After a long flight from Turkey via the New Orleans Superdome inspired Dubai international airport, I finally touched down in Sydney, a little under a month after leaving London. The 32 degree shift in temperature upon arrival was something of a shock, but luckily it was just coming into spring, so the weather has been gradually improving.
I celebrated this by joining a random touch rugby team. Turns out that half the team are Japanese - they like to train pretty hard (first time I've ever really bothered for touch rugby) and they tend to be quite quick. The first training session I turned up to my performance was somewhat influenced by the amount of beer I'd drunk the night before (it was Sat mornng), and that it was around 25 degrees at 8.30 in the morning. A somewhat uncomfortable session followed.
After arriving in Sydney on the Saturday, and starting work on the Monday, I hadn't had enough time to find a flat or anything - so I made this my initial priority, settling (for the short term at least) on a place in Neutral Bay - North Sydney. As I hadn't been paid in a month, this involved living on credit until my first pay cheque - something that was not helped by HSBC putting a security block on my UK debit accounts (no matter how much I tried to convince them not to).
Optus turns out to be in Macquarie Park - which is a little way out of town. Whilst this is a little inconvenient, it's nice to have an office where everything works, and the main entrance doesn't smell faintly like urine.
It's also only 12km from Neutral Bay, meaning I've been riding to work. This involved rebuilding my bike, which I had stripped down to get under the 20kg weight limits flying through Asia. In addition to riding to work, I've also been going out quite often to Manly Dam - about 10km from my flat. It's great to be able to ride to the track, instead of sitting in the car for an hour or two.
I also went back to NZ for the long weekend. It was nice to catch up with Mum and Dad, as well as all the old Wellington crew.
HOT HOT HOT!
So we departed Goreme - perhaps a few days later than anticipated, but this was certainly warranted - given both the amount of stuff we did, and also a few mild food poisoning episodes (not good when sharing a scooter in 35 degree heat!).
Mt Nemrut
We had heard great things about the tri to Mt Nemrut - and this is why we had waiting until the Thursday - being the only day the tour left. With the usual Turkish shagging about, and hour or so late Korina and I crammed into a weazing minibus with 15 or so other tourists and off we went.
The first day of this tour was really quie dull - the mini bus couldn't drive very fast, we had a lot of distance to cover, and the air conditioning did work effectively. Probably the highlight was pulling up in a random town for a rubbery Turkish ice cream. It was very hot, yet something in its make up prevented the ice cream from melting - apparenly up to 36 hours un refridgerated...(suspicious!).
We pulled into the dusty little town that we were crashing in before Nemrut and checked into the expectedly run down hotel. Our room was ok, although there were some that had no air conditioning, or more amusingly, had the TV stuck on Turkish porn.
We arose at 3am the next morning to drive up to Nemut. The idea is generally to watch the sunrise or the sunset - we were doing the former. Unfortunately, when the sun did make an appearance, there was a sand storm on the horizon, which someone took the magic away from the place. The statues were fine, but probably not as great as anticipated.
Then it was another day's drive, looking at some frankly quite dull ruins along the way before heading to Urfa.
Urfa
Again, we had heard that Urfa was a great place, and a little different to everywhere else we'd been due to the Middle Eastern influence. Great parts of this region of Turkey were actually part of Syria. Until Ataturk had other ideas...
Suffice to say we stood out a lot. Many of the ladies seemed quite impressed by Korina - some because she was a westerner, and they loved everything western, and the more traditional because Korina had made the effort of covering herself up a bit. An amusing moment occured when the long cotton shirt Korina was wearing slipped off her shoulder a little bit - it didn't take long before an Arabic lady had put her hand on Korina's shoulder to remedy the situation!
You could tell the origin of all of the different people (well, ladies anyway) by the colour of their headscarfs. In addition to the relatively modern Turkish styles, there were a lot of Arabic, Syrian and Iranians getting about.
We enjoyed the main bazaar a lot - a bit like Istanbul in feel, with the exception that we were the only tourists. We came back quite often, and enjoyed several cups of Turkish tea with the locals - who were very keen to convince us how safe the area was.
We also headed out to Harran and checked out the beehive houses. The story goes that these were created from some of humanity's oldest civilisations. That may well be true, but other than those restored for the tourists, the enduring picture was of a poor, dusty little village on the Syrian border, with some of the most aggressive street kids we encountered in Turkey. Certainly bringing a selection of pens was a good call here - seemed to be most appreciated by the locals, a couple of who also played football against me and an Australian guy.
Mardin
It was at this point that we bailed on the - frankly quite disappointing - tour. From here, I had wanted to go on up to Van via Batman - for no other reason than the amusing name. However, the advice from the New Zealand and British consulates about Kurdish rebels warned Korina and me off - and added to the lack of an available hire car - and a lack of desire to sit in buses for a number of days, we hopped a bus to Mardin.
Well, this makes it sound a lot easier than it was. Basically we fought our way through the shambles at the Urfa Autogar before hopping on a somewhat suspect bus, that (very slowly) made it half way to Mardin before giving up in a haze of blue smoke. So we were standing about on the side of the road, in the middle of Kurdish rebel territory, wondering if a bus was going to turn up. This was not good!
Luckily there was a range of people on the bus who could scratch together a few words of English - and it was clear they were trying to help us. Eventually a replacement van turned up, and we pulled off the main road to Iraq and into Mardin. We were a little suspicious when the driver dropped off all the passengers before stopping with us and asking for a bribe to take us to the hotel. I think he was quite surprised to be told to go fuck himself!
As it happens, we were only 500M from the hotel - and other than the somewhat hair-raising trip to Mardin, the rest of the time was great. The people were friendly, we were staying at an amazing boutique hotel and the sandstorm kept down the temperatures quite a bit (which, when they start topping 40, get a bit overwhelming!).
The best thing about Mardin though were the people. At one point we were adopted by an 11 year old for an impromptu Turkish/English lesson. We bought him a coke and he insisted that we go through all the words in the back of our lonely planet. Although we were happy to oblige, we didn't expect him to follow us round for the next 2 hours! We went into an internet cafe, and I showed him a video of the All Blacks doing the haka. The kid was intrigued and seemed relatively impressed!
Unfortunately the end of our Mardin trip coincided with the mild food poisoning spreading from Korina to me - so it was certain to be a long trip across to Antep!
Gazantep
Luckily the bus didn't break down on the way back, but I was involved in a few close calls of the "rush to the toilet, by will e makeit" type. Korina was adopted again by some more Turkish people that wanted us to come stay at their place. Whilst we were keen, it was another 4 hours in the bus, and I was not in much of a state to be a house guest! We also were getting towards the end of the holiday, and didn't really have time, which really was unfortunate.
Antep turned out to be much more Western than many of the other cities in the East, and it was at this point that the Lonely Planet let us down. The accomodation recommendation was good, but in terms of things to do, really only 1 out of 4 was any good / open. Again we stayed at a cool little boutique place -- being a bit sick doesn't really go with staying in budget places if you ask me. By the end of our time in Antep I had started to feel better again though (which was good, given I was starting a new job in Australia in a few days time).
Basically, the castle was shut, the caravanserai had nothing in it, and the mosaic muesum was OK - particularly the gypsy girl (who may actually be Alexander the great!).
I guess the thing in Antep that I thought was excellent was an old tea house we went to - famous (apparently) for the volume the old guys therewithin are able to generate by slapping down backgammon pieces onto the board. What was less enjoyable was losing my 100-1 undefeated record at backgammon to Korina - she thrashed me 2-1 - and all of a sudden decided the game wasn't so bad afterall!
From there, it was pretty much the end of our holiday. A bus back to Urfa, and then a flight back to Istanbul (to stay again at the crazy lamp place) and I was able to confirm that our hotel had not nicked my bike - something which had been sitting in the back of my mind for the previous 2 weeks. Managed to get Korina to go to the historic imam across from the mosque (which I had been to earlier). I think she could see why it was better than the more touristy one we had been to in Goreme.
Then it was time to say goodbye to Korina again - something that is never easy, and made much harder by the fun that we had had together over the past 4 weeks. It's always a little ironic that it's when our relationship is at its best, that we then come into a situation where we must spend an extended time apart - much the same as when I had come to the UK.
Arriving off the overnight train from Bulgaria, I hauled my mountainbiking gear up to Sultanahmet where I left them in the hotel we had booked for our return. This was, I guess, somewhat sketchy - in that it required me to trust the guys working there. But we had stayed there before, so I decided to take a risk.
After dropping off my gear I was hot, tired, sweaty and had some time to kill before meeting up with Korina. So I decided to sample the delights of a Turkish bath. One hour later I decided there was nothing quite like being cleaned and massaged by a fat, hairy and somewhat sweaty Turkish man! It was certainly a bit of a cultural leap, but the hammam was ancient, and right across from the blue mosque - so with the call going out, and the light coming in through the coloured sky lights, it was certainly a unique experience.
Korina had had a rather harrowing flight in from London, including nearly missing the runway in Istanbul, so first priority on meeting up was to find some beer. An uneventful flight passed (why does she always have dodgy flights when she's without me, and no problems when she flys with me?) and we reached Goreme, checking in late to our cave hotel.
Open Air museum
We got up pretty late the first day, both a bit knackered from travelling. Enjoyed a great breakfast at Elif Star then headed out to look at the Goreme open air muesum. The early christians in this region carved houses, churches and other buildings out of the soft rock - and the dry, arid climate had kept these structures largely intact centuries after the people had departed.
We were to discover on our trip around Goreme that these cave houses were EVERYWHERE! After a while it became a bit of cave overload, but that first day, it was magnificent.
Cappadocia day tour
The guys at Elif Star convinced us that doing a day tour around Cappadocia would be a great thing to do. So we signed up, and whilst it was a convenient way to do a lot of things - e.g. more rock churches, underground cities, hiking in a canyon - I would have to say that I HATED this trip. Basically, we were a relatively small group of around 10-15, which was fine, but there were probably about 30 other groups essentially doing the same trip. This meant attractions like the underground city you were rammed into a confined space with several other moronic tourists.
On something like the canyon hiking, this started out well, but we got stuck behind a slow group of Spanish school kids. Our guide refused to overtake, so we had to dawdle along rather than walking at a pace that suited our group.
It is this type of experience that reminds me why if at all possible I prefer independent travel, and if travelling in a group, trying to go where there are no other groups is a good idea.
Ballooning
The following day was one of the highlights of Goreme for me. We got picked up at the crack of dawn (literally - 5am or something) and taken out to a field in the middle of nowhere, where several hundred balloons were in the process of taking off. Like most things in Turkey, finding our balloon was a complete shambles, and they had essentially forgotten to add us to the manifest - however, they managed to find a space without overloading the balloon.
We had read that ballooning could be a risky activity, and that there were some cowboys operating now - so it was with some relief that we found that I had booked Goreme balloons - a very established company. This was backed up by our "pilot" who was an Australian fella, who displayed a certain joy in the ability to fly as close to rocks, trees, canyons and anything else he could fly, to freak out his patrons.
However, he was very skillful - there was never a time where I felt we were out of control. He even managed to land right on the trailer attached to the back of the landrover at the end.
Hiking pidgeon valley
It was still early when we got back, so we had a quick breakfast and got a lift with in the Elif Star guy's creaking Renault up to the top of Pidgeon Valley, with the intention of walking back down. It all started well enough - and given that it was only 4 km, we thought our walk would be quite quickly concluded. We initially walked through a number of gardens used to grow local produce for Goreme and the other villages - it was a lot more lush than the surrounding country, supported by a small creek in the bottom of the valley.
In the garden we passed an old guy - who we were to meet again later on. Immediately after this the valley became A LOT more erroded and criss-crossed with hundreds of unmarked trails. Finding the path became increasingly difficult. We thought we were on the right one when all of a sudden we came to a part where the trail had completely slipped away. It looked as though you could almost make it across, and we were contemplating what to do when the old guy turned up again.
He told us that a British couple had tried to cross the gap earlier in the year, and one had fallen and broken their leg. So we took up his offer to follow him, aware that this was probably going to cost us something. He led us back up the valley, over a very steep spur (climbing monkey style at times) and down into the next valley. We certainly appreciated his guidance, as it would have been very difficult for us to find our way out by ourselves. Whilst we appreciated his help, we didn't appreciate the price gouge he tried to give us at the end - but some heated negotiations later and we had arrived at something fair and equitable for both parties.
ATV biking
Later that afternoon, after avoiding the hottest part of the day (spending quite a bit of time in the "one way cafe" - famous for the coldest beers in Goreme) we hired a couple of ATV's and a guide and headed around the few valleys and areas surrounding Goreme. By that stage I was starting to feel a little rock church/cave/rock chimney overload, but riding the ATVs was fun, even if Korina did take some strange lines through some of the corners!
Perhaps more amusing was our guide - who had a scooter, was wearing jandles, and had a young kid sitting in front of him. Certainly looked appropriate for doing some offroading!
The terrain turned out to be mainly pretty placid, but it was quite dusty/sandy in places so you could open the bike up and do a few skids etc. Luckily, neither of us were as stupid as the guy we'd seen up at the open air muesum who rolled his bike trying to do a donut.
Scooter adventure
At the end of the ATVing, we enquired about hiring a scooter for the next day. In addition to getting the scooter, we also got some advice about where to go to get off the tourist track.
Our scooter adventure was somewhat complicated by Korina waking up the next morning feeling pretty rubbish - as per normal on our holiday's food poisoning was to become a frequent companion. However, we had been pretty careful with what we had eaten, and take pro-biotics, so it was only a mild case. That said, there were a few emergency pit stops during the day!
We initially rode out of town and through a couple of the surrounding towns before heading down to a closed underground city the scooter guys had told us about.
Arriving in the village, a guy in a large cowboy hat strode out into the middle of the street and yelled STOP - putting his hand on our handlebars to prevent us caning off. "My name is ISA" he said - this was the guide we had been told about by the scooter guys.
A quick Turkish tea with the locals, and we dived into the underground city. Relative to the other ones we'd seen, this was much more hard core, with ladder climbs and the need to put on a 'safety' sling from time to time. There were a few parts where it was one person at a time - and standing at the bottom by myself I suddenly throught that if this guy was dodgey, he's just managed to split us up - and there would definately be no finding your way out of that maze.
As it turns out, other than wanting a break to smoke a cigga-weed, Isa turned out to be a reliable, if somewhat erratic guide. Apparently the village had been on the tourist trail until about 5 years ago, when the government had closed the cave and subsequently killed the local tourist industry. Isa was still working independently, as it was all he had done since he was a kid. But you felt it must be hard for him, as the village was far off the beaten track.
It was a long ride back, and along the way I managed to pick up a bit of sunburn - frequent applications of sunscreen not withstanding - so the next day we took a bit of a rest before jumping on the bus to Nemrut and Urfa.
Day 1
I arrived at Vratz, via a brief stop at Mezdra at around 5am. There I met Dobrian, who would be my chain smoking mountain bike guide and interpreter for the next 4 days. The overnight train from Bucharest had been a bit of an endurance mission - it had come from Moscow, and was several hours late by the time it picked me up. Additionally, all of the Russians needed to have their visas checked when entering Bulgaria which held proceedings up another few hours. Finally, the Russians had also taken all of the sleeper berths - so I was left in a second class upright seat with a couple of Romanians. Luckily only 3 of 6 seats were taken in our compartment, so it was not as bad as it could have been.
Due to the lengthy trip getting to Vratz, I had suggested that an easy day's riding would be desirable. This was assisted by two main factors:
- Dobrian's need to stop for a smoke every 5km; and
- Dobrian breaking his bike half way around the ride (broken rear mech)
However, after 4 hard days in Romania, I was quite happy with this.
Once Dobrian's bike had broken, it was really more about how on earth we were going to get back into town. We managed to find a local's drinking spot, so stopped for a couple of beers. The old farmers started having me on suggesting that I probably thought Belgrade was in Bulgaria. I got Dobrian to respond "if you're so smart, what is the capital of NZ?" - this certainly stumped them.
As we finished a little early, I went out again with Valu - a local teenager and ace downhiller, who put me through my paces on some pretty fast and loose sectons near my guest house.
Day 2
The second day started with picking up a new rear mech for Dobrian's bike and then getting a transfer to the top of the nearest hill. After some repairs, we then set off up and over a series of ridges before reaching a dry waterfall with an excellent view over the valley in which I was staying. What followed was an extremely technical downhill single track section (thanks Valu) which fully tested my pretty unresponsive brakes (from the Romanian repairs).
We then headed into Vratz for a late lunch and sat out the hottest part of the day (around 3-4 it became far too uncomfortable to ride).
Day 3
Following a short transfer, we set out again - initially over tarmac, before an extremely long 4WD track downhill. At the bottom we then had a 12 km climb up out of a valley in the increasingly inferno like riding conditons. Luckily we were riding along next to a creek, so we stopped several times to cool down by taking a dip into the icy water.
Along the way across each day in Bulgaria, we saw numerous springs and creeks, which Dobrian tried very hard to convince me to drink out of. Frequent bouts of food poisioning on previous trips had convinced me that this was not a good idea, so I stuck to mineral water. However, this did create something of a logistical problem as I could only carry 3L at a time - and on the hottest days I was drinking up to 5L. Running out of water on a long climb in conditions like this is a sure way to overheat within about 30 mins.
In any case, we soon were at the head of the valley, where we stopped at a monestry for lunch. In addition to the ubiqituous meat balls / meat on a stick we also had a pretty good bean soup. In the afternoon that followed, the beans provided a good, if quite smelly energy source. It also astounds me how people in many hot countries cannot think of anything better than a good hot soup to refresh them on a 35 degree day.
We then climbed up to 1500M - which, in the heat was quite tough (cue more pushing from those on downhill bikes!). It was a great view from the top, overlooking a number of mountains down to the village we would finish at.
What followed was an extremely fast 1000M vertical descent - made even faster for me by my erratically working brakes!
We then finished up with a beer, a great reward for what had been probably the best day in Bulgaria.
On the train back to Vratz, an elderly Bulgarian guy came up to me and surprisingly spoke English. He got out a rather old atlas and started talking about the various parts of New Zealand. At the back of the atlas was a list of the countries and the religions that were most dominant. He found it hard to accept when I suggested his atlas was wrong - that New Zealand wasn't really a mixture of Catholic and Protestants - that it was a highly secular country, and if anything, Anglicism was probably most frequent (or none at all!).
Day 4
My final day riding started with an early train half way to Sofia, where Dobrian took me on one of his favourite rides.
But first I tried a Bulgaria breakfast drink called Boza. Made of wheat, this drink had a flavour that I can only describe as grey-brown-sludge, and I could only drink a few mouthfuls without wanting to hurl. I decided it would be wise to decline drinking any more.
We then arrived, and once we had dropped the packs off to be looked after for the day we spent the morning climbing back up to 1500M - again, pretty intense in the heat. I was then looking forward to a long downhill back to the train station when I started having puncture problems on my rear tyre. Looking more closely, I realised that the 10 quid special I had on the back was starting to disintegrate under the pressure of 8 days on the trail.
I then limped into our lunch break. More meat balls and repeated attempts to fix my tyre later, and we set off - pausing briefly at a large communist monument to look at the view (and for me to have a somewhat unexpected comfort stop in the bush nearby).
It was then a relatively technical single track descent back to the train station. It was probably right on my limit at that point, with there being several sets of steep steps that I wasn't feeling up to on that particular day - especially as my rear brake was still acting somewhat erratically. However I made it down without falling off the side of the mountain (always a good sign!) and we headed back to the train station.
From there, it was another hour to Sofia, where Dobrian helped me pack my bike up and get onto a train to Istanbul. Over 8 days, I hadn't climbed 9 vertical km and ridden something like 350km. For me, this was a great result.
The train to Istanbul, although late, was actually really good. Retro, with berths assigned somewhat randomly (and not corresponding to your train ticket), it felt very orient express. There were only 3 berths in my compartment, but in the end, it was only me and an American guy who was living in Istanbul.
It was then that I had heard Russia had invaded Georgia - the next country on to Turkey - so it was with some trepidation that I arrived again into Istanbul. It was one of those strange moments when you realise just how out of touch you are with what is happening in the world - something which does not happen very much in my always-connected lifestyle!
After a series of challenging rides, it was time for a rest - so I really appreciated that Korina had managed to find what I believe to be one of the best hotels (for the price) in Bucharest.
I got in a few hours before Korina, but this enabled me to clean myself up a bit, smelling like a quite unattractive combination of sweat, mud, cowshit and bike oil.
Again we just crashed out until Saturday morning, when we started having a walk around the centre of town, checking out all the areas of the 1989 revolution. In the square where Nicolae Ceausescu gave his final speech, there were still bullet holes in many of the buildings - and where some have been gutted they have (rather strangely in my opinion) built new buildings inside the fascade that remained.
So after his final speech, Ceausescu was forced to flee in a helicopter from the roof. Unfortunately for him, he was caught up with a couple of days later and executed along with his wife. Strangely enough the outcome of the "revolution" was a new government, controlled by many of Ceausescu's cronies, and 6 months later there was more violence in protest of the lack of freedom. So Romania had a rather rocky path to democracy.
We then tried to go the the massive palace Ceausescu had built, demolishing half of Bucharest's old neighbourhoods in the process. Unfortunately they had just introduced a rather archaic booking system, so we were only able to look at the outside until the following day. Outside and inside, you would have to say it's a pretty impressive structure - second in size only to the Pentagon. However, you'd have to ask yourself what sort of delusion you'd be under to consider that the people you were ruling wanted you to spend a quarter of the country'd GDP to create some new government offices...
We also checked out the "model village" in a park in the North of the city. The Park was nice, although the village was overall a bit of a let down. They had randomly transplanted 60 "typical" village structures and plonked them in this park, without any real context in terms of who used to live their and how they had evolved. Highlights would have to be a 300 year old church and some semi-submerged hobbit houses - although 3 out of 60 was a pretty low ratio of interesting to dull! To add insult to injury we then grabbed a beer in the park, and accidentially ordered alcohol free beer - so overall felt a little cheated from the afternoon's proceedings.
We then headed back to the hotel and had a couple of pretty crappy cocktails before heading around the corner to what turned out to be an excellent dinner in a traditional (ish) Romanian pub. OK, so it was a bit touristy, but the place was pumping, the music and setting great, and the food - loads of pork served on the bone - tasty. We had a chat to a Finnish couple next to us at dinner, and both of us had concluded that Bucharest was actually a lot more fun and a lot less shady than we had anticipated. The guide books were quite down on Bucharest, but the reality was a town emerging from a challenging past, and really feeling like it was looking to a brighter future.
After looking at the palace on the Sunday, it was then time for Korina to jet off again. Another moment of sadness, mitigated by the knowledge that I would see her again on Friday in Turkey. Plenty of miles to go before then, starting with a 2nd class, non-sleeper mission to Mezdra, where I have some more mountain biking organised. I'm suspecting that this will be a hellish journey - hot, crowded and difficult with the bike. Oh well, time to dive in to it!
After spending the first day looking about Brasov, and going up the somewhat creaky cable car to the hill next to town, I then met up with Razvan, who would be my guide for the next few days.
Day 1: Brasov day trip - 55km, 1.1km ascending
The first day was supposed to be something of a warm up, although I would have to say I found it quite tiring. We basically climbed out of the back of Brasov to the local ski resort where we had our first encounter with a pack of Romanian wild dogs. When I say wild, these ones were nominally shepherd's dogs, although they were so aggressive that they may as well have been completely wild.
Needless to say, being surrounded by 15 snapping mutts made me wonder if I should have organised a rabies shot before coming on this trip. Over the next few days, wild dogs flying out of hedges and the bush would certainly add to the difficulty level of the cycling we experienced, particularly when they chose to do so as you were flying down a technical piece of single track!
We also checked out a fortified village which commanded a great view up towards Dracula's castle before another long climb back to Brasov.
I had been slightly concerned about bringing my bike as I thought the chances of a breakdown somewhere that I could not get parts was quite likely. So I guess it shouldn't have surprised me when on the first day my rear disk brake crapped out. Unfortunately Razvan didn't use disks and I am of course incompetent when it comes to this sort of thing, so some fannying about was required to get me moving again.
Day 2-3: Overnight in the Romanian countryside, 90km, 1.7km (ish) ascending
The following day our start was delayed a bit as we had to take my bike into the shop to get some new pads fitted - Razvan and my attempts the following day having actually not helped. Took the mechanic all of 10-15 mins and we were away again.
A quick transfer to the next village and we were climbing again up a fire road into the national park. This continued for several hours before we emerged into a beautiful alpine meadow, complete with cows and ringing cowbells. We then headed over a plateau type area before starting to descend - stopping to check out the cheese sherpas - local shepherds that lived in the mountains continuously for 5 months a year during summer milking sheep, making cheese and protecting their herd from the local wildlife (bears and wolves being a constant threat).
Their migration to the alpine meadows was mainly spurred by the need to make hay for the winter on the lower slopes, and it was good to note that whilst the shepheds protected their flocks with their lives if necessary, they did not kill bears and wolves hunting their sheep. This explains why Romania has 90% of Europe's remaining bear population.
We actually saw fresh bear prints - and knew they were fresh as it had rained the night before.
After a tricky and quite technical descent, we then started climbing up to the guest house for the night. Initially Razvan had suggested we were just climbing from 800 to 1000 M, so I was somewhat ropable when he changed his mind and mentioned we actually had to climb up to 1400M! I'm sure he experienced a large number of scathing looks from me.
Eventually we made it to the top of the climb, and had a huge meal prepared by the guest house managers. There was certainly plenty of meat on meat action, and plenty of cheese as well! It was also interesting to try their honey flavoured brandy - Razvan believed it was too sweet, but I had no problem downing a couple of shots.
The next day was easier, mostly descending, although a couple of little climbs with bite.
We stopped in at Vlad the Impaler / Dracula's castle - impressive from the outside, pretty dull on the inside - with the exception of a staircase that was initially hidden in the fireplace (the entrance now being changed to make it easier for tourists to climb).
We then headed back to the town we had started from the day before to stay at another guest house. This time the manager had been drinking since 10am with friends, and so was very quick to make with the brandy - unfortunately, this time it tasted like aviation fuel - so I didn't have particularly much of it (thankfully!).
Day 4: The final climb - 50km (ish) 1500M ascended
The final day and Razvan had something special planned - climbing out of Sinaia (a European capital of culture), through the forest and up through alpine meadows and more ski fields to reach a summit that overlooked the whole of the region.
It was to be a difficult climb, up to 2500M, so enough to be the base of the Romanian Olympic team (for altitude training) and certainly enough for me to be breathing pretty hard.
Grinding away hour after hour, I was not sure if we were moving fast enough to get up and back before my train to Bucharest that evening. So on the second half of the climb I stepped it up a notch, but somewhere near the top the cloud unfortunately rolled in. This pretty much negated any chance of a view and pretty soon had created a navigational error from Razvan - meaning we climbed an extra 100M we didn't have to. This meant by the top I was completely out of gas - having rather a lot of trouble staying on the bike, particularly as we went over a few technical climbing sections.
For the second time in the week Razvan was subject to a series of extemely scathing looks from me, and I came close to throwing in the towel, as you couldn't see anything anyway.
However, I stuck with it, and at the top was rewarded by a view of about 5 metres, and more importantly, a hot tea in the hut with a little rum in it. This made me feel a little better, but what made me completely recover was the 1500M straight descent. It took a couple of hours was fast, rocky in places and quite loose. Great riding, and felt really rewarding to overcome a challenge I didn't think I was fit enough to complete - even if it was shear guts an ardenaline powering my riding at the end (not much in the way of skill or finesse involved.
Even better, I made my train to Bucharest, where I was to meet up again with Korina.
Total climbing in 4 days = just over 5 vertical km!
I'd always wanted to check out sleeper trains in Europe, and never really got around to it. So this time I decided to use rail to travel around.
Sunday night saw me at Budapest's main rail station, struggling with the bike to find my allocated 2nd class sleeper carriage. Definately not fun, and I started to wonder if I was mad to bring my bike with me.
After several false starts I found my place - in a group of 6, which for some reason initially did not want the window open. Unfortunately I was near the ceiling, so to start with I found it far too hot to sleep so I stood in the hall with the windows open.
Eventually the English guys in my room decided enough was enough, and forced the other passengers to open our window - which although noiser, allowed me to sleep a bit. Not really what I was expecting for this type of journey!
Next morning, I was again out in the hall trying to keep cool and I met up with a German fella who was married to a Romanian woman. He noted my bike and enquiried if I knew about the wildlife in Brasov. Of course I did not, and so I was slightly perturbed when he pointed out that over 400 bears and 2500 wolves lived on the border of town - and were known to head into town to eat rubbish.
He then dug into his bag and pulled out an article from the week before's newspaper - it was basically about some guy that got too close to the bears and ended up as dinner. The article was complete with some rather gruesome pictures of the results...
From the train, I was quite lucky in Brasov, as the taxi drivers are renown rip off artists - the German guy noticed me struggling down the platform and offered me a ride into town - as he was being picked up by his wife. I gratefully agreed and ramming my bike into the boot of their old sedan we wheezed into Brasov's old town.
Well, it's all go - have left LBi and the UK and am heading to Sydney Australia to take a job with Optus. However, first I have 4 weeks off which I am using to travel through Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.
Started off with a weekend in Budapest, which strangely enough is the amalgamation of two towns - Buda in the west and Pest in the East. I finished off my last day at LBi, then headed straight to the airport, still complete with a blaring hangover from my leaving drinks the night before. It was a quick finish, but I'm not great at long goodbyes, and this way enabled me to maximise my travelling time.
It was late by the time Korina and I arrived at our hotel in Pest, so we crashed until the following day. We started off by trying (unsuccessfully) to sort out my seat reservations on the train for some of the rest of my travel, then walked and walked until we got to the town's main food market for Korina's obligatory food market time.
Following the market, we started to realise just how hot Eastern Europe is at this time of the year - something neither Korina or I had really thought about that much. It was well over 35 degrees and extremely humid, so we jumped onto a tourist boat and cruised up and down the Danube for an hour or so. It was a great way to see Budapest without expiring from the humidity.
Following this we walked up the Danube to a pedestrian over bridge, heading towards the castle. But first, we checked out all the stalls, and amusing photos on the bridge itself.
Reaching the other side, we headed up the funicular railway before looking around the castle itself for a while. This also involved an hour or so sitting in the shade refreshing outselves, something we found necessary from time to time!
We then stumbled across a wine cellar that was doing tastings of Hungarian wine. The verdict - I found the white to be quite flowery, the red to be good and the Tokijj (desert wine) to be very tasty indeed. Bibendum types would be shocked by the tasting "size", so after 3 we fairly much rolled out of the cellar and headed towards dinner.
Nicky and Kirstin had told us about an excellent, if somewhat expensive, restaurant up near the castle. So we headed there for a delightful meal including my first taste of caviar and Korina sampling various pickled and raw fish. Hungary's take on sushi I guess!
Sunday saw us up and about quite early, headed up to another hill overlooking town where we checked out a statue which was initially erected to recognise the role the Red Army had liberating Hungary from the Germans in WW2. Climbing the hill made us quite hot, so it was handy that at the bottom of the hill was one of Budapest's largest spas. This consisted of three main pools under a large hotel. One of the pools was ice cold, and had a retractable roof, another was the hot pool and the final pool was actually outside, and we didn't discover it until we had already got changed. In any case, the spa was excellent for cooling off.
We then headed back to the hotel and it was time for Korina to head off for her plane back to ol' blighty. It was very sad to see her go, but I knew I would see her again soon in Bucharest.
I then headed to the Budapest Terror house - which was initially the headquarters of the Fascist secret police named the crossed arrows - and then immediately afterwards taken over by the communist secret police (the ATV - Hungary's answer to the KGB).
It was there I really gained another understanding about what Hungary had been through in and since WW2. Basically, Hitler deported heaps of Hungarians to death camps, but "liberation" by Russia basically saw exactly the same result, albeit with the trains heading in the opposite direction. It was a very good, if sobering museum - for someone who doesn't really like muesums much, I can wholly recommend it. Particularly ghoulish was the recreation of the interrogation cells in the basement, including one permanently in 10cm of water, another that was so small the prisoner couldn't sit down and another that was so short that they couldn't stand up.
It was with some irony that I noted that many of the "top dogs" from the secret police in Hungary ended up spending some time in their own cells, receiving punishments that they had created, as a result of various shifts in political strength over the following 45 years.
Been a while since I've posted on this blog, so I'm going to quickly publish a few entries to get myself back in the habit. I'm not sure why you stop doing something like writing in a blog - it's been sitting there annoying me for quite a while. In any case, a while back I decided to go to the cricket with 3 guys from work - this may sound like a NZer's idea of hell - going with 3 poms to a test match at Lords, when our top 4 batsmen tended to average around 22 - but in any case, going to Lords was something I'd wanted to do since being in the UK.
After another looong London winter, it had finally started to warm up - with the week before the game being particularly steamy. However, the day before the test was due to start the weather broke - leading to many jokes about "was that the UK summer this year?". Couple of days patchy play ensued, with the Black caps well on the back foot (although having recovered from being 100/5 in the first innings).
Predictably, day 3 dawned grey and although it wasn't raining when we got to the ground, the signs were ominious. After around 10 overs of off and on again play the heavens opened just in time for lunch. We waited for a while, and when it got heavier, headed to a local pub and watched the FA cup final between Portsmouth and Cardiff.
The rain continued, so we didn't even go back to the ground. Annoyingly, the following morning dawned sunny and fine - so looks like we picked the wrong day. Nevermind, at least I crossed Lord's off my list of "things in London I must do before leaving"!
We heard Bron was going to be in Turkey for the first May bank holiday so we organised a trip to meet up with her and do some sightseeing around the west of the country before she came and joined us in London.
Korina and I flew out at the ungodly hour of 6am from Luton, meaning we had to leave home around 3am. Although it was Easyjet, I lucked out, and got the front row - meaning I could stretch out and have a nap. Once we got there we met up with Bron and checked out some of the main sites in Istanbul - the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofia and the Grand Bazaar. After that we walked back to Taksim.
Next day and we were on the road again early down to Gallipoli. It was interesting to have a look around, considering the historical significance that the area had in both New Zealand and Turkey's history. In some ways, the horrors of the battle forged a feel of nationalism in both countries that endured until today.
After Gallipoli, it was 2 days of solid ruins - at Troy, then at Ephesus. As is normal in these things, I became aware about how little I knew (or indeed cared) about classical sculptures and art - however, the sheer age of the towns was impressive in itself.
What I did enjoy most about going down to Selcuk was taking the locals on at backgammon - basically, a guy from the hotel saw me teaching Bron at the local pub, and decided to school me at the game! Although I came close to creating a major upset, in the end, he was too good for me...
After that, it was a quick flight from Izmir back to Istanbul - amusingly, we got "adopted" on the plane by a Turkish lady who insisted on giving us a lift back to our hotel. It was interesting hearing her talk about the Turkish Government as a professional woman living in the country (she was an electrical engineer). It really gave us the impression of a country with two opposing, and conflicting trends - a drive towards European modernism in addition to an opposing trends towards a more fundamentalist, conservative Islam position. My feeling was that the country could go either way, and whatever direction it shifts, there will be a hell of a lot of unhappy Turks.
After a refreshing night at our great Istanbul hotel, we then met up with Bron fresh off her overnight bus (sucker!) and finished sightseeing around Istanbul by checking out the Sultan's palace.
