The great escape

The next day I got up early in order to hit the road and escape from Istanbul. I had enjoyed Istanbul, I had found a decent and cheap hotel, got to know a few locals, found a traditional café that had the famous water pipes and worked out how to use the public transport system. I also visited the ‘Grand Bazaar’, without buying any magic carpets, and paid a visit to the ‘Blue Mosque’.

Getting out of Istanbul sounded easier that it actually was, the biggest difficulty being the fact that it is surrounded to a large extent by water. My GPS was pointing in all directions, every which way I turned I faced water. Eventually I found a couple of bridges that took me back into Asia. A biker overtook me and gave me a wave; he waited at the toll gate and used his card to get me through. We chatted for a while and went our separate ways.

The weather was very cold now, a stark contrast to what I had experienced so far on the trip, and I knew that it was only going to get colder the further north I travelled. My gloves, which I bought in Australia, offered good protection from the cold but they weren’t exactly winter gloves.

Some of the roads in Turkey were amazing, I grinned from ear to ear as I negotiated some of the twisties, accelerating hard, braking late, hitting the apexes, losing it a couple of times. I know I’ve got to come back to this place. Towards the end of the day I found myself taking a ferry from Canakkale to Eceabat.

After checking in at a local hotel, the guy on the front desk took me to his mates’ garage in order to get my miniature electric compressor working. I carried the compressor around in case of punctures. The guy didn’t ask me for any ‘Gifts’, neither did the guy who mended my compressor, such a contrast to other places I have visited.