Ask the pilot

I was planning my time in America this summer and I told my wife I could go from one city to another and then she could just come later. To this she replied, "How, are you just going to take a bus?" America, land of almost no public transportation.

"What's more enjoyable than flying? A ride on a Turkish bus, of course."

"strange as it might sound, it's the buses whose example the airlines ought to be striving to emulate, and not vice versa. The bus companies are clean, cheap, cordial and punctual."

"Now, most of the world I have never seen, but I've been to enough places to confidently submit that there is nowhere else with a long-distance bus system quite like Turkey's. The nation has only a skeletal web of railroads, but a massive network of more than 120,000 modern, comfortable motor coaches, many of them designed and manufactured in-country, go everywhere and anywhere -- comfortably, reliably and inexpensively. If you've ever seen the mammoth otogars (stations) in Istanbul or Ankara, you have a sense of just how truly vast the system is. Inside these airport-size depots, miles of counter space are divided elbow-to-elbow among literally hundreds of independent operators, each with its own ticket stall. Garishly painted signs advertise each company's routes and departure times, while touts scour the crowds rounding up customers. "Izmir! Adana! Goreme!" There are enough billboards and hawkers to make you think each of Turkey's 70 million inhabitants has his own private bus line. For the tourist it's explosively colorful and a bit overwhelming, yet sensibly organized and easy to navigate."
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