Lessons learned in Turkey

 

Kepala Batas, Malaysia, September 2013

As part of our two year celebration we would like to introduce you to some of the people that have made our bike travel a constant life lesson. These people have opened their hearts to us in ways we cannot even begin to describe. Their contribution to our project is of much value to us so we decided to take this opportunity to make a small homage to them.

Now we present to you the some of the great people we met in: Turkey.

Thanks a lot amigos! Because thanks to you we have strengthened our ties to your beautiful countries and their cultures. Hopefully we will get to see you again!

Mustafa and his family invited us to stay at their place in our very first night in Turkey. He introduced us to the Turkish hospitality and his wife cooked very healthy and delicious food.Anke and Erdal from Istanbul, Turkey and Germany hosted us in their beautiful home in Istanbul. Erdal taught me the numbers and some phrases in Turkish and Anke gave me an insight to the German-Turish connection. Thanks to Eda, Emir and Orkun we learned a lot of useful skills like sanding and painting doors and windows, plowing fields, taking care for animals and creating things with our own hands. Together with our housemates Selin, Ersoy and Onur we learned how to cook Turkish food and how to enjoy long winter nights. We lived for 2 1/2 Months next door to Ayse and Ramazan. Every now and then they would give us some of their self-grown vegetables or help to find the bunnies that ran away. We learned how to pick the weed from fields and make Turkish teaVicky from Hong Kong lived near Fethiye, Turkey. She taught us how to distuinguish good Chinese food and still ows us a lesson in Mahjongg. In exchange we took her out for her first camping adventure. Alicia from England lived in Fethiye, Turkey when we met her. She taught us a lot about photography, video editing and how to cook and enjoy a healthy and delicious dinner. Tarkan and Zahra from Köyceğiz, Turkey hosted us in their spare building while Tarkan repaired our bikes. He taught us how to connect a rim to the hub with spokes. Görkhan, Hakan, Nuriye and Sali from Armutçuk, Turkey showed us the best place to camp and taught us that there is a big difference between home made yoghurt and ready bought one. This family from 
Sarıabat, Turkey invited us for dinner at their place where we learned a lot about their visit in MeccaWe met Arash from Iran, Maggie from the Dominican Republic and Shahnaz from Afghanistan in Denizli, Turkey. Thanks to them we learned that while you are together with friends and your family, everything else will turn out good somehow.  Sinan from Afyonkarahisar taught us about the architecture of Turkish Mosques and how to prepare my favorite food: Çiğ Köfte. Mahir from Ankara, Turkey taught us that you can be a gentleman and say out loud your opinion at the same time. Taha from Ankara, Turkey showed us how to prepare spicy Kısır and how to enjoy the student's life without studying. Irem and Levent from Ankara, Turkey taught us how married couples can still party hard and have plenty of fun!Gurkan from Ankara, Turkey is one of the most extreme cyclists we have met and he makes a good living out of that. He gave us the self esteem to continue our work, money and sponsors will come eventually. Feliz from Sivrihisar, Turkey fed us with so many cookies and explained us a lot about the minorities living in Turkey. Yasin (at the right) and his friends from the TEGV showed us how great a really big team can work together. Thanks to them we were able to join a dragon boat race and an art class in a school for gifted children. Bayam from Çarşamba, Turkey was the first example of the great people from the North of Turkey. He would not except a ,no' and fed us with too much delicious food and Ayran. Bayams daughters Hilal and Beyza together with their mother and cousins showed us how good the women in the Turkish countryside hold together and form a strong unit. Mehmet from Trabzon, Turkey showed us how to pop sunflower seeds out of the shell with the tounge. Cihad from Trabzon, Turkey. He tought us to take things easy and we want to apapt his habit to accompany cycling guests out of town by bike. Ömer drives trucks all over Turkey. We learned that the truckers include cyclists as their extended family. On the road everybody cares for each other. Hasan Tahsin from Rize, Turkey showed us to take the opportuntiy when ever it comes
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  1. Carolyn in Nashville, TN says:

    Are there written notes that go with the pictures for Turkey? Either the pictures go by so fast on their own, that I can’t read anything, or if I click on the small pictures in the strip below, there are no written notes.

    Maybe it is just pictures …

  2. Carolyn in Nashville, TN says:

    Ah yes, there are comments for sure. They just go by too fast for me to read them.

  3. Carolyn in Nashville, TN says:

    Then I accidentally clicked on the picture and the comments went away. I could not find any place to click to make them come back.

    (It is fine to delete my own comments once this is fixed of course)

    • admin says:

      Hello Carolyn,
      thanks a lot for the feedback! You should be able to get back to the last picture with the little arrows left of the big picture (the auto-slide will stop then). For the next you click either the small picture underneath the big one or the little arrow on the right or the picture itself. The captions are supposed to stay until you click them away (the small x in the upper right corner of the comment). If you do so and you want them back you will have to refresh the picture. At least that is how it works on my laptop and on Roberto’s. What kind of device are you using? It is supposed to work with a windows PC as well as with iPad, phone or anything else, but since we do not have any other internet devices that our laptops we could not check that yet.
      Please let us know if it is working now, otherwise we will just put the auto slide off.
      All the best wishes from Malaysia,
      Annika

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