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Istanbul - Iskilip
Hey everyone,

Let's just start by saying we're all fine, happy and healthy. We're currently in Iskilip, Turkey. Staying in a hotel for 7,50 per night, breakfast included. Iskilip is a beautiful mountain town somewhere in the middle of Turkey. The road to it is one of the smaller ones, illustrated by giant holes combined with sand and stones in the descents. We have to be very careful downhill, but the better part is that there is very little traffic. And, being a less important road, it is far more beautiful than the 100 we followed in the days before this road. The land is amazing, the people too, and even the tea is very good. We're having a really good time in Turkey, and I just wish time came in unlimited quantities.

It's been a while since Istanbul, and I've remembered most of it. But the order does not seem important to me anymore. If I go by experiences chronologically I'll be talking for hours and you'll be bored to death before the story is finished. It makes more sense to pick out some things, and try to show you how extraordinary a trip by bicycle can be in these parts of the world. I have to start with tea. Turkish tea is a whole new experience for any inhabitant of western europe. It's black tea, most of the time. A lot of earl grey, no surprises there either. Most people use some sugar in it, and stir it with a teaspoon. So far, so good. But the preparation is completely different. First, you heat some water. You clean the teapot, clean the tealeaves (yes, people do that), add a shitload of tea to the teapot and add some boiled water. You should have enough tea for roughly 30 Dutch cups, with water for 3. Underneath this teapot, there's another pot. This one you'll use for boiling the water, and after you put the tea and boiled water together, you add a lot of water to the pot. You'll have about 4 times as much water in the lower pot as in the top pot. Leave it on the stove for a while, perhaps 15 minutes, and then pour some tea from the top pot in a glass. It'll be very strong, so don't fill the glass completely. Rather, fill about 30% of the glass. The rest of it you fill with the hot water from the lower pot. Some people might like 20/80, others perhaps 40/60. Just depends on your tea and taste. Now, you have your tea. Dutch people might be tired already from the whole process, but Turkish people just overdo it by using minuscule cups and adding some sugar before drinking. I have to admit, the tea is delicious usually. But I'm not done here. Dutch people drink tea at work, at home, practically everywhere where they can heat water and have a cup. Turkish people can drink tea everywhere, but it's not about the tea. It's about the social contact. The tea is a form of communicating, it is about the only way they will start a real conversation. They say 'hi, where are you from, do you want tea?', or a variation on this theme. Wherever you go, you will find people drinking tea. Whoever you meet, you will be offered tea. You can refuse it, and they won't mind. But they will offer, and refusal will probably make them assume you have no time for their company. Unless, of course, you drink something else. But it starts with tea. It all does, and I love it. Someday, we'll all get a turkish teaset and make turkish tea all day at home.

We really discovered this tea in Istanbul, which is my next point. Istanbul is a terrifyingly large city to cycle in. It is also terrifyingly big when you have other means of transport and a sense of proportion. There are about 12.5 million registered people living in Istanbul, on over 1500 square kilometer. In comparison, The Netherlands has 41000 square kilometers and 16.4 million people. And Istanbul people don't live in big appartment blocks. It's true, most buildings have 3 to 5 floors, but no more. These days, people are trying to place the skyscrapers in Istanbul, but there aren't that many yet. And even with so many people on a small space, there are lots of trees to go around, especially on the anatolian (asian) side of Istanbul. In short: it's a very diverse and beautiful city.

Diversity can be found very easily. There is a huge difference between the atmosphere on the European side of Istanbul (west of the Bosporus) and the Anatolian (east) side of Istanbul. The European side is much like the world we know, but then with more people, cars, noise and turks. The Anatolian part appears more turkish to us. Life is relaxed, people live in a familiar harmony together with the whole family and don't worry too much about time or schedules. On the European side, it's more about money, capitalism, all the bad influences we could ever have on culture. On the Eastern side, it's about hospitality. About drinking tea. Being a big family. Many of the Turkish people I meet cannot understand the problems in Israel, or Al Qaeda. They say: Bir Allah is the same as One God. We may have our differences, but we all believe in the same god. We just interpret it differently. So let's just let everyone do what they think is best, and let God/Allah decide. And I agree, were it not for me being an agnost and doubting any religion. But I truly agree we should let everyone act as they see fit, and see what happens. The common values are simple. Just watch The Meaning of Life by Monty Python.

All in all, there are many things to see in Istanbul. But mostly, it's an atmosphere to taste, to experience. The fact that there is a sea through your city is stupefyingly weird. The bridges are immense, but they don't impress me as much as just the sight of the Bosporus and the realisation that people have been living in that area for ages, trading back and forth with the other side. It's an example of the open nature people should, and could, have. Peaceful coexistance with different roots, why not.

Leaving Istanbul was hard. I felt peaceful there, and not only because of the girl I met there (for the MTG fans, the name's Serra :D). But this trip is a one time opportunity and if I turn back now, I might never do something like this again. So, we left with a ferry to a city south of Istanbul, rode a few km and put up a tent. Oh, almost forgot, we met a South Korean cyclist there (!!!) who had been on the road for 11 months (!!) and was planning for another 2 years (!). I guess you find crazy people anywhere. But at least they are interesting and generally very kind to others. Anyway, we were back on the road as well, but it was more like an opportunity to breathe. Istanbul had held many experiences, and especially for me very little sleep. Aafke had been a little ill, and Martijn didn't sleep much either. So, we took it easy for a couple of days, talked to people when they addressed us, took 3 hours for lunch, things like that. It led to yet another newspaper article, this time in the local newspaper of Geyve, Turkey. We're getting quite a number of fans now, I hope I can still safely walk the streets when I get back. Sorry, bad joke.

After a period of relative rest on the road, we tried to start making serious progress again. Only to find out that we really can't anymore. Whenever we start out well, we find something to stop cycling. We enter a shop and find someone who speaks english. So we talk, talk, and suddenly it's an hour later. We look for a bicycle shop to replace my pedals, and first we find the wrong shop, then the right one and an offer for tea, conversation and later for lunch. Replacing my pedals took about 5 minutes, but we spent about 4 hours in Bolu. It's not bad, it's very good even. It's what travelling to such distant countries should be like. Cultural exchange everyday, taking our time for whatever we might find. At another time, we were going pretty fast but needed some money and water. So, we entered a small city, found a bank and spent half an hour getting the money because some people wanted to know everything about us. Then, we got invited to a school nearby, went there and were the heroes of the day for all the kids. Some of them spoke quite some english and through multiple mouth to mouth translations, I imagine I'm now 36 years old and 2,50m tall, descending from Willem van Oranje and chief economist at Philips. Or perhaps they did understand most of the things we tried to explain. We'll never know. In the end, it was time to go and eat some, after which we went to bed. Only did 48 km that day I think. Ever since we've entered Istanbul we haven't done over 90 km anymore. It's a good life, but I hope the children in Tibet will forgive us.

Let's talk about hospitality. If a Dutch person invites a stranger in for a cup of tea, the person is invited to the duration to make the tea and drink it. Unless he/she made a real good impression, it's time to shove off after that. It makes sense, because we only ask them in for tea, not lunch, dinner, a game, the night or whatever else you might offer them. Here, you can ask someone to come over for tea, and mean something completely different. I expected as much, from my experience with Asia, but the others were really surprised to find a complete meal when Serra's mother invited us for tea. After the meal, it wasn't even time to go yet, we got to sit on the balcony and watch the bosporus and the trees around us. And of course eat some other snacks, all delicious to us, hungry travellers. I think this tea took us about 6 hours. And 6 hours well spent I have to add. We had a great time looking through old pictures, talking about old times and new habits, discussing ways to prepare the food they offered us, and just relaxing a load. It was a good warning too. If someone offers you something and you don't want the whole hand, first doubt a little, then ask for just the finger. If they offer something else afterwards (they usually do), refuse a few times. It's a sort of ritual and I think it satisfies their honor, their hospitality rules, while it leaves us free to drink just a bit of tea with them. I think most of you can imagine how weird it is to accept a king's meal from people who generally have much, much less to give then you do. Especially when there's almost no possibility to do anything in return. It is embarassing to us, but it is also warming. The next time I see a lonely Korean in the Netherlands, I'm going to make sure he leaves stuffed and rested. Because we are good people too, we just forgot how to be really hospitable. We sometimes forget how important sharing is, because it's not necessary anymore. Well, start living on a euro a day and you might notice.

Not that I expect anyone to do that. It's just folly. Why not enjoy life and be happy when you can? But if I do start enjoying my life, I just try to make sure someone else enjoys it too. It feels better that way. Now, the future holds a last interesting story from the past. There are many more, but I have to keep some for when I get home, right? Anyway, we have gotten our Iranian visa. We have ordered an authorisation code for it 2 months ago, with a 7-10 working days delivery time. This turned out to be a 3 months delivery time if we didn't pay the urgency fees. So, we paid urgency fees. We got to Istanbul, and still had no code...now we're getting worried. Lucky for us, the consulate was also closed on 1st of may, labor day. So, we wait until monday. Sunday evening, no code yet, so it's going to be a difficult story at the consulate. Monday morning: code! Finally, relief, and let's go. I slept for like 3 hours I think, but we need to get this visa, and the sooner the better. So, we take our photo's, our codes and our passports to the consulate. Or not.....The other three easily forgot about their photo's, and had to make new ones in the center. No worries, more things to do, like gathering the mail at the post office. 12:00, we pick up the new photos and head towards the consulate, which appears to be closed after 11:30. Better luck tomorrow, they tell us. Thank you very much. The next day, we enter the consulate, and have to fill out everything we already did for the authorisation codes. Why, no one knows, but it takes a long time, and they don't only want copies of our passports, they also want copies of the turkish visa. So, off to a copyshop, then to a bank to pay double the amount we expected, and finally back to the consulate. By then, we expected the delivery time to be 3 days out of the 1-3 days promised, so we were delighted to hear we could pick it up the next morning. Except for me, who wanted to stay in Istanbul a little longer. But, we have our visa, can go to Iran and have a wonderful time there. Next step: Uzbekistan visa. Officially we don't need a letter of invitation but just to be on the safe side, we already ordered one. Let's hope it'll be a bit easier than the Iranian visa....

Tomorrow we go on towards çorum, following smaller roads wherever we can. Perhaps we'll take a bus once we get back to the 100, to make up for the time we lose talking to people and taking detours. I don't know yet, but I don't care much either. As long as we can continue the road in a way we all enjoy. And make some kilometers for the kids in Tibet too.

Douwe
 
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