A view weeks ago, during our holiday, a friend and I crossed the
border between Greece and Turkey in a Cobra replica and Morgan 4/4
respectively.
We had no problem getting out of Greece, and drove over a bridge
lined with smiling and waiving soldiers to the Turkish border post. I
thought to myself it would be easy.
There were no directions anywhere telling you what to do so we went
inside the main building and watched what everybody else was doing.
We presented our passports and were told to buy visas at a different
desk. Having done this we presented our passports again, got the
visas stamped in, and returned to the cars. A policeman asked us if
we'd been to customs. Back to the building again.
More by luck than judgement I found the right desk. They basically
wanted a record of our cars to put into our passports so that we
couldn't leave the country without the cars. We gave them the car
registration documents, and after a little difficulty with the car
makes, gave us an exit form for the cars. We asked if that was it,
and they directed us to an office in the corner of the buiding. Our
troubles began.
The guy in the office looked like an extra from Midnight Express. He
asked to see our cars, so we went outside with him. He asked my
friend to open his boot and empty the contents onto the carpark.
Appearing satified he gestured fo me to do the same. I pulled the
tonneau cover back and took everything out. Everything's OK so I put
the stuff back in again.
"Open the back"
"It doesn't open"
"Open the back"
"It doesn't have a boot"
"Open the back"
"It doesn't open"
"Open the back"
"Show me where"
He gave up at this point and changed tack, asking me how old my
friend's car was.
"I think it's six years old"
"It's not, it is an old car"
"No it's not, it's a replica of an old car"
"How old is the car"
"Six years"
"It's not, it is an old car"
"No it isn't, read the documents"
"Come with me"
He then leads us back to his office where we spend another fifteen
minutes discussing the age of the Cobra, in approximately 100 degree
heat. (I couldn't understand what difference it made, but was glad I
didn't have a newish Morgan). We wrote down the year of the car and
its age, but he still insisted he was right and we were wrong. He
eventually told us to sit on a bench outside the office. He then left
us there for half an hour while as far as we could see he just kept
on processing other peoples' papers. Finally with no explanation, he
comes out to us, hands us our papers, and tells us we can leave.
The good news is that this arsehole was totally unrepresentive of the
rest of the Turkish people who were incredibly friendly, and went
totally crazy about our cars during the ten days we spend touring the
Aegean coast.
Ben 1972 4/4
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Ben Hodgkiss email: benh@hwcces.demon.co.uk
Maintenance Systems Manager phone: +44 (0)1905 766862
Environmental Services Department fax: +44 (0)1905 766890
Hereford & Worcester County Council
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