Summary

We would like to thank all great people who made our adventure possible. We hope to meet you someday.

Keep going!

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Couchsurfing hosts: 20 Tribute to you!

Drivers: more than 100! Turkish hospitality rocks!

Distance: 8700-9000km

Routes:

1. Istanbul-Izmir-Aydin-Bodrum-Mugla-Fethiye-Kas-Ankara - 2000km

2.Ankara-Samsun-Ordu-Trabzon-Rize-Artvin-Sarp = 1000km

3.Georgia:Sarpi-Batumi-Tbilisi-Gori-David Gareji-Batumi = 1100km

4.Sarp-Artvin-Yusufeli-Erzurum-Bingol-Diyarbakir-Mardin-Sanli Urfa-Kizkalesi-Konya-Ankara = 2000km

5.Ankara-Bursa-Canakkale-Bozcaada = 800km

6.Bozcaada-Canakkale-Eceabat-Edirne-Ruse-Cluj-Napoca-Kosice-Piotrków Tryb. = 2000km

Big come back to Poland

Bozceada was our last place on the map of Turkey that we visisted. From the island we started our big trip to Poland!

We set off at 12.00, we reached the land around 13:00 and Canakkale after 15.00. We took our things from Emre's flat and took a ferry to Eceabat, small town on the other side of Dardele Strait (the place where Jagoda dfinally lost her jacket). From Eceabat we hitchhiked to... with Istanbul couple and then with 3 Turkish blokes to Edirne. We visited Mosque there, the last sight which is on the UNESCO list and after this we went to Bulgarian border. It wasn't as easy as we expected. We wanted to take a dolmus but after 20.00 nothing was going toward that direction. We started to walk through the city in order to get out of the centre and find good place for hitchhiking. Unfortunately it was darkening and after 30mins when we found a good place, we couldn't hitchhike anymore as the sun went down already. We decided that we will take a taxi to the border but we only had last 10lira and 3 drivers that we stopped demanded at least 30! Finally an ordinary car stopped, its driver was a student – I explained him our situation, but he said that he can only take us 5 km far. It was about 20km to the border so we decided to go with him – adventure! After 3minutes fortunately we became best friends with young driver and he drove us for whole 20 km!

Eceabat

Edirne, Selimiye Mosque

Good-bye Turkey - great story

At the border we said gule gule (tr.goodbye) to Turkey and after unexpected very strict control (border officers were apparently bored and wanted to see our clothes:) we left that beautiful country which was our home for the last 1,5 month.

while trying to sleep in the restaurant

In Bulgaria we had some late supper (21.30) as we spent our last 10lira in some border shop, explaining the seller our needs in Polish J After some rest we started to hitchhike – it wasn't successful for the first 20minutes so we decided to ask for help the border officer. He turned out to be very helpful and said that he would ask the drivers when they are coming for and find us good transportation.

After 15 minutes he found a Turkish driver who was going to Trelleborg in Sweden through Poland and was very excited about taking us. He was transporting metal parts for Volvo factory in Sweden and said that after 4days he should be in Cracow and can take us there, so we agreed. After 4hours of driving he said that it is time for his pause and he must go sleep for 10 hours. He offered us that we can sleep in the tent nearby the car park restaurant. It wasn't good for us because we didn't have tent but we wished him a good night and went back to the restaurant to think what to do. We stayed there for another 3 hours trying to sleep and at 6 we started hitchhiking again.

We caught Bulgarian young driver and on our way. To Jagodas surprise we surpassed 2 polish trucks on our way – quickly we wrote POLSKA on our cartoon so when we left the car of our Bulgarian we waited for those Polish trucks and caught them within few minutes.

It was excellent coincidence, they were going to Poland and one of them took us to his truck cabin. We discovered polish society of truck drivers and found out bunch of necessary information about hitchhiking from Poland to Turkey. Jerzy offered us Polish breakfast and hot coffee. We helped him to fill in water in the truck. We crossed the Bulgarian-Romanian border at 10 and went with Jerzy to Romania. Around 14 he stopped on the car park for his long break – after 2 hours we asked next polish driver for lift and we went to Cluj-Napoca with him for the next stop.

Breakfast in the cabin

it saves our lives time

Thank you Mr Jerzy

Thank you Lukasz

It was very positive journey 'cause Łukasz was very joyful guy which whoom we're talking almost all the time. In Cluj-Napoca we found that in Slovakia there is national holiday and trucks can't get in there for whole day so we couldn't find anyone who was going there. When we got the the car park we were so exhausted after not sleeping last night that we finally took a room in the hotel :(

The next day we started again with Lukasz and we reached Hungarian-Slovakian border after 19.00. After 3 hours waiting we found a truck driver who was going directly to Piotrkow Trybunalski – our final destination!

Piotrkow Trybunalski, our final destination!

Thank you to Mr. Jerzy for trusting us from the first moment, then for encouraging Łukasz that he should take us J And Thanks to Łukasz for asking other drivers through the radio whether they can take two nice Polish students J Without this help it would be really difficult to get home so fast!

Canakkale and Bozcaada

In the morning we visited Troi (30km from Canakkale). Thanks god we had museum cards which gave us free admission, if we had to pay 10 lira for the entrance as the others it would definitely not be worth it! You can see better Troian Horse from „Troi” movie in the downtown of Canakkale. Producers of the film gave it to the city as a gift.

We wanted to leave Canakkale in the afternoon and go to Edirne and then to Turkish-Bulgarian border but Emre and his friends told us that we can go with them to Bozcaada for one day. We thought with : wwhy not? Bozcaada is former Greek island with white houses, small cafes and restaurants, life goes there slowly and it's a perfect place for a break from big city life. We met there many extraordinary people, who after carrying out very active lives settled down on the island to have some rest.

In the evening we had bbq with grilled fish in the middle of the island and party in the harbour. Bozcaada is very specific place and something new what we didn't expect in this -in fact- muslim country.

Troian Horse in Canakkale

For Poles only: Nie propagujcie tego słowa wśród obcokrajowców.

With Emre we're going to Bozcaada

Small Island style

In the morning we had some walk and later we took a ferry to the land. What is nice in Bozcaada – you need to pay only once when you want to get to the island. Ferry Company claims that if you are on the island it means that you paid for ticket to get there and return is for free.

Way to Canakkale

This day we left Bursa and went to Canakkale to meet our host – Emre. While hitchhiking we were invited for a dinner. Our driver who was operator of excavator in Istanbul was coming back home for a weekend. We had some food made by his wife and mother in-law, we prized their big, cosy house and went to Canakkale. In Canakkale after meeting with Emre we went to his friend's bar to drink some beer and talk. Well-designed bar, marine interior was 100% suitable for the location. Great place to listen to the blues and chill out after a busy day!

Dinner with the family

Bursa

After taking all necessary stuff that we collected in our friends’ house and throwing out unnecessary ones we moved towards Poland. In Ankara we divided in to 2 groups - me with Jagoda and Kasia&Aga and started to hitchhike to Bursa through Eskisehir. In the afternoon we reached Bursa and took suburban rail to Uludag University campus to meet with Aga's friends. They studied chemistry at University of Warsaw last year and we were talking about their experience in Poland. Thank you for the evening Tugce, Derya and Tolga.


Uludag Univeristy campus is vast and if you want to get from corner to another you should take a dolmus or bicycle, no-one is walking.

Chris, Jagoda, Kasia, Aga, Tugce, Derya

Aga, Chris, Jagoda, Kasia, Tolga, Derya - thank you guys!!!

Hope to see in Warsaw!

Farewell Ankara

We spent 3 days in Ankara. It was time to say goodbye to the capital of Turkey – I must say that even though Ankara is not beautiful place it became some kond of our home during those few months. We have very good memories and we will miss time we spent there and with our international friends.

Backhouse - the last time:(

The last, fresh vege breakfast, omg - how many veg can you recognise ?

Konya and Ankara

Getting out of the city wasn't as easy as during the storm we're waiting for proper bus – one hour despite the fact that it should be every 15minutes according to the timetable.

On the outskirts we fortunately caught comfortable car. Personally we believe that life is going up&down, so after going to Konya with rude driver, beside the storm and problems with the bus we expected that way to Ankara will be quickly and we're right. We got the lift from two ladies – mother and daughter, who were lawyers. They visited family in Konya and were coming back home. We didn't have to speak Turkish since Sinem (the daughter) speaks perfect English. Once again we discovered that Turks like Poland and we have good relations with them. Our drivers had polish relative in Konya, Gosia was a wife of relative of our drivers. She keeps small polish society in Konya inviting polish Erasmus students and football players from Konyaspor to her house and organizing meetings and parties for them. Jagoda even talked with her on the phone. We're so lucky to have very nice talk with Sinem. We reached Ankara in the evening.

Mevlana Museum

Preparing for hitchhiking

Jagoda with our car-hosts in Ankara downtown.

Kizkalesi

After such a long time on the road we were quite tired of wandering from one place to another, sightseeing every day, hitch-hiking every day.  However it’s very enjoyable I guess some short break is also needed. That’s why we decided that our last stop before stopping for few days in busy Ankara will be Kizkalesi. We’d been there before. We actually knew this place quite well but getting there didn’t go without any problems though. We’ll skip the journey from Sanliurfa to Mersin, as this one went quite easily, but the thing really worth mentioning is ‘getting out of Mersin’. We should have had an experience as we had been there before. The thing is that last time when we were going to Kizkalesi was by public transport and during the evening, so it was already dark outside and we couldn’t see the surroundings really.  A shame, as the knowledge that Mersin and surroundings is tens-kilometer long city without any wild places good for hitch-hiking would be really useful. So after we had taken 3 dolmuses that we hoped would take us to some opportune point, and after listening so many people trying to help us, that we should take another dolmus: we just got on a bus which was going to Kizkalesi, hopeless, exhausted and kind of relieved that we’ll finally get to the place which we were heading.
Hotel Gold has changed a lot since we last visited it. The main hall and the restaurant with a cocktail bar had been all renovated. Somewhere on the table were left some pictures waiting to be put on the wall. And the weather! Amazing early summer weather, a warm temperature and a shining sun!
We met our host – Supi in the restaurant. He hasn’t changed much although he was really busy during our whole stay preparing everything for coming season.
It was amazing to come back to that place, discover the ruins nearby the town, swim in the sea, lay on the beach and do nothing as well as drink raki with our host.
Hopefully when we visit him in the future we will bring with ourselves some polish hazelnut vodka so he could try how amazing alcohols Polish can do! :-)

Mediterranean breakfast on the balcony of our room

Kizkalesi Castle

On the castle island. Chris is ready to swim. I am a whimp and for me is still too cold :-)

Growing pomegranate

Supi's fruit garden!

Sanliurfa and Harran

This day was very hot, temperature reached over 30 degree and it was the best occasion to experience Middle East climate. Our first destination was town called Harran – with old mosque, beehives-like homes and the castle. The must be very rural as village seemed to be not very developed with dry extrements for burning like in India or poor farmers with few cows or goats. Harran is not usual place when you think about Turkey. Is more Arabic and shows pure countryside of Middle East.

Harran is placed about 40 km from Urfa, so we caught short ride with Syrian minority man who proudly admitted that he has 3 wives and 20 children! His poor Turkish could prove that he was not lying, especially when we saw traditional and conservative way of living there.

After coming back to Urfa we visited the castle, tunnel, Balikligolu and bithplace of Abraham. In the evening while we're watching Champions League match we accidentally met our Erasmus friends from Ankara – the world is shrinking!

Urfa is must-see point on the map of Turkey. You can experience more Middle East culture than in Atalya or Istanbul. Sanli-Urfa confirms that Turkey is full of various sites and cultures.

Thank you Dogan for hospitality!

Balikligolu

Urfa from the castle

Beehives-like homes in Harran

Rural style of Harran

Prophet Abraham's birthplace

Mardin

Not once we mentioned about extraordinary hospitality of Turkish people. In this case: of Kurdish people as the thing happened while we were trying to leave Diyarbakir. As always we set off in the morning and headed to the place where from we could get some ride to our next destination. It was not far away from the place where we slept so we got there on foot. Unfortunately it was not one of these amazing places just created for hitch-hiking…it was actually still middle of the city, with heavy traffic but without a proper side-space and definitely not isolated from the civilization which doesn’t help, as you look more like somebody waiting for dolmus rather than a hitch-hiker. Not much time passed until the first helper appeared explaining us that hitch-hiking there is impossible. We knew he wasn’t right. Of course it’s possible it can just take longer than usual. We were trying to remain polite so we shared the duties – I was hitch-hiking, Chris was talking to the locals. But what is actually impossible – is encouraging local people that they can be wrong and you can be right. That’s why in no time we ended up in some dolmus which were going to the bus station without even paying a fee since because of our guest status we were not allowed to! We were thinking: all right, we’ll get there, take a walk to the ring road and then hitch-hike! Perfect plan as the bus station was not far away from amazing hitch-hiking place. And once again, before we even had a chance of trying…we were sat down in another dolmus going strait to Mardin! 

We surely could run away hoping that our host will not chase us but was there any point? We could only thank and find ourselves in new situation. We have no advice what you should do when somebody offers paying for your ticket. But if you decide to budget travel in Turkey it is very likely that one day somebody will buy a ticket for you although you will try to refuse it many times. Just appreciate that and don’t take advantage on people’s hospitality.

Mardin is far more attractive than Diyarbakir and in our opinion is one of the best places in whole Turkey. Old town is like open-air musem with astonishing architecture including several mosques, churches, madrasses. What is more all the buildings in the Old Town are inhabited so you can easily enjoy Mardin daily life while walking among pupils, fairs, shops with natural soap and groceries – not like in Europe where high rates of rent kills life in the downtowns.

After visiting Mardin troublefree we moved to Sanli Urfa meet with our next host - Dogan.

In the evening we had a stroll around old town of Sanli Urfa (or simply Urfa) to see the Pool of Sacred Fish (Balikligolu in Turkish). But the main city-discovering was booked for the next day :-)