Since we tried booking at the last minute, we were unable to get a bus from Cappadocia direct to Istanbul when we needed one. We’d been given advice that wasn’t really great, he was right that there are a lot of buses, but there were apparently more people than seats. So, my advice is to book your direct overnight bus tickets in advance.
As it was, we took a bus to Ankara for 25 lira. I figured we had three options 1) stay the night in Anakara 2) catch a sleeper car on the train or 3) catch a different bus to Istanbul.
So, we woke up and lounged around our super high end cave for a while enjoying all the amenities before going to the bus station and catching our bus to Ankara. It was about 5 hours to Ankara and the bus stopped at one fairly expensive tourist shop/roadside restaurant along the way. At the stop, I started talking with a man near us named Ramazan. Ramazan is the comptroller for a Turkish Bank and is fortunate to be able to travel all over Turkey for business. He was a very friendly, good natured guy who was excited to get back home and see his pregnant wife in Ankara.
I asked him what he thought the best option was for us out of the three above. He said we should definitely get the train but if the train was full, he knew of a fairly cheap hotel near the train station. I asked him how to get to the train station and he said that since it was on his way home, we could share his cab and that he would help us to book our tickets. Another very nice man offering to help us on the bus in Turkey!
From the Otogar in Ankara which was truly massive with hundreds of buses going to all points in Turkey, we followed Ramazan and got into a cab which took us to the modern and architecturally interesting train station. It was situated near a giant amusement park that made me remember going to Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm when I was a kid.
The sleeper cars were full on the train. So were the regular seats. So were the first class seats. Apparently since Ramadan was coming up, lots of people were on holiday and heading to Istanbul. Ramazan told us to follow him and he would lead us to the hotel. He was apologetic and told us that if his wife weren’t pregnant, he would let us stay with him. He couldn’t find the hotel he thought he remembered though and so he started to make calls as we took a long walk around the amusement park.
The truth is that every hotel in Ankara was beyond our budget. Since it’s not a tourist place, the hotels are priced around business and politics and thus are priced high since the people in both fields usually have someone else footing the bill.
Ramazan walked us back to the Dolmus station and showed us which Dolmus to take back to the Otogar. That was what we saw in Ankara.
The Otogar, the train station, an amusement park, and a Dolmus station. With only that to judge by, I have to say that I think Ankara must be a beautiful city and I look forward to seeing more of it. I also felt that in that time I made a good friend in Ramazan. I hope we get the chance to spend more time together in the future.
At the Otogar, we found that nearly every bus was full but finally we managed to catch a bus with Metro Bus Lines, the only catch was that we had to wait five hours during which we ate, drank tea and orange juice, and browsed the many book vendors in the Ankara Otogar.
When the time arrived, the Metro bus was very nice and got us all the way to the ferry on the Asian side of Istanbul by about 8 am. It was 35 lira each from Ankara to Istanbul.