Back in Istanbul

// August 13th, 2007 // No Comments » // travel

A wonderful travel of two weeks through the South of Turkey lies behind me. Together with Veronikis I have seen a beautiful part of Turkey. It totally surprised us to see such beautiful nature and often great Turkish hospitality.

As we went hitchhiking we met many very nice people who funnily enough at first all thought we were Turkish. Often one of the first cars that passed would stop for us, and the last ride we got was one we didn’t even ask for. They saw us walking, pulled over without hesitation and brought us to our destination 60 kilometers further away from theirs.

Back in Istanbul we stayed in beautiful Ortaköy, a highly diverse neighboorhoud filled with nice cafes and a beautiful view over the Bosphorus.

Hitchhing around Turkey

// August 1st, 2007 // No Comments » // travel

With temperatures getting easily above 45 degrees we got excited and decided to hitchhike around the South Coast. It went perfect. It is a very good hitchhiking culture here and people stop easily.

We managed very well and ended in little towns such as Myra and Kekova without any planning and without knowing about these places beforehand. Today we did 150km in 3 hours as we arrived in Fethiye at 11 in the morning.

Hey Stranger

// June 5th, 2007 // No Comments » // hospitality, travel

“There are no strangers.” It is one of my favourite sayings. Have you ever been on your own wondering around a town, a city or countryside? Imagine being lost, and someone walking up to you and helping you out, telling you how to walk or maybe giving you some water or even a ride.

Imagine how this may feel. You’re lost, unsure, uncertain, maybe even stressed out, not knowing if you will find your way again, unsure if you will have a place to sleep tonight. It is getting dark already and suddenly out of the blue a stranger appears and helps you out.

Imagine the wonderful feeling. You are being helped by a complete stranger, who is totally willing to get out of the way just to make sure you will be fine. (more…)

Picking Cherries

// May 22nd, 2007 // No Comments » // hospitality, travel

Lying in a tree, picking cherries. How wonderful life can be. One day earlier, in Belgrade, I didn’t even know I was going to be in this place as I was trying to hitch out of Serbia, to Macedonia. But there I was, a day before departure to Istanbul, in a cherrytree in the beautiful and extremely relaxed countryside of Serbia.

Before arriving in Istanbul, I had my last stop close to the city Niš, the third largest city in Serbia. I stayed with a family who hosted me through couchsurfing in a nice and self-build house on one of the hills around the city. Staying here turned out to be one of my more distinctive experiences during my four months of traveling. (more…)

Le Grand Finale

// May 18th, 2007 // No Comments » // travel

Hitchhiking in the middle of the night! Never had I really done it before. Always do I calculate my travel in such a way that I would be sure to arrive at my destination or to have my final ride, within the last hour after sunset, just before it really gets dark. But there I was, some hours before midnight at the Turkish border and 350km still to go for Istanbul…!

Some actually thought I had already made it when I wrote last week I finally arrived in Turkey. Nothing was less true. I still had over a thousand kilometers to go but Wednesday night at 3 a.m I arrived. Le Grand finale you could say. One of my most exciting hitchhiking adventures as I was traveling from Niš in south Serbia to Istanbul, Turkey, through Bulgaria.

I was given rides by smoglers, salesmen, truckdrivers and refugees. It took me over 12 hours to drive 750km. A relatively good day with 60 kilometers an hour as half of my road were no highways, and half of trip was done with slow trucks. I crossed two borders in one trip, both by foot. (more…)

Finally Turkey

// May 11th, 2007 // No Comments » // travel

Turkey, finally I made it! The border of the Ottoman empire used to be here in the capital of Serbia, Belgrade. Although almost three hundred years ago for the last time, those in total five-hundreds years left a great influence without a doubt.

It had already started in Slovenia, with only two types of coffee: Turkish coffee and ‘other coffee’. But here in Serbia there is a lot more. The typical dishes are Turkish, many people look Turkish even, and the chaos in Belgrade makes it a little brother of Istanbul. The language is different but they share one thing: I don’t understand a single word.. (more…)

Traveling as a Profession

// May 3rd, 2007 // 6 Comments » // travel

Traveling means you are biting the dust, you are not living the luxury tourist life, but you live low-budget, work while travel, be a bohemian, a troubadour, a busker, or a person who just finds a regular job at the temporary permanent location.

Traveling is not the same as being on holidays. On the contrary. The people I know who consider themselves travelers don’t have a home, work while they travel and are always busy with all kinds of things. I also consider traveling as a profession, a daily occupation, with some brakes in between.

Generally people on holidays stay at place A, and maybe they circle around it. But what is traveling? People on holidays do they also travel? When they are ‘traveling’ to their location or when they circle around their location? For me it is not the same. (more…)

Social-Cultural Shock

// May 1st, 2007 // No Comments » // travel

Fifty-six cents was the fee, but no change was given. “Welcome to the Balkan”, said my Slovenian driver when we passed the border with Croatia. He had picked me up from a gas-station ten minutes before, and was used to the toll-worker not giving him back the change from the one euro he had given him. My driver, a pizza-maker who “knows people here very well”, only interest was the price of drugs in Amsterdam and Barcelona.

I finally made it. Slovenia was already a small beginning but now I really have the feeling I arrived in a country where the culture seems to be very different to what I was used to. People look different, they talk different, interact different, and so on. After a tough hitchhiking day, this was quite something I had to get used to. (more…)

Finally the Balkans, right?

// April 27th, 2007 // No Comments » // travel

So I managed to arrive in the Slovenian Capital Ljubljana in just less then four hours. I thought that would be it: I finally arrived in the Balkans. But there is some confusion about this. One person told me it is not really part of the region, but rather Central Europe, and yet another tells me it is. It is clear for me anyhow this country has a bit of everything, it seems to me a nice mixture of Austrian Folklore, Italian style and Balkan Temperament. But one thing is for sure, I arrived in a real hitchhikers-country.

It took me only two cars, after my Graz host dropped me at a rest-area on the highway close to the border, 250 km away from Ljubljana. Whereas the first driver, an Austrian, asked me to hold his beer at the border, the second was a hitchhiker himself. (more…)

To Beer in Graz

// April 23rd, 2007 // No Comments » // travel

“There are only two countries with excellent beer, and Belgium is the first”, starts a favorite joke of mine. People generally agree with Belgium -as long as they have some international beer experience- but disagree with full rejection when I give the second: France.

When asked for an explanation, I smile and say: “In France you can find Belgium beer everywhere.” Belgium beer in France I discovered last year when visiting Aix-en-Provence. But Sunday an independent small brewery close to the second biggest city of Austria (Graz) made me to doubt my own joke. (more…)