There was plenty of time to stop of at Ephesus and see the ruins of the ancient city
I arrived almost 3 hours before the sailing time at Cesme and went straight to the ticket office, even though I had booked online, as these things are almost always much more complicated that one expects. Indeed that was the case. The 2 men at the office were rather unwelcoming, and seemed to become even more frosty when I was able to produce all the documents they required - a rip off opportunity gone down the drain perhaps? Their final request was for a 2 Euro port tax. I delved into my tank bag, found my euros, handed them the exact change and made sure I got a receipt. They told me to enter a particular gate to the port at 4.30, 2 hours before the sailing, which I duly did.
I drove into an area full of trucks and cars, past several unmanned passport control areas and ended up right alongside the quay, having access to a number of waiting ferries of different sizes. But although I had my boarding card and ticket I hadn't had my passport stamped or vehicle doc checked out of Turkey, so I went looking around on foot to see what I could find. Eventually I found the passport control for pedestrians, but I was already on the international side, having come from the quay. I approached a booth from the wrong side and the controller seemed completely unphased by this, stamped the passport and waved me back through. Then a young lad with an ID card round his neck came running up and asked me to hand him both passport and vehicle doc. I refused, asking who he was and why he wanted them. He took me to the window of another office and pointed to the people inside, who nodded at me. I asked why I couldn't just hand the docs through the window to the man sitting inside, but another man standing near me said something about the lad being the son of the owner of the shipping company and he just wants to be of use. So I handed the teenager the docs and watched him run round an extended route to get into the office and hand the docs to the man who was directly in front of me behind the glass window - what a palaver! When he'd approved everything, instead of passing them out through the window, the teenage courier breathlessly ran around again and handed them back to me. He then asked me for 2 Euros port tax. I smiled and produced the receipt that I'd got earlier - ha!
Back out on the quay, the saga of getting on the ferry began. It was not dissimilar to getting on a Ryanair flight. There were no signs as to which ferry was going where, and when one was ready to board, all waiting cars, motorcycles and hordes of pedestrians would rush to it. Most of us were turned away as that wasn't the correct ferry. It was only on the 4th attempt at getting on a ferry that I was finally allowed to board - yes, this is Erturk lines and, yes, this is going to Chios! Phew.
It's great to be back in the west again, but I shall miss the chanting of the muezzins, especially the 4.30am one - quite beautiful and haunting.
