Azerbaijan, Dublin to Nepal, On Tour

Day 87: Gebele to Shamakhi

Yesterday we decided to treat ourselves by buying eggs for breakfast today and what a treat it was. I don’t mind porridge, but a plate of scrambled eggs is way more inviting. This kingly breakfast set us up well for the rest of the ride today which was going to be quite hilly. 
 

happy finn after our eggy breakfast

 
 

morning light over the valley

 
It started out flat enough, and we found ourselves riding for some distance through very pleasant deciduous forest, most of the leaves had fallen and the ground was carpeted with them. I imagine during the summer the place is packed with people, restaurants were very common, all similar with a number of gazebos around the central cookhouse. It was winter now and no one was out eating and they were almost all closed.

  
This was all before the town is Ismailli. At Ismailli we stopped for lunch. On the other side of Ismailli the terrain gradually got hillier. The scenery was still quite green though, grass and trees and hedgerows. There weren’t many ploughed field, it was mostly allotments for grazing. 

 

climbing up one of the hills

 
Anyway, we climbed and descended most of the rest of the day. There was one long climb that brought us up to almost 1000m toward the end of our ride. We thought that would be it, and from then on it would be mostly downhill. We still had to cycle a bit over 15km to set us up to make it to Baku tomorrow. Turning a corner on the descent we saw that the road went right down to a river then back up 500m the other side. We really didn’t want to have to climb it. 

 

nice view back along the road from another hill

  

last view of the mountains

  

the climb that defeated us

 
An empty truck drove past us, I half jokingly suggested we we ask them to drive us over the climb. “That’s a great idea” said Finn and pedalled up to the driver door. He got the message across and they were more than enthusiastic, even excited I’d say, to help. Next thing we knew we had the bikes in the back and we were up front in the little cockpit with two Azeri guys with big smiles on
They drove us right over the hill in ten minutes what would take us an hour to climb, and then all the way on to Shamakhi. Here they invited us for some tea and after a quick cuppa we took the bikes off the truck and said goodbye. They actually wanted to drive us all the way to Baku, but we still had a say of riding we wanted to get done.

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the drivers and the truck that got us to Shamkhi

We rode a short way outside Shamakhi to find somewhere to camp and ended up in a small stand of trees right next to the road and what looked like an abandoned factory of some sort.

  

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Crossing the border into Georgia the first thing you see is a church
So I got a lift to the border with a Russian. When we arrived he got out of his truck took the bike out and drove away before I could thank him say good bye or ask for a lift to batumi. Leaving me to walk the 20 km from the border
Wheeling my bike along I was able to stop and admire these guy
Georgian is our third alphabet we’ve come across on our trip and definitely the hardest to understand
In Georgian M is O and N is I
Batumi is a seaside city full of strange and unfinieshed skyscapers. That’s a gold ferriswheel pocking out of one of them
The “Old town” as it’s called is actually quite new they’re still building most of it
Our first camp site outside Batumi
Nulzari and Lilianna.
Passing back through Batumi the weather was crazy. Even the police had the ear flaps on their russian hats pulled down.
Keega was a Georgian kid who showed up at our camp on his bike. He proceeded to help put up the tarp and get our camp ready. He was great. He also took this phot
Keega taking pictures of us
“Right time to get cycling”
We we riding in a storm for about 4 days
We were camping in a derelict barn to protect us from the storm. Loahs wife came and invited us in. We sat in the kitchen/bedroom/sitting room for about three hours being completely ignored while everyone watched TV. After a very tactical yawn we got offered to be brought to bed. Just as we were in bed we heard a mans voice downstairs and sure enough moments later a hammered georgian burst through the door getting us out of bed and insisting we try a wide variety of his weeno.
Loah was a big messer
But his wife insisted on getting a nice shot of the pair of them.
Another wet day
It really doesn’t seem like there should have been oranges growing in Georgia
Pulling over to the side of the road as was all to typical now we bumped into some drunk georgian who invited us in for coffee. We took a detour by the local bakery first.
The baker threw Hugo some bread ,turn out it was pretty hot.
The Caucusus
First sign for Baku
You can see how strong the wind is as it pushes the right hand side of the tarp in. Luckily this was a tail wind
Family of pigs on the side of the road
There are oranges and Ladas everywhere in Georgia. Sometimes there are oranges in Ladas
This road isn’t too bad, there is plenty of room to godge the potholes. The roads get bad when there are so many potholes you can’t dodge them.
Georgian love building stuff on mountain tops
In case it isn’t obvious I have no idea what I’m doing.
Regal as ever
Relaxing with a nice sunset after our exciting evening
I think apartment blocks in the mountains is a Soviet thing
The closest we’ve gotten to snow so far
Hugo trying to heat up his feet back up.
Off we go
We’re getting closer
Hugo always whispers apologies to his food before he eats it.
Of course you find a chinese construction site in the middle of the Georgian mountains
Sometimes you’ve just got to get off and push
Chirst how long will this go on for.
Finally over the pass, only 3 hours later than we thought we’d get here.
First sign for Tehran
Hey cows where you going?
King David, The Builder
Tbilisi bridge at night
More hill top churches.
Tbilisi fort
Tblisi
Donuts?? Yes I’ll have twenty.
The novelty of not having to keep our stuff in their bags got the better of us.
George W Bush street?? Your guess is as good as mine.
Hello Caucusus
You would hate having to climb up there on Sunday mornings.
Climbing at the end of the day is alright with views like that
Rode with these guys for a while, so jealous of their bikes
There were a group of dogs in the national park we were camping in before entering azerbaijian
After playing with the dogs all morning we started cycling about an hour later than usual. We think it was worth it.
Will we need it?
Dublin to Nepal, Finnian's Galleries, Georgia

Georgia

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Azerbaijan, Dublin to Nepal, On Tour

Day 86: Sheki to Gebele

We thought we were in for another day in the fog when we woke up. We couldn’t even see to the end of the field. As we sat there huddled over our porridge though, the sun gradually began to shine through. When it was time to leave, after we had packed up camp the rest of the fog had burnt off and we were treated to a lovely clear day. 

the sun starting to shine through in the morning

 
More countryside riding, but now at last the mountains that had been covered over the last two days were revealed. It was a great lift to the spirits being able to see all of the country we were riding through, and some of the mountaintops were just amazing, rising up to 4000m in places.

  
As I’ve probably said before in the blog, riding a bike across a country you really get a feel for its geography. In the case of Azerbaijan, we experienced this phenomenon a number of times before finally figuring out what was going on: you’d be riding along next to the foothills on the flat, happy as Larry and then the road would make a sharp 90 degree turn up towards the mountains. So you climb for a bit, the road not taking you in the right direction, until you arrive at a bridge over the river. 

 

a nice sign for Sheki, the region we were just leaving

 
This happened again and again, and we had no idea why we would have to climb up into the hills to cross the river. Anyway, as it turns out what happens is all the meltwater from the Caucuses and fills up the wide rocky plains with fast flowing river. It only lasts a day or two, but it means that the road can’t just cut across the floodplain. So we are left climbing for about 5km in the wrong direction everything we want to cross a river.
But still, today the weather was clear and every climb would be rewarded with a long gradual downhill thereafter. 
Another quirk we’ve come across in Azerbaijan was at its most obvious when we stopped to shop just before Gebele. For the life of them, they can’t fathom wearing shorts in the winter. No amount of gesturing that you get warm on the bike to explain it helps, they’ve all found it absolutely mind boggling. Finn probably gets it worse because he wears cycling shorts, but as we were wandering around this supermarket at the end of every aisle people would gather and stare in disbelief, and then as we moved to the next aisle would follow us in turn.

 

the wide road up to Gebele

 
But most people here have also been incredible friendly. We had to get internet access to get in contact with a couch surfing host, we pulled into a new looking petrol station and the manager there let us use the office Internet. He even brought out two chairs to sit on so we weren’t standing around.
So we passed through Gebele eventually, it’s another surprisingly big town given the surroundings. We found somewhere to camp in the middle of one of this flood plains I described earlier. 

  

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Azerbaijan, Dublin to Nepal, On Tour

Day 85: Çobankol to Sheki

More fog this morning. It was a bit of shame really, we were on the road along the foothills and didn’t get to see any if the mountains. Our morning ride took us uphill most of the way on a muddy and potholed road. Everyone we passed along the way was surprised to see us. The pattern seemed to be whoever was riding out front surprised them and then as the whoever was behind cycled past they got over the shock and let out a big smile and a wave. 

On the road to Qakh

 
A bit before lunch we got into Qakh, a small town at the foot the mountains. We stopped at a small market to get some snacks and while eating outside a guy came up to us and started communicating as best he could. He then got his phone out and handed it over to us. It was his daughter, who spoke very good English and explained that this was her dad and he wanted to invite us back for tea.
It was almost lunch so yes of course. He led us back to his house, and welcomed by his friendly wife. They had a really fancy place, a wide spiral stair and marble floors. They served us up so,e tea and coffee and then some delicious lunch, sweet pumpkin pancakes, yoghurt and fresh bread. Mustafa (the guy who invited us in) called up his daughter and Skype and we chatted through her. 
It was a real slap up feed and a great chat too, Mustafa had a a lot to share with us about Azerbaijan and the local area. He saved us time and effort too when he let us know about a new road, freshly laid and in much better nick than the road we were on before stopping. He led us in his car to the start of he new road and we said goodbye.

people-4

with our generous hosts.


Some good flat riding followed along the new road. I think if the fog wasn’t there we would have had a great view of the mountains to our left, but alas all we could see out there was grey. 

 

one of todays more interesting photos

 
Crossing a bridge over a wide floodplain filed with stones we turned up into the foothills for a while, climbing up into the fog for an hour. At the top of the climb we came to Sheki, a big town in the hills that we didn’t spend too much time looking around, it was the end of the day and that long climb had tuckered us out. We got something to eat then continued on on the road to Baku.

 

crossing the bridge into Sheki

 
Camping spots were a bit hard to find at first as the sprawl around the town took up most of the land. We passed a lot of small houses with huge plots of land marked off around them by walls, fence etc. Darkness was setting in and we eventually found a flat, empty field shielded from the road, opposite a cheese factory on the other side of the road. The fog still hung, it was a dark, damp night.

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Azerbaijan, Dublin to Nepal, On Tour

Day 84: Lagodekhi to Çobankol (Border crossing: Into Azerbaijan)

Clouds had gathered overnight, it wasn’t raining but a think fog was starting to set. Breakfast (porridge, bread, butter, coffee) and set off. We had been told that we had to pay to camp the night before, but when we went in to pay the guy working at the visitors center refused to take our money. I think he liked that we had used a tarp and not a tent: “no tent on grass, you don’t need to pay”.
We were right by the Azerbaijan border, no sooner had we left Lagodekhi did we arrive at the crossing, only 7km away. The Georgian border guard had a good time looking at all the visas in my passport, he was thumbing through it for about 20 minutes and even radioed someone about the Pakistan and Iran visas. But it didn’t amount to anything and he waved me through and on to the Azerbaijan border where I met up with Finn.

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coming up on the border


At the Azerbaijan border we were questioned about Armenia at least three times by every guard we met. “Have you been to Armenia?” “Will you go to Armenia?” “Do you have Armenia stamp in passport?”. We also had to go through a pretty extensive baggage search and X-ray but, again, it didn’t result in anything just procedure. It did take a lot of time though, and it was over an hour before we were on the road again. The Azerbaijan side of the border was a bit more flamboyant than the Georgian end, the whole crossing is blocked at the end by two huge iron gates in a stone arch that the guard open and close manually every time someone comes through.

 

on the other side, in Azerbaijan. you can see those big metal gates I was talking about

 
By the time we got through the fog had really set in and we couldn’t see much beside the road in front of us and a few meters either side. We pulled into the town of Balakan for lunch, a big enough place where our bikes and shorts garnered a lot of interest.
Outside of Balakan the road was lined with houses and walls, much like the settlements on the Georgian side of the border. The traffic was becoming more frequent as we moved further into the country. Already we noticed that the drivers were very friendly here, most of them waving or beeping as we rode by. 

 

these arches are all made of wood and plaster

 
At a fork in the road we turned off the main route and onto a smaller road that would take us closer the mountains. We pulled into a small shop by the road. A bunch of old Azeri men stood outside and were pretty interested as usual. One problem we’ve had so far is explaining where Ireland is to locals who want to talk and ask where we are from. A lot of people don’t know Ireland but in Azerbaijan they have (for whatever reason) a picture of Europe on the money. So we were able to finally communicate where our little corner of the world was.

 

these wide, stoney , dry riverbeds were very common

 
After the shop we found a nice camp spot in a wide flat flood plain next to a river. We walked a while away from the road and in our own little bubble of fog we set up by a solitary tree and settled down to our first night in Azerbaijan.

  

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Dublin to Nepal, Georgia, On Tour

Day 83: Telavi to Lagodekhi

More clear skies, and from the orchard in which we camped the road flew downhill all the way to the valley floor, a perfect start to the morning. 

Finn enjoying the downhill


Flat easy riding for most of the day, passing by farms to the the right and the foothills of the Caucuses to the left. Very sparsely populated, a few small houses here and there but we were on our own for the most part, except for the occasional lorry or Lada passing us by.

 

time for a quick mass?

 
We pulled off the main road and into the town of Kvareli for lunch. It’s a town that seems to be expecting a big tourist boom soon, or maybe it’s just packed in the summer. There were a few large hotels, presumably not all that full and some wine taverns offering wine tasting to tourists, but were closed for the most part. We found a little bakery and had kachapuri for lunch.
Similar riding again after lunch, as we got closer to the border we passed through some bigger towns. These long towns snaked all along the road, with high fences and walls running continuously almost right up to the road which made the riding feel a bit claustrophobic, as if in a tunnel.

 

Mountains

 
Flat for most of the day, but towards the end there was a short steep hill that we had to climb. Two young Georgian kids in full cycle lycra (one of them in what looked like a national team kit) came racing up past us. I was quite envious of their unloaded road bikes, so mobile and quick. Down the other side of the hill Finn had gotten talking to a local guy on a scooter. He seemed to like bikes, I think he had a small shop, or knew someone who did. 
Anyway, we were hard pressed finding somewhere to camp what with the whole side of the road built up with houses and farms and fences and walls. This guy on the scooter whose name was Iosef (like Stalin, he told us) said he knew where we could camp and to follow him.
So we got in line behind him, and soon one of those kids who had passed us out on the hill rode by and decided to join in our little convoy. We went for a good 7 or 8 km, right into the town of Lagodekhi and we were beginning to wonder where he was taking us. Maybe there was something lost in translation, was he taking us to a hotel? We didn’t really want to stay in a hotel but there really was nowhere to camp.
We started riding up towards the foothills, up a long incline through the town. It was starting to get dark. Eventually we arrived at a big new wall and a set of gates that led into the Caucus Mountain National Park! Iosef led us to one of his friends who worked at the park. There was a nice grassy garden area at the front near the gate with a visitors center. Iosefs friend (with perfect English) told us we could camp out on the garden of the visitors center no problem and even showed us where we could get fresh drinking water and, if we wanted, a place to build a fire.
We didn’t build a fire in the end. We put the the tarp up under the supervision of Iosef. It was a clear cold night so we broke out the big winter sleeping bags that we’ve been carrying since Istanbul.

  

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Dublin to Nepal, Georgia, On Tour

Day 82: Outside Tbilisi to Telavi

Woke up to clear blue skies today and spent a good few minutes in the morning celebrating how dry all our gear was. After a week camping in the rain we could really enjoy packing our gear away dry and not soaked through. 

clear dawn at camp

 
Yesterday evening we had turned off the main road running East to Azerbaijan from Tbilisi and today we would be heading north, over a pass and to the foot of the Greater Caucuses. From there we would follow the mountains east along an apparently quieter and more scenic road to another border with Azerbaijan.

  
The morning was clear and crisp, if only a little chilly and we had ride up and over numerous hills as we approached the pass we had to cross today. Very quickly we left the flat farmland and entered sparsely populated hilly country. This place is probably beautiful in summer or autumn but now in early winter the foliage was an almost all the same dull shade of brown.

  
 

bit of bike maintainence after lunch

 
We stopped for an early lunch just before the pass. The pass itself was not that steep and was a pretty fun climb and as with most mountain ascents, well worth the effort when we got to the top and got to look back, the way we came laid out behind us and the Greater Caucus mountain range out in front.

 

starting to climb

  

first bit of snow of the trip

  

finn making his way up one of the switchbacks

  

at the top

  

the view down the other side

 
A long descent then down the other side to the town of Telavi, passing lots of development work going on outside it the town. This region that we just crossed into is supposedly the most famous of all Georgian wine regions and small hotels and winery’s are being built all over the place to accompany the handful at exist already.
Dinner in Telavi, a surprisingly pretty town once you get into it. Picked up a few supplies here before heading out just as it began to get dark. We stumbled across an orchard on the outskirts that provided us a prefect camp spot for the night. Tuckered out after the climb over the pass so went to bed almost immediately. 

camping in the orchard

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Dublin to Nepal, Georgia

Tbilisi

We spent almost a week in Tbilisi waiting for Iran visa to come through. I think we could have got it done sooner, but we were in the city for a national holiday St. George’s day and also didn’t get our forms in until Friday so that delayed the process a bit.
  
I know when we were researching the trip we spent a lot of time looking online for information about getting visas on the road, so coming up will be some boring visa information.

Boring visa information below
Getting an Iran Visa in Tbilisi (November 2015)
There’s a lot of conflicting information online about what you need to do to get a visa for Iran. With the sanctions being lifted I think the process is probably going to go through a lot of change. I’ve been reading online that the Iranian government are looking to increase tourism to the country drastically over the next couple of years. You can already get a Visa on arrival if you fly in but that’s useless for overland travellers.

Anyway, all I know about is the process we went through. Hopefully this can clear some things up.

Step 1: Personal Reference Number
Before you even go to the embassy you need to get a Personal Reference Number from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Affairs in Tehran. It’s basically a rubber stamp pre-approving your visit. You might read about some people getting a visa at this or that embassy without the Reference Number, but everybody I’ve spoken to so far who got a Visa had a Reference Number, and anyone who didn’t, hadn’t.

There are two ways to get a Reference Number.
The first way is to get in contact with someone in Iran who will make the application for your reference number to the MFA on your behalf. This person will have to be happy to interface with the bureaucracy in Tehran, fill out the forms etc. the advantage with this method is that it is free, the disadvantage is that it is hard to organise and (apparently) takes longer. Up to six weeks, or so they say. I don’t know first hand as we didn’t go this route but it is an option.
The other method is going through an agency. We got in contact with Dave from Stan tours . Dave was really helpful, gave us a bunch of information and at a cost of $50 per person made the reference number application for us. Once we sent them our details over they had the reference number in a week.
You don’t get the reference number yourself by the way, it gets sent to a consulate or embassy of Iran that you designate. They say to be there three days after you get the message your number has arrived, but you can get there later. I think our number would have been sitting in the embassy in Tbilisi for over a month. Once you have the reference number you’re ready for Step 2.

Step 2: Visa Application 
This is only relevant to Tbilisi, but might carry over to other consulates. I can say about the staff in Tbilisi is that they are very friendly, but by the book.
 

enterance to the iranian embassy

 
The Embassy is open ONLY from 10:00 – 13:00. There is no later opening to pick up a visa, so almost no chance of getting a same day Visa. If you arrive right as they open and have everything ready to go you can hand the form back the same day and get the visa in 1 – 2 days.

When you arrive first you have a short interview with one of the staff. It’s quite informal, they asked us where we are from, when we want to go and for how long. Then they asked if we have a reference number and when he found it in his stack of reference numbers he then gave us the form to fill out.

You need to have an address in Iran for the form, but the guy at the embassy told us directly that booking a hotel for one night and using that address was fine.

He also asked us for travel insurance information. Even just your policy card will do for this, you hand it in during the application and get it back at the end.

Those are the only slightly awkward parts of the application, the rest of the form is pretty easy to fill out. With the form you are also handed a slip of paper with the embassy’s bank info on it. Walk back down the hill, past the fork in the road and back to the wide intersection (about 15 min) to find a branch of their bank. Here just go to a teller, say ‘Iran Visa’ and hand them the slip. Make the deposit (in Euros, our charge was €40)Take the deposit receipt.

You also need passport photos, we didn’t find anywhere that close to the embassy so maybe have these on hand before you go of you want to get all done fast.

So if you have

– a reference number 

– passport photos (2)

-Euros in cash

-the number and address of a hotel for one night in Iran

-potentially your travel insurance policy card (this isn’t always required, I think they decide on case by case)
Then all you have to do is arrive for a short interview, get the form, fill out the form, walk 15min down the street to the bank make the deposit and then back up to hand in the form before 13:00. Return the following day or so and pick up your visa. Simple.
End of Visa information

Apart from visa stuff Tbilisi is quite a nice place to visit, if a bit unfriendly to pedestrians. It’s position as an important trade hub between Central Asia and Eastern Europe over the centuries meant it’s been hotly contested by the Persians of antiquity, native Georgians, the khans of the steppe, the Tzars and Bolsheviks of Russia and even the Ottomans. You can get a real feel for all this walking around the city, a twenty minute walk from the old town to the newer side of the city takes you past all sorts of different architecture. There are wide European style avenues and narrow ottoman alleys next to each other.

central square in Tbilisi

We spent a good while in the hostel cleaning, repairing and re waterproofing a lot of our gear for the coming winter. The poor weather from Batumi to Tbilisi really put us in our place, and while we are pretty well prepared for winter weather there were a few niggling issues that it was nice to have the time to work on while waiting for the visas.

After a week in Tbilisi we returned to the embassy to pick up our visas. We got them no problem and left the city the same day. We rode up out of the valley that cradled the city and onto the main road to to the Azerbaijan border.
 

the main road of the city is funnily called the George W Bush street

 
Following this busy road for a while, maybe 20km, we decided in the end to turn off and ride North over the next day. There was a road closer North that skirted the foot of the greater Caucuses that offered a nicer ride into and through Azerbaijan than the busy main artery highway constructed on the flat. It was getting dark so after cycling along the north bound road we pulled off into a field and set up camp

  

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Felt pretty good making it to Turkey.
Edirne was the old capital of the ottoman empire before Istanbul.
Turns out the first mosque we visited was one of the nicest in Turkey.
Inside the mosque
Ablution tapes outside
We also had the whole thing to ourselves, quite the opposite to the jammed mosques in Istanbul
Ederem was a great host, an avid cycle tourist himself he prepared dinner and breakfast for us and has to have been the jolliest person we’ve met on the trip so far.
The shell station that hosts bicycle tourists
Istanbul has everything, most importantly cans of iced coffee
That’s Asia over there
We pulled into a cafe after our big climb up to the bridge. And spent ages chatting with the parking attendants.
After climbing hundreds of metres asking a bunch of people how to get to the bridge and navigating the complicated road system we finally had the bridge in our sights. As tore down the hill the police pulled us over.
Luckily while the police were trying to figure out how to get us off the 5 lane highway leading to the bridge, a man sticks his head out of his van and offers us a lift. We stick our bikes in the back of the van and we’re off.
Asia here we come
By the time we arrived in Kadikoy where we were meeting our CS host it was dark and we were wrecked. Unfortunately we couldn’t get in touch with him and were waiting in this cafe for ages. We soon found him and all was A-OK.
“What’s that? Another mosque?” The lad behind hugo doesn’t look too impressed
A little fishing boat
The Monument to Turkish German friendship also known as the Döner monument.
Treating ourselves to a Hamam (turkish bath) after many two months on the road
All the famous sights across Turkey
Lokum or turkish delight
Helva is a dense nugget desert
A fine Quran
Because picture of the prophet are not allowed in Islam the Hilye is a verbal description. it’s quite funny saying he was “is neither too short nor too tall” and that he walked as if striding down a hill.
The Hagia Sophia
It was a church
then a mosque
and now a museum
This kid ran under the barrier and started climbing on some priceless antique in the Topkapi Palace. Right now his mom is trying to get him out before the security gaurds swooped in.
There must be thousands of Busts and statues of Attatürk across the country in every city and town no matter how small. This one in Taksim square is one of our favourites. It depicts Attaturk kicking the brits out of Gallipoli
Getting the evening ferry back to Kadikoy
Great shop name
Ekmek and Hugo
Shefack was a music teacher who was also crashing with our CS host during the holiday.
When you mention istanbul and food everyone across turkey replies with “AHH Balick ekmek in Emininou”
The Spice Bazaar
Nut bazaar, actually this is still the spice bazaar. There i no nut bazaar.
still the spice bazaar
Istanbul during Bayram is absolutley empty we couldn’t believe a city of this size could shut down so completetly for so many days
Everywhere was closed
The Nazar (blue amulate) is used to protect people from the evil eye and is ablotley everywhere in turkey.
SIMIIIIIIT. These guys would walk around yeling simit and selling the tasty seseme bagels.
Ablution taps
Modern art museum in Istanbul
More art
Tiny man art
Balik ekmek is the business
Breakfast with Oscar, shefak, Yawus and Jorgen
One of the few churches in Istanbul
Of the hundreds of potraits of mustafa kamal Attaturk we came across this is my favourite
The sea around istanbul is ful of cargo ships
Oscar was a great host lettig us stay for ages in Istanbul.
Things are looking pretty full with our winter sleeping bags.
Breakfast in a park in Istanbul after we once again failed to leave a city
Seagul
Traditional ottoman bridge over a highway
Home sweet tarp
First time climbing in Turkey
and desccending
Hey look there’s no grass
Cornering like a pro
“A nice tall glass of milk, what a treat” Actually this is ayran a ubiquitous yogurt based drink. It is sometimes mixed with water but sometimes it’s fizzy after having been mixed with soda water.
Hugo having a good laugh after i nearly spit out the fizzy yogurt drink thinking it was milk.
Not in europe anymore
Rolling around the corner we had no idea these mountains were here.
We had 20 km more to do that day but couldn’t pass up a chance to camp here.
Our campsite was just on the other side of the house.
These guys saw Hugo fixing his bike on the side of the road and offered him a lift. Needing to do about 120 km that day hugo accepted their offer and drove along and picked me up. nice way to make 20 km.
No not a holiday or festival just a typical nationalistic turkish town
To honour Sagan winning world champ Hugo strikes on of his poses.
Nearly at the top
We had a great time in Ankara with our host Achmet. W got to see Attaturks moseleum and watch the Irish rugby match
OUr curse of leaving cities continues as Hugo loses his wallet when we leave Ankara.
After going back to look for it we camped in a park outside Ankara
For anyone wondering what our coffee set up on the road has been now is your lucky time. We have a grinder an aeropress and pick up fresh beans in the bigger cities. 3 in 1’s are a great warming treat and a bag of instant just in case the other two run out.
The climbing hunch
“So you’re cycling??” these guys just couldn’t believe us.
Tarp working a treat
A man brought us over to the fish tank and asked how many we wanted for lunch. We said one each and he went ahead and grabbed two fish out of the tank and cooked them.
Can’t get fresher than that
Road into Cappadocia
churches carved into the rock
When there are no signs esiest way to find your route is to cycle to the highest point and have good look
Are we supposed to go over there??
Or over there?
We found it
Touring bike weren’t at home on the winding mountain path but they did well
After cycling the whole way through the fairy chimneys as people call them. We ended up at a lookout point for sunset. A road leads to it from the other side so bus loads of people were arriving just in time to catch sunset over the valley.
Learning to balance your bike against you while relieving yourself is a necessary skill
Gravel grinding
A man saw us stopped for lunch and invited us for çay he brought us on the tour of the local mosque.
He showed us how to properly wash ourselves according to islamic tradition before bringing us on the tour
There were plenty of gravel roads in this area of Turkey
Always nice to get back onto sealed tarmac
This was a pretty hairy descent with no crash barrier on the side of the road
A rake load of turnips
All hail the Turnip
Approaching these mountains we were really hoping we weren’t going over them.
Luckily we went around them.
Trying to get a picture with a dog as he chased me
After climbing on loose gravel all day getting to descend on tarmac was a treat.
When leaving this restaurant, i stood to the side to let a man pass. To show is appreciation he pinched my belly and smiled at me. This was not the first time a turk pinched my belly.
Ottoman houses in Amasya and pontic tombs in the backround
View from the tombs
Attaturk
Sultan selfie
It was windy
Cycling a bit faster to get away from the weather front.
After cycling late into the night and not coming across anywhere to camp, we found a filling station and camped in the picnic area of the restaurant. The next morning we we’re getting up and everyone was staring at us from inside the restaurant. We we’re grumpy and cold and not in the mood to be stared at. Next a boy and a waiter come out and the boy says his family( the people who had been staring at us) wanted us to come in and have breakfast with them. We accepted their very generous offer and were treated to a huge breakfast. The family were going on holidays to the black sea from Istanbul and we had a great time chatting with them.
A church dedicated to Jason and the argonauts who passed by this area looking for the golden fleece.
We met Ali in Ordu he’s a great guy and the only hazlenut broker in the hazelnut capital of the world. This region produces 70% of the worlds hazlenuts. He very kindly put us up in a hotel run by his friend and we had a great day.
Leaving Ordu
Sunset on the black sea
This kid just sat down beside us and proceeded to talk turkish to us for about half an hour. I don’t think he relaised we didn’t understand a word he was saying but we got by.
Our bud
Balklava
A very nationalistic musically performance put on by one of the patties before the election
Foam rolling on this handy little carpet I found
We used our bikes to block off a parking space for our camping spot
Waking up in the rain to a flat is never ideal
Using nutella to mark the punture
Setting off on a wet morning to climb 3000 m, should be grand
Turns out there was some minuscule piece of debris giving me flats, this is one of the stops where i replaced the tube.
It was too cold for the patching glue to work so after we used up all our tubes we and i was still flatting out we knew we wouldn’t make it over the pass. We rolled back down the mountain to some gazebos to stay for the night
The next morning we decided the best shout was for me to hitch hike to batumi and meet Hugo there. In the backround you can the mescit i slept in during the rainty night, hoping some devout muslim wouldn’t open the door to find a smelly wet irishman asleep on the floor.

 

Dublin to Nepal, Finnian's Galleries, Turkey

Turkey

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Dublin to Nepal, Georgia, On Tour

Day 81: Khashuri to Tbilisi

Over the last couple of days we hadn’t been making much distance but today, judging by the map, we would make up for all that. From here to Tbilisi the road was all highway and along the flat. To cap it all off we had a huge tailwind to push us all the way there. 

the clouds finally stsrting to part

 
Conditions were perfect, and before lunch we had already covered more distance than all of yesterday. The road was pretty much flat the whole time except for some gradual climbs and for the most part the traffic was reasonable. We were riding on motorway that was still under construction until we passed the town of Gori.

 

lovely new road

 
That’s kind of all there is to say about the days riding really. Sometimes an uneventful day of riding is welcome though, especially if it means you get a lot of distance covered. As we got into Tbilisi the traffic got more congested of course, but in comparison to their cities we’ve cycled into it was a breeze to find our way. 

 

first road sign for Tehran!

 
Following the river took us straight to the center where we found a hostel to stay at quickly on the back of a recommendation from Adam in Batumi. We opted for a hostel in Tbilisi instead of Couchsurfing or warm showers as we would be making our Iranian visa application here and didn’t know how long it would take.

central Tbilisi

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