January 29, 2014
Into Istanbul: Things can only get better!
One would probably imagine that things could only get better after such a nightmare day, and initially one might have appeared to have been right. Özgür moved swiftly into action, throwing a bucket of water over my filthy bike and I believe he would have liked to throw one over me too, but he stopped short of such an abrupt greeting. After welcoming me inside his apartment he quickly ushered me into the shower, where I spent much of the next few hours disinfecting myself and all of my belongings. Emerging from the bathroom I felt like a new man, and a delicious dinner followed courtesy of Özgür's mother. I was made to feel very much at home and everything appeared to be on the up.
The next day Özgür took me to see the Botanic gardens near to his home. He lives in the town of Bahcekoy, which is just outside of the city limits of Istanbul hidden away in the woods and home to about 10,000 people. I was surprised by how quiet it was on the streets. I had been expecting a lot more loud music and horns blaring and noise from Turkey, but so far it was proving pretty quiet.
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But just as I thought my recovery was complete I got sick. Really quite sick. I'm not exactly sure why - sleeping outside in the cold was one theory, inhaling a thousand trucks worth of road-filth another contender. I thought these were a little too obvious though. Personally I think I drank too much tea. That would certainly explain why I wasn't getting any better despite being made to drink even more tea after I got sick. The tea-based recovery plan wasn't working so I tried the 'lie-around-watching-Flight-of-the-Conchords' recovery plan for a few days. Frustratingly this didn't work either.
After a couple of days I was supposed to have left and cycled into Istanbul where I had a place to couchsurf with, believe it or not, a doctor. Unfortunately I felt too weak to cycle, which left me in something of a catch-22 situation of having a man who might be able to make me better, but not being able to get to him. So I put on some more Flight of the Conchords. I felt pretty useless lying there as Özgür and his mother, a most wonderful woman who smiled at everything, ran around looking after me. There were moments of light in the darkness though, such as the evening when Özgür's mum pulled out the family photos and Özgür squirmed as his mother passed around the baby pictures.
One slight disadvantage that Özgür's flat did have in terms of aiding my recovery was that it was directly opposite a mosque. That meant that five times a day, including most annoyingly at sunrise, the call to prayer would wail out from the speakers on the minaret. Its a wonderful way to be woken up when your head already feels like its about to explode.
After five days I came to the conclusion that I was never going to get better so I might as well just carry on and so I packed up my things and left. Sadly I was unable to raise the energy to properly offer the grateful thanks that my hosts truly deserved. Even when I went to cycle off my rear tyre was half deflated, and Özgür ran off upstairs to get his good pump and give me some air. I thanked him and headed out towards Istanbul. My head was rather fuzzy and I was really feeling out of sorts. The road from the woods down to the Bosphorus was all downhill and I misjudged a corner and ended up on the wrong side of the road. Luckily there was no traffic coming in either direction. I gave myself a stern talking to. I was about to cycle into one of the worst cities in the world to cycle into - I needed to be really on my game but I was zoning out. This was going to be a question of survival.
Luckily for me I managed to find the best way to cycle into Istanbul. It is a notorious city among cycle tourists for being very difficult and dangerous to cycle into from the west, but approaching from the north along the Bosphorus turned out to be very easy. A lot of the time I was able to cycle on the pavement. As you can see from this picture, not the most dangerous place to cycle after all:
Actually I did have to brake suddenly once when a fisherman turned around too quick.
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I arrived at the home of my couchsurfing host Bekran and his French girlfriend Astrid. I was supposed to be staying with them for three days while I started organising visas, but I had only just made it in time for the third of those nights. They were throwing a party that evening with a blue theme. They had blue lights, blue clothes, even blue food. Astrid made me giggle by searching for a "Blue Video" to put on the TV, leaving me wondering just exactly what kind of party this was going to be. She was looking online and said "I can't find a Blue Video!" You can't find a blue video on the internet? Must be the Turkish censors.
When the party guests began to arrive almost none of them were Turkish. One very Turkish looking man did arrive at one point, announcing "Salam" to everyone and greeting Bekran with a kiss on each cheek. I assumed he was Turkish but then he addressed me; "Hello mate. Another Englishman, good, not many of those around. The name's George."
My head was still throbbing and I wasn't in any sort of mood for a party, and the bright blue houmous wasn't helping, so pretty soon I sneaked off to my room and fell asleep. As couchsurfing guests go I was a pretty terrible one this night. All I wanted to do was sleep. The next morning Bekran also had a headache, although his was self-inflicted. As a doctor, I'd hoped he might make me better, but it turned out he wasn't exactly a doctor. Well, he had just finished his medical degree but he wasn't working as a doctor and he didn't seem particularly interested in diagnosing me ("You slept outside in this weather, of course you have a headache.") But he did give me some super strong painkillers, for which I was extremely grateful.
Taking one of these painkillers before I began my next journey across town to a hostel turned out to be a very good move. The drug was so strong I soon began to feel like I was floating on air as I made my way through the Istanbul streets. It was also sunny for the first time in ages, and Istanbul looked utterly amazing. I was trying to concentrate on weaving my bike through the chaos of people on the sidewalk (rather than the chaos of vehicles in the road) but I wasn't too distracted to notice that Istanbul was clearly one of the world's great cities. I stopped to pose for a photo in front of the Hagia Sophia which was very close to my hostel in the heart of the old town.
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At the hostel I was very disappointed to find that the receptionist wasn't the most beautiful girl in the world. In fact, he wasn't even a girl. 'Well, this is a waste of eight euros!' I thought to myself as he showed me to my dorm room. Because there weren't any beautiful girls in there either, and because the sun was still shining and the powerful drugs still working, I went out to walk around the city a little bit. I wandered around by Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, through some of the back streets and through Gulhane Park. My first impressions were of a wonderful city, alive with sights and sounds. But after a couple of hours the painkillers were wearing off and I went back to my dorm to lie down and recover.
Thats when I met Ibrahim, or 'Egyptian-Gerry' as I quickly labelled him. He was an old man of remarkable appearance, the front of his head being bald, but at the back long greying dreadlocks. A long white beard was also tied into dreadlocks that came down to his groin. He introduced himself and started listing all of his remarkable travel stories that I was far too tired to listen to, so I told him I was sick and wanted to sleep. He was also planning on sleeping and stripped to his underpants, which he pulled up very far, the waistband being above his belly button. He turned the light out and laid down on the bed. It was about five minutes before the farting started. At least Egyptian-Gerry had the decency to apologise after farting (the first time at least.) Don't worry about it, I'm used to it.
It turned out that Ibrahim's farting was the last thing that I needed to be concerned about keeping me awake. The hostel was directly above a cafe bar which played extremely loud music from nine until two-thirty in the morning. With the walls reverberating to the sound of Jump Around! (by the very appropriate House of Pain) I realised sleep was to be in very short supply. Particularly annoying as I had to be up very early in the morning to finally begin the visa processes. I had already been in the Istanbul area almost a week, been sick the whole time and achieved absolutely nothing in terms of applying for visas or fixing the bike. Yep, things could only get better!
01/02/14 - 28km
02/02/14 - 4km
Today's ride: 32 km (20 miles)
Total: 13,228 km (8,215 miles)
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