Jandarma

The other day I was riding my bike and it was insanely windy. And hilly, of course, because I avoid highways, which tend to follow valleys in this part of Turkey. The hills I don't mind so much, but the wind was driving me crazy. In the rare moment that I would get some downhill or some flats, the wind would keep me from gaining any speed.

I came to a crossroads and my map is horrible so I asked some local ladies which way to Manisa. The two women had differing opinions, and they each kept changing their minds, so I backtracked 100 meters to a military base to ask the soldier guarding the gate. He called to his Commander, Ismail, and I was pointed in the right direction.

As I was leaving Ismail invited me in for tea. It was too windy for me to enjoy being outside, so I accepted.

Ismail didn't speak any english, but one of the soldiers, Turgut, did. Something to drink turned into lunch which turned into an invitation to stay at the barracks with them. The weather sucked and these soldiers were nice, so I stayed.

I hung out mostly in the commanders quarters the whole time. There was a laptop I could use to check my email and a TV which played the National Geographic Channel in Turkish.

Military service is required in Turkey for all males. If you get a college degree then you only have to serve 6 months, if you don't go to college then you have to do something like 15 months. Ismail, the commander, is 25 or something, but enlisted, so he's in it for 10 years. He's got a while to go, and he's kind of sick of it. Turgut is a teacher, has been married for two years (they get to choose when to do military service, so he finished college first), is 28 and is done in January. He's ready to be done. I asked him what he does all day, his reply "Uhh, we go on patrol....and clean. Lots of cleaning. We clean the toilets, the bathrooms, the showers, the rooms......." After I took a shower I asked what he was going to do next and he just looked kind of blank and said "oh, uh, nothing...". He was on a downhill ski team in college...and the doing nothing is hard for him.

There was another guy who spoke english really well, Akin, but nobody else knew any english. We ate dinner, watched a football game (soccer), though the power went out several times (there was a hail/lightning/wind storm outside...I had planned on camping that night...). Then I left the commanders quarters and went and hung out with the rest of the soldiers (there were something like 12 living there...I think). They all asked me what American's think of Turkey...but I've been planning on coming to Turkey for a long time, so maybe my thoughts are somewhat influenced...so, What Do American's Think of Turkey?

I'm now in Selçuk, home to the ruins of Ephesus (though I probably won't see them until my brother gets here in 4 days...), this is the place where John is supposed to have written his gospel and then died.

I'm meeting Corrine here for Christmas. She's an American cyclist I met in Tajikistan. We hung out in Dushanbe and then I bumped into her and my motorcycle German friend Michael, in Tbilisi. Should be fun.

Bergama

Carlos was dressed like this wall...

Diego and Carlos and Turkish Pizza's.

I finally left Avalık and rode to Bergama. I got stuck in some mud and had to spend 30 minutes cleaning my bike again....The road had been great, then all of a sudden turned to mud....it would have been an hour if I had gone back and taken a different road....

In Bergama I met two Spanish cyclists. Carlos and Diego (Carlos is Spanish for Charlie). Carlos is heading to Iran, Central Asia, Pakistan, etc... and Diego is just along for the Turkey part. They had also stayed at the same place as me in Ayvalık but we didn't see each other.

Carlos and I walked around Pergamum, which is an old Greek city with a huge stadium. It was fantastic. Parts of it are rebuilt to show what it was like, but most of it is in crumbles. White marble blocks lay all over the ground. It's hard imagining what these places used to look like. We ducked the fence to avoid paying....so we didn't get any maps describing what was what....

Ayvalık

Here are some pictures of Ayvalık.

The tires are made of rubber.

My new wool sweater with a hood got a hole where the hood attaches to the shoulder, so I walked around looking for a seamstress. I've visited probably 8 different seamstresses on this trip. I always enjoy it. It's one of the things I need done that never turns into a mass of confusion. I show them my broken clothes and make the sewing machine sound while moving my finger like a sewing machine needle, they always know what I'm talking about, because they're sitting in front of a sewing machine, and they rarely charge me.

I was walking around looking for someone to fix my sweater when I walked into this shop run by an American women who runs this non-profit providing opportunities for women who have never before earned a salary. These women have all sorts of skills that aren't worth anything to a developing nation. In Turkey the markets are losing ground to Supermarkets, because purchasing something manufactured is somewhat of a status symbol, and not something the people have grown up doing. In America people go nuts over homemade stuff because we've had the manufactured products for so long. But the women over here who have needlework and crafty skills can't make any money with it. So this project allows local women to come in and make bags or other things out of recycled material, and they get paid for it. The American told me that last week they all went out to breakfast and it was the first time in the lives of several of these women, who are into their 40's and 50's, to ever spend so much money (probably $10) on something as frivilous as breakfast at a restaurant. They're gaining an identity other than 'mother', 'wife', 'daughter', 'cook', etc...

So I walked in and asked if someone could speak english, the American piped up, her 'workers' fixed my sweater and I hung out for about 45 minutes talking to the lady. The bags were really cool. They receive donated throwaway instant soup packaging and weave them into handbags and sell them at upscale quirky shops in Istanbul. I would have bought some, but I've got enough quirky handbags as it is....

A Break in the Rain

Canakkale the morning I left.

I was about 1 minute away from buying a bus ticket to Istanbul to drop off my bike and then head to Bulgaria...because I just didn't want to deal with the weather on a bike. But I decided to give the bike a few more days and the weather worked out beautifully...well, at least it worked out.

Fisher guys setting net in 40 F weather.

I'm still scared to death of highways so I stick to small roads, which sometimes turn to dirt roads which are really mud roads which piss me right off. It took me 30 minutes to clean this mess up and my fingers felt like blocks of ice when I was done.


A bird's nest.


Some ancient Greek ruins....they're all over the place. I can't be bothered to document what is what...


Turkish Village.


The Greek Island of Lesbos as seen from Barhamkale (Assos). Some maps call the island "Lesvos", but for ease of readability I'll stick with Lesbos.



Bahramkale ruins.


Me in the evening with a bunch of Lesbos in the background.


Tuesday December 15, 2009, in detail.

The night before while looking for a place to camp (it wasn't raining, so camping seemed like a good idea) I was riding on a road right up against the sea. There were olive tree orchards all over, and camping amongst them seemed to be my best bet. I'm not super into "stealth camping" so I found a guy working in his orchard and asked if I could camp there. He shot me down. I asked another guy a few kilometers up the road, he shot me down too. This place gets a ton of tourists so I figured they like their peace in the off season (and off season it is, I haven't seen a single tourist since I left Istanbul last week).

I pulled up to an empty hotel and asked the guy if I could camp on the lawn, he hooked me up with a really cheap room that didn't have electricity or heat or the water turned on (I found out the water wasn't on after I took a dump in the toilet and it didn't flush....sorry man...).

I woke up Tuesday morning to rain. I only planned on doing about 40 km of flat riding, so I figured I could tough it for 2 hours or so. Besides, there was nothing to do in the 'beach resort' (the beach was pebbly and beautiful, but it was too cold to enjoy it as a beach).

The night before I had arranged with a cafe owner lady named Emine (pronounced similarly to Armine...Emynay) to make me breakfast. She had also made me dinner and then roasted chestnuts, mushrooms and some other nuts on her stove for me. She didn't speak any english. For breakfast she gave me fried eggs, bread, tomatoes, cheese, butter, honey, two different kinds of olives and ketchup (I'm not sure for what...the bread maybe?).

After eating the rain had died down and I headed out. After 4 minutes I took off my rain pants, because it wasn't raining, they aren't even waterproof, and I was hot. 3 minutes later I took off my rain jacket, which also isn't very waterproof. 3 minutes later I took off my mittens and my beanie. It was overcast, I don't remember the temperature, but I was cycling in pants, a t-shirt, my long sleeve seer sucker shirt, and socks. And a helmet. I hate wearing helmets, but I got hit by a freaking car....so I wear one now....There was a bit of a headwind.

The road was small and empty for the first 10 km then turned into a 6 lane highway, 3 going each direction. The added lane made me feel nice and comfy because all the cars were swinging plenty wide. I was in and out of bays the whole time and right up against the water.





40 km in I pulled into Akcay and went into a Converse outlet...my converse are ripping apart. It wasn't an outlet in that stuff is cheap. It was only an outlet because they sold stuff...I don't think they know what outlet means. So I didn't buy any.

I tried asking the lady working there were I could buy a new map. I have a big one of Turkey, but I wanted a smaller one which shows more roads, because I like the small roads, which aren't on the big maps. This turned into a huge fiasco. I kept showing her my small road map and then trying to explain that I was almost going to ride off of it, so I needed a new one, but she just couldn't understand me.

I went across the street to a grocery store, they didn't have maps, so I bought 2 banana's and a coke.

After I ate I went into a taxi booth and asked about maps. Nobody spoke english, but one dude could speak a little german (I'm actually using my german more than my english). He didn't speak enough german to help me and it turned into another fiasco with guys listing towns I would see on my way to Izmir or pulling out big country maps. I tried drawing a box with my fingers around the area I wanted a map of and then making my best 'zoom in' sounds I could think of, but it wasn't working.

I went to get on my bike and one of the drivers walked up to me and told me to follow him. Another taxi guy said he would watch my bike and me and the guy walked all the way across town to the tourist office. It was closed for lunch, for another 10 minutes, so I walked back to get my bike.

The tourist office didn't have any maps to help me. But I did find out about a small road that was a huge shortcut and I wouldn't have to go all the way to Edremit and ride big roads.

The next section of road was on sidewalks right up against the water. It was all summer resort places with volleyball courts, picnic tables, bars, cottages, etc....but everything was empty.


Heading out of Akcay the terrain turned swampy and there was garbage all over the place. When I was putting my camera away after taking this picture a van passed a truck while the truck was driving past me and the van came within inches of hitting me. I flipped him off, but I don't know if flipping off people makes sense in Turkish. I should have thrown a rock....

The road continued through swampy areas of nothingness crossing bridges and greenhouses.

I came into a small town and asked a guy the best way to get to Ayvalık without getting on big roads. He didn't even think I could get to Ayvalık from where we were....I pointed to the road I thought would work, but he disagreed. He walked me over to a shop and asked them and they pointed to the same road I had pointed to....

I stopped and bought some water and a candy bar.

The only way to get where I was going now was on a big highway. There wasn't a ton of traffic, but enough to stress me out. There were several big hills and the descents had headwinds, so I never got very much speed.

I passed several farmers collecting olives that were falling from the trees. When I was on the Italian Riveria a few years ago they set up nets to catch the olives, but I haven't seen any here.

I got to Ayvalık and was looking for a hotel when I bumped into a german ex-pat. He's a carpenter. He showed to a place, which was closed for the season. But that owner showed me to another place, which was also closed for the season. But this owner showed me to another place that let me in.

About 30 minutes after I checked into my hotel it started to pour outside....