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Sunday 24th October 2,330miles, Edirne, Turkey
Today we only planned to reach Svilingrad and stay the night before crossing the border tomorrow, not wishing to repeat our last border crossing experience. However, by 10 o clock we were sitting in a cafe and decided that we owed it to ourselves to cross today. We quickly rode the 10miles to Kapitan Andreevo on the border where we used up the last of our small Bulgarian change on an early slap up lunch. Although we had to show our passports about six times and get disinfected by being sprayed with water (body and all!) the border crossing was relatively painless and the Turkish border police were extremely friendly. After checking our route with the local police we set a furious pace past the 10km + queue of trucks headed for Bulgaria into the town of Edirne. As we hit the outskirts all you could see was the huge mosque in the centre - our first sight of proper Turkey. After 3 tough days and 2 nights in the woods we were humming a little and needed a cheap hotel room for the night. After Kate had spent a while chatting to the bloke in the tourist office we found ourselves a little hotel in a bustling side street. We got ourselves some Turkish money out of a bank - even the poorest man here is a millionaire - and found ourselves a cafe to relax. Edirne is a vibrant, bustling town and a great introduction to Turkey. Sitting in our hotel room writing this diary we are still coughing and spluttering from our prolonged colds. Hearing us through our bedroom door and taking pity on our condition, the hotel manager has just brought us cups of tea. I think we are going to like it here. Off to get a kebab now - tummies are grumbling! Monday 25th October Once in Edirne, we felt that even though there were still two and a half days of riding, that the 250km into Istanbul would easily roll by. The map deceivingly indicated a flat route yet this was not to be. The road from the European border to Istanbul crosses an endless series of ridges and valleys, forcing us to be climbing or descending steeply most of the time. Once we had settled mentally into this unexpectedly hilly terrain it became almost perversely enjoyable. Once at the top of a particularly steep sweaty climb as we looked across to the next similarly steep climb, Paul turned to Kate and she was grinning - what strange characters we are becoming. To break the rhythm of the day, every 15 - 20miles, we'd stop in a village or town for a drink or maybe a bite to eat. The first of these was Havsa where we stopped for Turkish çay (tea) and pastries. They were busy putting up flags in preparation for Republic Day, and Kate was kept busy with the cats basking in the sun and fishing in the bins. Another one of these was Babaeski where we cut our stay short as the intimidating group of men round us was proving too much. The first night, after riding about 60miles, Paul decided that the lush green grass beside the Jendarma (military police) post looked quite inviting. So after a little dithering, he went over to ask. And before long we were both sitting in their compound sipping coke and chatting to the bored men as they waited for the sun to set. We had found ourselves in Turkey in the middle of Ramadan and this was our first real exposure to it. We chatted over the maps which they were particularly interested in, showing us where they all came from in Turkey. One young lad even wanted us to take him back to Konya with us on the back of our bikes! Although they introduced themselves, it's their nicknames that stick in our heads, especially Robert Redford and Omar Sharif! Having cooled down and restocked on water they pointed us to a place where we could camp nearby. Although not the green grass we had spotted earlier, the local piece of common land dotted with trees and sheep droppings was pleasant enough. A shepherd was grazing his sheep there and it was obviously a popular picnic spot. As we settled down in the lovely warm evening we were quickly accompanied by a young stray dog who seemed content to curl up by the bikes and watch us go about our evening duties. We fed her a tin of meat we had bought in Hungary which is probably the reason why she stayed curled up outside our tent all night. Tuesday 26th October The next morning, leaving our companion behind, we pedalled off into a very misty start. Coinciding with the loss of visibility we also lost the safety of the hard shoulder as this also disappeared. Many a time were we rushed off into the gravel with trucks thundering past making the 15miles into Çorlu. A hairy experience. As we emerged into the sunlight after a difficult hour, Paul noticed that the bolt holding his front pannier rack in place had snapped again. This time, however, we couldn't make a roadside repair, forcing Kate to take some of his stuff and Paul to pile all the rest of his load on the back of his bike. This left him with a sluggish, unbalanced and twitchy bike for the last 100km into Istanbul. Towards the end of the day, after grabbing something to eat at a service station, we started to follow signs for a campsite 20km away along the main road. When this finally appeared it emerged to be a grubby little plot of land, next to the sea, with disgusting toilets and a shower you wouldn't dare to go in without protective clothing. The place stank of fish and we were never quite sure what we had pitched our tent on - at least it was cheap and had cute puppies running about! The restaurant up the road served us a wonderful meal which was just the tonic after our long hard day. Wednesday 27th October After everything we had been through, the next morning proved to be mentally and physically, our toughest yet. We only had 30miles to finally get us into the centre of Istanbul but almost all of this was on the busiest most manic road we have ever seen. Nothing in England (including motorways) even comes close! We found ourselves on more than one occasion in the middle of a convergence of two 5-lane roads, desperately trying to cut across to the safety of the hard shoulder again, bringing the honking, swerving cars to a near standstill. We both felt so frail with only our helmets for protection and both experienced more near misses than we care to mention. It really was amazing that we eventually found ourselves in Istanbul city centre, hearts still racing but in one piece. As we wove our way through the streets towards the old town, we were stopped by a man with very good English who we agreed could lead us to see a hotel. It turned out to be a lovely little place in the central location where we got a double room with an ensuite bathroom and great buffet brekkie for the same price as two hostel bunk beds. Omar's a funny chap and a bit of a dark horse. He apparently has a shop which we might go and visit. He said 'I would like to sell you carpet, but I can't because you have no home!' Classic! He also seems to have quite a string of foreign girlfriends, one of which Kate had to write an email in her best English to apologise for his slack behaviour. He seems a bit like Joey out of Friends - he doesn't have a problem getting girlfriends, but keeping them is not so easy. Thursday 28th October
Istanbul itself is a crazy, vibrant, bustling and intense blend of eastern and western culture and in many ways is perhaps not the best place to have a rest. The intensity and the fast pace of the city keep you on your toes all the time. We are endlessly being approached by restaurateurs and carpet shop owners trying to get us into their establishment. Most of these you can brush off with a few polite words but every now and then you can't get away and end up chatting. One such time a waiter called Mehmet bluntly demanded of Paul 'Why have you not been to the barbers?' (he probably did look quite a state not shaving for 2 months). He promptly propelled him into the nearest barbershop where Paul was trimmed, shaved, shampooed, burnt and fragranced while Kate sat outside drinking tea with Mehmet. (You've got to watch these Turkish guys if you drop your guard for just a moment...) As we mentioned, we arrived in Turkey in the midst of Ramadan. The city has been busy with celebrations of this and yesterday's Republic Day. Outside the Blue Mosque dozens of stalls have been set up, selling all types of Turkish food and drink which is incredibly busy of an evening when the mosque is also lit up. Every night at about 5.30pm enormous queues start to form outside the restaurants selling Ramadan meals, where they all wait patiently not touching their food until the call from the mosque tells them it is officially dusk. We once got caught in the midst of this and were hurried by the waiter to finish our meals in double quick time (surrounded by dozens of non-eating Muslims) so he could fill our seats with our Ramadan participants. Puts a new meaning on the phrase 'Fast Food'! We have now learnt to eat at lunchtime or well after dark. Despite it being Ramadan, we have been stocking up on the calories in a way that only 2 hungry cyclists can. Although Paul was quite disappointed, Kate was delighted when what we thought were savoury pastries were in fact sickly sweet honey drenched Baklavas. We have tried numerous Turkish kebabs, pastries, breads and drinks in a bid to stock ourselves up for the next big push. Friday 29th October We have also done a bit of sight seeing. Today we visited the Blue Mosque with its amazing mosaic interior. Absolutely breathtaking. We walked to a more fashionable part of the city accompanied by an 81-year-old man called Sinvah. He was an incredibly well educated man who had spent time in England and in America and who was full of knowledge of the city and its history. He reminded Kate very much of Aunty Gloria. We finished off a busy day with a visit to the Orient Youth Hostel bar for a 'quiet one' where we met a number of other travellers (hello Paul, Sergio, Craig, Grant and everyone else!). We had a great night even if the belly dancer wasn't up to very much and Paul's experience of being dragged up, top off, to dance with her in front of everybody was a bit of a nightmare (Kate was very proud of him). It was really nice to let our hair down with other like-minded people and we didn't get in until 2am this morning. Saturday 30th October 2,479.0 miles, Istanbul, Turkey No chance of a lie in as we had to take our bikes down to be serviced this morning. It may be costing us nearly 100 pounds for both bikes but at least we will know that they will be as ready as possible to cycle the thousands of kilometres ahead. We then went to the famous Grand Bazaar where we lost ourselves and got lost with its 4,500 shops, only to emerge hours later weary sore legged from energetic drunken dancing the night before and in need of a siesta. So here we are, it's amazing we've made it so far! We're standing on the edge of Asia having now crossed the whole of Europe (10 countries) in 2 months. We think that we can say that a major milestone in our trip has been reached. The last 2 months haven't been without incident but we made it here safely and miraculously in one piece… and now we're just waiting for the bustle and activity of Ramadan to calm down so that we can go out in search of some grub. Paul and Kate x
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Challoner's, Fasiledes, Amersham, Buckinghamshire