3568 km Bye bye Istanbul

Hi Everyone

Almost two weeks we have been in Istanbul now and we think it's about time we move on in the direction of Iran.

We've been using: buses, trams, metro's, cable cabins, ferries and trains for the past few weeks and if we don't get moving soon, you will all think we are a bunch off lazy buggers and we can't have that, now can we? ;)

We hope to leave the city tomorrow. Unfortunately we still did not receive our Visa for Iran. They told us today we can pick it up tomorrow so lets hope that whole visa struggle will be over then. If all goes well we will cycle out of Istanbul around noon and find a place to sleep somewhere to the east of here.

It really feels strange to leave Istanbul after two weeks. This place has really started to feel like home for us. We have been staying in a really nice hostel here (http://www.chillouthc.com/cengo/cengo.htm) and met some really nice people here and all the Turkish people here are so friendly. It feels a bit awkward leaving everyone behind now but I guess that's the faith of a traveler. But on a positive note I doubt this has been the last time we have visited Istanbul. So we'll be back somewhere in the future :)

The last two weeks we have visited about every area in Istanbul. We have been to the Asian shore where we did some shopping and had a look at the Fenerbahce stadium and the old train station, that was given to Istanbul by the Germans. We also went for a nice trip to the Princes Islands a small island group to the south of Istanbul which was really nice. On our way there we met a couple international teachers on one of their getting-to-no-eachothers day’s. Monique one of the teachers immediately got my (Tjeerd's) attention. We talked for an hour or so and after that Monique offered us to join them for lunch. After a walk across the island we had dinner and took the late ferry back. We expected the boat trip of almost 90 minutes to be very relaxing, enjoy a great view of Istanbul and get a bit of fresh air. Well in the end it was not really that relaxing because the Turkish people are so interested to see tourists on the boat, that its impossible not to get in touch with people and be touched by their sincere interest in you. On the boat we met, Hilal, a real nice girl who helped everyone translating the questions they had for us in English and we've learned a bit of Turkish ourselves as well. It's all still very basic but we will try and improve it in the coming month. Later that week we met up with Hilal again and we had a real nice dinner with Hilal and Dedim a good friend of hers. We had some good laughs trying to predict each others futures with the Turkish coffee.

Other then all these little nice trips to all different areas of the city we have spend most time in Beyoglu. It's where our hostel is and conveniently also happens to be the most alive part of town. We have been; smoking the waterpipe (Nargileh) relaxing, shopping (cards for the camera bike parts etc..), drinking tea and playing backgammon a lot. We've also been very lucky with our hostel. It's a real laid back place and we also met so many other travelers there with a nice and positive outlook on life. We want to wish them all the best. As icing on the cake we also met Nick and Maggy again. A very nice couple we had met before in Prague. It felt real good seeing them again. Who knows we might meet up again somewhere since they have almost the same travel plans as we do.

During the last 2 weeks we also managed to make a backup of all our pictures here and we will be sending that home soon. (Baptiste / Kadirli Baskan ) thanks so much for helping us out with that) Since we understand you've all had to wait for pictures so long we'll be making that up and post some on the website here as well.

tomorrow we will see if the legs are still strong enough to continue our journey. To be honest we started to feel a little lazy and it will probably take some time to get back up to speed again. stanbul has been fantastic. We feel exited about moving on but we'll sure miss this city (and I'll sure miss you a lot Hilal (Erik))

As far as the plans for the future they are basically still the same as we wrote in our previous message. We'll be heading east now and after a while we will move up north to go cycling near the Kara Deniz (Black See)

Gule Gule from beautiful Istanbull


http://s197.photobucket.com/albums/aa310/erikopdefiets/03%20Budapest%20-%20Istanbul/