Travel blog: Made it to Istanbul!

This year we'll be following the odyssey of Peter and Christine Helliwell as they undertake an entirely self-funded bike ride from London to Sydney to raise money for charities Medicins Sans Frontiers and Mary's Meals. The intrepid couple will be sharing their experiences in a blog for Travelbite.co.uk and here is their eighth blog entry:

After Sozopol we cycled down the coast and then over the hills to Malko Tarnovo, where we wild camped before crossing the border into Turkey the next morning. The formalities were quite straight-forward at the border, and it was immediately apparent that we were in a different country by the quality of the roads. Bulgarian roads vary from reasonable to really quite atrocious, with pot holes big enough to swallow cars never mind destroying bikes if you are not careful.

The road to the Turkish border is no exception, however the minute you cross the road widens into a three-lane brand new highway with a huge hard shoulder, great for cycling. Slightly bizarrely though is the fact that there was virtually no traffic on the road - in the 40km to the first town, we passed at most 20 vehicles (in either direction) - making us wonder why they had invested so much money in such a wonderful road. We weren't complaining though as we hit our top speed so far - 65.5km/h!

Another feature of Turkey that became clear straight away was the friendliness of the people. We lost count quickly of the number of people beeping and waving, even leaning out their windows (while driving!) shouting 'welcome', and pulling up alongside to say hello and offer us a lift (which for the record we politely declined!). Really great.

We also had our first experience of the Muslim hospitality that we have been told to expect. We were planning on wild camping, but had some trouble finding a spot because the land was quite agricultural. We found an area that looked ok by the side of a field and were about to set up camp when a car pulled up with a local farmer. Great, we thought, he is going to say we can't camp here. We were right in some respects, he didn't think we should camp there, but only because he thought we should stay as guests in his house instead.

This took some time to convey as he didn't speak a word of English, and we no Turkish; pictionary skills were required. I must admit that we were rather sceptical at first, assuming that payment would be demanded, so we made sure to ask 'how much', but he made it clear that no money was expected, so we happily packed up and followed him home. Not wanting to impose any more, we went out for dinner (proper Turkish kebab!), but when we returned they invited us in to the living room for coffee and baklava and biscuits, well it would have been rude to refuse wouldn't it?!

Slightly awkward because of the language barrier, but we showed them the pictures of our families and of London that we have with us, which we think they appreciated, and they showed us pictures of their children, and they taught us some words of Turkish. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable evening, certainly an experience that will stay with us. The next morning the guy even got in his car and led us out the village to make sure we went the right way - very kind.

We then continued in the direction of Istanbul. We had an idea that we wouldn't get all the way in on our bikes, seeing as Istanbul is legendary for being a huge (over 17 million people live here) and sprawling city, with horrendous traffic on fast, big roads. We were right, but it was even worse than we expected.

We got as far as a town called Corlu, which is still 100km away from Istanbul, but already it was clear that it was going to be one big conurbation all the way, and the roads were becoming practically suicidal to ride on.

So we did the sensible thing and got on a bus to the centre of Istanbul - some may call it cheating but I hope most people will appreciate we didn't have much of a choice!

Istanbul's otogar (bus station) is still 13km out of town, and clearly motorway was the only option to get in to the town centre, so we checked out the metro system for the last part - quite interesting taking our fully-loaded bikes on escalators but other than that it was no problem. We still had 4km from the nearest metro station to our hostel, not very far but it took us over an hour courtesy of atrocious traffic (and I mean atrocious; makes London at rush hour seem like a quiet country
village!) and difficult navigation; old Istanbul is all narrow, hilly, windy, cobbled streets.

Not only that, but our GPS, which we were using to navigate through the centre, did its best to take us off the main roads, but with the unfortunate consequence that it directed us right through the Grand Bazaar! As anyone who has been to Istanbul will know, this is one of the biggest covered markets in Europe, with over 4,000 stalls on narrow alleyways and inevitably with hordes of people.

By the time we realized what was happening the lanes were too narrow for us to turn around, and we ended up having to get security to escort us through! Amusing in hindsight! So we were very glad to reach our hostel, where we headed up to the roof terrace to enjoy a well-deserved beer overlooking the Bosphorus towards Asia. Quite a smug feeling knowing we had cycled all the way to the tip of Europe!

Istanbul is wonderful, absolutely worth a visit. The architecture is not only stunning but totally different to what we are used to in the West, with amazing mosques all over the place. There is also a very vibrant feel about the city too, and it is great just wandering around taking in the atmosphere, having the odd cup of chay (tea) and the occasional (well, ok not so occasional) kebab.

What is also great for us is that we are here at the same time as other cycle tourists that we know either from the UK (Dean, who fell off his bike in Bratislava and broke his arm, but who has impressively recovered quickly and got back on his bike within three weeks, and absolutely caned it through Serbia and Bulgaria to catch up with us), or who we met along the way (Ollie and Tom).

We are all staying very close to each other so have been spending time exchanging stories about our trip so far, as well as sorting out practicalities for the next part of the trip. So far this has included visiting the Iranian embassy to apply for our visas - we all had our applications approved so are now waiting for the paperwork to be completed - a frustratingly slow process, and one which set us back over $150 each, seems like daylight robbery but obviously it is an unavoidable cost.

They have also retained our passports while they are doing this, very annoying as we are also aiming to get our Uzbek visas in Istanbul, but can't even submit our applications until we have our passports back from the Iranian embassy. Because of these practicalities we will be spending almost two weeks in Istanbul (hopefully no longer, but that depends on the Uzbek visa.).

However that is not a disaster as Istanbul is a nice place to spend time, and we are in a nice hostel which helps. Plus we have some friends coming out tomorrow for a few days, which we are really looking forward to. Even better we realized the other day that the grand prix is being held in Istanbul this weekend, and we have been able to get tickets to go. None of us are really into motor sport but it should be a great experience and a fun day out, can't wait.

Anyway this post is quite long enough so I will leave it there. From here we follow the Black Sea coast for a couple of weeks before heading inland down to the Iranian border. The hills are going to get bigger and the temperatures are going to increase as we head east, so we are a little nervous about how we are going to cope. So watch this space to find out!

Peter & Christine Helliwell

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