The night in the   Sofia-Istanbul-Express was very comfortable. After the stressful day, I had some excellent sleep.

Sadly the night was interrupted as usual : border check in 🇹🇷 #Kapukule from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. - the border check is ridiculous : No one actually checks you follow the rules and walk to the passport check and the X-ray machine. If you wanted to, you could easily bypass it.

Anyways, now relaxed and prepared for spending the entire day on trains. From 🇹🇷 Istanbul Halkali I'm heading eastbound by comfortable  YHT high speed trains via 🇹🇷 Ankara to 🇹🇷 #Sivas - my #AzadiRail destination for today.

Arriving in Istanbul Söğütlüçeşme, time for a breakfast and a quick break. After 1½ h in the old city center, back at the railway station.

Leaving the cute blue  HST Velaro behind, I boarded the good old  class HT65000 for my way to 🇹🇷 #Ankara.

#AzadiRail day 4 has begun.

The  CAF YHT train is really comfortable but I'm honest : After pretty much 72 hours on #AzadiRail travels without any major break I'm really happy to stay in a hotel room. ETA : 7 h.

Also, a pity the new high speed line up to Istanbul isn't open yet. This could highly speed up the 1.5 h it takes at 80 kph to reach Izmit YHT.

After 4 hours, our train arrived in 🇹🇷 Ankara. Time to buy my first ticket for my way back and have a little snack.

Ankara Gar is a tremendous station. The YHT station has 3 platforms but is rather sized like an airport departure hall.

After one hour, time to board my last #AzadiRail high-speed train for a while : a  Velaro TR / class HT80000 - most of my readers might feel familiar with its appearance from   or  Eurostar.

After four days of travels, I'm honestly looking forwards to sleeping in a bed and getting a shower in 🇹🇷 #Sivas, my destination for today.

Now that I have all Turkish tickets collected, my travel plan home is fixed starting from Turkey :

Day & night 1 : 🇹🇷 Batman - Ankara in the Güney Ekspresi  sleeper
Day 2 : 🇹🇷 Ankara - Istanbul
Night 2 : 🇹🇷 Istanbul - 🇧🇬 Софія / Sofia in the Sofia-Istanbul-Express  sleeper
Day 3 : 🇧🇬 Софія / Sofia - 🇧🇬 Горна Оряховица / Gorna Oryahovitsa - 🇧🇬 Русе / Ruse
Night 3 : 🏨 Hotel in 🇧🇬 Русе / Ruse
Day 4 : 🇧🇬 Русе / Ruse - 🇷🇴 Bucuresti by bus 🚍
Night 4 : 🇷🇴 Bucuresti - 🇭🇺 Budapest - 🇦🇹 Wien by  Dacia in  sleeper
Day 5 : 🇦🇹 Wien - 🇩🇪 Nürnberg - 🇫🇷 Lauterbourg

Heck, that's once again 5 days of #AzadiRail travels ... But at least unlike my inbound journey I could place one night in a hotel in the middle of the journey rather than at the end.

#AzadiRail Day 4 was : 🇹🇷 Halkali - 🇹🇷 Istanbul Söğütlüçeşme - 🇹🇷 Ankara - 🇹🇷 Sivas
Night 4 : finally a bed without wheels 🛏️ !

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Everything settled for today : I asked the receptionist to verify whether I can arrive in my hotel in 🇹🇷 Diyarbakır at 2.30 a.m. tonight - this is exactly my plan : in order to maximize the #AzadiRail travel time on train, I'm going to take the local train and a bus afterwards - rather than taking the direct bus. Sadly this means that I'm going to arrive in the middle of the night.

Now still a couple of hours to waste before returning to 🇹🇷 #Sivas railway station aka : time for #Vagonweb !

After one more ride in the cute #BlueBus, I'm back at the station waiting for my  train to arrive.

The busses are that much overcrowded, it's impossible to access the payment terminal to buy a ticket. Following the behavior of the locals, the solution was to simple hand the credit cards from the back of the bus to the front where the passenger next to the terminal did the contactless payment. Weird but works.

🇹🇷 #Sivas as a city did not really convince me although the station is really beautiful. The friendly officer in the ticket booth noted me my local train will be departing from platform 2, so now waiting for its arrival.

#AzadiRail

After a short waiting time, my  MT30000 DMU arrived at the station. I've never been on this train class before but so far it looks really fine : comfortable, adjustable seats, toilets and definitely enough capacity to carry out the local train service to 🇹🇷 #Malatya.

Sadly in this will be my last #AzadiRail train on my inbound journey. From tonight on I will only take #AzadiBus busses up to my final destination.

Travel recommendation : the  42044 from 🇹🇷 #Sivas to 🇹🇷 #Malatya is an absolute must-travel route in central Anatolia 🥰 !

The train travels the same route as the Ankara-Diyarbakır Touristic Express others pay USD 500 for - but as a local train it's cheap as USD 5 or even included in InterRail.

From wide grass lands, little hills up to snowy mountains everything covered 🏔️.

The train is by far one of the most comfortable regional trainsets I have seen so far. Little occupancy.

#AzadiRail #InterRail

Some irony in this : from my entire trip so far, this is the first route and first train that was new to me. Both are an absolute highlight of my trip and my railway experience in general. Sadly after 5 days of travels, this is also the last train I'll be taking for the rest of my inbound journey.

So far, #AzadiRail day 5 absolutely appreciated 🥰 !

At the end, we arrived with 25 minutes delay on the last #AzadiRail train. Still enough time to make the transfer to the bus stop for my #AzadiBus.

The bus stop looks way more modern and likely also hase dozens of times more passengers than the  station - and also more #CatContent !

List of #AzadiRail decisions I will regret : #1 night bus with arrival at 2 a.m. 🇹🇷 #Malatya - 🇹🇷 #Diyarbakır. Anyways, #AzadiBus number one of many 🚍 !

The bus is clean, spacious and has good sleeping seats at least. Four hours of travel time ahead 🤐.

#AzadiBus stop #2 : Elazığ bus terminal 🚍.

Half journey done. Bus still comfortable and I'm surprisingly relaxed. There's good supply of drinks and snacks, the air is fresh and cool.

#AzadiRail

#AzadiBus stop #3 : #Diyarbakır bus terminal - my destination, arrived 35 minutes late.

The bus terminal was surprisingly calm with low traffic considering the proximity to the 🇮🇶 Iraqi border. Anyways, I'm tired and immediately headed over to the hotel.

My room presents luxury and comfortable, sadly with street noise. Time to sleep ; work is waiting tomorrow morning.

#AzadiRail day & night 5 were :

- 🇹🇷 Sivas - 🇹🇷 Malatya by  regional train with amazing sight
- 🇹🇷 Malatya - 🇹🇷 Diyarbakır by comfortable night bus

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From 🇹🇷 #Diyarbakır bus terminal, my #AzadiBus will bring me to 🇮🇶 #Erbil / #Arbil / #Hewlêr in Iraqi #Kurdistan region. #AzadiRail country 8 of 9 in sigh 🎉 !

The bus is comfortable and modern though not as fancy as the bus I had on my way to Diyarbakır. To my surprise, the steward spoke decent English. This will simplify the communication at #IbrahimKhalil border crossing.

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