Part 1
Part 2
We went back to the hotel and got the check in process done. The room was comfortable enough for 100TL. Well, minus that there was no air conditioner but it's winter anyway so we didn't really need it and we just turned off the heater. Soon after settling down we looked for a hotel in Konya online and we were lucky that there was a promotion at a hotel that offered only 70TL for one night. After a bit of research of what to do in Konya we went to bed.
But we weren't even fully asleep yet when we heard a knock on the door, and for glitter's sake it was already midnight. We stayed silent, and in my head I tried to convince myself that there was no ghost in Turkey. We heard another knock on another door and my friend said it was probably a drunk. We heard a knock again. When it stopped we checked if our door was locked and went back to bed. There was still a knock on the other door and after some moments it stopped when we heard a voice telling the person off. Probably a drunk.
The next morning we checked out, had breakfast and went to Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first President of Turkey.
Majestic.
We toured the museum and learnt quite a lot about the changes made during the period of his reign, and really the development of Turkey since he held power was amazingly remarkable from the worldly perspective.
Then we went back to the original plan -visiting the Embassy. From Anitkabir we took a taxi to minibus station and went to the Embassy, but of course, what is life without getting lost along the way? The minibus went along the main road and we didn't realise that we missed the junction to the office. Thanks to Google Map (which has been like our GPS throughout our stay here), we found the office after around almost 1 km of walking.
We were greeted by the staffs upon our arrival. I met His Excellency(HE) Ambassador of Brunei with his officer and spouse, told them what we encountered the night before and updated how my life in Istanbul so far. Later on, we went for a lunch before we were brought to their residence for a rest and to clean ourselves up.
Then we went to Kizilay, which is like the shopping centre in Ankara to meet our friends before going to the main train station. We had not bought our ticket yet, and to make the story short the train we planned to take was full and the next train would be at 9.30 pm. Since the train takes 2 hours to reach Konya we decided to take a bus instead, which takes 3 hours. We went to the bus station and bought our tickets, and asked if there was wifi in the bus and the counter man said yes. Nope, no wifi at all.
We reached Konya at 10.30 and our hotel called us asking where we were. I informed that we just reached Konya and asked how to reach the place. "You can go by minibus or taxi. Maybe take the minibus," he replied. Konya was foggy that night and in the darkness of the night we barely saw anything. When we got out of the station area to look for a minibus, there was an abi nearby who was about to cross the road, and we asked how can we get a minibus to get to our hotel. He offered, and more like insisted to send us by car because he was heading that way, too. Hesitated, we followed him. He said that he was a police and asked if we had any ID with us. I was still in doubt. We walked further and further away from the bus station, and he brought us further enough to turn my hesitation into suspicion, fear and panic. We reached a dark neighbourhood 10 minutes away from the bus station.
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