13 December 2010

Cheating wives

We left Kayseri a bit late, in the afternoon. Tony's friends left us on a good spot and we hitchhiked to Gümüşhane with two guys.

Gümüşhane

The journey was quite long, we went through mountains at night and suddenly someone stopped us with lighter. It turned out that there's some kind of military base there and they control everyone going that way. They checked us and we peacefully continued.

When we were speaking with our drivers we get to know each other better. We acknowledged they they both were lovers of some women who cheated their husbands. They spend lovely time with them, but their husbands come back from business trip earlier that they were supposed so our cheaters were forced to leave really fast. We have really good time with them, making jokes and so. We even stopped for half an hour and had a party in the middle of road.

Dancing on the roof of the car, anywhere on the road, listening good songs very loudly :D But then came a call from one wife. One husband got suspicious about his wife. That's why he come home earlier. Fortunately for them, there wasn't any proof of cheating on place, but they wasn't in good mood because they spend with them just one night and travel back to their home - Trabzon.

After the call fun was abut to limited just for good songs. They started to argue in Turkish about situation. Of course we weren't involved in discussion, the plan was bring us to as close as possible to Erzurum. We chose the best road and Gümüşhane was chosen as final destination.

We arrived in Gümüşhane at night and decide to stay with guys and slept in the car.

They didn't went to Trabzon but rather offered us place in car. Iin the morning we bought ourselves something for breakfast and continued to Erzurum.






We tried to find a CS host in Agri from an Internet cafe, which later involved into interesting accident.

04 December 2010

Don't follow us.

From Nevşehir we caught another ride straight to Ürgüp. We went through picturesque Cappadocia and saw valleys and rocks on the way. It's amazing how nature works and how people there managed not to destroy the landscape.

In Ürgüp we sat for a while and had some ice cream. It felt like holidays ;) Then we walked around the city, visited tourist information office and took some nice maps and booklets from there. On our way we saw Turkish bath (it was veery damp inside).






We also passed stalls with souvenirs, beautiful carpets and famous Cappadocian wine.


We climbed a hill-house (how to say it other way? in was a hill with flats digged in it :) ) to watch the city from above.




Amazing view. there was also a hotel in the very same hill (an expensive one) and near a cafe there was a room with sarcophagus of a warrior (as far as i remember).





We left the city and hitchhiked to Göreme. on the way we stopped on another hill-house. this one was completely abandoned and you could see that maybe locals come there in the evenings, because there are many beer cans and butts around there. but the view was great.
you can take a balloon flight over Cappadocia and i bet it's a breathtaking experience...


From Göreme we hitchhiked to Avanos.

Hitchhiking Training - On The Way to Iran - 31th Ride


In Avanos we visited a man who made things of clay. his workroom and shop was actually in an underground cave which was excellent hideout on hot days on summer. one room was a "hair museum" created by his friend who wants to get to
Guinness Book of World Records and collects women's hair. I was not so eager to leave him sample of my hair, so i ran away and bought two cups of clay although i was worried if they survive till Krakow. they did :)


















Then we went to eat dinner (or late lunch, our dining regime during the journey made it hard to classify :) ). or maybe i should say we were walking around to find a good place to eat. when we finally stuffed our stomachs with delicious pide, we continued on our journey.



When we were crossing bridge in Avanos, a dog followed us walking on the street and it got hit by a car which most probably broke its leg. it hurt even to look at the dog. so, one warning for the future: Don't follow us. it happened a few times that people (or animals) that tried to follow us, had some problems...

We headed to Kayseri. we saw the city only at night, but it seemed really beautiful and it had an interesting castle. we arrived near the university hospital there and we were very tired and dirty with dust. the idea of spending another night on the grass was not tempting anymore and i was getting angry. but Tony once again amazed me. He called his friend, who called his friend, who called his friend... and we ended up in one friend's girlfriend's empty flat. (did i mention that people in Turkey are amazing?)
we could finally take a shower and sleep in an actual bed.

27 November 2010

Do you have ID?

We arrived in Konya on Sunday morning. Everything was quiet, almost no one on the streets. We were walking to a spot suitable for further hitchhiking and in the same time Tony was running from one shop to another but he wasn't able find new sleeping bag.







Truck driver who brought us to the city was born in Konya. When we told him we'd just pass the city he become angry. He told us that Konya is like a gem in Turkey. Actually he told us true, modern city with nice architecture and clean! One of the cleanest cities in Turkey that I saw. But our mission was to get to Cappadocia on the same day. So we just skipped Konya.

On our journey in Turkey we didn't use buses or trains at all. It wasn't question of money for us but something more important. We were able to socialized with locals much more deeper and get to know country in such a level which traveling with buses nor trains wouldn't guarantee.
People who took us on the road were always speaking with us, asking questions or showing interesting places. They wanted to show us the best from Turkey.

When we found good spot and started our classic pose immediately the first car stopped. It was an old couple. "Tony's language support" helped them understand us. They were surprised what we are doing here, even a bit angry. Term hitchhiking was unknown for them. Anyway after talks they still weren't sure about us and wanted to see our IDs. It was first time after thousands of hitchhiked kilometres when someone asked me for ID. They took us to Nevşehir, which was more than we expected.

Nevşehir, modern city full of muslim traditions.
































Close to Nevşehir was our awaited Cappadocia. As you know Cappadocia isn't just one city but it's whole area which contains several underground cities.

25 November 2010

How rats ate our delicious clothes

We went on to find some place to sleep in Aksehir. Whole city was so dirty and dusty. Nothing really turistic. We asked some people for hostels but they weren't in mood to respond. So we just walked around and after some time we only found a closed gas station with nice open garden behind. No one was around so we picked it out as our hostel for some hours. It had a nice resting place with armchairs and small table. next to it there was really tempting grass. we decided that it was the best place we'd ever find in the neighbourhood. Just to be sure, Tony asked a guard there if we could stay. Guy hesitated a bit but agreed in the end of conversation. He even let us use some cushions.

It wasn't so cold at the night with sleeping bags.But Tony doesn't have any. So he slept between us. I slept good. We woke up around 6 am and continued to Konya by truck. During the day though, we found out that we got really original souvenirs from Aksehir. Barbara's trousers appeared to have some strange holes that looked eaten rather than torn. After some time Tony also realized that the same thing happened to his jeans. That would explain some paw-like marks on our sleeping bags. It must have been some kind of rat or other rodent. It was strange. nothing happened to our sleeping bags or other stuff, only jeans and trousers were eaten.


We reached Konya by truck in the morning.

10 November 2010

Flat tyre and hitchhiking at night

Tony didn't sleep whole night, he was exploring night life in the city. In the morning we took a shower on the stony beach fortunately without hot sand and decided to continue our journey. Spending time on beach was so refreshing.
We bought some bananas and after fresh breakfast we peeled and ate them. Do you remember old gags from silent movies with banana peel? We did the same :)



We left banana peel on pathway and sit close to it. When
first person came, he stopped, look at the banana peel, then look at us, twisted his head and overpassed banana peel :D After this guy who was in his forties we improved our trap. We put another banana peel next to first one. Then old lady with shopping bags came. And she did the same thing but without twisting her head. We laughed a lot.
Third level was with three banana peels on the pathway so anyone passing through has to step at least on one. They were smart, almost everyone stepped over it. We didn't calculate this possibility. After some gag attempts we put all banana peels to trash and continued to walk next to road.



Thanks to Tony's Turkish language asking for directions was qualitatively higher than with our English.

In some moment we got ride by taxi without paying for it. I love Turkey and people there!  When we were passing through countryside we spotted a lot of animals next to roads. Staring goats are almost everywhere, not speaking about fowls. So waiting for car, I was talking with them but they refused to communicate with me.
Probably they were afraid that I will eat them. Lucky bastards, I wasn't hungry :D.



Heading to Konya, we got few rides, even freshly on small truck which took us to no-name village. As we got thirsty we asked one woman working in the garden for water. She offered us water and when we were filing our bottles she brought us lunch. It was something like soup with fresh yoghurt. In return we left sweets for little girl living there.

After lunch we got great ride on the open back of car. Looking at the changing views around we were smiling at each other and having fun by taking photos. Still smiling and in good mood we said goodbye and later reached Isparta.

We came to another not important village before Konya in the evening. I think that everyone in that village knows that we were trying to hitchhike next to roundabout. Even some teenagers were coming one by one or in small groups to see us, some of them on motorbikes, poorer by bicykles or on foot.


After one hour and tens of watchers random guy tried to help us and took us to the close truck station, actually he send his friend in his car there. Unfortunately they didn't want to take us, because we were too heavy. So his friend took us back to the same place. Guy was surprised, he was waiting with his girlfriend (or whatever was their relationship) for bus. Before her bus came, he left us some fruit and his phone number just in case.

One hour later we got ride with small truck and old guy. He was around 60, smelled like toilet, but it was a ride. Our camera was out of battery and we got suspicions about him.
What would anyone like him do on the road and why should he take us? After some time though, our suspicions have gone. We got a flat tyre on narrow mountain road. It took about 30 mins to change the wheel and we could continue our journey through the dust around. The man left us near the bus station in Aksehir. After checking buses we learned that there's nothing for us there. We had to find a place to sleep till morning, so we walked and checked every place that seemed suitable for us.

01 November 2010

Don't look for sea, go for ocean

We spent whole night in bus from Ankara to Fethiye.
At the beginning it looked like big resort abandoned by tourists and travelers. We slept around two hours at the morning. SunFace Hotel trash bins were first things which were possible to see from bus. Hotel was hidden in small town. It has to be really hard to found this place without guide. It was quite small place with small swimming pool and bar. We were thinking to stay for breakfast but desire to spend time in the sea was much more stronger. After saying goodbye to everyone we were walking to the beach. Later when we asked for direction, we acknowledged that the beach is quite far away.

We had a small break, bought some breakfast and found abandoned hotel. It looked like no one was there for half a year. So when we found good spot on logs of wood we started our breakfast. We were lucky, toiled was closed but water pump was working. Leaving something hidden for dunk beetles we left our hotel and continued by hitchhiking to the Ölüdeniz Beach. Hotels and restaurants next to main road in this touristic place had a lot of English ads like Swimming Poll or Take a way food. Nice to see, they are polyglots.

Not having warm sea in our countries  was main reason why we stayed on the beach whole day. Lazy to do anything, only having fun there. The sea fulfilled our expectations for temperature. Three hours after our arrival some of our friends from Ankara also came. Nothing really adventurous. I was thinking about some climbing, but others weren't in the mood.
In the evening they left us and we came with an idea of staying there for another day. It was too hot to sleep inside and anyway we didn't got couchsurfing host so whole beach was our bed. Before we started to count jumping sheep we got dinner from local market and found a backpack with treasure. Lots of memory cards, weird expensive camera and some clothes. Hmm what to with that. No one around we took a camera and watched pictures. It was from paragliding and we realized that weird camera was for parachute.When were looking at the pictures, owner of the backpack arrived. He wasn't worried about his stuff, he didn't even say thank you or maybe I just don't remember that. In any case he left as fast as he arrived. Basically we slept really good with that feeling we saved lot of money and memories that night.

29 October 2010

From family circle to best party


on the way to Duzce

We left Istanbul on Wednesday by hitchhiking directly from center of Besikas. Our first destination was Düzce, Tony's hometown. We got there by five cars. Every driver was somehow interesting but one was unique. Truck driver who also invited us for tea.


He was so happy that he could communicate with us through Tony's mouth. It wasn't first time when he took hitchhikers but he doesn't know English and he was so sad that he couldn't share his stories with them. But this time he enjoyed it so much that he even left us some of his necklace which is used for praying. He was wearing it for 15 years! And I managed to lose it in two weeks when I was getting out from some car :(
It was fun when he showed us picture of circumcision of his son and other pictures of his family. He was so proud of them. That's the moment when you really see cultural differences. What is disgusting for one culture could be one of the most important milestones of a lifetime for another. After teatime we continued with him and close to turnoff to Duzce we got off from truck and there was another car waiting for us already. Driver saw that someone is leaving truck so he stopped, waited for us and took us to the city. Isn't it amazing? He drove us directly to the front of Tony's house. Later we met all Tony's family (regretting that our Deutsch ist kaputt) and tasted more Turkish hospitality. We were impressed by the whole family.

Duzce looks like all cities in Turkey. It was rebuilt after big earthquake in 90's, so most of buildings were new. We stayed there just one night for recovering and small shopping. My backpack was ready for trash-bin after two years and Tony didn't have any. So we were walking from one shop to another until we found something usable. Tony was bargaining with merchants for every price and we got it really cheap. I was so glad for his presence. He choose really small backpack for trip and I was wondering how will he be able to put everything in it. He was, but I wasn't. Later history proved that my choice was good..

One day in Duzce and we were so eager to start again. Standing next to road with camera and making some documentary we got company of public police. They started to ask what we were doing there and why we had a camera. It was close to bus station in non touristic city so maybe it wasn't a good idea. Anyway, after a few-minute talk they disappeared and we got ride. Our destination was Ankara, our presumable sleeping place technical university. It was so easy and faster than public bus. So after some hours we were walking through one entrance and even in campus got ride for some hundred meters. We arrived around evening, luckily just in time for big party. Local BEST group just organized leisure course and participants had a party there.
Party itself was like BBQ with lot of get-to-know games, dance music, liters of sangria and fun.
Main organizer was Cansu Birgen. She even let us go together with them to Fethiye, small city close to the coast in south-west part of Turkey. Of course with party bus and for free. We were so thankful to all organizers for it.

Inside of the party place there was science playground, the big size model of Turkish coast. It was used for wave experiments. Party was over after five hours and we were sitting inside and waiting for buses. We talked about our plans and why we wanted to visit Iran. In a meanwhile buses came. One was a party bus and the other for tired. With sound of live sax, singing for hours we got to Fethiye.


22 October 2010

Istanbul

Elena
Sina
On Sunday 22nd August we rested a bit. We walked around Istanbul and had our first kebap in Turkey. Our group was joined by stylish Elena, a BEST member from Russia hosted by Sina in the same flat as we. In the evening we went to have some beers and party.  


Istanbul is a huge city and transport there is a horror. There are taxis everywhere and all drivers use their horns as a rule. For some it can sound like a symphony. It is also very crowded, lots of people everywhere. However, the city itself is very beautiful with mosques here and there. At the evening we went for wonderful view of whole city which only locals know. After that another adventure, so surprising, we managed to hitch-hike within the city. Tony said he'd done it many times but there were five of us and yet the driver took us all!
Grand Bazaar
On Monday we visited The Grand Bazaar, The Spice Bazaar and the oldest part of the city with Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque. The Grand Bazaar was quite disappointing since it didn't look like a bazaar at all. It looked rather like a big shopping centre with turistic prices. But part of the city just few streets away was like bazaar we expected.
In the evening many people around had picnics. Because of Ramadan they don't eat during the day but after sunset a big feast starts. We sat there for a while and watched them before we went back home.
There we found out that two more people are staying there for night. We got to use the internet for a while and went to sleep.



Aya Sofia




We were supposed to leave Istanbul on Tuesday

but we had to stay one more day because of small problem with Tony's car. We went to Istanbul Modern, gallery of modern art. As it is with art, some of works amazed and some left us indifferent. One could see an effort to follow European art styles, Martin missed some local elements. Guess who was last one walking away from gallery :-) with guards. In the evening we joined some besties in a pub. We had a talk with people who'd already been to Iran and told us about their experiences there. So another evening and more people in the flat with us(9).
Tony
Besiktas

21 October 2010

Hitchhiking in Turkey


When we began to walk to turkish border from Malko Trnovo it was late morning.

We realized that this road is not very common used by anyone just random lost foreigners.
The worst walking to the border ever. There were thousands of flies flying around us and trying to eat us at the same moment. Fortunately we got first ride after few kilometres directly to the border.We went through bulgarian "Coll control" which consisted of three sentences: "Colna kontrola. Colna kontrola finish. Bye bye." :D that was funny, they didn't check anything. Probably it was too early for them to work.
Later we got small ride for about ten km and for first time we got in touch with turkish hospitality. We learn how to say thanks in Turkish language and we escaped from flies.


We got third ride, the best one. Three very hospitable people. They took us directly to Istanbul and even paid for our lunch.That was amazing. We had small break at their company, where we met some of their friends. They brought us to Istanbul and show us direct local bus to center. Two hours later we joined our movie director Tony, who will be our travelmate on the way to Iran and Sina, his flatmate, both of them from BEST. 21.8.2010 Time for rest came.

31 August 2010

Road to Turkey - Bulgaria

We crossed Bulgarian border on 19th August in Sinistra and walked through the city to find a good hitchhiking spot. When we found it, soon we stopped a driver who took us to Balcik near the sea. We were hoping to sleep on a beach but we didn't find any so we spent the night in some kind of park, in bushes. We continued hitchhiking in the morning and rode eight cars that day. First took us to a better spot, the next to Varna. There we walked through amazingly long bridge to find a proper place to continue. We ran out of water and i started to panic. I said that nobody would take us from there and just after that a car stopped ;) It turned out that there were CouchSurfers going back from the airport where they left their cousin and the car was rent. on the way we talked about our journeys and hitchhiking experiences.
In Burgas we stopped to buy some water and the girls left us at the best spot around. Then we continued to Tsarevo by two cars. The second driver was "former hitchhiker" :) but he warned us that the route we'd chosen was not the best one. We could feel it waiting for hours. Then we decided to move a bit and after a while a car stopped. It was a young married couple exploring nearby villages.


They took us to Kosti and Bulgari, a village of 150 houses where every year on 3rd of July you can see people dancing on fire with icons.



We visited old orthodox church there and met a friend of the couple who was currently staying in Malko Tarnovo, our next destination. He took us there and helped us with an accommodation. We slept in luxury and it was relatively cheap.


The owner of the place spoke to us using a mixture of Bulgarian, Russian and German which sounded really funny.

19 August 2010

Brasov and Romania

Romania
at the border we were told to get our luggage and go though the control with it. we had no bigger problems there but it felt a bit strange.
We reached Brasov some time after 5 am. There was a Bestie from Brasov Board waiting for our Chisinau friends and we went with them to their dormitory.



After a while we were allowed to stay there as well. A short rest and breakfast were refreshing. Then we went to see the city. It was beautiful city surrounded by mountains. We walked around for about six hours. I couldn't say where were we but Mato managed to lead me back. In the evening we went to the city again, this time with Besties. We didn't stay long however, bcs we wanted to leave Brasov at 6 am.



Our plan didn't work out though, we left after 9 and took wrong direction, we went to the mountains and hitchhiked heading to Sofia.
We wanted to skip Bucuresti. It dıdn't work out though, after Hitchhiking from Brasov to Bran (where Dracula's castle is) and then to Pitesti, 
we were forced to take a train to Bucuresti.

Dracula's castle


We were trying hard not to go there but after all we stayed in very pleasant hostel - Midtown Hostel. Luckily they have 24h reception desk and breakfast included. We slept well and travelled to Calarasi in the afternoon. From there we hitchhiked again to Bulgarian border with a Crazy Driver as it was written on the car.

Odessa

Serega
Odessa, early morning on the beach


After a few hours of watching Russian sitcom about doctors we arrived in Odessa at 2:30 am and was trying to find a place to sleep when we met a boy on bicycle who offered us his help. The boy was Serega and he lead us to the beach. We lay there watching falling stars and listening to the sea. quite romantic, isn't it?

Sasha
at 11 am we met again with our accidental guide. We went to leave luggage at the train station and waited there very long. Then we met Sasha, a CSer who couldn't host us but managed to show us around. I got a photo with Mr. Pushkin ;)



Mr. Pushkin
Odessa is pretty but it was so hot that soon we were only dreaming of some shadowy place to rest। We went for a beer and after that to the bus station with Serega to buy tickets to Chisinau। Funny thing, one lady in the ticket office told us there were no more tickets for that day and another sold us the tickets without tiniest problem. At 10.30 we found the minibus and went to Chisinau jumping on our seats (not bcs of happiness but bcs of roads' quality...). We crossed the Ukrainian
border and entered no man's land. After several kilometers we arrived at Moldovan border. Our passports, being the only not blue were the objects of unnatural curiosity.



Lover's bridge

Opera

Bus station





to be contınued...