Marand – Tabriz In the outskirts of Marand, we were stopped by the secret police (we think). A man in a car followed us and stopped us. Two other men were already standing nearby and moved closer as he started to fire questions at us in perfect English. How many days have you been in Iran? What is your planned route? Where are you planning to spend the night? How are you finding the Iranian people? How do you justify your statement that the Iranian people are friendly people? I am Iranian, how do you know I am friendly? What…
A Bike Journey
Iranian Blues
Dogubeyazit – Marand After two wonderful months in Turkey we were finally ready to say goodbye. We were sure we would miss it, but at the same time our experiences in the Wild East had left us shaken up a bit and we were ready for a new country. We left Dogubeyazit for the final 30km ride to the Iranian border, passing the snow capped peak of Mount Ararat on the way. There was also a sign pointing to Noah’s Arc, but we had heard it was just a stone shaped like the Arc, so it didn’t sound too exciting,…
10 Tips for Cycling Turkey
We spent two months in Turkey and cycled 2,200km from the Greek border to the Iranian border, via Istanbul, Cappadocia and Erzurum. Here are our top 10 tips for cycling in Turkey. 1. Plan your route and buy a map before you enter. Good maps of Turkey can be very difficult to find in Turkey, so it’s best to buy one before you arrive. In terms of route planning, the main roads in the East of the country are generally not too busy and have a hard shoulder, but in the West of the country they can get very…
Trouble in the East
In Erzurum, we both came down with a stomach bug. We had a fever, stomach cramps, nausea and were spending far too much time in the bathroom. Our recovery was slow, and we ended up spending five days in the city, until we finally got bored of counting mould stains on the ceiling of our hotel room. Erzurum was an ok city, with some nice cafes and restaurants, as well as some interesting buildings. Unfortunately they were also repaving the whole city at once, and most of the streets, footpaths and squares consisted only of rubble and mud, making it…
6,000 km Photo
We were about to climb our highest pass yet, at 2,210m altitude, when we passed the 6,000km mark. This means that we have done over one third of our cycling distance so far in Turkey alone, having cycled more than 2,000km in this country! The scenery was remote and rugged, with few villages in between. A few minutes after this photo was taken, we were stopped by soldiers at a military checkpoint and ordered to drink tea immediately. ||…
The “Wild East”
Sivas – Erzurum Our rest day in Sivas was well chosen, as there was a thunderstorm and rain which lasted for most of the day. Unfortunately we found that the mosque and some of the seminaries we wanted to visit were closed for reconstruction, so the only one we visited was the Bürüciye Medresesi, which was built in 1271 in the Seljuk style, and most importantly had a lovely tea garden in the courtyard! We also found a very posh cafe and had our first cafe latte since Istanbul, along with a banana split made with Turkish ice cream, which…
Cappadocia and beyond
Göreme – Sivas We spent a week in Cappadocia, exploring the area with Justin and Emma, and Roger and Catherine, a French Canadian cyclist couple we met at our campsite. We walked around the valleys oohing and aahing at the fairy chimney and manmade rock caves, and rented a car for the day to visit the underground city at Kaymakli, which was used by Christians between the 4th and 9th century. It is one of 200 underground cities in the area and has 7 storeys with…
Central Anatolia – Veni, Vidi, Vici
Beypazari – Göreme Any town light on museums but heavy on gastronomic delights is always a star find for us as it means guilt free culinary feasting without the pressure of having to visit many museums. This is what was presented to us in Beypazari. Yes, the Ottoman style homes are kind of nice (how excited can you get over a timber home, especially considering Guy’s new found allergy to the treated timber ceilings) but once you’ve seen one, you pretty much get the gist of it. We discovered the most enjoyable soup to pass our lips for some time,…
5,000 km photo
We took this photo just after we had passed the 5,000 km mark, cycling through a dried-out salk lake, Tuz Gölü. We stopped to visit the caravanserai at Sultanhani, which was built in the 13th century as a resting place on the old silk road into Persia. This caravanserai is the largest in Turkey, and apparently one of the best examples of Seljuk architecture. We were the only visitors, so we snuck the bikes in with us. ||…
Mountains and lakes
Istanbul is not a city designed for cyclists, and to avoid travelling out of the city on a 10 lane motorway, we decided to take a ferry instead. The ferry took us south-east across the Sea of Marmara, to a town called Yalova. From there, we headed inland. Turkey is a mountainous country, and over the next few days we had to conquer several passes to get up onto the Anatolian Plateau.|| The bikes felt very heavy and slow, probably in part due to loss of fitness during our time in Istanbul. After our first 300m climb,…