The Big Ride

Turkey: Where the East meets the West – Part I of II

Highlight
Friends and Family, a few days of the best tailwind of the trip,
Lowlight
Some questionable driving, steep climbs and lots of them.
Things we are loving
Turkish Tea, Bread, and hospitality! Great roads with wide shoulders, gas stations!

We crossed the mountains from Bulgaria into Turkey and were met with our first non-EU border station. The process of both entering Turkey and arranging for a visa was straightforward. We applied for e-visas online about a week prior to reaching the border, and were able to display them on our iPhones (bonus as we don’t have to go through the hassle of finding somewhere to print a single page). Apart from getting the first stamp in our passport (huzzah) the border crossing was fairly dull and felt more symbolic of the progress of our trip.

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Once we rolled out things changed immediately. The road surface was amazing. I don’t know if they had just finished paving the 4-lane highway, but rolling onto fresh, deep black, smooth tarmac after worrying about breaking your coccyx from the roads for a week while we were cycling the mountains of Bulgaria, was a welcome change! The landscape and flora changed as well, it reminded me of how I have always pictured Greece to be. Rolling hills, a little aired with tough gnarly looking trees and tough spiky shrubs. The architecture changed as well, most notably, from the highway at least, Mosques were now the most identifiable structures in any city, town or village; with their minarets poking up into the sky they were a clear sign that we were somewhere different, and it was exciting.

6 Comments

Clayton Pratt

Hey there, we (my wife and I on tandem) crossed paths with you somewhere southeast of Istanbul as you enjoyed your tailwind and we battled the awful winds.

It was great reading about your time in Turkey. Such a great place. I see that you are now in Azerbaijan, and I’d be curious to know the route you took across the country. Also, what are your future route plans? Continuing overland or flying over the middle east?

We’ve been cycling in India for the past week or so (it is the wildest craziest most out of this world experience) and it has been great. Busy and trafficy and often bad roads, but great. If you’re going to be in India or SE Asia at any point in the future we’d love to try and meet up.

Enjoy the road,
Clayton
thetouringtandem.com

Reply
André

Hey Clayton,

Thanks so much for getting in touch. We are actually figuring out our next step right now while we take a small break in Azerbaijan. We are possibly flying into India around christmas, or cycling through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and then flying to India. We are looking forward to it, but have heard it is madness! Can’t wait. We will be in touch, and maybe we will cross paths once again!

Hope you guys are doing well! Safe cycling,

André

Reply
Adrian

Hi Andre, wow you have nearly made it and sounds like you are having great fun on the way. A career in travel writing if you don’t fancy getting back to engineering? Both your blogs/diaries make a great read.

It’s been busy at work over the last and people are still still playing with trains. F3 Christmas party tonight, wahay.

Will continue to follow progress. Best

Adrian

Reply
André

Hey Adrian,
Thanks for the message, great to hear from you! Glad that you are keeping things on track in the office (there’s a pun in there somewhere), and I hope that you have a new eager whippersnapper to keep busy with projects.

Hope you guys are going somewhere a little warmer this year for the christmas party, probably likely as Grace isn’t there to make another daft decision on behalf of F3.

Happy Christmas from the desert in UAE!
All the best,
André

Reply
Jack Yin

Hi Andre and Claire,

I am a member of Nancy’s Toastmaster club and we’ve heard much about your adventures from her speeches. I look forward to reading more about your journey and even seek some advice for future adventures on how you went about such an undertaking. From getting this awesome website to getting sponsors on board.

You two are crazy and your journey is inspiring! I want to do this, just not on a bicycle but on my motocycle.

I am currently working on our club newsletter, and I’d like your permissions to use some photos for an article Nancy submitted. You can contact me at my email or facebook.

Cheers,

Be safe and enjoy the journey 🙂

Jack

Reply
André

Hey Jack! Your journey sounds amazing, we often envy the motorcyclists on the road, especially on the big hills! You certainly can use some of out photos for the newsletter! Let me know if i can pass on any more info or pictures, if i am able to help out i will. Thanks for your comment, hope to hear from you when you start your trip!

Reply

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