From Mersin To Bern

I am now in Bern, Switzerland. To get here from Mersin I used the following sequence of vehicles: bus, plane, plane, bus, train, bus. The journey began 5 pm on Monday and finished around 9 am Tuesday. Here are a few travel tidbits:

- 2 Swedes and a Turk wre chatting very loudly on the on the free Pegasus service bus between Mersin and Adana. Their topics of conversation included Swedish fish and ice hotels.

- At Adana Airport in under 10 minutes I passed entrance security, checked-in, went to the toilet and got through departure lounge security. I wish preparing to fly was always this easy.

- The aeroplane used by Pegasus Airlines was an www.izai.com.tr plane and did not display the Pegasus name anywhere.

- Sabiha Gokcen on the Asian side is the 'cheap' airport where many low-cost and charter airlines fly to. What aren't cheap are the airport cafes. A can of cola and 'tost' (a grilled cheese sandwhich) each cost 7 lira. For Turkey this is extortion. Thankfuly, my dried apricots, apricot kernels and water were enough for my 7 hour stop-over.

- At 3:30 am I boarded my first EasyJet flight, complete with first-in first-served seating.



The Easyjet Aeroplane at Sabiha Gokcen Airport with the lights of Istanbul in the background

- When exiting Basel Europort the immigration lady did not stamp my passport, to my disappointment. Dammit, I want stamps!

- The combned bus to Basel Train Station/Inter-City train to Bern cost CHF 39.80 (EUR 25). Ouch! As I had already visited Basel in 1999 I did not look around and went straight to Bern. The dual-level train to Bern was amazingly smooth.



The train I took from Basel to Bern with the Swiss Rail Authorty's acronym in German, French and Italian, 3 of the 4 official languages of Switzerland. The other official language, Romanisch, is only spoken by a tiny proportion of the population.