Entry Istanbul –  a tale of a nerve wracking experience

Today was a special day and this story will only be about the road and almost nothing about meeting nice people and other non-cycling related experiences….

The gas station we camped at was 110 km from Istanbul. Not that we think that a distance of 110 km is too long, but when going in to a mega city on a hilly road with intensive traffic, it can be a too big bite for a day.  We were where we were and there was nothing to do about it than to start extra early so we told the staff at the gas station that we would wake up at 6. Our alarm clock was set on 5.45 so at 6.00 we were already awake when one of the guys came and shaked our tent to tell us it was time to wake up.  In hotels you can order a wake up call – I don’t know what the same service should be called when camping at a gas station 🙂

We packed our things and walked with our bikes to the gas station where we were offered coffee and a sandwich. We also ate the remaining boiled eggs that we yesterday had got form Selcuk’s parents. The hospitality shown to us is so far amazing.

During our first 20 km we rode on a big road with a wide shoulder. There was no wind and mainly downhill towards the Marmara Sea. It was a special feeling to see the sea again after only having seen rivers for a month. Last time we saw the see was in Gdynia in Poland (not counting our short trip to Sweden where we went sailing with friends).

The road along the Marmara sea was big and to start with not so busy and it was possible to cycle on it without paying any extra attention to the surrounding traffic. The hills were not very long or very steep either so it was a smooth ride for some 20 km, but then it all started…..

Istanbul has 15 million people and is on par with Bangkok when it comes to population. We have cycled a lot in Bangkok as well as in and out of that city a number of times so we know what cycling in a lively megacity can be like. Like in Bangkok, Istanbul has several highways and motorways that lead to the city and we chose the one that goes along the sea shore.

The traffic got more and more intense the closer we got to Istanbul but as long as there was a paved shoulder to cycle on there were no problems for us. But sometime when there was about 60 km left to town the shoulder was severely damaged and since we didn’t dare to ride on the road itself we cycled on the gravel beside the road. It was like riding on a single track with a fully loaded touring bike with trucks, buses and cars passing by continously. To add to our burden, we also faced a steady breeze straight into our faces.

At that time we felt that we should have woken up already at 4 AM and started cycling at 5.30 instead in order to be sure to make it into town before darkness fell.

The surrounding traffic was so loud so it was difficult to communicate. Wej rode behind and used her mirror to check if any large vehicle was approaching too close. Whenever she discovered anything she blew her whistle to warn me. My job was to navigate on the gravel shoulder so we didn’t fall into any potholes or cut our tyres on any of the crushed bottles littering the roadside.

From time to time the shoulder was paved again and we could increase the speed and whenever we passed by some town or suburb we cycled on the parallell local road in order to avoid the busy big main road. Being able to ride on a paved shoulder and on those local roads allowed us to get some brief relief from the 10000% concentration that we needed to muster when riding on the big road.

After 75 km we saw it towering in front of us…. We were rolling downhill on the highway when we saw a suburb with the size of a small city climbing on a huge hill. The town was split in two halves by the road we were riding on. We were informed about this climb that started from sea level and ended at an altitude of 200 meters above the sea level. From a climbing perspective 200 vertical meters is not anything special, but after riding for 75 km whereof 50 km was with headwind and on an extremely busy road and sometimes on the gravel track beside, we felt a lot of stress. We had also read in internet forums that there was no parallell local road to it so we approached the climb with extreme respect and cautiousness.

The neverending traffic passed by on our left side while there was an steel rail as a fence our our right side. We didn’t want to go too close to the traffic, but neither go too close to the railings either and run the risk of any of our panniers touching it and causing us too loose balance. We rode very slowly and careful and after having climbed 50 vertical meters there was an opening to a local road. This was in contradiction to what we had read but after a quick look on the GPS it seemed like we would be able to do a large part of the climb on the local parallell road.

Once we were off the highway it was just like any other climb, but immediately before the top of the hill we had to go back to on to the highway and on the top of the hill the road split like a Y. Both our map and GPS told us that we needed to go to the left, but how to cross such a huge road when cars come at high speed all the time? It seemed impossible for us to take the road to the left and we decided to take the road to the right instead and hope that we could get back on track at a safer place.

Now we were in the outskirts of metropolitan Istanbul and traffic was just like Bangkok. Intense, numerous, fast and drivers not used to bicycles. Forbidden or not, but as soon we saw a pavement we went up to cycle on it. I think we cycled 20 km on suburbian Istanbul’s pavements, passing crowded bus stops, low hanging signs or billboards, water posts and big poles that made the passages narrow. Sometimes we had to ride on the big road, but it worked well.

We knew the airport were 14 km from our hotel and the aircraft we saw flying in looked bigger and bigger so we made a steady progress in our approach of the city. A few kilometers before the airport we came to a sign saying ”Beach road” or something similar. It pointed to the right while the big road continued to the left. We turned right and the heavy traffic immediately disappeared. The beach road was a normal road along the Marmara Sea and the traffic was not intense at all. Soon we passed the airport and then the kilometers started to pass by a lot quicker. When 9 km remained there was even a cycling path along the shore and we could enter central Istanbul cycling side by side talking to each other.

Our friend Gökhan who lives in Istanbul and who visited us during his cycling trip in Sweden in November (!!!) last year had helped us to book a hotel. We entered the hotel’s address in our navigator, left the cycling path and threw ourselves into the messy traffic in old Istanbul. At that point of time I was glad for having cycled a lot in Bangkok because cycling in Istanbul traffic was very much like cycling in Bangkok. The only difference was that Istanbul has steep hills while Bangkok is dead flat.

After arriving to our hotel we could finally take a deep breath and say to each other:

– ”we did it”

The ride was only 115 km which is a normal distance, but the traffic situation had caused our minds to be on full alert the entire day and when the tension subsided we felt completely exhausted physically as well as mentally. We were happy to have been able to safely ride into Istanbul and thereby conclude the first segment of the journey to Bangkok, but we felt too tired and almost empty inside to go out and celebrate it. After a quick shower, we went down to the first kebab/döner eatery we could find, ordered something quick and went back to our room to sleep.

Language lessons…

Our host Selcuk only needs 20 minutes from waking up until leaving for work. We had some tea with him, talked a little and then said good bye when he left. We were now alone with Selcuk’s parents whom we had no common language with. They were very nice people and at the breakfast table we got our first lesson in Turkish.

We pointed at things on the table such as tea, coffe, spoon, salt, tomatoes, cucumber, cheese and Wej took notes in her little notebook. When she had noted enough of breakfast related words, we took the lesson further and asked for road travel related words such as left, right, road, straight ahead, bridge, hill, intersection etc.

Getting to know the nouns was not difficult – we only needed to point, but when we tried to get into adjectives such as hungry, full, hot, cold the lesson turned into a game of charades. It was very funny indeed and all four of us laughed a lot.

When it was time to leave Selcuks father jumped up on his motorbike and drove ahead of us to guide us through the city center to the road we planned to ride on.

Staying with Selcuk and his parents was really fun and interesting and we enjoy this kind of meetings very much and hope to get many more along our way.

We would like to say a big big big THANK YOU to the Aslan family for your hospitality. We wish you all the best for the future and to Selcuk we’d like to say – Good luck with your plans to build that cottage. If you visit Sweden, please drop by our home.

Selcuk had adviced us to visit some places along the way. We didn’t have time to see them all so we chose a small Roman amfiteater that was discovered and excavated only 10 years ago. My knowledge of the history of the Roman empire definately needs to be refreshed so I’ll try to spend some time doing some googleing about it. Carrying a computer and access to internet makes it easy to catch up on things one have forgotten 🙂

In the afternoon we rode through small villages and a kids on the school yard shouted ”hello” and ”what’s your name”. Sometimes we stopped to have a word with them and other times we waved and ride through. Apparently not so many tourists visit that area.

We wanted to go as far as possible in order to have Istanbul within reach the following day, The wind had grown stronger during the late afternoon and either the road had turned or the wind shifted direction and provided us with a nasty headwind. We then decided to turn to another road in order to go southwest instead of straight to the west – this gave us a pleasant tailwind during the late afternoon.

Our whish to reach as far as possible led to the decision to camp and since we didn’t know if we would get running water to do the dishes we stopped in a town to have dinner. Watching the bikes from the inside of the little restaurant was impossible so we decided to sit outside. When cycling in the sunshine it was nice, but sitting outside in the shade was terribly cold. Our termometer only showed 7 degrees…. Who said it couldn’t be cold in Turkey?

We then continued in the direction towards the Marmara Sea. When only 30-45 minutes of daylight remained we went in to a gas station to fill up water and go to the toilet. The guys working there immediately welcomed us in and offered us hot tea and asked where we were heading. Wej explained that we were heading to Istanbul and then to her home in Bangkok, then she smiled her most charming smile and asked the guys if we could put up her tent behind their gas station. The answer was yes and they showed us a place behind a storage container.

As soon as the tent was up, sleeping bags rolled out and mattresses pumped, we walked back to the gas station to have more tea, eat our sandwhiches and boiled eggs that Selcuk’s parents had given us, brush our teeth and so on. Now the night shift had started to work and they also wanted to hear the strange story about cycling to Bangkok.

Since there were not so many customers at that time of the evening we had plenty of time to communicate. When having the lesson with Selcuk in the morning we pointed at things and noted in the note book, but now we used a more modern way to communicate – google translate…. 🙂

The cashier had a computer with internet and we all stood around it typing in our questions and answers while also using sign language. Using the google translate the 25 year old cashier proudly even managed to tell about his pilgrimage to Mecka earlier this year. Our conversations were fun and we all laughed a lot since google translate sometimes make strange translations.

The gas station provided free coffee and tea for customers at a machine outside the shop and the gas stations staff ran out to fetch more cups to us all the time. What a great hospitality…. We think Turkey will be a nice experience.

It was nice to have an unplanned rest day. Elhovo didn’t have much to see and we had not planned to do anything either so we spent our rest day looking after our equipment, do some research on the internet and sleep. My duty is to clean the drive trains (chains, chainrings and cassettes) and the surgeon latex gloves I brought along are very useful. Working with oily things for two hours without access to proper oil dissolving soap is otherwise equal to many days with black fingers.

Late in the evening we searched the warmshowers hospitality network and found a host in Kirklereli some 60 km into Turkey. Sending a request less than 24 hours in advance is to try your luck, but we quickly got a reply that we were welcome after 6 PM the following day.

The weather was boring. Grey sky, 8-9 degrees and windy. The distance from Elhovo to the border was 24 km and with little traffic on the road and a nice tailwind on our backs the ride towards the border was very smooth. When approaching the border area we caught up with a seemingly endless que of trucks waiting to cross the border into Turkey. The line was about 2 km long and we saw absolutely no reason why we should wait at the end of that line so we rode past all the trucks – we then felt just like the turtle in the story about the rabbit and the turtle….

In the immediate border area there was no movement and we thought the trucks had to wait for the border guards lunch break or something, but no….. As soon as we turned up a guy came out to check our passports. Actually we had to show our passport 5 times. First we showed them to the Bulgarian border police, then we rode 50 meter to the Bulgarian customs officers who checked them again. We then continued through 100 meter of no-mans-land before the Turkish border police checked our passport. That was a slow procedure as he was checking each passport for several minutes – not strange that the line of trucks were so long.

After being cleared by the Turkish border police we rolled 50 meters to another little building where a guy checked our passports again. We don’t know for what reason or what authority he represented, but after a short glance in the passports he waved us thorugh. Then we continued another 50 meter to the Turkish customs where the passports were checked a 5th and last time before we were properly inside Turkish territory. This guy asked if we had come from Bulgaria. Hmmm – what to say??? I wanted to reply “where else do you think we could have come from?”, but me experience is to always smile to border guards so my answer was. “Yes we came from Bulgaria” and pointed to the Bulgarian side 100 meters away.

The entire border procedure took about 20 minutes and during this time we were mainly standing still and my toes went numb. This is by no means any new sensation to me – I am very used to numbness in my toes after cycling through an icy central Europe, but I must admit that I did not expect my first action in Turkey to be a quick entry into a restaurant just inside the border to get my feet re-heated…

Although a simple roadside restaurant, it did set a new standard for our lunches and we look forward to a lot of more culinary explorations. 🙂

Riding from the border was super smooth. A wide road with smooth asphalt and nice shoulder for us to ride on. One could think that there would be many trucks from the line overtaking us all the time, but this never happened. Few trucks came and maybe they are still waiting in that line.

After 30 km we left the big road and turned to a smaller road leading through villages and along farmlands. It is interesting how so many things can change by just passing the imaginary line a nations border really is. Horse carriages were gone and there were a lot more tractors than we ever saw in Bulgaria and Romania. There were fewer dogs that ran around freely and those that were running around neither barked, nor chased us. Church towers were replaced by minarets and in every village we passed old men were sitting at a table to drink tea and chat with each other. The countryside seemed to be more alive in Turkey than we had experienced during the last days in Bulgaria and Romania.

The tailwind we used to have turned to a strong side wind once we had turned to the smaller road. Tailwind is always best and headwind the hardest, but strong wind into the side is probably the most difficult to handle since it affects the balance.

After a navigational error the side wind was gone and replaced by a strong headwind that promised to make our remaining 15 km tough. We wanted to make sure that we didn’t go in the wrong direction so when we saw a group of men in front of a building we stopped and tried to ask for directions by pointing forward and say the name of the town we were going to. We got affirmative answers but were quickly invited into their lunch room to have some tea. We had absolutely no common language to use when talking to each other, but still we were invited. This was our first encounter with the famous Turkish hospitality.

5 km before arriving into Kirklereli city we sent a text message to our host Selcuk telling him that we were approaching the city. When standing at the main square we sent another one telling where we were and less than 5 minutes later Selcuk came walking. We walked with our bikes to his house where his mother had prepared a lovely soup with green peas and woodcock (Morkulla in Swedish). I have heard that its meat should be really tasty but had never tried it before. Now I can confirm that it truly has a very delicous taste.

Selcuk also taught us a new way of eating pasta – mix hot pasta with natural youghurt. It tastes wonderful.

Long discussions about everything followed with Selcuk and his parents and these kind of meetings is the most wonderful parts of a trip like this. We will do our best to continue to have as many meetings like this as possible.

This was to be our last full day in Bulgaria. The wind had been strong all night and we had slept badly and waken up a few times when the roof of the tent had been pressed down to our faces by the wind gusts. The good thing with this strong wind was that the ventilation was superb and everything was completely dry.

We had breakfast at a gas station and off we went. We had made an appointment with a host in the Warmshower hospitality network for touring cyclists, but as our route had changed his house were now a bit off our route and we had to send him a mail telling that we couln’t see him. It was a hard decision to make since we really want to meet local people but the detour would have been too long.

There is not much to say about the cycling itself. We went on a large road to start with and there was very little traffic. After the big road we once again hit a small back country road and rode side by side with each other for several hours only meeting cars occasionally.

Storks are rarely seen in Sweden and the first time I saw one was when we cycled through the Baltic countries a few years ago. I almost fell off my bike by surprise but after a while we understood that they were a very common sight in the Baltics. The storks are very common in Bulgaria too and they seem to be present in every village we have cycled through. The number of them indicates that there must be a lot of babies born in Bulgaria… 🙂

We wanted to stay in a hotel this night after having camped for two nights in a row and where the last night has allowed us very little sleep. In all the villages, small and big, there seem to be very few hotels or motels. We didn’t find one until we arrived in the town of Elhovo and by then we were so tired that we decided to take the following day as a rest day.

In Elhovo we found a nice restaurant that served tasty Bulgarian food and we went to have dinner there both evenings we spent in the town.

Two weeks ago we made a post informing that we can’t go to Iran because our presence there coincides with the presidential election and visas won’t be granted during that period. We then investigated alternative routes and had two alternatives, the northern route through Ukraine and Russia and the southern route through Turkey, Georgia and Azerbadjan.

We asked for your opinions and we got many good advices which we are grateful for.

Many of you have asked us which route we will choose and we have now decided to go for the southern route. The reasons are:

• We already planned going to Turkey and Georgia
• Food is expected to be more interesting in those countries
• The southern route has more mountains
• We avoid the hazzle of applying for russian visa
• The northern route has too much steppe
• We will see the unpredictable ferry ride as an adventure in itself

 

Toothpaste quiz

When we arrived Bucharest on April 9 we opened a new tube of toothpaste. When full it contains 160 grams and we now invite all our readers and followers to make a guess where we will be when the tube is empty. We have already used it for a few days and there is still a lot in it… 🙂

As a guide we can tell you that we measured our consumption at home before we left. That tube had 105 grams on Januari 31 and 76 grams remained on February 13. We usually ride 70-120 km depending on hills, headwind and so on. We will also stay for approximately 3-4 days in Istanbul.

We prefer answers in names of towns where we will be when we trash the empty tube.

The winner will rewarded with a postcard from that town…. 🙂 🙂 🙂

When we woke up we found the tent very moisty inside. This tent is a Hilleberg Rogen which is a light weight 3-season tent that Hilleberg released only last spring. Hilleberg is known to make top notch state of the art tents and the Hilleberg Nammatj we have before is designed for expeditions in extreme conditions and I am sure the Apollo project would have used Hilleberg tents had there only been air and rain on the moon…..

Our old tent is a bit large and heavy for this trip that will take us mainly through warm areas and when Hilleberg last year finally went into the market for 3-season tents we decided to buy this one and save 2 kg of weight. However, these 2 kg of weight saving has come with a price, ventilation is not as good, the fabric and poles are not as strong and there are fewer storm strings.

We have only used this tent for 3 nights before so we knew that ventilation was not as good as the old tent, but it can easily be solved by opening the zipper in the door some 20 cm in the top end. Unfortunately we forgot this and had to use our towel to wipe the tent dry inside.

After packing our gear we went to the nearest town to find something to eat for breakfast. We stopped at the main square and I went into a small shop and used my limitied russian vocabulary to ask one of the shop keepers for yoghurt, bread, cheese, sausage and coffee. The 60+ lady smiled and ran around in the shop to pick all things I wanted. When she saw Wej moving our bikes outside she asked if we were cycling and I told her we were on the way to Istanbul. Her immediate reply was ”big muscles….” 🙂

We sat down at a few benches outside the shop to have our breakfast when the lady came out to us. This time she was accompanied by a young man who spoke very good English. Finally she could interview us about our trip and she also gave us a bag of candy and a box of something called ”Turkish delights”, which was some super sweet yelly candy that went perfect with the coffee.

Soon we started to ride again and we went into the beuatiful city of Veliko Tarnovo. It is situated on slooping hills and when approaching it from below one can see a mountain covered by houses in many colours facing the sun. The town seems to be a tourist attraction and we went in to the centre to have something to eat, check our mails and update this blog (we write blog texts in the tent). Pizza seemed to be the cheapest food and we ordered a set with pizza and coke each. Being used to pizzas of smaller size we were surprised that the pizza was so big. We couldn’t eat it all and asked for a doggy bag, which turned out to be a pizza carton box. We strapped it to Wejs bike and started got about 50 meters when I found that my rear brakes were not behaving properly 🙁

I stopped and inspected it and the brake pad on the right hand side were gone…… !!!
Last time I changed it was at a gas station somewhere in central Romania and it was -5 degrees and snowing heavily. I remember my hands were so cold that I couldn’t fit the little lock pin that will keep the pad from falling out if I would ever roll backwards and brake at the sme time. When braking and rolling forward it is no problem. Apparently I have been rolling backwards and braking during our ride up to the city centre – the problem is just that I can’t remember it happening and I should, because I am very bad at cycling backwards….

We quickly changed my brakes by mounting a new pair of brake pads and started to roll down the steep road from the city centre when it happened.

I got my first flat tyre on this tour. I had started to believe we would make it to Istanbul without flats. Of course it was on the back wheel and for the second time in 15 minutes we had to stop and get all our tools and spares out to change my innertube.

When going south from Veliko Tarnova one has to cross a mountain range (Stara Planina). There is one major road across it and some smaller side roads. We stopped and discussed which way to go and since there was very little traffic we took the main road.

We discussed the reasons why there was so little traffic. After a while Wej said:

– “Maybe there are so few trucks because it is Saturday.”

Of course this was the reason and it proved to me that we have finally got away from being caught in the week circle of working Monday-Friday. We have lost count of what day it is and my new year pledge for this year was ”no Monday mornings in 2013”. I seem to have come a far way to reaching that goal.

The climb up the mountain range was acutally not so bad, at least until we were on the final climb to the pass which was a climb of 350-400 vertical meters and just below the top it started to rain. Even if it was a light rain we stopped and put on our rain jackets. When we reached the top there were two small restaurants. We needed to fill our water bottles and we went in to one of them. When we sat down the rain started to pour down, just like a monsoon shower. Lucky us to be inside because it wouldn’t have been fun to be outside fighting the hill when that shower started.

The ride down from the pass was wonderful. We didn’t need to pedal for many kilometers. The first town after the mountain ridge is Gurkova. When riding into the town we found a sign telling ”Motel, Restaurant, TIR-parking, 900 m”. We wanted to sleep inside this nigh but couldn’t find the motel. After asking three persons including a police officer, they all said there was no motel in town. We went to the TIR-parking (overnight parking for truck drivers) and there were no rooms there either. Then we went to the restaurant across the street and the owner said we should go to the motel in the centre!! We said we know there is no such motel. He then checked with his staff who confirmed this. The man told us to wait and went in to his restaurant to check with more people. When he came back he told us there is a hotel in a nearby village and made a map for us.

It was getting dark and we cycled the 4 km to the village as fast as we could. When in the village it seemed very small and we saw no sign of any hotel. Wej went in to a cafe to ask and they said there was no hotel in the village. It had never been and will never be, the village is too small….

It was now almost completely dark and since we suspected there might not be any hotel after all we had memorized a few good tent spots on the way in to that village. We hurried back to one of them and started to put up our tent.

We saw flashes on the sky and but the thunder seemed to be far away. It started to rain lightly and blowing. We got up our tent in good order and had just sat down inside when the thunder storm hit us. The thunder was not close (about 2 km by the time difference between flash and sound), but the wind was seriously strong and the rain was heavy. I went out to try to secure the tent better, but once again I ran into the problems of a 3-season tent. If we had used our old tent instead we would have been sitting inside reading a book while letting the wind and the rain pass. Now we were sitting on one side each with rain jackets and pants on prepared to run out to fix things.

The wind pulled out the tent pegs from the ground and I had to go out to put them back a couple of times. We sat like this for about two hours and then it was good to have our remaing pizza slices in a doggy bag 🙂

Finally it stopped to rain, but the wind was still strong and we woke up a couple of times by the wind pressing the entire tent down to our faces. A bit scary, but now we know a bit more about our new tents abilities…