Back on the road again Istanbul, Wed 4 April 2007
After an uneventful flight to Istanbul with a morning spent in Dubai we arrive travel-weary in Istanbul at 7pm only to find our hotel booking has not materialised and there is no one at the airport to meet us. We take a taxi to the hotel intending to vent our spleen in a manner audible in both Europe and Asia, but are somewhat appeased by apple teas and the efforts of the manager to find us somewhere to stay. Eventually we are taken to a nearby hotel and offered temporary accommodation for about 2/3rds of what we had agreed. It’s no star rather than a 3 star but by then we are too tired to argue.
Everyone seems genuinely concerned about our plight and tries to assist, but in the morning when we find many other guests in what appears to be a similar boat we start to doubt our magnanimity and become convinced its a scam to exploit the favourable reviews of the first hotel and divert punters to the manager’s cousin’s establishment which would probably not make it to the budget section of Turkey on a Shoestring. Its hard to tell whether the manager is genuinely concerned and trying to help or whether he had a part in its creation so we craft a scathing review for Trip Advisor but decide to publish it only after its been vetted by our lawyer and once we are out of Turkey.
Everyone seems genuinely concerned about our plight and tries to assist, but in the morning when we find many other guests in what appears to be a similar boat we start to doubt our magnanimity and become convinced its a scam to exploit the favourable reviews of the first hotel and divert punters to the manager’s cousin’s establishment which would probably not make it to the budget section of Turkey on a Shoestring. Its hard to tell whether the manager is genuinely concerned and trying to help or whether he had a part in its creation so we craft a scathing review for Trip Advisor but decide to publish it only after its been vetted by our lawyer and once we are out of Turkey.
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