Ajanta

Jack Campin - bogus address <bogus@purr.> wrote:

> The way the otogar is laid out, it's a horseshoe shape of bus company
> offices with pedestrian access on the inside and bus stances on the
> outside. The companies are roughly grouped by the destination they
> aerve. It's run like a street market, people will come up and try to
> get you use their company. They won't rip you off but it does help to
> have an idea of what you want. Two companies with consistently good
> buses are Kamil Koc and Pamukkale. There are restaurants and shops
> in the block in the centre of the horseshoe - these are MUCH better
> value than the airport (where everything is outrageously overpriced).
> The metro between the airport and otogar is very easy to use.
> ...
> You can buy [domestic air tickets] on the web from the THY site at
> the same price you'd pay in Turkey.
> My girlfriend (who speaks no Turkish) has done it a couple
> of times. The other airlines doing internal flights in Turkey tend to
> have flaky websites, fly at weird times of day, and are generally not
> worth the savings to deal with.
>
> Booking trains, on the other hand, is a pain in the bum. There isn't
> enough capacity on the Istanbul-Ankara route so it seems they ration
> the service by making it hard to book.

Thanks. All this info is extremely useful. If prices seem reasonable,
we might just fly to Ankara, but try for a couple days sight-seeing
stop in Istanbul on the way back.

Is there a safe way to store luggage for a few days at IST? I mean they
don't really need all that stuff for a side trip to Ankara.