The saga of the jacket
Trip Start
Nov 09, 2007
1
31
92
Trip End
Feb 03, 2008
Canakkale,
Turkey
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
After realising it was missing (and confessing to Jess), we sat and worked out when I had seen it last. We looked at the pictures we had taken to see where it last featured and calculated that it must have been left at Jimmie's Place in Selcuk.
I rang them and got Jimmy. He said nothing had been reported to him but he would ask the woman who cleaned our room. Could I get back to him in the morning. Concerned and somewhat depressed I rang the next day. 'Jimmie's not here, he's shopping. Ring back in half an hour' I was told. Half an hour later, same story. 'Ring back later'. After maybe five calls, I got Jimmy. 'Oh I haven't talked to her yet.' Crikey
Last known sighting of the jacket
! Doesn't he realise my whole future rests on this? 'Call me back in five minutes.' Fast forward five minutes. 'Yes, we have located the jacket'. Whew what a relief. Unfortunately we were leaving Canakkale the next morning. How was I going to get the jacket?Jimmy arranged to put it on a bus that was leaving Selcuk at 9pm and was due to be on the Canakkale-Eceabat ferry at 4.30am. All I had to do was meet the bus before it got on the ferry and the jacket was mine. For that jacket, anything.
I set two alarms and at 4.30 woke up, threw on some clothes, grabbed the key and headed off into the dark. The ferry terminal is maybe a 1 minute walk from the hotel and it was brightly lit, so I felt perfectly safe. There was no bus waiting to get on the ferry so I started to panic. I noticed that some vehicles were already on, so I walked on to the ferry hoping to find what I was looking for. I squeezed between massive trucks making my way to the front. Success! There was a bus. Closer inspection revealed that it was in fact the bus I was looking for, but... there was no driver. As I went closer to the bus door, a man who had been loitering nearby came up to me. 'Are you the driver?' I asked him. He nodded. 'Do you have a jacket for me?' He looked blank. 'Jacket?' I said pointing to the one I had on. He nodded and pointed in the bus. I got on and he motioned me to a seat. Oh no! He thought I wanted to be a passenger. 'No, no' I told him. 'Did you get a jacket in Selcuk to give to me?' Hearing the word Selcuk seemed to spark some interest and he got back on the bus and walked down the aisle. Sleeping passengers started to stir, wondering who this intruder was.
The driver awoke a man sleeping in the middle of the bus. He turned out to be another driver, clearly he had been driving when the bus was in Selcuk. The first driver spoke to him in Turlkish and he grunted then got up. Back off the bus we got, and he opened up the luggage compartment and pulled out a package for me. Eagerly, I tore it open. My precious! I thanked him and gave him a handsome tip.
I made my way back to the hotel. When I got in I put the key into its slot to reactivate the electricity. About 10 seconds later music came blaring from the girl's room. A CD had started automatically and the volume was set to about 90. I raced in and turned it off. The girls were both looking startled but went back to sleep. When I got to our room Jess told me that the second alarm had gone off about 1 minute after I left and she had to fumble about in the dark trying to find it to turn it off.
A night of adventure for sure, but I wore my jacket proudly today.
