January 25, 2014
Suleyman the magnificent!: Welcome, welcome!
I arrived at the Turkish border on a high mountain pass amid fog and occasional drizzle. Not that I could complain about the weather - had the universe been behaving in any way normally the pass would have been buried under several feet of snow at this time of year. At the Bulgarian checkpoint the man took only a cursory glance at my passport and told me to "go." That was easy. I cycled on a few hundred metres to the Turkish checkpoint. The man told me to "go" without even looking at my passport. I thought that was odd, but just around the corner there was another small building. A woman came out of this and looked at my bike, asking me what was in it. I told her "sleeping bag, tent..."
"Clothes?" she asked.
"Yes, clothes."
"Customs to declare?"
"Oh no." I said confidently and, satisfied, she walked back into the building.
At the next window was the man who wanted to see my passport, which I gave to him along with my printed e-visa which he didn't seem at all bothered to check. Come on man, if you only knew the trouble I went to to get this thing printed! He checked my passport, handed it back to me, and told me to "go." Oh no, I'd done my research. I had read that some people had problems in Turkey because of not having their passport stamped when entering from Bulgaria. I handed my passport back to him and said "Stamp!"
He took it and saying "If you want" he stamped my passport. I was thinking about how smart I was and how fortunate it was that I'd done my research as I took back my passport. I looked at the stamp, and then I saw that it was a Bulgarian exit stamp, that I really didn't need at all, irremoveably taking up valuable space in my passport. Lord help me, I'm just not that smart.
A few hundred metres further on I came to the real Turkish checkpoint. Its a building with 'Turkiye' written in big letters all around it, surrounded by Turkish flags and is filled with Turkish people, in case you were wondering. I walked inside and handed my passport and e-visa over to a fresh-faced young official. He looked very much like nobody had ever handed him an e-visa before and he placed it in front of him and looked at it for three whole minutes, appearing quite unsure what to do and tapping his fingers on the desk. A couple of times he looked as if he might ask a superior what to do, but he never quite went through with it. Instead, after much desk-tapping he took my passport, stamped it, and handed it back to me with a smile. "Go Turkey" he said.
The road immediately after the border was absolutely extraordinary. On the Bulgarian side it had been narrow and had so many craters it resembled the surface of the moon. Here on the Turkish side it was very wide, with three or four lanes and a wide shoulder on both sides, and the road surface was immaculate, perfectly smooth. It crossed my mind that this was actually the greatest road that I had ever seen, although that might just have been because I'd been cycling in Eastern Europe for too long. It had certainly been a very long time since I'd come across a road with wide paved shoulders like this and, what's more, there was almost no other traffic. I had the whole thing to myself.
This road was a very good introduction to a place that I had very high hopes for. Cycling around Europe had been very good for my country count and I had managed to average almost one nation per week for the first six months of the trip, but now I had the chance to spend some time somewhere, really get to know it, really sink my teeth into a country. And as a vegetarian for the previous three years, I hadn't sank my teeth into turkey since Christmas 2009 (last time I make that joke, I promise!) But Turkey, the link between Europe and Asia, between West and East, here surely was where the journey was really going to get interesting.
It was late afternoon when I crossed the border so I soon stopped and set up camp and the night brought heavy rain. I said at the start of the journey that I would let you know what I thought of my tent and I will now give you some advice regarding the Vango Banshee 200. If you are thinking of buying it, DON'T! Unless, of course, you are looking for a tent that doubles as a paddling pool. I myself had no interest in this particular feature and was quite annoyed to find myself having to stab a hole in the bottom of the tent with a pair of scissors just so the water had somewhere to drain. As far as I can see not only should this tent not legally be permitted to carry the 'waterproof' label, it should come with a warning along the lines of 'Danger! Risk of drowning.'
The rain continued in fits and starts throughout the morning. This was not part of our 'you being awesome' deal, Turkey. But the scenery made up for it, and of the few cars on the road many tooted their horn in support when they saw me. This is something that happened very occasionally in Europe - the most often was probably in Moldova (although I wasn't always sure if they were beeping in support or in a 'get off the road' kind of way.) But in Moldova it was maybe three or four cars per day, and now in Turkey it was every few minutes. And they were definitely supportive toots because I was way over on the shoulder and sometimes the drivers waved. I lifted my arm in acknowledgment with each beep, this was amazing, I could never get tired of this!
All of which was a mere prelude to my arrival in my first Turkish town of Kırklareli. No doubt the more observant among you will be thinking that I have failed to dot the first 'i' of that word, but I hasten to inform you that it is you who is mistaken. For the Turkish alphabet has a very special letter, that being the headless 'i' you have already just seen in Kırklareli. This rather confusing little letter means that capital 'I's have to be written with a dot above them too, so as to distinguish them, as in İstanbul.
I was very excited on my way into Kırklareli to see how Turkish people go about their business but before I had got anywhere into the town, practically from the first building that I passed, a man shouted out to me.
"Welcome!" he cried, "Welcome!" He was frantically waving me over from the door of a shop on the other side of the road. I turned around, crossed the street and cycled over to him. He shook my hand enthusiastically with a warm smile. I explained that I had no money to buy anything from his shop because I had not been to an ATM to get my Turkish Lira yet.
"No problem!" he said, "Come in. Drink tea? No money, no problem! Come in! Welcome!"
And that is how I came to be drinking tea with a middle-aged man named Süleyman in a little Turkish shop. For some reason Süleyman kept pouring the boiling water from the kettle into a glass and back into the kettle and he kept spilling it on the floor as he did this. The poor man was so excited I thought he was going to scald himself as he poured me my tea and handed it to me.
Süleyman wanted to know about my trip and I told him. He didn't believe I could have been to so many countries and made me name them all. He looked a bit skeptical about Liechtenstein. He got a map of Turkey out and we got to talking about Istanbul. Suddenly he started counting with his fingers. "One, two, three, four, five," he moved onto the second hand, "six, seven, eight, nine, ten," and back to the first hand, "eleven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen," he had missed fourteen but, perhaps realising his mistake, moved onto the second hand again and held up the first finger but looked unsure.
"Sixteen," I helped him.
"Yes, sixteen..." and then he held up the seventeenth finger and proudly declared "eighteen million people in Istanbul!"
I was so happy, this was EXACTLY what I wanted to happen, what I hoped would happen in Turkey. Such a nice, friendly man he was. I asked him about his family. He told me he had "two boys." I asked him how old they were.
"One boys, one girls" he said, "boys twenty-six, girls twenty-three." He managed this without any counting on his fingers at all. I asked him what they did.
"Boys physic" he told me.
"Physic? You mean physics? Is he a scientist?"
"No."
"A teacher?"
"No."
"Hmmm, a psychic?"
"No."
"A psychologist?"
"No."
"A physic?"
"Yes! A physic!"
Ahh, it was the greatest glass of tea I ever had. But unfortunately I couldn't stay forever and there was plenty more Turkey ahead. I said my goodbyes to the wonderful Süleyman and headed on into the town in a fabulous mood. I cycled through it smiling at people, some of them waved at me. I found an ATM, and then a little supermarket. In the fruit section there was an old man polishing apples! Just think of it! An old man, polishing apples! And as if Turkey wasn't being awesome enough already, the biscuits were cheap! I bought lots of apples and lots of biscuits and went outside and sat on a bench to eat them and watch the people. All kinds of people there were too. Most of them were in western clothes of course, the older women covered their heads but most of the younger women did not. That being said, there were hardly any women outside, it was eighty percent men. Not my preferred ratio, but at least the people looked happy. The miserable faces that I had become accustomed to in Eastern Europe were suddenly replaced with smiles that promised so much for the road ahead.
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I left Kırklareli and now turned east into a pretty fierce headwind (not part of the deal, Turkey.) I passed through several smaller towns and villages and had a couple more nice chats with people as I did. All things considered, it had been a pretty awesome first day in Turkey. Only one thing; by the end of the day all the friendly horn beeping was starting to get just a little bit old.
24/01/14 - 77km (18km in Turkey)
25/01/14 - 69km
Today's ride: 87 km (54 miles)
Total: 13,042 km (8,099 miles)
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