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Published: October 27th 2007
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(not D)
The 30-hour train ride from Aleppo clearly did save us time as biking would have taken slightly longer, but it was a bit of a long long long haul. We had a sleeper cabin to ourselves which was pretty good and the scenery of northwest Syria and southern Turkey was pretty amazing. We had a few complications with the Syrian train staff concerning food and money but we got there in the end. What started off as a single-carriage machine from Aleppo (which looked pretty odd) soon turned into a 15 carriage-thing as we cruised through Turkey into Constantinople.
Istanbul was all pretty good fun. We decided to opt for the party hostel of the city- which proved to be pretty dead but by the end of it the place had lightened up a bit. The first day we basically spent searching for airlines to get Dan to his connecting flight from Vienna to Dubai to Auckland and me back to the good old Netherlands, for a bit more family time. Dan's previous "bringing bikes onto planes" experience with Egypt air was to ASK about taking bikes on board, and not to play the ''wait and see"
on the shore
The Bosporus and Istanbul, big wave's about to hit us... no joke game and pay huge huge unexpected bills at check-in. Mine was more along the lines of "is it their policy to throw it on and off the plane?" So after all that, Austrian Air seemed like the way to go. The rest of the day we spent checking out the mosquey Golden Horn area, the Grand Bazzar market and the less-touristy central city area across the river. Day two we spent on trams, boats, water-side cafes and pubs. Day three meanwhile was more to do with checking out Gallipoli (see separate entry), then by the end of our fourth day we'd gone for a run along the Bosporus strait and watched the rugger. Dan biked his way to the airport the following morning while I biked my way along the river to some industrial old suburb, said cool, and then turned around and biked back in the pouring rain. However on the way I dropped my jacket along the river side; it was my good jacket so I had a bit of a panic and tried to bike back along side all the homelessmen and fishermen and maybe some homeless fishermen in search for it. After a bit more panic
and maybe the odd swearword, I saw a homeless man sitting on it, his new blanket I assume. After a bit of negotiation I had my jacket back: it cost me around a sandwich and smoke, but of course I had no smoke so gave them roughly a dollar. So that was that. When Dan is not there to tell me that my "tying stuff on the back'' skills are crap, stuff falls does tend to fall off.
Right, so one day left: time to bike to the Black Sea. This side of the city was quite a bit more affluent and trendy. Its fishermen and their fish were a bit more hip and I even saw fisherwomen! So after winding my way along the Strait for an hour or two, I saw the sea in the distance, just one more bend and ........ no entry- military zone. Oh well, to be expected in such a militarised place. So I took a photo or three and rode back. Later that night was all pretty good though; as I suggested earlier, the hostel had lightened up a bit and also I'd made friends with some of the staff, so after
new mates
celebrations plenty of Turkish beer, free shots, food and shisha pipe, 12 o'clock rolled around and I turned 27 (even though I probably wasn't acting it).
A few hours' sleep later it was time to bike to the airport. It drizzled and I had no wet weather gear, then it poured and I still had no wet weather gear. After about 45mins of busy wet roads, and cars tyres splashing, I was at Ataturk Airport. The first step was to find the departures entry. Step two, go in there. Step three, push my wet and muddy bike up to the security machine things and say "do I have to put all this wet crap through this thing?" The answer was affirmative. Step four, untie the bags and release all the muddy water that the bags had captured onto the ground and say "couldn't help that I'm afraid". So after all that mess, which resulted in the closure of one of the security lanes (out of two), the cleaners had to come out in force with their mops. To make matters worse, the security guy had to search me because I was wearing a metal belt, and he too became muddy.
And all the facial expressions of the Turks who had been held up because of me.... priceless. All I could say was " What?... you try biking here in that mess- it's your weather after all- not mine". After making more puddles in the airport, I rocked on up to Austrian Air check-in. Boy they were happy to see me with my muddy bike. First thing I said to them was "hey hey, two days ago, my mate was here, also with a bike, remember him?" - they nodded. (Daniel, I can only assume that they were not impressed with you either). First they told me to take my pedals off, well I didn't have the right tools so said na, can't. Then they told me to wrap in in plastic; well that was going to cost me another 5Euros so again I told them na.
So anyway, after some hours in the sky and a brief stop in Vienna, then a few more hours in the sky I arrived at Amsterdam airport. My sister was waiting for me at the airport so that was really nice- and it saved me carrying a bike and a pack and a
tent through the train system.
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Francis
non-member comment
Happy Birthday
I'm glad you are safe and sound after your trip! I think that is the most epic adventure I have ever witnessed online - let alone you guys who actually did it. Big ups :)