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On the way home


2010
08.20

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Around Göreme (Kappadokia, Turkey)

After Kayseri we spent a few days in Göreme in Kappadokia. It is really a lovely place with nice valleys and of course with the really interesting view. We were so lucky to got CS accommodation and it was very special because our host gave us a cave room in his hotel. There were three of us in the room, together with an American guy who studies in the Netherlands and had vacation in Turkey. Göreme is quite popular for tourist but still nice and cute place with lots of hotels and cafes. It was a nice surprise that we could understand most of the people there because most tourists spoke English.

Love valley, Göreme

From Göreme we headed to the south to the Mediterranean sea. It was quite hot and the view a bit boring for more days. Only farmlands were around us with water sprinkle. The land was really dry so they need water added artificially. The dry land caused some hard time for us as well to find a place for our tent. Because of these factors we sped up again by car. This time a van helped us to get to the sea. 3 men traveled to Adana and again as usually the Turkish people they were very nice and helpful. Although we were a little bit afraid in the car because we had doubts that the driver had drivers license or not. At most of the cases in Turkey we experienced that rules at driving are not so strict that we were used to but this case was worst than ever. Many times we traveled between lanes, once the driver passed a car from the right in the stopping lane, once we got stuck between 2 trucks because our driver observed the 2 truck late and did not have time to pass them in the third lane (which was completely empty), we think he saw every situation quite late, even his friends warned him a few times to drive slower. He even changed a lane unnoticed while trying to light his cigarette (we were lucky that no one came there). The good thing is that we arrived to Tarsus in whole. From Tarsus we still had 40 kms to Mersin (or actually to Mezitli, next to Mersin) where we arranged couchsurfing. We had a quite long day, 100 kms cycling and a lot more hitch-hiking. In Mezitli we had our best couchsurfing experience ever. We stayed at a very nice couple. We went to a very nice beach together, only a few people were there so it was not crowded and we could have some good jumps from the cliffs. (Later when we continued our way we visited this beach again because we liked it so much.) Our hosts were nice to cook us some delicious meal, we tried manti there and liked it very much. They asked: “What? You were in Kayseri and didn’t try manti?!” At the Mediterranean sea it is really hot in July and the humidity is quite high as well (around 80%) and because of that we feel the warm even warmer. Not once it happened that we could only sit and do nothing because we couldn’t move in that weather. Finally after 4 nights there we felt the power to move on and got up really early to avoid the daily hot air. We only had a few hours because even at 8 am it is sweaty hot out there. Again we had some difficulties to find place for the tent because of the dry land and also due to the fact that those area is quite populated.

Swimming in a cave!

We had good times swimming in the sea, luckily we could always find nice and lonely beaches. We saw the castle which is on an island close to the coast, called Kizkalesi which probably could mean “Girl castle”.

Kizkalesi (between Mersin and Silifke)

In Mersin we even bought a Turkish grammar book for foreigners so together with the dictionary we understood a little bit more and found interesting to study a new language. When we left Mersin we didn’t know exactly how we will go home. We had a few ideas but we didn’t fix any. In Tasucu we even thought about taking a ferry to Cyprus and then to Rhodos. Finally, we decided not to because we didn’t find any ship from Cyprus to Rhodos and we were not sure about the political situation there (we were not prepared).
Mostly we rode the bike along the sea, only a few times lead the way inner to the land. From Tarsus for a few hundred km’s the road is quite flat and we could progress really fast. After that some hills came and although it was not that steep as the Black sea coast it was quite difficult and because of the heat sweat was just streaming from us. With some motorized help we visited Gazipasa and stayed there for 2 days. There we finalized how we will go home. One of the options was to fly home from Antalya if we find a direct flight and finally this option was the one we chose. It was the fastest, we didn’t want to hitch-hike through other countries. Actually we not only bought a flight ticket but we bought a last minute trip from Hungary to Turkey and back with 1 week hotel. It is funny but it was actually cheaper than a one way ticket from Antalya to Budapest. The tricky part was the bikes because in most cases we were told to pay 8€/kg but the one we chose (Sky Airlines) the bikes were only 20€/piece. It is a big difference.
On the way to Antalya we stopped in Alanya which is a quite crowded vacation center but it has a nice castle at the coast, on a big hill. Our last couchsurfing was in Antalya. We stayed at a pilot who was from Spain but got job in Turkey.
We had mixed feelings about the hotel we stayed in. From one hand we didn’t really care because we only needed the flight back to Budapest and we got used to not perfect conditions but this was a hotel!!! We showed some photos in the picasa album about the breakfast we had. It consist of some slices of tomatoes, cucumber, 1 egg, a piece of cheese and bread. Out of 7 breakfast 7 was like that. The dinner was more diverse, only sometimes had the feeling that the salads have been on the table the previous day as well. The main problem was the size of the meals. We hardly got a little piece of meat and a few pieces of potato. We were not allowed to take it, the crew put the food on our plate probably to avoid that they run out of dinner after a few people. If we went back to ask for more we were rejected with the reason that there are other people who haven’t eaten yet and so food have to be reserved for them. As a drink we could only drink tea in the morning, nothing else and nothing for dinner. None of the crew members spoke any language, only Turkish. Good thing we knew a few thing so we could understand them and we could explain what we wanted.
Our last week was really a lazy one. We went to the city center a few times and swam in the sea but many times at the pool as well that belonged to the hotel. The last day was the busiest one. In the morning we visited the upper Düden waterfall.

Upper Düden waterfalls

It was very nice, we took many photos. Not only could we see the waterfall but we could also walk behind the waterfall in a cave. After that at the hotel we packed the bikes. We had to put them into a box and wrap it properly. In the previous days we collected some board boxes from bigger shops. Of course none of them were so big that the bikes could fit in them but pasted them together were OK.
We got up next day at 4 am because, missed the fantastic breakfast and flew to Budapest. We were lucky to save the Sky Airlines’ email into a pdf on our netbook (confirming that the price is 20 EUR per bike) because at the check-in they were not sure about it and wanted to charge us per kg, but after I showed them the email, they agreed. All our luggage arrived safely and in whole including the bikes. In front of the airport we spent an hour to put them together. (Packing them in took longer!) For a few minutes we turned on the tracking device again for the last time and cycled to our flat and our adventure ended on 28th July, 2010.

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Hitch-hiking with bicycles in East Turkey


2010
07.29

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We left Poti a bit disappointed and headed to south towards Turkey. Just like on the way to the Caucasus on the way back we stopped in Kobuleti for a few days. We lived at another family this time (for just 5 lari per person). The sea was a lot warmer and more people were enjoying it as well. In Kobuleti Felix’s favorite activity (or passivity) was sleeping, he thought it was 4am when I woke him up at 9pm. I was afraid that he won’t be able to sleep at night because he slept so much at daytime but it was no problem for him. :-)
We visited again Batumi, did some sightseeing (we visited nice places that we didn’t visit last time) and then cycled to Gonio. In one of the last shops in Georgia we bought pork salami (actually it was Hungarian) because we knew that it is almost impossible to find in Turkey. Even if there is it is really expensive. In Gonio we stopped at the same beach and run into Ruslan and his family just like before. They were not the only people who we met in Georgia twice: we also met Irakli from Chaladidi and the grandpa and his son from Kobuleti who we stayed at at the first Kobuleti visit. We were quite surprised we met so many people. We were lucky too meet Ruslan because he also offered us a place to sleep.
At the Georgian-Turkish border we met a cyclist. Whenever we met somebody usually we first began to talk in English. This time it turned out that the cyclist is Hungarian. Alfréd was cycling from Hungary to China and than to Indonesia. He was a professional cyclist and was really fast, he cycles 200 km a day. For him it took only 2 weeks to reach Georgia. He came through Ukraine and Russia where he was bored from the view and so he took a ferry to Trabzon and next day he was already in Georgia.
Our goal for that day was Artvin where we arranged a CS accommodation. Artvin was still 70 km far and it was already afternoon so we decided to gain some speed with hitch-hiking. It only took 2 minutes until a man stopped (when we just started to eat a grape) and drove us and the bikes directly to Artvin in a pick-up car. In this city there is at least 500 m difference in ascent between the lowest and the highest point. The city center of course is on the top. Our plan was to buy a Turkish sim card and then to call our host. We faced difficulties already at the first part. In the shops we couldn’t communicate because none of the shop assistants spoke English. We were just about to stop somebody on the street to help us to translate when our hosts recognized us from a van which they were driving and came to help. Leaving the bikes at a restaurant Felix went with Volkan (CS host) to a shop and bought a sim card. It only turned out later that 1.) we only can call numbers at the same service provider (Turkcell) and 2.) because our phone was Hungarian after 2 weeks our sim card can be blocked and we can’t call our receive calls anymore. Good thing we had a Turkish guy with us, we don’t know what could have happened if he is not there.
There was a big valley at Artvin with a few hills around it. On one of them was the city, on another one lived our host and next day we continued our way on a third hill. Everything was close in bee-line but hours on the road.

Around Artvin

We suffered next morning from climbing hours and still see the same city in the afternoon. Even downwards it was not so easy. Of course not so difficult as from Ushguli, this time we only faced strong wind. While winding down the wind came always from different directions but on the bottom it was constantly headwind. Being tired we didn’t want to fight the wind so we decided it was time to hitch-hike again. We made a quite late decision  so when we arrived to Erzurum by a fully loaded truck (with the bicycles on the top) it was already midnight.

Hitchhiking with the bikes is more exciting

The driver was really nice, the communication was limited but he helped us as he could. He took us until a petrol station before Erzurum and arranged that we can pitch the tent on a grassy area next to it. The only thing we felt sorry about was that we missed the Tortum waterfalls (Tortum Selalesi) – we travelled next to it in the dark so we couldn’t see anything from it although it is very famous and beautyful. And before that, the gorge around the junction to Yusufeli was really breathtaking, with 100 or more meters high cliffs hanging over the road in the very narrow valley (so narrow that the GPS couldn’t see 3 satellites) – I couldn’t take a good photo of them. That’s the negative side of hitchhiking.
Next day we cycled into Erzurum where we met another very helpful and nice guy. We arrived to the minaret, probably it was visible from far away that we are foreigners. This guy came to us and offered that we can leave the bikes at a tea house where his friends can watch them and he also offered to guide us around in the city center. He was mountain and city guide, helped the travel book Lonely Planet many times and also worked and taught massage. He said he was a very famous guy. :-)

A jackdaw on my hand

We walked a bit around and after that he even offered to stay at his place for a day. We experienced this kind of hospitality of the Turkish people in the next few days when we hitch-hiked most of the time.

From Erzurum we got a ride to Askale. From there we didn’t even hitch hike, just stood next to the road when a truck stopped. It headed to Kayseri which was good for us and the trunk was completely empty. Felix and the driver tightened the 2 bikes quickly and we leaned back satisfied that we had such a great drive so quickly without even hitch-hiking. Our joy was too early. About 15 km later police stopped the cars for regular control. I worried a little bit because in the truck there are only 2 seats (I sat on the bed) but the driver said that it is no problem and went to show the necessary documents to the policemen. He came back a little bit nervous, said only “police problem” and parked to a locked area next to the road. We stumbled over the difficulty to figure out what happened or what we should do. The driver was constantly talking on the phone with different people and none of the policemen spoke any foreign language. Finally after about 30 minutes later the driver said that one of the documents was missing and he has to wait there for an hour. We didn’t know what to do, 1 hour is not that much but somehow we didn’t believed it is not more than that. Once we have already seen such police control, we were having lunch next to it and we could see that it takes really long if there is any problem. Finally some policemen explained that the driver has to wait there 4 (!) hours and it can only go without the back part of the truck. So we decided to ride the bike or look for another drive.

The next drive was a lorry with a very cheerful driver. It seemed that he really enjoyed that he takes tourists, showed us the sights, called his friend and his English speaking cousin and invited us for dinner. He headed to Istanbul and took us until a junction before Sivas.

Typical landscape in the middle of Turkey

Next day just about 100 meter next to our camp place another truck stopped and took us to Sivas. So, if you want to come to Turkey and travel by hitch-hiking you won’t face difficulty. Most of the cars, trucks, vans stop and they are happy to take you with them. In Sivas we went to the city center to check some mails and look for CS for the next couple of days. We didn’t thought that we will proceed so fast so we were quite lagged behind with that. It was just one of those cases when we found internet, of course we got stucked there for hours… We were lucky to get another ride until Kayseri. Actually not until Kayseri and we were not lucky. From the truck we tried to arrange CS accommodation with the help of Felix’s mother but got only answers when we already pitched the tent. This was the only driver with whom we had negative experience. The truck we were traveling with was really shaky. We didn’t understand why because the road was bumpless and we saw other cars and trucks passing us and they were not shaking at all. We were really worried about the bikes in the back. The driver was also strange, very silent but he smiled strange at me through a mirror in the middle. Why did he have a mirror in the middle??? He could only see his bed there or somebody who sat there. In a truck there is no window in the back. We tried to explain that we would like to stop before Kayseri because we can’t pitch the tent in a city. He said he knows a nice place close which is good for camping. We had doubts because wherever we looked there were only cultivated areas. It got really suspicious and the camping place was always a little bit further so we told him to stop. After unpacking the bicycles he showed money with his fingers. We didn’t understand what he meant exactly. Finally he left with indignation. It was almost dark and no place for the tent so we faced the phenomenon “tentplacefearhysteria” (sátorhelyparahiszti) from my side but luckily we found the only grassy place there hidden behind some trees so we were not visible from the road! When we already unpacked the bikes received sms from Felix’s mom that we can go to Zafer in Kayseri. For that night we stayed in the tent but next day we contacted the guy and stayed in Kayseri for a day. We visited the pass at the mountain Erciyes by car with Zafer’s friend and also checked out the campus. It was interesting to see that all departments are in the same area which actually was huge. In the evening we did some shopping in a mall, the result was a small Langenscheidt (yellow) Turkish-English, English-Turkish dictionary.

Kayseri is about in the middle of Turkey west to east and we got there just in 5 days so this time we were not worried about the visa expiration. From around Erzurum we traveled on a high plateau, there were nice rolling hills and some passes but never so steep as on the Black Sea coast! Next day we cycled to Kappadokia. The plan was to spend some time there and then to travel to the Mediterranean sea.

You can see more photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/felix.kovacs/BikeToAsiaTorokorszag3#

Zsófi

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Rushing out of Turkey


2010
06.06

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For a few more days we continued slowly knowing that we have not much chance to ride through Turkey in 30 days. After we spent a day on Inebolu beach in the evening we rolled out of the city to look for a place to camp. The place we found was quite close to road but we thought was not visible from the there. Around midnight, when Zsofi was already sleeping, 2 guy came and talk to us in Turkish something like we should not camp there, they mentioned police and jandarma (and cakal again). We didn’t understand completely what they said. We tried to explain that we just stay there for a night and then we will leave in the morning. The same evening earlier we cooked some chicken first time using the petrol cooker. Gas cooker was easier to use but probably we won’t be able to find a compatible gas canister. We have to try out exactly how much petrol it needs. Before using it, it requires some pressure in the bottle, which I can produce by pumping the built-in pump 20 times. Then I have to prime it by letting some petrol into the pre-heating area and burning it – at this time it burns with a huge flame! Then after a minute, it will be OK and the orange flame turns into a blue one, indicating that it is ready to use.
We started to hitch-hike 6 days before our visa expired on the 45th day. We didn’t like the idea of hitch hiking but we had no other chance, we couldn’t extend our visa and couldn’t go faster either. If we really want to stick to the plan we could go back by buying the visa again and cycle the route we didn’t but right now I don’t really feel like doing that. We used 2 cars. The first van stopped after Türkeli and took us to Ayancik, it was about 30 km. Then we continued cycling, we thought it is still faster than just standing next to the road. Later, a truck stopped for us which carried medical toxic trash. When the guy opened the back door, it was full of closed plastic bags full of garbage, and a smelling liquid covered the floor – he said it is just water. OK, maybe 99% of it is water, but the remaining 1% can be still smelling… We were a bit afraid that the bikes will smell strange (and our CS host will fire us) but it was not that bad. The 2 guy who took us was very nice because there was only 1 empty seat left in the front and still they took us for about 200km till Samsun. This way unfortunately we couldn’t visit the city Sinop (where we originally wanted to hitchhike) just saw it from afar from the road. On the way with the help of Felix’s mom we could arrange a couch in Samsun – it was quite last minute! We entered the CS’s coordinates into the GPS – the truck went almost exactly to the same place and the driver also offered that we can stay one night at their place! Ersan, our CS host had quite a big flat. The living room, where we slept, was more than 60 square meters. There was warm shower, we could wash our clothes and use the internet – the 3 most important things for us in these days! :) He didn’t let me pay in the shops and so invited us for a dinner at home. Next day we started late because I didn’t know that Zsofi wanted to ride the remaining 535 km in Turkey in 5 days, I thought that she will want to hitchhike again, but she wanted to cycle all the way! So we made 70 km on the first day after Samsun (then 135, 106, 140 and 93 to Batumi). Looking for a camp place was easy – we agreed that after 70 km we’ll start to look for one. We left the main road and asked the owners of a house whether we can sleep in their garden. They not only allowed this, but we could also use the bathroom and they invited us to a dinner. Unfortunately the language barrier didn’t let us communicate too much.
We spent the next 4 days with serious riding, we didn’t stop so many times to take photos, just rushed through the towns. However, we marked those which are worth for a revisit: Ünye, Fatsa, Giresun, Rize.

Fatsa - we had a rest here

We had a CS in Giresun, the cousin of the Samsun CS host :) They prepared us lavas with some very delicious (red) breakfast sauce which I couldn’t find in the shops (and I can’t remember the name of it). It contained paprika, tomato, walnuts, hazelnuts, garlic, oil, etc.
We met some kind people on the road – before Giresun, where we stopped to check our GPS, they gave us a pack of famous Giresun hazelnuts. (They say that 90% of the world’s hazelnuts are from Turkey, and the Giresun region is the most famous.) It tasted really good! Sometimes we ate it with pure milk chocolate :)
We crossed lots of tunnels (total maybe 20 km), the longest one was almost 4 km before Ordu.

Our longest tunnel before Ordu

But the road quality was superb and there were no steep and high hills to cross. However, looking back on it, we preferred the small and steep roads in the western part because there was much less traffic, it was much more quiet and the landscape was beautiful. In the east, it was like going on a highway, as if we also were cars. It was noisy! But the towns here were more modern, there were lots of nice parks on the seashore.
We met another cyclist traveler, a french guy, who was riding to Mongolia alone, then to Africa. He looked quite tough, he left his 2 children at home and wants to spend 6 years from the next 10 by traveling. For a while, we cycled together but after I got my first flat tire (I couldn’t see the glasses because he was in front of me) we said goodbye.
Just before the Georgian border, there was suddenly such a heat (about 20 degrees sudden rise in the temperature – as if they had switched on the hairdryers in front of us!) that we thought it came from the roadside trucks. But after we left them, the heat remained! So we thought that there is an industrial plant in the near. But it was still hot after we left the town. In Hungary I’ve never met such a heat.
We soon reached the border – it was a complete chaos. Lots of trucks, buses, crowd… People got off the buses and queued for passport control (some 200 people in a queue on the sun). They said that we should go for a check to the same window! We were frightened but fortunately we did not have to queue up… It was around noon, there was heat, we were sweating like hell, the sun was shining from the top, people in the queue tried to shelter themselves with their suitcases. The Turkish guy just stamped our passports after checking it in the machine, but the Georgian side was much more complicated. We had to go through customs control – they had us unpack every bag and they checked them with a device like at the airports. I told them that I cannot unpack my rear bags and I can only place them on the FUTÓSZALAG together with my bike. So the man opened the bag and looked into it – he could only see the things on the top: a bread, and some dirty clothes. :) So he let us go. The guy said that this heat is normal here, and for them this is still winter! In July and August it is much worse.
So our first impression of Georgia is the extreme heat. We quickly tried to find a beach to cool us down. There were a lot but there none of them could be approached by bike. Finally we found one in Gonio. The sea was very cold, the air very hot and humid! Everybody was expecting a big storm, and in the evening it has really arrived. On the beach Zsofi got a small flower from a man who later invited us to their house, and we also ate dinner. We also learned from him that we must set our clocks again forward by 1 hour (actually, Tbilisi’s time zone is UTC +4 but there is no Summer Time). I must refresh my Russian language knowledge immediately. Almost everybody speaks Russian here besides the Georgian language, which has its own alphabet and strange letters. For Zsofi it is difficult, she didn’t study Russian at school (She is too young :) ). I’ve studied for 4 years but completely forgot everything.
The dinner was very delicious, we have experienced new tastes that we’ve never tasted before. We started to Batumi in the evening, when the storm came! It was big wind, we hardly could see anything, the wind blew the dust everywhere.
In Batumi, the roads are in very bad condition, they are rebuilding the city but it takes years. The park and the surrounding near the sea is already nice, but the rest is a mess. The roads are even worse than the worst road in Bulgaria on the mountain pass! The smaller streets are dark, even the one where we had the CS host. But, as we’ve learned from Petra, it is not dangerous now, as it was 6-8 years earlier.
We were so exhausted after the long cycling days that we stayed there for 3 days in spite of the fact that there was no shower, washing or internet. We used the internet cafes in town for 1 lari/hr. The town is like a mixture of Budapest’s VIII. district and the Chinese market, multiplied by 20. :)

Market in Batumi

However, Petra still likes it! She has traveled almost every continents. I also had a slight fever and my bowels moved when we arrived (so we were not such an entertaining company to Petra), but it is better now.

Leaving Batumi

Leaving Batumi

Félix

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From Cide to Inebolu


2010
05.26

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We spent at least 2 hours at the petrol station in Cide hanging on the internet. Then heavy rains came so again we couldn’t make too much progress. :) We couldn’t find a bigger supermarket in Cide, just the usual small and expensive ones. Nobody speaks English here, it is quite annoying! We also ate döners. We’ve discovered that here in Turkey the restaurants’ tradition is that if you order something (in this case, döners) they bring a lot of other food and drink without asking you. Then it turns out only after you’ve finished that it cost some extra liras – we thought they bring it because it is included in the döner’s price.
After Cide a climb came again and we also met a hitchhiking guy there – we just talked shortly while passing by, but we regret that because it would have been so nice to finally speak to somebody who speaks English!
We only did 26 km this day, it was getting dark so we settled down at the first camping place we found, even if there was no panorama, only bushes surrounding it. When we started next day, we found an ideal sleeping place right after 3 km – just as I expected. :) It was a small house, carpets inside, a “Yöneldiginde Allah yanindadir” sign above the door, with a small terrace, plus water outside and a separate small building with toilets. It was empty and open. We stopped to wash our clothes – the weather is finally sunny again so they dry quickly on the quickly stretched ropes. Meanwhile, Zsofi also fries some pancakes. I’m afraid that the 450 g Primus power gas will run out, we’ll see. The solar panel has fully charged the netbook so life is good now. :) We’ve decided to write down notes whenever we can – in this way we can immediately post it on the blog when we find a wifi.
There are some landslides which block the road along the coast – we’ve already met some. They repair the road constantly. By bike we can sometimes pass by without waiting for them to let cars go. Sometimes not. The hillside is quite steep at some points and big rocks are falling down, making the half of the road disappear.  But fortunately the traffic is not big on this road! So when we had to wait for 5 minutes at a construction work, only 1 car queued up. :) And although the road is very difficult by bike, the nice landscape compensates. We always look at the sea and the nice coastline while riding. We also got used to go on the left side of the road because then we can see more. We had the feeling that this Karadeniz yolu is a bicycle road (it is quite narrow at some points) on which sometimes a car passes by. We don’t like when car comes on the road because we can’t slalom up the steep hills.
The most important sentence we learned is: “Ne kadar?” (How much does it cost?) because at the small vegetable and fruit stalls they never indicate prices. So when we arrive, we ask “Ne kadar” 10-20 times, pointing at every item. :) They also tend to round the numbers. So 300 g tomato costs the same as 500g.
We like to eat peanuts as snack at short stops. Here, in Turkey, the salt is on the brown skin of the peanut which we don’t eat. If we peel the peanut the salt comes off, so we do not peal it! We try to consume a lot salt because we probably lose a lot with the sweating.
You might be curious how we stand sitting on the saddle for so much time. The answer is: on the first few days when we were riding for long hours without stopping then we could feel our bump in the evening. But since we stop regularly – that is the advantage of the very steep road – it doesn’t hurt at all. Probably it only hurts if we go (or actually sit) a lot at a stretch.
Felix regretted that once we slept at a place where we couldn’t see the sunset from the tent because next day we saw so many nice places where we could have slept. So next day he didn’t want to stop until he found a sunset place. I start usually feel uncomfortable around 6:30pm if we are still not looking for a place to sleep because it is not fun to ride the bike in the dark and it is also more difficult to find a place when you can hardly see anything. So I started to feel that anxious when he said we have to climb another hill knowing that it takes for a while and it is also really tiring. Finally we found a place which was really nice, it was kind of on the top of a cliff.

Many bumps on the Black Sea coast...

We saw the sunset, recorded our every day statistics and went to sleep. The next thing I know is that Felix wakes me up that he can’t sleep because the wind is blowing very strongly and it makes such a noise that he can’t stand so we need to go. It was at 5am!!! I didn’t like the idea to start at 5am but had no chance. So that is how it happened that we went already more before noon than other days.

We visited Doganyurt which is a small city with a square, a bunch of people are sitting in cafe’s and drinking tea. At the end of the day we both were very tired, the total ascent was 1232m while the highest point we reached was only 235m. So we climbed a lot, actually we broke a record with that! To emphasize that even more it means we climed more than what we did at the high passes in Romania or Bulgaria.
Next day we rolled down to Inebolu and had a rest on the beach. Felix asked the hotel’s wifi password so that’s why we have internet access now.
Today, 26th May, Zsofi had a swim in the sea for the first time! :) It is not so cold as it was in Sile. But the locals still don’t understand why we came here and not to the south of Turkey. They say that summer begins here only in mid or end of June…
The solar charger has charged the netbook from 60% to 95%. At the beginning, it consumes a lot of current and the small battery always discharges and breaks connection to the load (which is the netbook).  But when it is near total capacity, the charger switches from constant current charging to constant voltage charging, thus resulting in less and less current which is no longer a problem for the solar charger and the small Pb battery. So it is a good practice to keep the netbook nearly fully charged when possible.


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1000 m ascent a day


2010
05.23

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Posted in Turkey | 1 Comment »

Last time when you received a bunch of posts to read we were in Eregli. We decided to stay there for a rest day, the continuous ups and downs were very tiring.
Tamás mentioned once that there was a loudspeaker on a mosque. Well, there are speakers on every mosques and 5 times a day we can hear some pray and because of the speakers you can hear it everywhere in the city/village (and also in a 10 km circle). It was not different in Eregli either, the only difference was that before the pray started we heard some dialing tone from the speaker very loudly. I think it was a recorded voice and played at the time it was needed but we are not sure as we don’t understand a thing. We find it a little bit strange this loud pray so many times a day. We tried to find something similar in Hungary, maybe it is like the bells at noon but it doesn’t wake you up in the morning.
After Eregli we climbed a 500m pass but it was not that steep as the Turkish average. Next to the road there were a lot of small booths selling strawberry, one small bucket for 10 TL. We found it very expensive just like everything in small shops, more expensive than in Hungary. The bigger the city the cheaper the food is, the cheapest was so far Istanbul. We find this quite surprising as in Hungary it is the other way around.
It was so hot that the asphalt melted and we felt that the tires stuck to road making climbing a bit more difficult. Whenever a car or a truck passes by they always push the horn just next to us. I think it is supposed to be some kind of welcoming but we find it annoying because it is quite loud and we will go deaf if we have to listen to it very long. I think Turkish people like the horn a lot and they push it whenever they see something unusual. Surprisingly the road did not continue in a ravine and we could roll down for a long time. At the bottom there was a beach where Felix went to swim. I changed for a bathing suit as well and felt like people are looking a bit strange at me so at the end I didn’t dare to take my T-shirt of. But it was OK because the water was very cold anyhow. People grilled some chicken which had good smell. The cyclists are always hungry so we visited a restaurant and eat some chicken. The meals cost 7 TL each that’s why we were quite surprised when the lady at the end told us that we should pay 40 TL. We couldn’t decide why she said that because nobody spoke English there so our guess it was just a nice try. Felix explained them that 7+7=14 but still after that we got only back 5 TL from a 20…
There was our first tunnel before Zonguldak where we had to switch on our headlights, although it was not long, 100-200 m.
We arranged our next CS in Zonguldak, the GPS navigated there (we knew the address) – it was on the top of a mountain with extremely steep streets! This was the steepest so far. We had to push, but it was also very tiring. My shoes even slipped on the asphalt. We had to stop every 5 m and there were stairs next to the road – you can imagine how steep it was.
Finally we found the flat. It looked like a hairdresser’s saloon (it was that before). The guy was kind with us and we’ve learned that youtube is banned in Turkey because there was some offensive material about Atatürk. We asked him about the religious habits in Turkey – it turned out that on the beach, women swim in clothes so when Zsofi wore bikinis on the beach, she was not only imagining that others look strange at her, but she was right.
Not only was the road out of Zonguldak killing (the extremely steep ascents continued with lots of stinky buses and trucks) but we also realized after 10 km that we left our big jar of Nutella at the CS place! The biggest loss was the light plastic jar in which we always repacked the Nutella to get rid of the heavy glass.
The ups and downs continued until Fylios. Then the microbumps (Edirne-Istanbul) reappeared but the road was more or less flat. After we left the main road at Saltukova (to take the shorter road to Bartin), ups-and-downs begun. Here on this road we would have been lost without the GPS because there were no signposts! Zsófi was tired and said that we will not reach Bartin that day so we canceled the CS host in an sms. We found a camping place with nice panoramic view. This day we climbed more than 1000 m so I had to promise Zsofi that we will take a rest week in Amasra, which I soon managed to bargain down to 3 days.

In Bartin we finally found a supermarket. Both of us went in, one by one. While I was waiting outside, a man came there and looked askingly like Besenyő Pista bácsi in the beginning of this VIDEO ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqh_kWyj_iM ). Finally he asked: “Tourist?” I don’t know how could he figure this out… :)
We bought grilled chicken (6 TL, 9 if you eat it on site) and we ate it next to the river on a nice bank. We had to climb through a pass to reach Amasra. There we could not find a place for our tent so we slept in a pension – the room cost 17 EUR. The view from the terrace was beautiful! Amasra is a cute little town. We took an evening walk. In the morning, Zsofi fried some pancakes (we forget to ask whether breakfast is included or not). We found the only place in town (a jewelry) where they change money but finally we took it from an ATM. After a late start (at 3 PM)  we wanted to look for a camping place in the near (this is a rest day, after all). We found one after 279 m climb but I had to get water and bread from the nearby village (this was the zig-zag on the tracking). There was no shop in this village, so a man was so kind and gave me some bread (plus olives and apples), for free. We set up the tent next to 2 cows on a grassy land. They were tied to a stick so Zsofi dared to pass by them and to camp there.
We realized that we don’t have enough days left from our visa to ride all the way through Turkey! When calculating at home using a map, it was much easier – we did not see the tiring ups and downs next to the coastline on Karadeniz Yolu – the Black Sea route.
The sun came out from behind the clouds and there was no shade so we set up to find an other (more shady) place for the tent. We found it after 10 km. We asked the neighbours whether we can sleep there – they allowed it and later invited us for dinner. There was also internet in the house (but no wifi so we could not use our own laptop in the tent).

Next day we rolled down to the beach of Cakraz – it was very nice, we took tons of photos there. However, it was not beach time here yet – I was the only person to swim.

On the cliffs next to Cakraz beach

Again, a steep climb came – Zsofi almost wanted to give it up and told me that I should continue alone – but somehow she continued. We luckily found a very nice place for the tent (the only possible place in a 20 km area) with a nice view of the sea and the sunset over the sea! We were sleeping until late next day – we slowed down to 25 km a day :)
The next day we had some rain and also cleaned our chains after 2170 km. Again we found a nice place, and we just started to cook when a bus stopped and about 20-30 people got off and walked towards us. We thought that they are looking for a place to pee, etc. and all of them will do it in the bushes surrounding us. But they just had a rest and gathered around us (just as if they’d seen an UFO). To our surprise, none of them spoke any languages other than Turkish! Some of them said “Yes” and laughed… This is common in whole Turkey – they either don’t speak any languages, or if they do, they are very hard to understand. Many times they just repeat the one sentence they know and laugh after that.
At night there was heavy rain, it was so loud that we woke up. In the morning we woke up to barking dogs – when I looked out, there were 8 dogs around the tent! They went away but came back in 5 minutes, sniffing our food and settled down there. When I opened the tent and shouted “go away!”, they did not move. But when I came out and stood up (threateningly holding up an empty plastic bottle in my hand), they realized that I’m bigger than they are so they reluctantly walked away.
Today is a short day again because we found wifi at a petrol station and wanted to write to the blog and upload photos.
More photos at: http://picasaweb.google.hu/felix.kovacs/BikeToAsiaTorokorszag2
(We opened a new album because picasa wanted to start synchronizing from scratch…)

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1/1 or full break


2010
05.15

Tags: ,
Posted in Turkey | 7 Comments »

Sile - there is a sandy beach left from these rocks

We reached Sile at around noon and had a quick beach-time. I also swam a bit but the water was very cold (18 degrees maybe). It was a pleasant place, I thought that we will go through places like this every day, but no, there was no such nice beach until now (we are in Eregli now). We wanted so much to spend a rest week here, but our 30-day Turkish visa did not let us to have long rest days… Even so, we are not sure that we can cross the country in a month! We’ll see. If the steep and killer ups and downs continue, we can only go 50 km a day and even so, we got more and more tired. When there were flat roads, we could cover 20 km in an hour! In the hills, there are lots of pointless steep ups and downs. They are lazy to build a bridge over a small valley – they rather let us descend 80 m and then again climb 80 m, but carefully place a 50 cm gap at the lowest point of the roller-coaster, so that, before the steep climb, we must break down completely to loose all of our moving energy.

The elevation profile - pointless ravines

And this also puts a lot of strain on the brakes. So it was either 1/1 (the lowest) gear and 5 km/h upwards or full hard break and a max speed of 10-15 km/h downwards. This is so much annoying and tiring! Cyclists, please do not come here! Except if you want to train for Tour de France. Then this is a great place. (Sile – Agva, via Karacaköy.) The road is so steep that they don’t even dare to mark it on the signposts! There is only an ascent or a descent sign, but without percentages. Once when I measured it, we asccended 3 m on a 10 m road, which is a 30% ascent (out of Sile)! We are able to climb these only in a slalom (like skiing, just upwards) or sometimes even have to push the bikes. Zsofi decided that she will eat as much as she can because she is always hungry! At home, she gains weight even if she doesn’t eat – on the tour, she looses weight even if she stuffs herself.
The road quality is quite unpredictable. In smaller villages we encountered very bad bumpy roads but good asphalt as well. One day we wanted to avoid the small roller coasters near the beach so we took the main road from Agva to Kandira and then Kefken. This was better because even if we had almost 1000 m ascent this day, it was not so steep and hence not so tiring, and we used our energy better because we did not have to pull the brakes downwards! So we had good rollings on the slopes which was delighting after the Sile-Agva road.
About Kefken: our map indicates that there is an orange road between Kefken and Karasu. So we targeted that one. In Kefken, after we could not find a suitable camping place because of the never-ending village sindrome, a man shouted after us: “Wohin fahren?” Zsofi continued climbing but I stopped and answered, “Karasu”.
- Nicht gut, kommen Sie zurück, nach Adapasari!
I asked him why, and showed him the map, but he told that that orange way not really exists and there are only small bad roads without asphalt, so I checked the GPS and saw that really, it does not indicate a main road there! Why didn’t I check the GPS sooner?! (Maybe because it happened before that it misleaded us.) Then I asked him: “Können wir hier schlafen in unserem Zelt?” “Ja, warum nicht?” So we agreed to sleep in his garden. He spent 26 years working in Germany so he could speak a language we also knew, that was positive. He also had a small apartment on the ground floor of his 3-floor house. But when we asked whether we must pay for it or not, he said that it’s 50 TL for the apartment. But tenting is free. So of course we choose the tent. But even so he gave us the key and let us use the toilet and water inside. It turned out only later (somebody else told us) that there was a nice beach in the near (Kerpe) which we did not visit…
So the next day we took the Kaynarca – Denizköy – Karasu road. We realized that our map’s only function is to indicate the sequence of bigger cities. :)
In the villages, there was a strong smell of chicken shit and all of the children shouted “Hello” and then laughed! :) The air is warm already at 8-9 AM so we usually stop at taps by the road to refresh ourselves with cold water and also to wet my shirt and hat so that I can bear the heat when climbing. (I don’t know how will I be able to bear the heat later – in June, July…)
We found a suitable place for the tent after Karasu, between a soccer court and a cemetery. The grass was very dry here, the ground was sandy, and in the evening a thunderstorm came with a heat wave which I could not understand! Why did the temperature suddenly rise in the middle of the night so that I couldn’t sleep?
The road here was better, going near the sea and quite flat so we could make progress much faster. Only near Akcakoca was there a pointless roller coaster again, but after the Düzce crossing until Eregli it was flat again! In Eregli I found the steel factory on the shore quite ugly, blowing smoke on the city. But the inner town was nice and we met our CS host at the Atatürk statue (where Tarkan sings his song in a video clip, according to our host). We had to follow his car to his home, and again we had to climb a lot! Eregli is a city on the hill, we could see it from the road far before. It was warm but in the room it was even warmer, as the heating was on! (Why? Because 2-3 nights earlier there was a colder night.) :)
We wanted to leave Eregli and head to Zonguldak today but then we have read Saman’s comment that we should write blog posts more often, so we have another rest day to fulfil his request and continue only tomorrow.
The other reason is that we still not have CS hosts in Zonguldak. Now Zsofi cooks some paprikáskrumpli. Bulent tought us some words which are common in Turkish and Hungarian: like sakal = szakáll, elma = alma, cok = sok, katana = katona, ata = atya, ana = anya.

More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/felix.kovacs/BikeToAsiaTorokorszag#

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Out of Istanbul


2010
05.15

Tags:
Posted in Turkey | 1 Comment »

The rest day was also tiring – we walked a lot in the city. I haven’t seen such a crowd before than here in the walking street. We did not spend much – just bought some ice cream and a tavuk (chicken) döner. We don’t like the beef meet here in Turkey, the taste is too strong for us – so we already became semi-vegetarians, eating only cheese, because we cannot buy good (Hungarian pork) sausages here… Or we can eat chicken meat.

We also visited some mosques – they are really nice inside and outside. But inside there is a strong smell of feet because visitors must take off their shoes and carry it in a plastic bag (which we discard afterwards, so it is not a green solution – producing a lot of garbage). Then in the evening Nuri invited his friend who brought some food like pizza so we ate it together. We also talked about Kurd people (they come from there). We could wash our clothes and hung them on a rope that we spanned across the living room in the diagonal. :) The next morning we started at around 9 and we only wanted to leave the city. It was not so easy! Thanks to Tamas Schmauder, I could plan the route with MapSource (and Google maps). So we could follow the GPS. I hated those parts where we had to cross 3 lanes and take the left lane on a highway-like road with lots of traffic – sometimes we had to wait for minutes until we could cross the lanes. Then there were so many buses that we couldn’t make progress because of them stopping all the time and people jumping on and off in front of us. So we took the tramway. It was OK for 2-3 km’s but then a

police car came behind us and they said no-no, but we were just about to leave it anyway so I said OK! :)

Skyscrapers in northern Istanbul

The European part of the city had the most traffic. We wanted to cross the northern bridge – we saw that both bridges are highways and the route was shorter if we took that bridge. But then we saw the green highway sign and also the “forbidden for cyclists” sign. OK, we continued in the rightmost lane, it was safe (definitely safer than some main roads where cycling is allowed but there is no stopping lane!). Then the paying gates came – OK, we crossed them with confidence without stopping. No police came blasting after us. Then at the beginning of the bridge, there was a small booth, and a man came out running towards us and asking to stop and lift our bikes over the roadside barrier (he helped us) and only repeated “Yasak!” and go back. He told we cannot use the spare lane either (which was empty and we could have gone through it). We did not want to go back into the busy city just to try the other bridge – it was so far and we were not sure whether we can cross it or not (unfortunately we haven’t made a research on internet – we’ve read in Tamas’s blog that it would have been possible!). So we went back to the paying gates and asked a big van to help us cross the bridge. The first one we asked was immediately stopped by the police so we couldn’t talk to him, but the second man was so kind to help us put the bikes in. We wanted to take a photo at the “WELCOME TO ASIA” sign but couldn’t!!! It was on the bridge and did not want to go back (police booth again…). So finally we arrived to Asia! Bike to Asia – mission completed. Even if it was a “van to Asia”. :) Also, the view of Bosporus was so nice but the camera was at the back of the car so we missed it.
The Asian side was a village compared to the European side of the city. There was no end of Istanbul sign, just as there was no Istanbul sign when we entered the city. So we couldn’t take a photo at the Istanbul sign either. It took us 35 km just to reach a place which we could call the end of the city. On this day we couldn’t go too much because of the steep hills. We did not know that this was just the beginning! We wanted to reach Sile but we slept somewhere before the seashore (Sahilköy). So we did only 50-60 km a day not because we don’t like to ride the bike, but because we are so tired of the steep ups and downs that we cannot do more!

More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/felix.kovacs/BikeToAsiaTorokorszag#

4 comments

The worst road ever


2010
05.09

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Posted in Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey | 4 Comments »

Day 18 (1st of May) started as sunny as the others in Bulgaria. It was worth having a rest day before, because Tihomir said that there is a lovely landscape before Elena, but he forgot to mention that after Elena there comes the worst road in Bulgaria! As you can see on the photos, the landscape was really beautiful. Hristo, our next CS host in Nova Zagora already texted us that there will be a 20 km long macadam road through the hills. The next sign was the “pass closed” sign just after Elena. We were not sure what it meant so we asked a passing car – they told that it is written there because the road quality is unacceptable for cars, but as we are on MTBs, we are OK. At this time, we thought it will be like the pass in Romania before lake Vidra. But it was much worse!

Worst road ever

Large pieces of stones, we wouldn’t even call it a road. It lasted for 16 km’s. Zsofi had to get off and push several times, even downhill, she was afraid that she will fall. The stones sometimes put the bike’s back or front 10-20 cm sideways. Zsofi bounced on the saddle. Her mood degraded exponentially with the distance covered. It was very hard to start on the rolling stones once we stopped. But I just kept riding like a robot and I liked it – this kind of road was not new to me. :)

Balkan mountains

It was hot and there were small flies who kept flying just in front of our face which was very annoying. On the top at 1044 m there was not even a sign marking the pass. From there, the road suddenly changed to good quality, and even if there were occasional holes, it was very delighting to roll downhill. I think that it was much better in this direction that the other: we can climb slowly anyway, but can roll down faster.

The descend was more comfortable

The road from here to Nova Zagora was quite easy. It was already dark when we arrived. Hristo was very hospitable, gave us a whole house and brought us dinner.
Day 19: we found a wifi and washed all our clothes. We started very late – only at 5 PM.
Day 20: we crossed a unique pass – it did not lead through the saddle but through the top of the hill, and we went from hilltop to hilltop for several km’s. But we really enjoyed the slope downwards. We could roll very fast without having to break – my favorite. Because we utilize our energy optimally this way.

Cycling on the runway

We were invited to two icecreams at a shop in front of which we settled down to eat our own food – just as usual. In this region, all of the shop owners are very kind and let us to eat there – something that is not so common in western Europe, for example. I can remember that in Corse, we were asked to leave when we started to eat at a table… In Svilengrad, we found a wifi in front of a Supermarket. Then crossed the BG-GR border very quickly and found a place with lots of aggressive mosquitoes just a couple of km’s after that.
Day 21: The mosquitoes did not pause – they attacked us even in the morning! Btw, we came through Greece because the direct way from Svilengrad to Edirne was a highway. Now, it turned out that we are on a highway in Greece as well (which was not indicated on the Greece map that we got on the border for free from the officer). So we took the next exit and went on smaller roads with many extra km’s. Near the Turkish border, there was an interesting river-crossing: the road suddenly disappeared and continued under the water for several hundred meters. It was not too deep, however, so we could cross – but the chains did not like the water, I think.

Paddle boat

This day we did not have to ride a long distance but even so, at the end we had to hurry not to be late – Emre, our next CS host waited for us at 17:30 in the center of Edirne. But there was a long stretch of cobbled road which slowed us down. We just arrived on the minute. I knew I dad to look for a tall guy – fortunately he noticed us and came there. He was so kind to guide us in the city and showed us all we wanted to see and helped us in everything. I bought a good hat (made of cotton) in the bazaar and a big loose shirt (made of cotton as well), in preparation for the hot days.

Old mosque in Edirne