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.