Southern Turkey

Hello Folks!

After our first week in Iran, we decided to move back to Turkey. Alex had some serious health problems and wasn't sure anylonger to travell the entire country in 4 days, which we had left on our visa. So for the moment we decided to move back to Turkey...

We thought spending winter time there and finding a job to earn money, would not be so difficult? But...

We drove across the Southern-East part, which is considerd to be "dangerous", but we met the most hospitality people ever! Just awesome...

Considering the fuel prices in Turkey (appr. 2,30 € / litre) I filled up the additional 5 liter fuel can, before leaving iran. Fuel price there is around 0,50 € / litre. Back in Turkey I tried to use an old plastic bottle, but suddenly a man appeared with a snooze... :)

and we gathered a lot of attraction within a few minutes...

In Van we met two teachers, who offered us to stay a week in a currently not used container-home in the middle of the school yard... :-)

We spent a whole week in Van and I two nights in the emergency room of the hospital, because I still was very sick from Iran... :-/

After recovering we drove all the way along the south of Turkey, passed the river "Tigris" which flows across Diyarbakir,

and further  until the Syrian boarder and had a rest a the river Euphrat...

Our goal is to find work here in Turkey and spent the winter time recovering and earning money. Because we both like warmer temperatures we are looking forward in the area at the south coast around Antalya and co. From Mersin, were be got back to the sea, we drove along the coast, what reminded me at the adriatic coast in Croatia and it almost made the same fun! :-)

:-)

The weather changed tremendously after droping almost 1.800 meters of altidude and we are now able to camp again and beside that the water is also rather warm...

Can't remember that I ever had a swim in the ocean an a sunny november morning!  ;-)

In Alanya we stayed one night at Mehmets place, who treated us very very well, one more time!

Thank you very much!!!

We arrived to big city Antalya, which is mainly extisting becuase of tourism. But Winter is coming and season is gone, so we recieved one rejection after the other while looking for jobs. Also people telling us "if" we would find sth. we won't earn more then 300 up to 400 € a month. According to this amount, i have no idea how to live from it and even save money for future travelling... :-(

After 5 days in Antalya and several disappointments, I didn't really like the city, we decided to move further west along the coast and keep on trying. But it's same every where and people telling us the same story again and again... :-(

In Kemer I met Nevzat, who is working in a motorbiking rental shop. He also denied work, but offered me to do some maintenance on the bike at his place. 

So I took this oppotunity and adjusted our new touratech-suspension, which is doing a great job during the last 6.500 km.  Cause we are very heavy, the rear tire still is dipping very deep and puts a lot of stress on the chain, so I adjusted a higher pre-load...

Tea-time is very essential in Turkey... :-)

During work Peter appeared and I had company for the whole day. He is origanlly form Germany, close to Hannover, but living in Turkey for several years. I tried to adjust the suspension by the tool which came with it. But I failed and almost broke the tool, because the pre-lod is already very very high. So we had to take the suspension out and improvise...

... but finally did it! :-)

Afterwards he took me and Mila with him home to his sister and brother in law named Elmas, here in Kemer. We spent two nights in their Vila in a very nice flat in the basement and had the first big bed for sleeping for the last 3 months. He and his family took very good care about us and have been very friendly and helpful, so we could gain some energy back during these 2 days...

They also advised us to contact them, if we get problems in the future! Thank you very very much again!!!

After leaving Kemer, we drove furtehr along the coast and stayed two nights camping in Kas. 

and made it to Marmaris, yesterday, were a very big harbour is, wgich we got suggested for finding some "daywork. But again the same... :-(

I'm losing my motivation very very much, to find any work here in Turkey! It seems to be extremly difficult and beside that legal work is even impossible for foreigners. We will drive further to Istanbul again, by taking the nice way along the coast. If we still haven't find any work till that time, we have to find another solution. Because of all this and our low budget, I have a few concerns all the time and lost my motivation for taking many pictures and watch out for the ag-business, which actually not really exists along the coast, except very many green hoses for tomatos...

But we are mainly still in a good mood, although very exhausted...

For me, I'm already too lazy to shave myself ... :-)

I think we will make it back to Istanbul within the next week. Then we can say we made it all around Turkey in a circle...

2-wheels 1-world 0-money

Hello Folks!

Due to the fact, that we are looking for work during our travell, I was really impressed by Daniel Ritzner. He is also German and made it all the way down to NZ, just with the money he made during the trip!!

After I read about his story I was very impressed and convinced at the same time, that it is really realizable! After his two and a half years journey he is now back in Germany and trying to make a movie out of it, with a crowd-funding campaign. I contacted him to get some good advices! Due to the fact that our budget is very low at the moment, too I'd like to support his project in this way! Maybe some of my fellowers are also interested in his adventure and very nice travelling movies, as well...?

Here you can find him and his project! http://www.indiegogo.com/210

Good luck and thank you for your advices! Let's stay in touch...

Alex and Mila

"We all are the children of Ataturk"

In Trabzon I was captured by these girls who escaped from the school to hunt the tourists. Their purpose is simple - they want to practice English. I have never saw such brave, curious, nice and smart kids. We enjoyed their company very much and spent about 2 hours talking.

 Meanwhile, I clarified two questions which are very important for me. Firstly, religion. Here in Turkey some girls wear a veil, some doesn't. Medina (the girl in the right) explained me that it's her oun choise to wear the veil and her parents don't insist. Even more, other female members of the family don't wear veils. (Maybe somebody thinks that 15 years old kid can't chose for him or herself but I wouldn't agree. Don't think so bad about young people.). She said, it's rather common and it happens seldom that the family insists on hijab.

The second question was the cult of Ataturk. For me, it reminds Lenin's cult in USSR (and I was told since the childhood that Lenin and Stalin are not very good guys, so I'm against any kind of personal cult, including some religious ideas). So, firstly I was very frustrated when they said "We love Ataturk!", "We all are the children of Ataturk", "We know a lot about him but can't say it in English" ect. But later I thought that I'm trying to apply my country's experience to another totally different country. It's not right to feel bad about Ataturk's cult just because Lenin's cult didn't work for Russia. I have to use the international scale. Those kids are happy, healthy, funny, open, protected by their families and the government, they have dreams and plans for future. That is good, the system works and that's the main thing. And if they need Ataturk to make it working, I support this for 100%

Just few words..

This is Samsun, the city on the Black sea where we spent several days with our CS-host Oya. She impressed me very much because she is a psychologist working with mentally retarded kids and she gives all her time to her students. Even when she' not on the work, she still talks about them and looking at Oya I understood how important is to find the job that you really want to do....Yes, that was a very good experience.

Iran visa in Trabzon

Yes! We did it jus in one day! Now we can go to Iran=)

So, what we did:

1. Find the consulate by asking the locals many times. Of course, we could buy a map but it's not interesting=) The address is this:

Esentepe Mah. Iran Cad. Kiziltoprak Sok

Trabzon

Turkey

Tel: (+90-462) 3267650/1/2

Fax: (+90-462) 3267652

2. Filled in 1 form for each. Nothing really complicated.

3. Waited for 30 min when they took a decision to give us the visa.

4. Went to the bank to pay (me -90, Alex - 75 euros. I have no idea why we paid so much...=((

5. Came back at 4 and took passports with ready 15 day visas. We're going to extend it in Esfahan.

Trabzon elevator

It works simple - if you have a store on the first floor, you can send down a basket with your shopping list and money and the shop assistant will put everything inside. That's what we saw...
The basket came down..

 The man took the money and put the bread in

 And the basket went back=)

From Bursa to Samsun. Part 2

On the second day we came to Bolu where we spent several hours in wi-fi and ate traditional kebeb, of course. In kebab-cafe I wahed my head and we went for camping. It was already late so we camped somewhere on the field and don't have pictures of it...
We started early (it was cold and we couldn't sleep too long as we usually do=)) and stopped for the breakfast at road cafe. I made salad and the people from cafe gave us tea for free.
Getting ready to go.

 Alex chased this traktor and wanted to make this picture very much. I think, he will be happy to see it here=)

Dinner on the road

On the third day we camped close to the gas-station where they also had a big restraunt. It's already autumn in Turkey, the nature is calm and the colors are beutiful.

Alex is making place for the tent

The tent and the moon...Good night!

From Bursa to Samsun. Part 1

Three days on the road and some good photoes.
This is our host Ibrahim and his 'grandfather' Hashim. They made us turkish dinner and we drunk a lot of black tea on this balcony

Then we spent all day on the road and camped in the evening at wonderful place with two caves. This one looks like a mouth...

This one has a face.

Mountain was full of small caves

Our camping place

We stole some plums from those gardens

There is a lot of agricultural and cattle activity in Turkey. I like turkish cows, they look very good.

to be continued...

One night in Istanbul...

One night in Istanbul we went out for a walk. Alp-Arslan took us to try the famous 'Iskander kebab' which is a pieces of lavash covered with slices of thin meat under amazing tomato souce and yoghurt...

Alp eating=)

Then we went for a walk and suddenly reminded that we wanted to buy a lego for this small boy. It's Onder from Bursa and his son Kutay. Onder helped us very much with the bike and Kutay was around all the time. This boy is crazy about bikes and lego.

So, inside the logo shop there was...yes! You know him, don't you?

And they also built master Yoda's sculpture to balance the forces of Evil and Good.

When we left the shop, we met this strange guy and his dog. He was just driving around on his scooter and trying to attract the girls with his dog. The dog was standing behind him all the time.