Tag: Turkey

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Crap crap crap

Looks like I’m going to have to stay in Istanbul a bit longer than I planned. I was planning on leaving on Sunday the 8th, but on Friday one of my hearing aids has stopped working. Luckily Widex do have offices in Istanbul, but when I went there today they were closed. They have another branch listed, but when I went to try and find that, I must have been very close, but couldn’t quite find it. People kept giving me different directions for the street I was looking for.

Hopefully the Widex office will be open on Monday, and hopefully they have suitable facilities, and will be able to repair it quickly there. No Easter Monday here, so it should be open. Not exactly sure what I will do if they can’t fix it, or need to send it away for a while – probably will just set off, then come back to Istanbul later to pick it up.

I’ve also got a problem with trying to source a particular jacket I want. If I’m going to be delayed here, I could try getting a cheap flight to Germany or London, and picking it up there, or maybe I’ll try getting someone to send it to me Poste Restante in Ankara, where I’ll be in a week or two to get my Uzbek visa. Need to think about how I’m going to do it – or do I just tough it out with the gear I have, and then pick up some ex-Soviet gear in Tashkent? I want a wind-stopper layer that’s not too heavy. If I can get to Iran OK, then I should be fine weather-wise until some of the mountain passes in a few more months.

I posted nearly 2kg of gear home today, including my soft shell jacket, heavy-weight thermal layers, and a travel journal. Only 14YTL for sea post, which I thought was pretty good. They didn’t seem to charge me for the box either. I was happy with that. Now just have to hope it gets there. I think it takes 3 weeks or so, doesn’t really matter though, just has to get home some time in the next year. Hopefully I won’t be wishing for the cold-weather gear in the next few weeks though…

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Romanians, Istanbul, and more drugs

As promised, this is a bit of a catch-up of things since Budapest. Will also perhaps try and add some photos later.

I’m now in Istanbul, resting up for a few days. I think I’ll be here until at least Sunday, but haven’t decided for sure yet. Sunday will probably be an easier day to get out of the city, but my plans are to catch up a ferry to somewhere up on the Black Sea coast anyway, so I should be able to avoid much of the traffic.

After Budapest, I headed down through Hungary to the Romanian border. There were only two route choices, the motorway or Route 5, which had lots of “no cycling” signs up. I just ignored those and pedalled on. Some pretty nasty bits traffic wise too, especially the second day when it was raining, and there were huge numbers of trucks on the road I was on, and no shoulder. A trucker I spoke to suggested I get a fluoro vest, and so I now have a very fetching fluoro vest with reflective stripes. Pretty cheap, and makes me feel better when conditions are not so good for riding.

Wild camped in Hungary, I think from looking at some tracks in the sand someone saw my spot, but they left me alone, so no big deal. Crossing into Romania was a relief – the traffic dropped right away, and I had a much nicer ride for a while.

Of course to make up for that, I then had what seemed to be a week of headwinds. My route through Romania was mainly on Route 6, and was largely across boring plains, with nowhere to hide from the wind. Not much fun, and it meant a few long days.

Something caught up with me – either something I ate, or the local water I’ve been drinking, but it caught up with me in Craiova, and I had to take an unscheduled rest day to try and recover. Still wasn’t quite right a few days later, so took some Norofloxacin, which I think has done the trick. Will get some replacement supplies here in Turkey.

Romanians were nice – quite a bit more staring than I’ve had previously though. Lots of cars beeping their horns (in a friendly way), and even the train drivers sounding their horns. Couldn’t quite get my head around the country though – while going around a horse and cart, you’re quite likely to be overtaken by an X5. I think some people are doing better out of the new-found prosperity than others.

Crossing into Bulgaria was a bit interesting, as I did it at night. Riding without lights on potholed roads is not such a great idea, but I got through it OK. Was good to get back into some hills in Bulgaria, and out of the wind. 3 days down the E85, which was surprisingly good, considering what I’d heard about Bulgarian roads. Some very nice new stretches where I raced along at 30km/h. Interesting going through some places where I don’t think many tourists are ever seen.

My last day in Bulgaria was one of the best days riding I’ve had, glorious day, roads, conditions. So I made good time down to the border, and into Turkey. I had thought about it a bit for the last few weeks, and based on reports/advice from others, I decided to get a bus for the last leg into Istanbul. The economics of Turkish buses are beyond me – very cheap, great service with snacks, drinks, fast, regular. Cost me hardly anything for a decent distance – less than a third what the equivalent in NZ would have cost – for better service.

To make up for that, I decided to ride from the Otogar to the area I’m staying in. Lots of fun dodging traffic, stopping to talk to Turkish men everywhere, getting lost, riding through the crowded souks. Got my mosques confused, which meant I thought I was somewhere different to where I actually was. Once I had that worked out, it was just a matter of cruising down to the water, and rolling around to where I wanted to be.

Bike maintenance coming up today, followed by a few days of just generally mucking about, probably doing some planning for my next legs. Got some visa battles to fight, going to be a bit tricky, as I left some timings a little late. Oh well. Think I should be able to sort them all out in the end, just might have to do a few buses here and there to embassies.

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Turkey at last!

Well, I’ve done it – I’ve crossed Europe by bicycle. Had to battle days and days of headwinds across the plains of Romania, and crossed over to Bulgaria. Had a few good days ride across Bulgaria, with a particularly good day today. Crossed over to Edirne, where I’ll rest tonight before heading to Istanbul tomorrow.

As I crossed the border, the call to prayer went out from the mosque – a very clear sign of the change in culture. Everyone is very friendly, checking into the hotel was interesting – had to sit down for tea with the manager, and chat for a while first.

When I get to Istanbul, I’ll put up some more detail about my last couple of weeks riding

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Cruising the Mediterranean – a tough life

I’m still in Turkey, where I’ve just finished a 4 day blue cruise with Olympos Yachting. We went from Olympos to Fethiye on a yacht over 100ft long. It was the largest of their boats, capable of sleeping 36. We only had 20 plus crew on board though, so there was plenty of space. Nice yacht too, plenty of space to just lounge about, either in the sun or the shade.

Plenty of options to swim each day in the Mediterranean which, although lacking sandy beaches, has quite remarkable water. It is very clear, and you can see the bottom and well over 20ft. It is quite a striking blue-green though, almost like a picture-postcard of the sea. Normally these cruises are a bit of a big party on the water, but due to the direction I’m going, and the time of year, it didn’t quite work out like that. The rest of the passengers were all Australian, travelling on an organised tour – with an average age of about 60. Not what I expected, and the young Aussie on the crew was a bit suprised too. Oh well, still fun, even if we were sipping Milo at 9:30 before turning in for another early night.

I’m staying in Selcuk tonight, before going to Cannakale tomorrow. From there I will visit Gallipoli, before pushing on to Istanbul. Current thinking is that I will go from there to Athens, then to Crete, along with another Greek Island, before finally heading back to London to pick up some work.

Got to go now, off to investigate the bars and restaurants of Kusadasi, a tourist trap town near Selcuk. Pretty touristy, but there could be a bit more nightlife happening than Selcuk. Last night was quiet there – I was sitting in a bar, watching Pero Cameron, Paul Henare and Tab Baldwin winning a playoff match in the Turkish Basketball League. Odd.

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God bless Ataturk!

It’s only about 70km from Aleppo to Antakya, but it feels like a completely different country – no wait, that’s because it is a different country! After walking around Aleppo surrounded by women who were completely covered in black – even their eyes – it makes a very pleasant change to be in a country where women are dressed closer to Western norms. Beer is widely available, the kebabs are good, and I’ve even been able to use some German! Turkey is good so far.

Due to some mistaken assumptions and poor planning on my part, I’ve ended up with a day to kill in Antakya. I want to push on to Capadocia, and I assumed that I would be able to get a bus this morning. Instead, the bus doesn’t leave until 15:30 today, and gets to Nevsehir at 23:00. This is going to cause just a few complications since I want to get to Goreme tonight, and I don’t have a place to stay. Oh well, I’m sure it will work out. Maybe I should have bought my sleeping bag with me though…

From Damascus I headed on to Palmyra, to view the ruins there. Quite a lot of old stones, and remarkably isolated. Palmyra really is a long way from anywhere, out in the desert. It was nice to later cross back over via Homs to Crac des Chevaliers, and see farmland again, rather than the relentless desertscape.

Syrian people did prove their hospitality going through Homs. The bus came into the other end of town to the other bus I needed to get to go to Crac des Chevaliers. Thanks for the great advice once again Lonely Planet. Homs has 3 bus stations, not the 2 described in the current Syria/Lebanon guide. Anyway, after I fought off the taxi drivers, a local guy showed me which bus to get on, paid for my ticket, went part of the way there, and invited me to his house for tea. This from an educated chemical engineer who only earns about $400USD per month.

Crac des Chevaliers was interesting, and remarkably complete. It didn’t take much to see what the castle would have been like when still in active use. Cool location too, sitting high above the surroundıng countryside.

Hama made a pleasant change for a place to stop that night. A nice smaller town, where the taxi drivers charged very reasonable fares, with little haggling required. Good food available too. The water wheels are from a different era. Good to see they have maintained them, even if they don’t raise water to aqueducts any more – they just spin around, groaning as they do so.

Aleppo did nothing for me, even if I did stay at the Baron Hotel, where the likes to Agatha Christie and TE Lawrence have stayed. The famed souq is maybe OK if you’re into that thing, but to me it was just more of the same shops selling the same crap.

A fun drive into Turkey. Clearly our driver was in a hurry. On more than one occasion we drove up on the footpath or off the road to get around backed up trucks. Once when stuck behind some trucks going down a road that had a raised median strip, the driver was unfazed. At an intersection we crossed to the other side and roared down that for a few kilometres. Oncoming vehicles were not so impressed though. Still, the trip, including customs, took about 2.5 hours. C.f. with the LP’s 4 hour estimate.

Speaking of customs, the phrase “couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery” sprung to mind as I watched them at work. On both sides of the border, trucks were backed up for miles. Both sides of the road through no-man’s land were chock full of trucks, all stopped. Hardly any movement was going on. Most drivers were either asleep, or sitting on chairs on the side of the road. Clearly, for these men crossing the border was an all-day affair. Commerce is a country’s life-blood, and it would seem to me far better to expedite the flow of goods across the border. Obviously you want to maintain certain security standards, but they could have moved those trucks much, much quicker if they wanted to.

Going into Turkey was also a bit weird. A pile of passports was handed through the window, then eventually handed back, stamped. No-one actually matched up our passports with our faces. Again, it was chaos. Instead of a line moving past a window, everyone just crammed up to the small window, where every few minutes someone would hand back a pile of passports, and take another pile. Somehow my passport got back to me though.

Obviously transporting foodstuffs between Syria and Turkey is the thing to do, as our driver and fixer had numerous bags of stuff, that they tried to associate with various passengers as we were being checked. The guards took great interest in the Turkish and Syrian bags, but barely even glanced at mine. I guess tourists aren’t moving a lot of stuff through the border.

But anyway, I’m here in Turkey, and happy about it. I’ll probably be here at least two weeks, maybe a little longer. It looks now like I’ll have time to visit Greece, and maybe one or two Greek Islands before heading back to the UK.