Turkish Driving Experiences
Discussion
As requested in this thread, here's an account of a recent trip driving around the west coast of Turkey. It's probably a bit long, so don't bust my balls if you're not interested. 
This was our first time in the country, so we were sticking to the touristy west coast, around the OluDeniz area. The place we were staying at was a tiny farm up in the mountains however, rather than in a resort. This meant that we needed to hire a car, result
. Before going I did a bit of research as to driving in Turkey, and the general conclusion seemed to be, "don't or you'll die". The internet consensus is that it's a dangerous, dangerous place to be in a car, an opinion shared by a couple of people at work who've been. "Oh, I'd never drive there". Frankly it just sounded like a challenge to me.
We flew out the first week in September this year. On arrival at Dalaman we picked up our hire car, a fairly awful thing called a Fiat Albero. High ground clearance, wobbly suspension, no feedback through the steering, and some tiny 8v engine. The hire man was friendly, spoke good English, and was happy to point out his co-workers doing hand-brake turns in the spare rental cars (with some skill I have to say). Okaaaaaaaaay.
Anyway, on to the road. Kept it steady for a few miles until I was used to the left hand drive, but there was hardly any traffic anyway. Found the main highway south, ready for Mad Max style dog-eat-dog automotive carnage, and found...
...light traffic and politeness, on wide roads with plenty of space. And this continued throughout our stay. It's fair to say that all of the roads are of rather poor quality compared to the best UK ones - even on the large highways, odd camber changes and sudden bumps are there to keep you honest. On the smaller roads, you really have to take care because of potholes and the like. BUT they are often very wide, much more so than minor UK roads. So it's not exactly the m6, but we tooled along at 70-80 quite happily on the main roads.
And what roads some of them are! fantastic mountain roads snaking their way upwards, hairpin after hairpin, and almost no traffic! Bliss! No barriers or owt either, so you can't be too silly, as Mrs Flash kept pointing out to me
Other drivers are pretty courteous - slower vehicles (and there are many) without fail pull over to let you past, and you return the favour for the odd faster car. Mrs. Tailgater, her friend Mr. You're-not-getting-past-me, and Mr. Squeeze-into-a-tiny-gap-at-the-last-minute were conspicuous by their absence. On the whole, I found it much more relaxing than driving back at home. OK, so indicating is almost entirely optional, people pull over and stop without warning, etc - but if you're leaving a sensible gap, no problemo. The only thing which was a bit of a surprise was that people wanting to turn left (across the oncomming traffic) will pull over to the right and wait for a gap in the traffic before crossing, rather than wait in the centre of the road as we would. A bit confusing at first, but I can see some sense in it, especially for the moped riders - safer to be on the side of the road than in the middle of it, I guess.
In towns, things change a bit, and the "barge" method (see also Italy, France) is favoured. Maybe it was the holiday mood, but I found it humorous more than aggravating. I probably wouldn't fancy driving in somewhere large like Istanbul tbh.
So that was the main roads. But where we were staying wasn't up a main road. We were a thousand metres high in the mountains, where roads give ways to tracks. The "main" road up the mountain started off like this:
Then turned into this:
And finally this:
...which continued for 10Km. Suddenly, I was pleased for the high ground clearance and soft suspension - everything became clear. I'd have prefered a landy, but the little fiat seemed to cope pretty well, though I was very much in "don't break anything" mode rather than "get there quickly" mode. Whilst in the resorts, absolutely everyone speaks English, the mountain villages are poor farming settlements, and don't speak a word of it. And we could do no more than "hello", "goodbye" "yes", "no" in Turkish.
You'd think that everyone would have 4x4s in these conditions, but the ubiquitous car was...the Renault 12:
A real blast from the past for me, as we had one in the 70s/early 80s. I was amazed to see them still going, but apparently they were still built out here up until 5 years or so ago. It seems that everyone who can afford a car has one, everyone else has a moped, or occaisionally a tractor. And whatever you've got, the whole family travels on it:
We saw one motorbike with child1, Dad, child2, child3, and Mum on it...crazy, but if that's all you've got, I guess that's what you have to do.
We spent a lot of time driving around the mountain roads - We've a bit of a thing for ancient history, and there are plenty of Byzantine and Lycian ruins hidden away in the remote hills. It's worth pointing out that signposts don't really happen much, even on the highways they're a bit patchy, and in the mountains, there just aint any. Towns and villages don't usually have name signs either, so it's pretty easy to get lost, and find yourself 2,000 metres up a mountain, at the end of a track, only to realise that it's the wrong mountain. For example.
Which brings us to the pictures which prompted the thread. The worst road we found ourselves on, which was marked as a normal road on our map, and which we were told was "fine" and a bit of a shortcut:
Really wasn't too happy about that one. The drop was epic, the Missus was practically having a siezure out of fright, the rocks were large, and the going was very, very slow. It was also about 15 Km between villages, and tiny villages they were too. Maybe with a landy, a big toolbox and a couple of spare tires...but in a bargain basement car, no tools, and no language skills, we bottled it. After 2 miles, we did a 3 point turn (an adventure in itself!) and went the long way round. A 30 mile detour, but all on nice, safe tarmac.
So, driving in Turkey. My advice is, avoid the cities, but otherwise ignore the doomsayers, it isn't the horrible experience they'd have you believe. In fact, I found it generally more pleasurable than driving in the UK. The roads and scenery are fantastic for the enthusiast - but take the 4x4 if you're planning to go out in the countryside!
This was our first time in the country, so we were sticking to the touristy west coast, around the OluDeniz area. The place we were staying at was a tiny farm up in the mountains however, rather than in a resort. This meant that we needed to hire a car, result
. Before going I did a bit of research as to driving in Turkey, and the general conclusion seemed to be, "don't or you'll die". The internet consensus is that it's a dangerous, dangerous place to be in a car, an opinion shared by a couple of people at work who've been. "Oh, I'd never drive there". Frankly it just sounded like a challenge to me. We flew out the first week in September this year. On arrival at Dalaman we picked up our hire car, a fairly awful thing called a Fiat Albero. High ground clearance, wobbly suspension, no feedback through the steering, and some tiny 8v engine. The hire man was friendly, spoke good English, and was happy to point out his co-workers doing hand-brake turns in the spare rental cars (with some skill I have to say). Okaaaaaaaaay.
Anyway, on to the road. Kept it steady for a few miles until I was used to the left hand drive, but there was hardly any traffic anyway. Found the main highway south, ready for Mad Max style dog-eat-dog automotive carnage, and found...
...light traffic and politeness, on wide roads with plenty of space. And this continued throughout our stay. It's fair to say that all of the roads are of rather poor quality compared to the best UK ones - even on the large highways, odd camber changes and sudden bumps are there to keep you honest. On the smaller roads, you really have to take care because of potholes and the like. BUT they are often very wide, much more so than minor UK roads. So it's not exactly the m6, but we tooled along at 70-80 quite happily on the main roads.
And what roads some of them are! fantastic mountain roads snaking their way upwards, hairpin after hairpin, and almost no traffic! Bliss! No barriers or owt either, so you can't be too silly, as Mrs Flash kept pointing out to me
Other drivers are pretty courteous - slower vehicles (and there are many) without fail pull over to let you past, and you return the favour for the odd faster car. Mrs. Tailgater, her friend Mr. You're-not-getting-past-me, and Mr. Squeeze-into-a-tiny-gap-at-the-last-minute were conspicuous by their absence. On the whole, I found it much more relaxing than driving back at home. OK, so indicating is almost entirely optional, people pull over and stop without warning, etc - but if you're leaving a sensible gap, no problemo. The only thing which was a bit of a surprise was that people wanting to turn left (across the oncomming traffic) will pull over to the right and wait for a gap in the traffic before crossing, rather than wait in the centre of the road as we would. A bit confusing at first, but I can see some sense in it, especially for the moped riders - safer to be on the side of the road than in the middle of it, I guess.
In towns, things change a bit, and the "barge" method (see also Italy, France) is favoured. Maybe it was the holiday mood, but I found it humorous more than aggravating. I probably wouldn't fancy driving in somewhere large like Istanbul tbh.
So that was the main roads. But where we were staying wasn't up a main road. We were a thousand metres high in the mountains, where roads give ways to tracks. The "main" road up the mountain started off like this:
Then turned into this:
And finally this:
...which continued for 10Km. Suddenly, I was pleased for the high ground clearance and soft suspension - everything became clear. I'd have prefered a landy, but the little fiat seemed to cope pretty well, though I was very much in "don't break anything" mode rather than "get there quickly" mode. Whilst in the resorts, absolutely everyone speaks English, the mountain villages are poor farming settlements, and don't speak a word of it. And we could do no more than "hello", "goodbye" "yes", "no" in Turkish.
You'd think that everyone would have 4x4s in these conditions, but the ubiquitous car was...the Renault 12:
A real blast from the past for me, as we had one in the 70s/early 80s. I was amazed to see them still going, but apparently they were still built out here up until 5 years or so ago. It seems that everyone who can afford a car has one, everyone else has a moped, or occaisionally a tractor. And whatever you've got, the whole family travels on it:
We saw one motorbike with child1, Dad, child2, child3, and Mum on it...crazy, but if that's all you've got, I guess that's what you have to do.
We spent a lot of time driving around the mountain roads - We've a bit of a thing for ancient history, and there are plenty of Byzantine and Lycian ruins hidden away in the remote hills. It's worth pointing out that signposts don't really happen much, even on the highways they're a bit patchy, and in the mountains, there just aint any. Towns and villages don't usually have name signs either, so it's pretty easy to get lost, and find yourself 2,000 metres up a mountain, at the end of a track, only to realise that it's the wrong mountain. For example.
Which brings us to the pictures which prompted the thread. The worst road we found ourselves on, which was marked as a normal road on our map, and which we were told was "fine" and a bit of a shortcut:
Really wasn't too happy about that one. The drop was epic, the Missus was practically having a siezure out of fright, the rocks were large, and the going was very, very slow. It was also about 15 Km between villages, and tiny villages they were too. Maybe with a landy, a big toolbox and a couple of spare tires...but in a bargain basement car, no tools, and no language skills, we bottled it. After 2 miles, we did a 3 point turn (an adventure in itself!) and went the long way round. A 30 mile detour, but all on nice, safe tarmac.
So, driving in Turkey. My advice is, avoid the cities, but otherwise ignore the doomsayers, it isn't the horrible experience they'd have you believe. In fact, I found it generally more pleasurable than driving in the UK. The roads and scenery are fantastic for the enthusiast - but take the 4x4 if you're planning to go out in the countryside!
Excellent - I'm not surpirsed you turned around - I would have! 
Drove the same roads as the OP in a similar fiat. Ended up parked under that fig tree rear the white car in your last photo and drove down that same 10km rutted track wondering if I had made a wrong turn lol. Going over the mountain road instead of through the tunnel is a must, squeal tactic tires they fit though
Worked in Istanbul many years ago and was glad to get out of there alive. Never drove there myself but I doubt it would have been any more terrifying. The cabs were decrepit Fiat 131 s
tboxes that stank of LPG complete with 4 bald tyres which were hilarious in the rain on surfaces like polished glass. They often didn't have enough traction too make up the hills in the city. On my final journey to the airport I was almost involved in the most horrific crash. It's not nice to arms and legs hanging out of a barrel rolling taxi at 5am. Other than that it was great.
tboxes that stank of LPG complete with 4 bald tyres which were hilarious in the rain on surfaces like polished glass. They often didn't have enough traction too make up the hills in the city. On my final journey to the airport I was almost involved in the most horrific crash. It's not nice to arms and legs hanging out of a barrel rolling taxi at 5am. Other than that it was great. The Black Flash said:
an account of a recent trip driving around the west coast of Turkey.
Excellent! I thought those roads looked familiar. Welldone for 'getting involved' too... its the only way to survive over there.
We had great fun, did a couple of 1000K over there... so much to see!!
Did you meet the milk van coming the other way? - technically allowed to speed otherwise the milk goes off in the heat! I swear Turkey are missing a rally driver there!
On some of the roads we would fore-go the aircon just to get the most out of out hire car.
Gassing Station | General Gassing [Archive] | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff