After these two last days I was pretty exhausted and needed the first day to recharge the batteries. The second day was devoted for the Iranian visa application. everything went pretty smooth using some of the information my cycloreveurs friends documentet so nicely. But the catch was, that I only got 15 days and was not able to negociate more. I have tried to be very polite and perseverent, but in the end I was hoisted outside the door. I was told I could extend the visa at the international police, but when I tried to find out in what city I could finds a police station for that purpose it was not exactly a success.
Two weeks for more than 2000km of riding, so many places to visit, and the Turkmenistan/Uzbekistan visas to organize on the way, this will be awfully short. So I should add to the previous enumeration 'extend the Iranian visa'. All this stresses me a bit out. I am not very experienced when it comes to visa stuff and I really don't want to end up travelling half through Iran in a train.
The rest of the days I was walking another round through Trabzon and went to the Boztepe hill to overlook the city. In a tea-house up there I found a prospectus of Trapzon, prazing its beauty and historical importance. Indeed I arrived on the Silkroad, at least one of the branches that was travelled by Marco Polo. As for the rest of the citiys beauty my comment is that it is certainly not a classical beauty. I like the houses that seem to pile one on another on the hillside but otherwise it looks to me as a bit neglected by the people that live here. Paradoxly there is a lot of appartement house construction going on all around the city, which indicates to me that it has to be a rather popular city.
One thing I was fascinated by and I feared at the same time was the minibuses here. They look like tuned racing machines and all the drives must think they are Michel Vaillant.
The rest of the time I spent with Çağatay and his flatmates. Beside the discussions there was also a crash-course in the cyrillic alphabet, a couple of chess games, movie watching... not spectacular but cosy, exactly what I needed.
Two weeks for more than 2000km of riding, so many places to visit, and the Turkmenistan/Uzbekistan visas to organize on the way, this will be awfully short. So I should add to the previous enumeration 'extend the Iranian visa'. All this stresses me a bit out. I am not very experienced when it comes to visa stuff and I really don't want to end up travelling half through Iran in a train.
The rest of the days I was walking another round through Trabzon and went to the Boztepe hill to overlook the city. In a tea-house up there I found a prospectus of Trapzon, prazing its beauty and historical importance. Indeed I arrived on the Silkroad, at least one of the branches that was travelled by Marco Polo. As for the rest of the citiys beauty my comment is that it is certainly not a classical beauty. I like the houses that seem to pile one on another on the hillside but otherwise it looks to me as a bit neglected by the people that live here. Paradoxly there is a lot of appartement house construction going on all around the city, which indicates to me that it has to be a rather popular city.
One thing I was fascinated by and I feared at the same time was the minibuses here. They look like tuned racing machines and all the drives must think they are Michel Vaillant.
The rest of the time I spent with Çağatay and his flatmates. Beside the discussions there was also a crash-course in the cyrillic alphabet, a couple of chess games, movie watching... not spectacular but cosy, exactly what I needed.
