Most people are very hospitable to foreigners in Turkey and we have benefited from their kindness on many occasions. In the space of two hours on arrival in Gazientep we received great kindness.
I knew that when we arrived in Gazientep we could take a bus to the city centre and also believed that you could use a contactless card if you did not have a Gazientep Card. These Cards were not on sale at the bus station!
Before we left the bus station we stopped and asked at the ‘Zabita’ post where the bus to the city centre was. One of the officers who was leaving work kindly escorted us to the bus stop and told someone to ensure we took the right bus. When the bus arrived that person told us it was our bus and also went around to speak to the bus driver.
We got on the bus and my contactless card refused to work and they didn’t accept cash. The driver told me to give him 20 TRY and he then gave the money to the guy who helped show us the bus and we used his card. We also got 3 TRY back.
That was a nice introduction to Gazientep! After we had checked in to our hotel we went out for a walk. We were admiring the action through the window of a bakery which was producing three kinds of flatbread when the man running the show beckoned us over and gave us a hot flatbread. Almost too hot to handle! We thanked him profusely! We ate the hot bread in a local tea shop.
This was a nice start to our time in Gazientep and is the kind of hospitality which happens frequently in Turkey.
Comment