done it failed to cross his alcohol addled psyche. Labelling all on board the bus a bunch of racist c**ts he stumbled off the bus, clasping his duty free cigarettes, and disappeared into the night.

Then he came back five minutes later and did it all again.

A couple of policemen duly arrived and hauled him off for another talking too. All in all he was having a bad day.

And that's how I arrived in Turkey.