June 10th - Restanbul
We started the day in the best way - with a breakfast buffet. After that we walked into town and hit the tourist sites which was a lot more restful than usual - maybe we're getting better at this? I don't think it's possible to see Istanbul in a day and we definitely didn't manage. We did get a bit of the flavour of the city though.
June 11th - Istanbul to Yassioren - From "the worst place in the whole world" to one of the best
We’d decided to leave Istanbul via ferry as everyone we’d ever met had said it was horrendous to cycle out of. We chose to take the Bosphorus Tour boat, a tourist trip up the bosphorus river. Most holiday makers just sit on it all day (ahhh to be a holiday maker) and enjoy the views, but we got off around half way up at a place called Saryier. The ferry left at 10:30 which gave us lots of time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast, and… fight with the hotel owner about the price. On their website it’s quoted in dollars, but they gave us a quote in euros, and wanted us to pay in lira. It was all very complicated and their main technique was to do a lengthy sum on the calculator and hold a number at us. In the end we paid what we knew we had to (we booked via booking.com so it was v legit) and left. We caught the ferry by the skin of our teeth and settled down to enjoy the ride. It was awesome seeing Istanbul by boat – it really is massive. It was specially cool seeing Europe and Asia on different sides of the river. During this journey the crew came round selling these delicious looking creamy things. Practically everyone bought one and obviously I did too. It turns out it was slightly fermented sour yoghurt. What a disappointment. I can’t imagine anyone selling that in the UK with anything like the reception it was having. Eventually we reached Saryier and had to get off the ferry. The road was immeadiately the nicest road we’d been on for a long time. It was so nice to be able to enjoy the countryside without lorries whizzing past. It soon all went to shit though as suddenly the road was only lorries. Waste disposal lorries. With dust spilling out of their (??). The road was covered in dust mud and we couldn't breathe from all the congestion. It was hilly hot and miserable. As Mum said "This is the worst place in the whole world". Eventually we managed to find a turning and got off the road - wherever it went. By this time it was getting pretty late and we were looking for a campspot. The wild exposed terrain was not great for camping so we pulled into a village and asked if we could camp in a school garden! The English teacher spoke just about English to communicate and said it was fine to pitch the tent, so pitch the tent we did! We definitely were the village attraction, with probably the entire population coming to talk to us. Quite a lot of children actually got into the tent, and didn't want to leave at all. When it came to breaking Ramadan time two different families brought us massive suppers, and we'd had a very late lunch so even for us it was a bit of an effort to finish. Don't worry though, we managed it!! Everyone was so nice to us.
June 12th - Yassioren to Vize - "This is the worst town I've ever been to in my whole entire life"
We had lots more free food for breakfast and then set out on our way. European Turkey and Asian Turkey have completely different landscapes and the European side of the Bosphorus is mainly rolling farmland which is a nice change.
For lunch we were on a desperate search for Pide which is delish Turkish pizza. Sadly the search was fruitless so we settled for Moussaka (which is still incredible). The food in Turkey is all amazing but pretty samey - I think that's especially true of Ramadan. I was hoping for things like pita bread and hummus and falafel but they only seem to be available in hipster cafés in touristy places. Anyway we got to a restaurant and the owner phoned the family's English speaker. This is pretty common and usually the person can't speak any English at all and has been lying to everyone. This presents a problem for us as we try not to give them away. It turns out this dude actually not only spoke English, but lived in Coventry! We had a nice chat and at the end of our lunch the owner of the restaurant told us the man had paid for our meal!! This is absolutely classic of Turkish people. After this lunch we headed further towards the Bulgarian border, and went through a horrendous town. Everyone stared at us in a horrible way, and suddenly we were in a different country again. The women were all wearing burqas, which we haven't seen at all in all our time in Islamic countries. Lots of men directly asked us "how much" and blew kisses and made inappropriate gestures. I was back to hating Turkey. We did find this amphitheatre. Eventually we managed to find away out of the town and found some deserted ish looking farmland to camp in. We did go past this amphitheatre
June 14th - Vize to Bulgaria (just) - Back in the EU! ! ! !
The Bulgarian/Turkey border is on top of a mountain range - who knew? The climb was very gentle though. In the last sign of civilisation we went to a small supermarket and the owner tried his absolute best to upsell as much as possible - in a very friendly way. Most of his suggestions looked absolutely revolting (dried grey fish) but he did convince us to buy some aubergine pesto which was delish. We managed to make it to the top of hill (just) and crossed over the border into the EU. WOOOOOOOOOO. Seeing that beautiful blue with those nice jazzy stars made me soooooo happy. We stopped at the first petrol station and asked if we could camp, and the petrol station owner said no without even looking up from his phone. Mum tried to wash her face in the bathroom and the woman kicked her out. Everyone was ignoring us??? I'd often craved this in Turkey but now it felt so cold. Is this what the UK is like? We cycled down the road and camped in a small forest. There was practically no traffic.
June 15th - Bulgaria (just) to Burgas - We meet our second favourite ever German Daniel
We were rolling down the hill into Burgas thinking how weird Bulgaria is when a German cycle tourist called Daniel caught up with us. Bulgaria is full of neglected Soviet apartment blocks and everyone was drunk. At one point I got chased by a drunk man with no teeth on a folding bike. Luckily he wasn't drunk enough to forget that he was going to go back up the hill... We were enjoying the descent when a German cycle tourist called Daniel caught up with us. We're predisposed to like Germans called Daniel and we liked this one,
He'd learnt English by listening to political podcasts and was much more up to date than we were. We got into Burgas and went to a restaurant for lunch, and he said that not only was it the first proper meal he'd had on the trip (he eats dry bread and drinks milk) but also the first restaurant he'd been to for over 10 years! He was saying in hotels every night so he clearly wasn't short of cash. I don't really understand people who don't prioritise food in their daily lives - but cycle tourists? What is there to look forward to apart from eating? Everyone we'd met in Bulgaria seemed to be mean!! Without exception. The waitress was really snappy and had lots of scary piercings. After this we checked into a cheap hotel for an afternoon off, and Daniel continued up the coast. We spent the afternoon trying and failing to do jobs, cooked in a disgusting kitchen and went to bed..
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