NL°7: Hello Asia! 15 October 2020, Steppe FM
We spend more than a week in Istanbul where we stay with Murat. We had contacted him via Warmshower and he was the only one who could accommodate us in Istanbul with a dog. We arrived at his place on October 1st, soaked with sweat after a steep climb (almost vertical) to get to his place, in a district in the north of Istanbul, close to Bogazici University. On the first evening, after mounting the bikes and taking a much-needed shower, we chat over a bottle of wine in his living room.
Murat, in his thirties, is an English professor at the university. He has two passions: languages (he speaks five and is learning a sixth) and cycling. When he tells us about his training sessions, our daily steps seem miserable... He is part of a cycling team where he is the climber, he enjoys going up and down the hill where he lives five times in a row: the very route where we had no choice but to push the bikes to manage to climb.
We spend a lot of time with him and at his place because Istanbul is an important transition for us. It's the end of the bike trip and the beginning of the hitchhiking trip. So we have a lot of things to organise. We have to pack the teepee and our saddlebags (for bikes and horses) to be sent further away, we have to buy second hand backpacks and a tent. In short, we spend a lot of time preparing the transition. Fortunately, our friend Murat is there: he helps us with everything and even offers to keep our parcel at his place to send it to us at the right time and place!
Nevertheless we find time to see the fabulous Istanbul. It's a huge city, much too big to know it in a few days. It would take at least a whole month to really enjoy it. We got lost in the labyrinth of the Grand Bazaar, we got kicked out of the Egyptian Bazaar because of Jehol, we wandered through the streets of the historic centre between the countless minarets. We drank gallons of tea, split the crowds with the dog as an ice-breaker (which really works). We walked barefoot on the carpets of the mosques, especially the great Mosque of Saint Sophia, an architectural jewel with a sky-high ceiling and stunning marble beams in front of which Asian K-pop like teenagers were improvising a photo shoot,
One morning, we met up with a friend: Dany. As we admired the splendid view from her terrace, she told us a phrase that sums up the immensity of this cosmopolitan city: "Let's take the boat to Asia to eat and then go have tea in the centre".
We also spent hours in the transport system, whether it was in the metro with Jehol in a wheelie-box, or in the buses leading to the districts deserted by tourists to collect our second-hand equipment. Hours on the bus to stay in the same city... it's as disturbing as it is depressing. To get a zipper to repair a part of the teepee, Aymeric walked through huge areas entirely dedicated to storage, shipping and sales of accessories for the ready-to-wear industry. He came back in the evening after 12 hours of expedition, the teepee under his arm, after having visited temples of buttons, chains, fabrics... He was only looking for a good quality zip but was rejected like a peasant by these industrial monsters who would not sell under 300 items well weighed! The only meagre booty was a poor zipper judged "yes yes good quality" by a small and debonair man in the bazaar.
In the end, our purchases more or less completed and after a last tea with Murat, we left Istanbul under the rain on October 9th. We have 12 days left to reach the Beysehir lake from where the horseback ride will start.
We take the ferry (because it's cool to take the boat), Jehol locked in a cage at the back of the boat is in panic when we arrive in Bursa 2 hours later. We meet Fuat and Berhan, friends of friends who show us around the city and its surroundings. Again we get lost in the bazaar, which seems even bigger than Istanbul's, we visit a village with a 600 year old plane tree and even a supermarket they want to show us. We communicate in a mixture of French, Turkish and especially gestures. Our Turkish friends must have passed the word to stuff us with meat (Köfte, Kebab, Durum, Donër...) and pastries even sweeter than sugar itself.
After these two days of eating well and sleeping dry, it's time to re-gallery a bit: We start hitchhiking with the dog (disguised for the occasion).
And as far as problems are concerned, we are served! First of all we have to walk for an hour with our big backpacks to get out of the city, then we learn that we can't take the metro with the dog and as a bonus it's raining... we spend an hour under a bridge waiting for the rain to pass, then for two hours we hitchhike under a light rain, no one takes us, or even looks at us. We change spot: 1 hour walking with the dog for one, a few metro stops with all the bags for the other. We try again for an hour without success. The night falls, we decide to go and pitch the tent under the rain in a field in the middle of town.
The next day, we wait for a long time under the tent but at noon it is still raining. We put the wet tent away and walk in the drizzle, we split up again: a few metro stops for one and a 2 hour walk for the other. We are still far from the exit of the city but we are at a petrol station except that it is already dark. In this industrial area there is only one restaurant too expensive for us... nevertheless, probably having pity on us, it offers us sandwiches and tea. We spend this night on a wasteland surrounded by stray dogs, it's still drizzling and the sardines don't fit because the ground is too muddy.
The next morning when the alarm rings at 6am, it's strangely quiet... it's stopped raining! We get busy and while the sun is not yet up we are at the gas station. After an hour a couple makes us go forward about ten kilometres, which is enough to finally get out of the city: we spent as much time visiting Bursa as trying to get out of it! We spend 3 hours on a motorway slip road with our signs but at least it's sunny. Finally, after some hesitation, we decide to go directly on the hard shoulder of the motorway. And it pays off! Less than ten minutes later, we are on our way to Izmir. A journey of 330 km done in less than 3 hours!
In our heads we finally outdid our doubles on bikes (in three days we did 300 km, by bike we would have needed six days). In Izmir, we walk to find a new hitchhiking spot, and for lack of pots (yes, yes spot, stop, pots!) it doesn't work. We end up pitching the tent in a forest behind the industrial area of Izmir.
That evening, it doesn't rain, we make a fire, the first one for a while. Around the dancing flames, while the noise of the trucks rumbles in the background, we worry a bit about the time we are taking: in three full days we have only done 330 km, we still have 600 km to do in maximum 7 days to not miss the start of the trek. Before going to sleep, we look at the weather forecast, rain is expected again tomorrow at 8am...
We wake up at 6am and pack up quickly, it's not raining yet. We walk across a field, then slip through a hole in the barbed wire separating us from the highway. We run across the motorway and find ourselves on the right side. It's 7am, we take out our signs, at 7.02am a lorry stops, it takes us about thirty kilometres further. 7.30am, we jump out of the lorry and give it a thumbs up, 7.31am a car stops, 7.33am it starts to rain but we are dry in the car!
We arrive in Selçuk at 8.40am, we take shelter in a café while waiting for the rain to stop and for our contact with whom we have an appointment in the evening to answer. The rain has subsided, I write this while drinking tea under the awning of a café. We have arrived in Selçuk and we have time to write this newsletter even though we were sure we would be late.
In the end, 6 days to get to Beysehir seems quite doable considering the morning!
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