Travel Tales
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| Imagine you've just set foot in Asia...and you haven't got a dime. |
True grit from Rick's readers
Every month we feature funny or inspiring anecdotes from travelers. If you have a true (short) travel tale to share, send it to stories@ricksteves.com. If you have a photo that illustrates it, please attach it. And don't forget to tell us your first name and the city where you live. We'd love to hear from you!
Banking on the Kindness of Turks
I took the ferry from the Greek island of Lesvos to Ayvalık, Turkey and headed straight for an ATM machine to get some Turkish money. I stuck my card in the machine and...nothing. No money, no card. Then, for the first time, I looked inside the bank's window and saw an empty construction site inside. What to do?! After 20 or 30 minutes a small group was milling around the machine with me, when finally a woman who spoke some English joined the group. I learned that it was a Turkish holiday, so a branch of the same bank located just a few blocks away would also be closed. The woman's elderly father immediately sprung into action, deciding we should start visiting shops along the street until we found someone who knew someone who worked at the bank. Sure enough, after visiting 4 or 5 shops, we met someone who had a friend who knew someone who worked at the bank. We walked to where he worked, and the friend of the friend of the shopkeeper who the old man had found made "the magic phone call." Sure enough, within a couple of hours, two people from the bank showed up, even though it was their day off. They unlocked the door into the construction zone, and proceeded to dismantle the ATM machine from the inside. After much searching and scratching of heads, one of them finally found and delicately wriggled my card out of a hidden crevice! Many heartfelt thank-you's later, I took my leave of all these wonderful people, vowing that from now on I would never travel without having a second means of obtaining cash.
— Susan in San Luis Obispo, CA
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