Welcome to Turkey, where everyone is just nice and friendly! (and shit at driving)
It has been a long time since the last update but here it is. In Sofia, Bulgaria we relaxed mostly, at Alegra hostel with the super nice owner Ivo who made sure we felt at home. On a less fun note we did our laundry and hung it on the washing lines in the small yard we were told was available for use to residents at the hostel. One hour later there was a loud police-esque bang on the front door accompanied with very loud yelling. Apparently there was a couple living next door who where furious - end of the world furious - that we had hung a couple of clothes on “THIS IS MINE” washing lines. They yelled loudly to my face in Bulgarian despite me being calm and apologizing, telling them we didn’t know, and they kept yelling as we took down our clothes. It went like this: THIS IS MINE, NOT YOU.
Fucking bunch of rude cunts they were. They should go back to kindergarten and learn how to share. I really don’t understand their behavior as they weren’t even doing laundry and had been out of the house when we had hung the laundry, but they made sure to tell us the yard area wasn’t for hostel residents even though our hostel owner had told us so and it even says on their website. Oh well. I wished them bad luck and misery as we took our clothes inside. People like this make me sick - luckily they were the only couple of shitty people we ever met during our entire trip.
Before leaving Sofia, we booked Sofia’s flight from Istanbul back to Sweden, on the 10th of July, and thus we had 10 days to cycle to Istanbul (at least 66,6km/d) and spend 3 nights at a hostel we booked at the same time. We had a mountain pass with 3 climbs to get through on the way to Greece. We did this in one day and had the most amazing overlooking view so far here, at some 900m high. We had decided to enter Edirne, Turkey from Greece as the border was safer/calmer. Just before the Turkish border a river decided to cross our road so we had to walk in 30cm very rapidly flowing water for some 100 meters! Quite fun but the road was very slippery from algae. Would’ve been less fun if we fell with the bikes, but we managed to cross it and even hopped into the river for a quick swim as there was a beach on the other side. 5 minutes later we had some monsoon rain and storm winds but there was a shelter with roof we could hide on until it had passed.
From there we cycled into Edirne, Turkey without any problems whatsoever at the border. Didn’t even need to unpack our panniers! We had some dinner there and chatted with the Turkish owners and they taught us a few phrases. The next day was quite hot and full of stupid roads which would last for many days to come. Basically the land is shaped like this:
.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
'-' '-' '-' '-' '-' '-' '-' '-' '-'
Never ending, very short but steep up and downhills. We were unlucky to have 10m/s direct headwind for the fucking entire 3 first days too, so it wasn’t exactly fun cycling and you got nowhere as the speed was 5km/h up, 15kmh on flat road, and max 20km/h down due to the headwinds.
We passed through rural Turkey as we decided to cycle the northern route into Istanbul to avoid getting killed on the southern coastal road which everyone strongly recommends not to use. Everyone will greet and wave at you from their cars in Turkey. Unfortunately this means stupidly loud horns from the trucks and even if some don’t mean to be dicks, they were because they often honked right when they passed us and it’s fucking loud for the ears (trust me, it gets annoying in 30c heat). We had one really cool camp spot on top of a hill with great panoramic views and surrounded by nothing but nature and some cool rock formations. The winds were real strong here though and we had to use all the storm pegs and place panniers inside the tent whilst setting it up, in hope of it not blowing away like a balloon.
One day when we were going to start looking for camping, there was a minivan driver named Murat which had been forced to jam the brakes due to infamous Turkish traffic. He was afraid that the hydraulics had broken as he had the van full with hundreds of kilos of tools. We helped him to see after the car and after everything seemed to be fine, he later insisted to give us a lift - wouldn’t let us decline. He didn’t speak any English but was very friendly and funny. Kept telling us he would drive us all the way to Istanbul in one hour but we didn’t want to cheat so we let him drive us 30km in total before we hopped off and said thanks and goodbyes.It felt weird cheating and we wanted to leave the car as it started rolling, as it was the first time we didn’t travel by bike since the small train event in Sweden.
The day after this, we were having lunch at a water well when we heard some live music. Later we cycled to the music and it turned out to be a traditional Turkish picnic with about 500 Turkish people from Tocan. We were just watching and eventually we were surrounded by a couple of curious people who wanted to know who we were. Later it turned to some 50 people and we were suddenly part of the festival. We got to experience Turkish hospitality and their friendliness for real here! They filled up our panniers with grilled food, freshly baked bread and we talked & danced together for some hours. Let’s just say there was a significant amount of selfies taken and Sofia got her own female fan club;) It was a real fun experience! On our way from here we camped at another picnic park - this one empty. After a while a German solo cycle tourist showed up and we camped together - shared some stories etc. He had gone from Germany to Istanbul by Italy and the Croatian coast which seems to be popular, and was now going back through Bulgaria and Romania. He too warned us about the southern coastal road into Istanbul and thought we were very wise having planned to enter from the north.
The day before we would enter Istanbul we were quite near the northern coastline, albeit on 150m altitude, and we couldn’t find any ice cream in the village next to the main road so we headed downhill halfway to the coast, bought ice cream and decided that - hey, we’re only 7km from the black sea, let’s go swim (we hadn’t showered since Sofia!). This was a good decision as Karaburun was empty of foreigners and had a very beautiful beach where we could chill out and bathe. It was our first time swimming in an ocean and it felt refreshingly great! Totally worth cycling down the stupidly steep 25% downhill (which we had to walk up afterwards…) just before the coast.
On the day to enter Istanbul we had about 30km to cover. Unfortunately there were road reconstructions on the way which we didn’t know about. The entire shoulder of the road was removed for 2km and it isn’t possible to cycle on the main road due to the fact that people drive like retards, especially truck drivers - parallell driving at 120km/h. So there was only one option and that was walking with the bikes on uneven gravel for 2km in 30c heat without any knowledge as of when the road reconstruction would end. Luckily it did and we soon exited the big main road on to a yellow road. Here instead, we were met with the actual construction of a brand new road so there was fucktons of trucks again and a lot of dust on the road. So it was not the best entry but at least it was somewhat safer than the southern coastal road I think.
Finally inside Istanbul we got to experience the spaghetti traffic the city has gotten itself known for. To sum it up: people drive like 5 year old retards without arms and legs. I think it helped having driven a moped for 3 months in Thailand, but you still had to be very careful.
Little did we know Istanbul consists of hills - hills that are insanely steep, so steep you can barely walk up them without a bicycle. It didn’t help that we had chosen the shortest way to the hostel as the hills were so steep that we wouldn’t even have grip with our shoes on the pavement. Apparently we walked through a less fortunate neighborhood as some guy mentioned something about Turkish mafia which I thought was funny. It was 2pm, bright sun shining, and if you let go of prejudice and just treat everyone equally, talk to them a little then they will treat you the same. We finally got through all the hills and arrived at Cengo Chillout hostel and I started the first day in Istanbul with a bad stomach (for the first time ever during our trip).
The next day we only had lunch and lied in bed most of the afternoon as it was very warm and I had no energy due to a shitty stomach, as well as having had bad sleep the other night due to temperature. Later this day Sofia caught up with my food poisoning and we were both a little ill.
On thursday, the day before Sofia would fly back home, we decided to try seeing the city despite our stomachs and we managed to walk around and see the main attractions of Istanbul. We went to the ancient cistern which was pretty cool but overrated at the same time. We also went to the blue mosque and got to experience what’s inside a mosque for the first time for both of us. On this day we also got notice of our university applications. I got accepted to my first choice which is Graphic design and communications at Linköpings University - thus I also booked a flight back to Sweden to sort out accommodation and stuff as the term starts in 1,5 month.
I also had a very tight budget if I had decided to continue alone - which I wasn’t to keen on doing. After all, I spent 3 years at folkhögskola for a reason and now I have the chance to try out university studies of something I’m actually interested in. Time will tell if this is something for me but I will take the chance at least.
Despite this, I would very much love to finish this trip from Turkey onwards as things were started to get interesting for real. Everything is as mentioned, just different. But this will be when I have a proper budget for it. So until then, enjoy the remaining pictures!
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