I liked the way the tea is prepared here. There are special double kettles. First they pour some water to the bottom kettle, they put it on a stove. To the top kettle they put some tea leaves or tea bags. And when water boils then they pour it to the top kettle and leave both kettles at the stove for a while. When they decide the tea is ready, they pour some tea and then some hot water to the glasses. Then kettles are left on little fire gain. This way they can decide how strong çay they want to drink, and it's hot all the time.
So back to our journey. We came to the border crossing. Paid €15 for 90 days visa each, and entered Turkey.
We saw first mosque and local way of transportation.
Had my shoe lost by turkish lorry driver and realised that on the ferry to Asia.
So I bid farewell to my old comfy, beloved Quechuas and The Old Continent too.
Those black shoes I got from the driver were too small, so I said 'goodbye' to them as well.
Welcome new ones bought in Çanakkale in Kipa, in Europe known as Tesco.
Continued our way trough Assos...
...Truva...
...Altinoluk...
...to Izmir.
We visited Kusadasi, met really hospitable carpet seller...
...and hitch-hiked an intercity coach...
...to get to Pamukkale.
Kutahya - city of ceramic and porcelain.
On the way to Safranbolu we stopped in Bolu, had great time with our host, discovered university campus and went to the Abant lake.
In beautiful Ottoman town Safranbolu we met Spanish couple of long time travellers coming back from East Asia. Great opportunity to learn about unknown countries.
Our next destination was Amasya. Town beautifuly located between mountains. We didn't know nothing about this town. We only heard it's worth to go there from one of our previous hosts so we took a chance. Old town looks nice and living. Thanks to the Dutch guy who also stayed with our host, we had opportunity to go to the top of a hill over the town. His way of travelling was also bit different. He came with a car which he wanted to sell at his destination. We met him because he failed due to visas and customs regulations in Iran. I learnt a lot about Sweden from him.
Amasya is a good example how rapidly developing Turkey is nowadays. Our host lived in residential area where buildings are not older than two years on average. And new buildings under construction are almost everywhere.
Unfortunately, builders don't care about quality very much. Time and money seems to be more important than details. The architects on the other hand still don't design buildings to be cheap to maintain. They design buildings which are cheap to build. In result they create buildings with large apartments, looking good at first sight, hot during summer and cold during winter. Average costs of heating here seem to be not smaller than in much colder Poland. Let alone cost of air conditioning!
Trabzon welcomed us with rainy weather lasting for few days. We went there to apply Iranian visas. There are other places where you can do it but Consulate of Iran in Trabzon seems to be the best place for it. Many travellers come here for that reason. All process of issuing visa can take as little as few hours. It's great result comparing to few weeks when you apply for an Iranian visa in your home country. People working in consulate are frendly and helpful. When we came again to get our passports back, my girlfriend was told that her visa is for only one day when mine was for 30 days. Happily it was just a joke.
With our passes to the Persian world in our hands we were relaxed enough to focus on visiting the city.
So we are going to Iran in near future, but we definitely will spend more time in Turkey.
PS. Thanks to all couch-surfers that decided to host us on our way. Without them our trip would be just wandering around without many opportunities to meet Turkish tradition and culture. Thanks to our helpful drivers too!
...to be continued.
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