Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Turkish hospitality

 We managed to reach Kirikkale by mid afternoon to find that the magnet that my cycle computer depends upon had fallen off. Slightly annoying, means that we have to rely on google maps from this point on to calculate how far we go each day!
    We succeeded in getting ten miles down the road, when we stopped to refill our bottles and were, unexpectedly, invited in for a drink by a farmer whose house was just above the road. Enjoyed a refreshingly sour ayran (Turkish yoghurt drink of milk,water and salt), and ate the green sour fruit that he offered to us from his trees. Conversation was surprisingly easy, given that neither of us speaks the language of the other! He then proudly showed us his cattle and land, and as we were just about to leave insisted on taking us to his neigbour's house for tea. Likewise, the neighbour, who was a policeman, was very interested in what we were doing and could not have been more friendly. Spent a long time pointing at words in my Turkish phrasebook and writing things down. Turned out that he also had a twin, who he rang up and he came around to see us to. Quite a bit of time had passed, and when they generously offered us a patch to camp on, we could not refuse. So, we put the tent up, and spent the remainder of the evening watching the Euros and a hilariously badly-acted Turkish sit-com with them, eating the nuts that they offered us. Went to bed in high spirits - the calm of our surrounding couldn't have been further removed from our experiences of Ankara - but were pretty hungry, since we hadn't really had a proper meal all day.
   We started off early the next morning, and immediately were offered in for cay at the nearest petrol station and were bought something to eat. We supplemented this in the next village with some more unhealthy pastries! We then had to turn down an offer to drink tea with the police by the road side; felt bad, but we wouldn't have got anywhere if we accepted every invitation! A while later, we managed to find the restaurant that was owned by the policeman's twin brother (the one whose garden we had slept in the night before). Excellent, cheap food. The waiters insisting on fixing another one of Lewis' punctures when they saw us taking the wheel off. Amusingly, it was a truckers' restaurant, and when we sat down we were immediately offered a 'page 3' type newspaper!
   Heading on, the road narrowed because of roadworks and our tyres slid over melting tarmac, the majority of the time uphill. Weren't really with it, so didn't mind too much! Before we arrived in Kirsehir for the night, we stopped and met another tourer: another solo cyclist in his sixties, this time from the U.S. Phillip was wearing spectacularly impractical clothing: swimming shorts, leather hiking boots, a cotton shirt etc. We ranted about the tiresome honking of trucks and some of the road conditions. And he recommended free camping and the advantages of the frozen section of BIM (a cheap supermarket). We were very impressed that he has managed to live off five pounds a day and has hasn't spent a night inside for two months!
  

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