The road to Asia

We are in Asia finally. But how did we get here?

So let's pick up the line with the iranian truckdriver in Pitesti.

Driver06 - 12:30-14:00 - After we saw the strange licence plate, we greeted him with a loud "Salam". We drank tea with him and started talking about Iran. He suggested us a better road through Turkey than we planned. Basically it's E80 road he suggested: Gerede, Osmancik, Merzifon, Amasya, Niksar, Erzincan, Erzurum. Don't go on the north seaside, nor the south part (especially not in this political situation) and the best to avoid Ankara as well, because Trans-Turkey trucks and travellers don't go there. We learned some basic persian expressions and after that he had to stop to rest some hours on the ring around Bucharest.

Driver07 - 14:30-19:30 - A bulgarian Renault trailer packed with 3 cars and a following german car stopped next to us.The bulgarian guy in the german car was really strange at first. Let's say he was a simple guy :) He offered to give a ride and after we put everything inside he said we will sit in the trailer with his friend. We said Ok, but we won't leave the bags in another car. Then as we closed the trunk, the license plate suddenly fell off and we burst out laughing. We managed to it back somehow until the guy returned, and while we were heading to the trailer we heatd that he had thecsame problem and it fell off again. The best part of the story is that he overtook us after between the romanian and bulgarian border at Russe, and then we saw that he put back the german license plate upside down… ee entered Bulgaria at 16:00. The driver Salim told us he's a car mechanic in his home village Ruen near the city Ajtos and he offeted that we can go until then with him. So we changed our original route plan to enter Turkey in Edirne and decided to spend our night near the Black Sea which is really close to Ajtos.

Salim's and his friend's eyes were totally red, because they were driving directly from Stuttgart-Ulm region with the cars. I bought him one pack cigarette at the border.

Driver08 - 20:15-20:30 - Wv2 without speedometer, bat radio and a guy with funny inverse headtwisting. He took us to Ajtos and that was the point.

Driver09 - 21:30-22:00 - After some desperate experiments to get a ride in the dark (headlights and bike lamp) a young guy with a Mazda 323F stopped at the bus station and asked why did we write " more" in cyrillic to the cardboard (means "see"). It turned out that he and his girlfriend are just waiting for another girl and they are heading to Burgas to have an arabic music Saturday night party. They had two places so the took us to the center. In the city we decided to buy some beers and we are heading to the beach to bathe and out up our tent.

If you are ever planning to take a night bath in Burgas beach and want to use the equipments there (chairs, bed), don't pay to anyone there fo that. A strange guy asked 5 levas from us and I said I won't pay until he shows some papers he's a night guard there and anyways I have only 10 levas. Then he wanted 10 levas instead :)

Next day we were chilling a bit and then walked to Burgas center and got a ride to a parking place at the highway junction leading out of the city.

Driver10 - 11:15 - Ford Transit
There we had unexpected difficulties to get a ride to Malko Tarnovo, which is at turkish border. We decided not to take the road at the sea shore through Sozopol, rather we wanted to go on the shorter way. It started to get extremely hot on the sun.

Driver11 - 12:00-12:20 - Finally 2 strange guys picked us up with a big Dacia. They were going to Krusevac which is almost at half way to the border. Maybe this was our worst choice on the trip do far not because of them but the on the road there were nearly no traffic so ee felt it will be difficult to find another car going to Turkey. They were called Asin and Zlatko and they had bulgarian language skills only, but they drove that Dacia like it would be a Ferrari. And they were totally shocked when we said we are heading to Iran. (They asked our name like pointing at us and asking: "Adam? Eva?" - and I said we are not married)
In Krusevac after trying to get a ride for 20 minutes in the melting sun, we did something we've never done before: started to get a ride in both direction just to flee from that goddamn place.

Sabina had Malko Tarnovo and a turkish flag and I had Primorsko to get back to the seaside road. Obviously the turkish flag won, we knew that finally ine of the turkish drivers will get emotionally involved :)

Driver12 - 13:00-17:30 - our evil plan worked so after 15 minutes massive hitchhiking in the middle of nowhere resulted that we got our lucky ride to Istanbul. A lovely couple picked us up, I felt we were treated like their children on the whole way, they helped us everywhere. They continuously worried about if we have enough space back there because there was a bicycle as well next to us. We entered to Turkey at 14:45. There were 3 passport checking points, i don't know which was in the middle but we had to get out for that :) The couple invited us to coffee and cake. There were dtray dogs everywhere. The modt astonishing was if you wanted to get closer to them and give them food they ran away with fear. Hey bulgarians, solve this problem, they are there because of you!

The woman could speak russian, so they were communicating with Sabina mostly. She said their daughtet is studying and travelling a lot and now she's in Czech Republic. The typical moment: woman was afraid of Iran because of problems and war and the man said: "Iran? Very good! No problem!"

They dropped us out somewhere in the outer parts of Istanbul after suffering one hour in traffic jam. Then we took a metrobüs to the station Cevizlibag. It's a bus which goes above surface but in separate lanes and in the opposite direction (because stops are in the middle and doors are on the right side). Public transport works with jetons which you can buy from jetonmatik. Funny thing is there are people who are offering you letting in through the gate with their ticket thrugh for the same price with their own "ticket credit catd" but you don't have to bother with jetonmatik. Strange profession but in a metropolis like this you have to be able to survive somehow :)

In Cevizlibag we took the tram to Sultanahmet (center), but we wanted to have decent dinner first before srriving to the centrr where the prices are at least 2 times higher. I wad in Istanbul 4 years ago and I remembered to a very good dining place in Aksaray district so we searched for it and had an awesome meal for around 10 euros all together with tip. I highly recommend this place for everyone, waiters have total focus for guests and the they greet you as a friend long not seen. Ayran is super here.

We headed to the center to find a hostel in the streets behind Ayasofia. After we emptied our pocket in Best Island Hostel, we got 20 liras discount from original 80 liras (brakfast incl.). We wanted to exchange some money but the host guy said it's totally ok for polish and hungarian friends. Just walking around by night, having a nargile/shisha at "Happy Hole bar" (dangerous name hehe) with some really friendly drunk turkish guys. Lovely city, always a pleasure to come back. 

Next day we had to get out from the centre to get a good ride in the direction of Ankara. We took the ferry to Harem district, because there is a long distance bus station.

We tried to find a bus which goes to the direction of Ankara and drops out in the last ststion in Istanbul. For this mission entry level turkish knowledge didn't seem to be enough. We picked up the district Atasehir from the map and asking for this they adviced to just stay calm in one of the bus stops and a bus will come. For a better success I wrote the destination name to my bag.

Around 15 minutes waiting a bus came, slowed down. We wanted to pay the ticket, but it was a local bus and we needed to have a jeton for that. A local man helped us out and credited two tickets from his pass. He didn't accepted money after that. From the final station we walked around 3 kms to the highway. On the road there a guy asked us if he can help us and I said "Help? No, thank you! We are going to Ankara" - some hours later i just realised how funny this could have been for him.

So on the highway we went directly to a tollgate section, and after some minutes a turkish truck driver picked us up. but it's another story :)