Varan bus Izmir - Istanbul

Hello,

I am thinking about taking the bus from Izmir to Istanbul in early October. I have heard Varan has good buses, and found that they have a bus leaving Izmir at 10am daily (https://secure.varan.com.tr/SeferSecimV2.aspx). Two questions:

• Does anyone know what time that bus arrives in Istanbul? I can't see anywhere on the site where it says that, but even though I have it set to English, there are still parts in Turkish that I can't understand.

• I know many buses in Turkey don't have washrooms, but this one shows a symbol with 'WC' on it. Does this mean it has a washroom? I looked at the seat map and can't see where a washroom would be.

Thanks guys!

The 10:00 Pamukkale Turizm bus takes 9 hours, so I guess the Varan bus would be the same.

Yes,this journey does take 9 hours.Other companies covering the route include,Kamil Koç,Metro Turizm and Pamukkale Turizm as mentioned by David.Regardless of any bus amenity symbols no buses in Turkey have toilets.

Thanks for the info guys. I think it's so weird that Turkish buses don't have toilets on them! In North America you just take that for granted.

Buses are first and foremost for the use of Turkish citizens -they just happen to be useful to foreign tourists too.As such there is absolutely no way men and women would share the same toilet facility,and they wouldn't put 2 toilets on buses.It would also be difficult to install the necessary toilet washing spigot(like a bidet tap)and enough water for it, that Turkish people automatically use to wash with after using the toilet.
Intercity buses do however make comfort stops every few hours during the journey.

Thanks, sarikanarya, that is a very logical explanation and one I wouldn't have thought of on my own (I've never been to Turkey before). It is strange that Varan shows that there is a toilet on board when there actually isn't.

It is possible that the bus listed was a very recent west European model which is equipped with a toilet OEM (as manufactured) , but that does not mean that it will be open and available for use while in service in Turkey. While not at the same level as the Japanese, Turkish hygiene standards are quite high and for the reasons that sarikanarya mentioned, you won't find toilets on Turkish buses. Because no member of the bus staff (driver, co driver or steward) is going to lower themselves to the level of cleaning out the toilet, keeping the toilets locked means one less employee to hire to perform that specific job. On a nine hour run, there will be enough stops to allow for toilet and meal breaks. If you have not been to Turkey before, understand that there are virtually NO FREE TOILETS. Hold onto your 1TL coins for that purpose. Bottled water also costs 1TL so a Turk once joked to me that in Turkey you spend one Lira filling yourself with water and another Lira emptying it.

... so a Turk once joked to me that in Turkey you spend one Lira filling yourself with water and another Lira emptying it.

Thanks markinrancho that made me laugh too. I learnt a lot from all reading this thread even if it started off as a bus arrival time query that turned to talking toilets LOL. In fact I'd never ever wondered why there are no toilets on the bus but I do remember a time when I had a real urgency and fortunately the bus driver was understanding enough to allow me to do a quick run at a non-toilet booked stop. The thing was afterwards as I walked/semi ran back to the bus I felt super embarrassed because I had lots of Turkish faces staring from the window and up the aisle no doubt wondering who or what was causing the hold up!! Fortunately I had another tourist sitting next to me so I knew she wouldn't let the bus leave without me.

Yes,they are very obliging,very humane.I arrived into Adana from Bodrum with my legs plaited only to learn that my bus on to Mardin was leaving right then.I ran to the bus,handed by bag over and did a "I'm peeing my pants please wait" mime and ran off.I returned fully expecting the bus(with my bag)to have left but there it was waiting for me.The driver smiled at me gave me a double thumbs up sign and asked"good?",I smiled and nodded my relief only to be aware that the whole bus was peering down the aisle at me,the lone idiot yabancı :) So I gave them all a double thumbs up and everyone burst out laughing and started to clap!
We are all only human aren't we?

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