Turns out the day earlier Mr Woog, who was in charge of our travel itinerary due to my ploppy illness, had indeed directed us onto a train out of Istanbul. Which was fine. But what was not fine was that the train we got on took us to Bulgaria.
No offence to any Bulgarians reading this, but I had no inclination to visit Bulgaria. And as it turns out, we could not even if we had wanted to as we were without a Bulgarian Visa. We were hauled off the train at the border and spent a very tense and unhappy 12 hours sitting in the guards hut, looking out through the drizzly rain to the bleak fields of Bulgaria.
Now if you think the toilet facilities at the guards hut on the Turkish/Bulgarian border are impressive, you would be very very wrong.
Eventually a train came along and took us back to Istanbul where we found that the correct train we wished to take was not leaving until the next day. So we had some time to kill in the place that nearly killed me. I was actually starting to feel a lot better and even quite hungry. Well I had not eaten in 8 days. We tracked down a clean, well populated restaurant and I ate the best kebab in the world. Mr Woog and I then found some accommodation nearby. We had our own room with a TV and shared bathroom facilities which were down the hall. At the time it was totally palatial.
Exhausted and still not speaking, we both fell into a deep deep sleep.
In the middle of the night, I knew something was wrong when I woke up with someone stabbing me violently in the stomach. Except no one was stabbing me in the stomach. I looked over and Mr Woogs bed was empty. And then I knew.
Fucking Kebab.
I leaped out of bed and ran like an Olympian, jumping over Mr Woog who was lying in the hall whimpering "Fucking Kebab..."
I reached the toilet just in time. Now in Turkey, the toilets are squat toilets and given my urgency to squat and the general laws of physics well..... How can I say this nicely.
Well the best way to say it is the actual toilet remained as clean as the day it rolled off the assembly line.
The wall behind the toilet was a different story entirely.
It was my official low point. Istanbul was giving me a final "FUCK YOU" and I threw in the towel. YOU WIN TURKEY!
The evening was spent cleaning shit off the wall and then adding to it again. Mr Woog was groaning in bed when eventually I returned to the room. That night was one of the longest in history.
The next day, we boarded the correct train and refused all offers of food. We travelled overnight and arrived in Thessaloniki, a northern Greek town. We spent the next week eating meze, souvlaki, spanakopita and moussaka and putting back on the 6 kilos and then some. Mr Woog and I were so happy to be in Greece.
But no one was happier.............
Than the pants!
The End.
