Say hello from Iran

Just a fast fast update why its the first post since the end of february. so the thing is that neither the east of turkey nor iran seem to like my blog so they banned it.

so we are in Iran now, in Tehran until this night when we will take a bus to Esfahan because we couldnt arrive there until the visa expires. there we hope to be able to extend the visa with a new month where we will go to Shiraz and around.

from Shiraz with a new extension we will go to the north coast to the Caspian and then all way long the -istans, China and India. or we will see if due to some mysterious reason Pakistan desides to give us visa then that way.

so things are going well we are going even better, everything is cool, irani people are even coolest.

thats al falks.

ps: i try to write short posts at least in the notebook and when i can i will upload them at once.. at least.

Farewell gifts and their private life

before i left, i had a great party with most of my lovely friends who came to have a last nice nice night with me before i disappear and some of them even prepared me small farewell gifts. now its time for a short summary how much i have to thank the gifts again because they have already appeared to be very useful!

the two sporks, gifts of Kata were our nice helpers in cooking when we accidentally lost two of our spoons and a fork. as small they are as big help they were in the need :)
for making sure that i don't forget Hungary and its taste, i got a bag of paprika from Reka that since then is a basic ele,ent of our meals making them much tastier.
the knife i got from Akos which is one of my best friend helping me pealing, preparing, cooking, everything!
the compasses are constant helpers of not getting too much lost so they are in good use as well!
the "kanalgep" happened to be a big help too in the same cooking field
and beside this all the chocolate had been eaten, the small amulets, lucky thingies are carried and we played many times with the table game i got from Kati!

so i only can say that thanks for all the gifts, you found what we will need even before i knew it!

Turkish visa extension in a few easy steps

So as it was explained a bit earlier, as hungarian citizen you can basically get only a one month visa, and it's certainly not enough for Turkey. so when the time approached we were looking for options how to solve the problem. exiting-reentering the country is the easiest way so i only needed to choose the country.

the options were Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria. Cyprus left the list fast as it takes some money to get there from turkey by ferry. Bruno arrived from Greece he told me the how to, but only by bike, but it was an option too, but finally i decided for Bulgaria as Michelle showed me a previous report how to do it:

so how to get a new visa to Turkey:

• start from Istanbul (until then you can easily get with the really comfortable and cheap coaches)
• take a bus to Edirne; 2,5 hours for 20 TL
• the bus will arrive to the Otogar (bus station) that is out of the city, but there are free service buses. if you take a Metro bus, the service bus takes you to the center of Edirne. from there here is a map drawn by a shopkeeper and i added a few additional things that can help to find the minibus stop where from you have to take a bus to Kapikule (the border village to Bulgaria)
• the minibus costs 2,5 TL goes really rarely so you have to wait for a while even 20-25 mins, but then the bus itself takes 20 mins too only, and takes you directly to the border
• walk straight to the border, exit the country. then it is important, that if you are EU citizen you don't have to enter Bulgaria, you can simply turn back.(the easiest is to go in the big shopping center and exit it on the other side and you are directly on the turkish entry side)
• buy your visa stamp at the 92 gate
• with your new visa go to any of the open police checking gates (passport control), and cars are probably stopping there anyway
• try to skip the costum control (smile at the officer and then they will take you in front of the cars as they deal a lot with cars and you shouldn't waste your time there)
• welcome to Turkey again!

the whole procedure from getting of the service bus in Edirne until getting back to Edirne center shouldnt take more than 2 hours, but it depends a lot on how fast the minibus comes. the border part itself took around 30 minutes for me. though probably during the summer it can be longer.

so that's it. no big deal.

ahh and i got accidentally a 90 days visa for a duration of 180 days, so maybe it worth to enter Turkey already from Bulgaria if you plan to stay longer than 30 days.

Most interesting places we slept I.

if i haven't mentioned it yet, normally we sleep in a tent, that we camp wherever we find a safe, not visible flat place for it. but beside this somehow it happened several times that we ended up somewhere else in the evening. now i will just do a short list, and at some point i will try to find some time to add short notes, what and how happened where. they will be found in the "Map" on the right side of the blog.

so up to know we were hosted by

• two amazingly nice, hospitable and interesting turkish families,
• slept in a dzsami (a small mosque)
• placed by the municipality of Kilimli in their town hall's building
• in an abandoned house
• in hotel placed by the regional head of police
• hosted by couchsurfer Esher

and each of them were honestly remarkable, and i haven't even mentioned the invitations that we couldn't accept, as we are already "overloaded" by the turkish hospitality and couldn't sleep at two places in one night.

15 minutes of fame

the Zonguldak Bartin area is probably the place where we got the most press interest. (though you can never know what will happen from now on)

first in Zonguldak, or Kilimli to be precise we were photographed by an unexpectedly appearing photographer and later found an article in the local online news about us:
http://www.demirmedya.net/guncel/item/11910-bisiklette-t%C3%BCrkiye-turu.html

then not even a week passed when a few of silly coincidences made us lost each other in the city of Bartin, where we produced for the regional police the operation of the year by finding me; an in exchange they got nice articles in at least 7-8 national online news, printed newspapers, we were in the TV, and people came to us on the street that they read about us/saw in the TV, and got a free dinner in the Police house that was really nice, and a free night of a really nice hotel of Bartin. so all in all everybody got what they wanted :)

http://www.webhaber.com/Dunya-Turuna-Cikan-Cift-Bartin-Da-Kayboldu-haberi video in english at the end

http://www.radikal.com.tr/Radikal.aspx?aType=RadikalDetayV3&ArticleID=1040575&Date=20.02.2011&CategoryID=77 with a nice picture of reunion :)

Macar Turkçe iki kardes

First of all, I think every Hungarian should be transported to Turkey at least for a short while and then they might revise their opinion about the turkish hungarian connection, the question of occupation etc. here when you mention that you are hungarian, first of all they know that it is a country, secondly in 80% they are really happy that finally they can meet a living hungarian who is in real brotherhood with the turkish nation. of course mostly beside a tea invitation. they ask about hungary, how is it there, if i understand something from what they are saying, and this is the first country where being hungarian is a bigger attraction than being french. and this experience doesn't really depend on education background or place of living, i experienced this in big city, from business men to a nice old man who was repairing a lock in the middle of nothing.

so there is endless things we should learn about trying not to be the sad looser one always and still crying about what happened 400 years ago. and yes, they occupied Hungary, but we got many things we gave many things and anyway it happened long long time ago, and its much better having brothers and friends in far far away countries than having enemies and moaning how badly they treated us.

short update

Here we are, in Zonguldak. The posts are quite rare, but İ have excuse :) we don't really have interrnet more often than once a week and even if we have it's hardly enough to read or maybe answer emails that i'm also in delay so sorry!

But at least shortly up to know we are fine, without any unmanagable problem, crossed Şile, Agva, Kandıra, Kaynarca, Karasu, Kocaali, Akçakoca, Alaplı, Ereğli and arrived in Zonguldak today. Now we will try to find an outdoor shop to buy a rubber thingy for the mobile stove and then we will leave the city to get back to the nature.


About my visa, probably İ will take a bus to İstanbul or directly to Edirne around the 20th, cross the greek border and then come back to Turkey and then we will be heading to İran and going to Georgia on the way back, but we will see :)

Kandıra effendi

here we are, arrıived today ın Kandıra that is a nice small town with 17000 inhabitantas and market day on saturday. the people are still amazingly friendly, helped wherever they could and we even managed to buy a rain trousers for me, though it's more for fishing than cycling, i hope i won't need to use it too often anyway.

Before this stop we passed Şile and Ağva, now we are heading to ther coast side again.

about cycling, yep not a Neil Armstrong, but i hope it gets better.. it seems so at least day by day. i can use the geers properly, my ass has never hurted for a second (so in this there is no developement but still :) ), i can help with camping, taking part the tent, cooking, i can even carry some of the food that can't fıt into the food bag, we go further and further every day, and the weather gets better too. we saw already snow, raın, sunshine, everything that one can imagine.

about other things, turkish are still more than grateful, really friendly people, help where they can.

now no pictures but i will try to deliver some soon.

Receipt of the last supper

İngrediences:

• 400 g chicken
• 1 tomato
• 20-25 pieces of black olive
• 2-3 hot papika
• rice
• salt, oil
• 2 busdrivers who don't take your bike to Şile

 so it happened that i ckeched the options to get out of the city as i wasnt a big fan of the idea to cycle inside. so we found this No.139 bus that goes to Şile, a small fishing and beach village on the coast of Black Sea. Where from we would cycle to the East. the bus leaves from Harem, where we needed the ferry, so asked there, and the people said which is the one. we got on, and then off, where the people said, yes but no, Harem is a bit far from now on the other side of the hill. So i learned to use my geers, and we got there somhow.

İn Harem we spent around 2-2,5 hours trying to find first the bus stop, and then when the bus driver didnt want to take the bikes, alternative options. When after a while we arrived to the point when there was no point in getting out as it was too late, we decided to go back to Yunus and try it again next day :)

So at the end Bruno cooked this really delicious meal, and İ even eat from the meat, cause for today İ need energy, so lets try it again :) İstanbul cant hostage us forever :)

Let the adventure begin

Tomorrow we will leave İstanbul after a week here, and heading to the Black sea. After we will keep East along the coast side for a long long time. we bought all the small additional things we needed, were wondering a bit around İstanbul but now ready to go fınally :) wohooo

updates:
i have new pedals and seddle, and i fixed them on the bike alone :) ok, the seddle with a bit of help :)
and yesterday i managed to say a proper, grammatically correct threetimes complex french sentence!!

The city of the seven hills

So we are here. a bit of acclimatisation and then start the real adventure. probably on friday or saturday. the weather got amazıngly bad, some promised even snow, but we will see, at the moment the plan is to keep heading to the north along the coast and then probably skip Georgia for the moment and going directly to İran because of the visa issue, but maybe we will turn back after İran to Turkey and Georgia as then we wont be in a hurry anymore.

So that's for now, we are here, we are in one piece, already met many many amazing people and at the moment we enjoy Yunus' hospitality after one cool night with Julien and Michelle, the canadian-australian cyclist couple who spend the winter in İstanbul before going towards East.

hehe, İ'm so happy to be here finally. The long waiting was worth it.

Visa and the fly in the ointment

first of all it's really nice how i learn more and more phrases in English day by day. so i just got my Irani visa today morning, and i'm amazingly happy, it seems almost the last piece is done for the journey starts. In the morning i called the embassy where they told me "if you come in open hours i will issue your visa" so i ran basically. I had to wait for not more than 10-15 minutes let them take my passport, and watching Ahmedinejad's speech for some huge festival in Tehran, so it was really nice all in all. Then i got my visa, that is issued well except the minor problem as its issued today, so i can enter Iran from 19.01.2011 to 19.04.2011. so despite they asked when i want to enter the country (i wrote 23.04.2011), they issued a visa that will expire 4 days earlier.. so nothing is perfect, you have to except it :)

conclusion, we should enter Iran on 19th march latest. means the plan will be changed a bit, but i don't know and don't really care neither about the how. we will see :)

3,5 days back :)

The bag

And what is inside. I must be honest cause what i have is only a part of the pack, and all the surviver stuff are with Bruno, so basically this list will contain the group of things that i will wear, basic hygienic stuff and a few other things to make one's like a bit easier. I'm not saying that you would feel this list satisfying if you traveled with them, I'm just saying that it will work for me, and might give you an impression what to take into consideration before departure.


So:


Clothes: (including the things im leaving in, so basically all the clothes i will have with me)
1-1 sleeveless-, short sleeve-  and long sleeve t-shirt
1 long leggings
1 trousers
1 cycling trousers
2 jumpers
1 top and 1 bra
1 wind coat
2 pair of light and 2 pairs of warm socks with long legs
1 polar hip warmer
3 panties
1 bikini
2 pairs of gloves
1 cycling gloves
1 warm scarf
1 headscarf
1 hat
1 headband
1 pair of sneakers
1 pair of flipflop


My bathroom:
1 towel (microfiber, amazingly small, gets dry fast - it was 2000 HUF at Decathlon)
1 textile tissue 
1 toothbrush
1 soap shampoo (from Lush, its really amazing! small and lasts as three bottle of shampoos)
1 shaver
1 nail tweezers
1 small bottle of antiseptic gel
1 box of tampon
1 package Lactacyd Femina kerchief
1 Colpo-cleaner set
(soap and toothpaste are with Bruno :) )


Medicines:
contraceptive pills
Algoflex-M
Cataflam
Lopedium
Paracetamol
Phlogosam cream (against burning)

For living:
1 plate
1 metal fork-spoon-knife
2 spork (spoon and fork in one)
1 mug
1 bag of paprika
2 sleeping bags (can be used together and then it's warmer)
1 self-inflating mattress
1 small bag (for short trips and being the pillow as well)
calendar
mobile phone
mobile charger                                          
pendrive
compass
some plastic bags in case of heavy rain
4 rechargeable batteries
1 lighter
second glasses
sunglasses
contact lenses


For better living:
2 sets of cards
1 tablegame
1 memory game
4 books
1 note book + pen

Official stuff:
passport
5 copies of the passport
20 passport pictures
vaccination certificate
driving licence
healthcare ID
insurance card
credit card
my flight ticket Bp-Istanbul
some cash

And all these are situated in this bag, that will be my support for a quite long time. Behind it you can see the mattress being open at the moment.

Visa

It's hard to say how i'm going with visas at the moment, cause i really hope i'm going well, but on the other hand i still have a medium stone in my stomach, that will hopefully disappear around next wednesday.

Since the plan has changed a bit, we will travel much slower to Asia though the slow traveling will still be happening in Asia, simply not in South-East and Central Asia. We planned to go through Turkey, Iran, Pakistan then arriving to India. This plan got a fast rejection on the Pakistani part as recently it is totally impossible to get a Pakistani visa out of your residential country, so Bruno couldnt get one. After this we agreed that we will go back a bit to the original plan with slight change, we will go by ferry from Iran to UAE and then take the flight to Nepal.

For this I need an Irani visa, and as Bruno has a 90 days allowance to stay in Turkey and theoretically i also could apply for a more expensive but 90 day visa in Hungary, we thought its a good idea to travel through Turkey in 3 months and then enter Iran. I had applied for my visa according to this. And then went to the Turkish embassy where they basically declared me stupid for even imagining about staying in Turkey for 3 months. After some calls, research and consideration we decided to look for some other options.

(at the Irani embassy there was no problem, the officers were really nice, though non of them spoke Hungarian and only one proper English, but everybody was really helpful. I had to pay the visa fee at the nearest bank, that costs at the moment 17650 HUF, around 65€; plus required one picture. with this, be careful, they are really strict. they accept only frontal pictures, really really frontal. face frontal, body not totally is "Not good!". but they guided me to a photo shop close to the embassy where they took a picture of me and charged 8 of them 1200 HUF, so kinda ok. And back at the embassy they promised to call me after two weeks when my visa application is judged by Tehran. So inshallah its gonna be ok. Open hours: Mo-Fr: 9-13, Address: 1143 Budapest Stefania ut. 97, tel: 00 36 1 460 9260)

As the Irani visa shall be issued from 23rd april, i have 3 months to spend somewhere. Ok, so what are the options: Cyprus: hmmm ehhm.. nice nice, but its Europe again, you can go there anytime, the ferry is not really cheap.. what else? Georgia: ohh God yeah!! Hungarian citizens can spend 90 days in Georgia without visa, without any preparation. ahh thats what we need! And there is even a slight chance to get an Azeri visa in Tbilisi, so we might be able to go even there. We will see.

And about othe countries that require visa, but on a far further point of the trip:

Nepal: you can obtain your visa at the airport, its a 30 days visa that is extendable for 3 months.

India: theoretically they advice you to apply at your normal residence, but they state that in Kathmandu you can apply but that takes more time. In fact they issue the visa fro 6 months, but valid from the day of issue, so if i applied here in Hungary, it would be already expired when i arrive there, so makes no sense.