From: My Epic Train Journey

On to Istanbul

November 27-December 6, 2022

All images by the author, unless otherwise noted.
Read about my journey from Erzurum to Ankara on the Dogu Express here.

There is a fast train about once an hour between Ankara and Istanbul every day. I could have boarded one of them on the day I arrived in Ankara and I would have been in Istanbul in about four and a half hours. But I knew I would be tired after 24 hours on a train. As it turned out, the Dogu Express was two hours late coming into Ankara. Thankfully, I had reserved a seat on the Istanbul train for the following day. Also, I had booked a private room in a guesthouse near the Ankara station. That was a brilliant decision. I was really exhausted after that long journey across Turkey with little sleep.

You may recall that a nice young man named Erdal helped me to purchase my Ankara to Istanbul ticket when I found it impossible to do so both online and at the Erzurum train station. There is not a huge difference in the price of economy and business class so I had thought that I would buy a business class ticket just to see if there is a huge difference. At that time there were no business class tickets available, so I purchased a regular economy seat. Then, on the day of my journey, I thought it would not hurt anything to see if any of those business class tickets had been cancelled. And there was one available on the day of travel. For only a few dollars more, the ticket clerk…