Currently in Baku, Azerbaijan after spending the night camping out in a desert-y place with mud volcanoes gently bubbling around us. Now staying in a hotel for a night or two whilst the crew try to get us and the truck onto an old oil tanker/ferry across the Caspian sea - apparently they can't take oil and people so we have to hire out the whole thing for ourselves. Hoping the weather's good so we can sleep up on deck and watch the stars...
Baku is where all the oil stuff happens, coming in this morning there's oil rigs in the sea, derricks(why's everyone round here called Derrick?) pumping pretty much everywhere and a big mess inbetween. Apparently it's one of the most polluted places in the world - lovely! Baku seems quite nice though, quite upmarket as there's so much oil money around so lots of shops and restaurants to look round from our brief wander earlier (we were looking for a laundry as everything's getting a bit whiffy!).
Have spent the last 4 nights bush camping in various places, all of them fantastic in their own ways. Had one hot night by a river so spent a while swimming, whilst another one was further up in the hills.
We were quite sorry to say goodbye to Tamuna and Zaza our guides in Georgia - it's a fantastic place and they really helped us to make the most of it. Haven't got time to detail everything now so I'll try to put a post together about that sometime, but it was great, the people were so friendly and hospitable I really couldn't believe it and the scenery was incredible. Good wine too, and Vodka at less than 2 quid a bottle!
Will try to update photos and things at our next stop, the internet is so slow here it's not going to work.
Those of you not on Facebook can see my albums so far here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102305&l=455ec&id=223300361
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113737&l=65979&id=223300361
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113765&l=a888e&id=223300361
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=114697&l=fa592&id=223300361
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=114709&l=6e75e&id=223300361
Enjoy!
Monday 26 May 2008
Wednesday 21 May 2008
A load of updates in one
Finally found some internet access so here's the last update which should have been done a few days ago, since I wrote this on the laptop then we've spent a few days in Georgia which has been fantastic, but I need to write all about that yet, so here's some more about Turkey...
Since the last proper update we’ve left Hungary, gone through Bulgaria (much the same as Hungary but you start to notice a more olde-worlde feel to the place) and entered Turkey, a task which took about 4 hours as they’ve changed the rules about entry for large groups. We parked up and had lunch inbetween borders whilst Pete worked out how to get us through with the border people. Had to empty all our bags out and show them all the food boxes etc. as it was May Day and there has been trouble with people setting off rockets and stuff before. Luckily there was none of that this time!
Istanbul was great, saw most of the sights, stayed up drinking one night with the barman to see the sunrise, then found that it was cloudy! Turkish baths were great, even if the translation was rather difficult whilst we tried to work out what we had paid for.
Our stop on the black sea was slightly marred by rain, I’m sure it’s a lot more attractive in the sunshine, but it was a good chance to have a relaxing 2 nights with little to do other than catch up with diary writing and wander into the sleepy town. Highlight was buying and ice cream and the smiley chap behind the counter saying “Eenglish?”, me saying yes and then him shaking my hand vigourously and introducing himself as Akmahd I think, after telling him my name we ran out of conversation so I left to eat my ice cream, but it put a smile on my face. People are getting friendlier and friendlier all the time now, today we stopped to collect wood and a chap in a truck stopped on the other side of the road. We were wondering if we were nicking his wood from the side of the river but it turns out he was offering us a hand to chop it up. With 8 of us already doing it we declined, but it was a nice offer. We’ve just stopped to buy some meat from a shop and were invited into a café for tea, so about 20 of us went in for tea, coffee and orange tea (tastes lovely, like hot fanta) and they refused to let us pay for it – brilliant!
From the black sea we headed inland for Goreme, a very touristy place but when you get there you start to see why – it’s a cross between the Grand Canyon and the desert set from Star Wars. Our campsite was at the top of a hill and we had a great sunset after dinner. It also had hot showers and nice proper toilets – becoming a rarer sight now as “squatters” become the norm. The majority of us stayed in the caves here as they had mattresses and there was a fire in the room next door. Also, being underground we could have music on and drink all night without waking anyone up! We met another overland group (EOE I think) on a huge 6 wheel drive Mercedes truck with space for about 35 people, who are actually going all the way to Sidney on an 8 month trip, though on a different route to us. After initially suffering some “truck envy” at the size of theirs, we soon came to find that we had the better truck (in my opinion) with a younger group who are much more up for a drink and a laugh (and of course, proper chairs). They even had 2 kids with them in their group of 25 who had been told that alcohol was evil – where’s the fun in that!
The next day we did a local tour, going to see all the funny shaped rocks, ancient cave villages dug into the sides of valleys and an underground village with space for 3000 people to live down there on 6 levels – all carved out of the soft rock. There are 6 caves like this in one town but they think that at one point there could have been up to 1000 large cave settlements in the area, they just haven’t been excavated yet. Also went to a pottery museum to see how they make plates and things, then were encouraged to buy stuff from their shop. Unfortunately I don’t think anyone did, but we got a free apple tea out of it!
Wandered into town the next day with a few people and ended up having lunch and a few drinks with an American girl on holiday who we met on the walk down. Not much to do in town when it’s raining, but found a couple of quad biking places and booked up for the next day.
That evening we went to a traditional Turkish night along with a load of other tourists – for 35 turkeys (less than 15 quid) we got taken there in minibuses, all the food we could eat, entertainment and best of all – all the drink we could drink! Sounded like a challenge…
Had the choice of Wine, Beer, Raki (local Sambuca-like drink), Vodka and soft drinks, and when a bottle was finished they just replaced it with another one – amazing! Saw Whirling Dervishes, religious people who get closer to God by spinning round in circles which was quite impressive (though would have been more impressive after a few Rakis), then traditional Turkish dancers who were fantastic. One dance involved finding a woman a husband, with different people showing off different dances. She then went for the one with the biggest beard and then he was shaved in the middle of the room. Later when we all joined in the dancing Mike was dragged out to do the same and although he put a good effort in with press ups and a show of his muscles, the silly cow chose someone else. Then it was the turn of the belly dancer who was brilliant, after a bit of a show she then got people out of the audience and Kirsten was coerced into having a go, then Terry (who took much less coercing, in fact he ran up there when she asked for volunteers) had a go, which was hilarious! Video of that one to follow…
Went back to the cave for more drinking with some of the EOE group, somehow managed to get through 1½ bottles of Vodka between a couple of us and ended up in bed at 4 - luckily it was only in the next room. What a brilliant night!
Next morning was spent in bed, then into town about 1:30 for food before quad biking at 3. Had over 2 hours, 8 quads with 3 guides and only 55 turkeys each (about 20 quid). Could get the bikes upto 50-60km/h, slide them all over the place and do donuts in the dust on the tracks – absolutely brilliant fun, and we even saw some sights along the way, though for most of those we just said no lets carry on driving. Andrew managed to flip his by sliding into a ditch at 40km/h but luckily no damage was done to the bike or himself! Quiet night as we had an early start planned…
Next morning we were up by 5 and met at 5:30 to go down to the Hot Air Balloon launch site, where there were already 6 balloons being inflated. 12 of us went in one and it slowly took off. Unfortunately there wasn’t much wind so it took a while to get anywhere, then we went down and round some of the rock formations before heading up towards our campsite in a zig-zag fashion, eventually close enough to wake people in tents up by shouting at them! Shame there was a tree in the way as we could have got a good photo of Penelope from the air. Landed just outside, had champagne and walked back in. Great place to do it because of the rock formations and the sheer number of balloons that go up – there were at least 25 up with us gently drifting about.
Headed off about 10 that morning and had a days driving through varying countryside – from the rocks and warmth of Cappadocia to green valleys and high mountain passes as we headed north again. Camped out in the middle of nowhere, the only lights we could see were that of a car that went up the other side of the valley that evening. Had really nice chicken done on the fire and had an early night.
8:30 leave this morning and up some more mountain passes, even had some snow falling at 2200m and still some left on the floor – certainly not shorts weather yet!
Since the last proper update we’ve left Hungary, gone through Bulgaria (much the same as Hungary but you start to notice a more olde-worlde feel to the place) and entered Turkey, a task which took about 4 hours as they’ve changed the rules about entry for large groups. We parked up and had lunch inbetween borders whilst Pete worked out how to get us through with the border people. Had to empty all our bags out and show them all the food boxes etc. as it was May Day and there has been trouble with people setting off rockets and stuff before. Luckily there was none of that this time!
Istanbul was great, saw most of the sights, stayed up drinking one night with the barman to see the sunrise, then found that it was cloudy! Turkish baths were great, even if the translation was rather difficult whilst we tried to work out what we had paid for.
Our stop on the black sea was slightly marred by rain, I’m sure it’s a lot more attractive in the sunshine, but it was a good chance to have a relaxing 2 nights with little to do other than catch up with diary writing and wander into the sleepy town. Highlight was buying and ice cream and the smiley chap behind the counter saying “Eenglish?”, me saying yes and then him shaking my hand vigourously and introducing himself as Akmahd I think, after telling him my name we ran out of conversation so I left to eat my ice cream, but it put a smile on my face. People are getting friendlier and friendlier all the time now, today we stopped to collect wood and a chap in a truck stopped on the other side of the road. We were wondering if we were nicking his wood from the side of the river but it turns out he was offering us a hand to chop it up. With 8 of us already doing it we declined, but it was a nice offer. We’ve just stopped to buy some meat from a shop and were invited into a café for tea, so about 20 of us went in for tea, coffee and orange tea (tastes lovely, like hot fanta) and they refused to let us pay for it – brilliant!
From the black sea we headed inland for Goreme, a very touristy place but when you get there you start to see why – it’s a cross between the Grand Canyon and the desert set from Star Wars. Our campsite was at the top of a hill and we had a great sunset after dinner. It also had hot showers and nice proper toilets – becoming a rarer sight now as “squatters” become the norm. The majority of us stayed in the caves here as they had mattresses and there was a fire in the room next door. Also, being underground we could have music on and drink all night without waking anyone up! We met another overland group (EOE I think) on a huge 6 wheel drive Mercedes truck with space for about 35 people, who are actually going all the way to Sidney on an 8 month trip, though on a different route to us. After initially suffering some “truck envy” at the size of theirs, we soon came to find that we had the better truck (in my opinion) with a younger group who are much more up for a drink and a laugh (and of course, proper chairs). They even had 2 kids with them in their group of 25 who had been told that alcohol was evil – where’s the fun in that!
The next day we did a local tour, going to see all the funny shaped rocks, ancient cave villages dug into the sides of valleys and an underground village with space for 3000 people to live down there on 6 levels – all carved out of the soft rock. There are 6 caves like this in one town but they think that at one point there could have been up to 1000 large cave settlements in the area, they just haven’t been excavated yet. Also went to a pottery museum to see how they make plates and things, then were encouraged to buy stuff from their shop. Unfortunately I don’t think anyone did, but we got a free apple tea out of it!
Wandered into town the next day with a few people and ended up having lunch and a few drinks with an American girl on holiday who we met on the walk down. Not much to do in town when it’s raining, but found a couple of quad biking places and booked up for the next day.
That evening we went to a traditional Turkish night along with a load of other tourists – for 35 turkeys (less than 15 quid) we got taken there in minibuses, all the food we could eat, entertainment and best of all – all the drink we could drink! Sounded like a challenge…
Had the choice of Wine, Beer, Raki (local Sambuca-like drink), Vodka and soft drinks, and when a bottle was finished they just replaced it with another one – amazing! Saw Whirling Dervishes, religious people who get closer to God by spinning round in circles which was quite impressive (though would have been more impressive after a few Rakis), then traditional Turkish dancers who were fantastic. One dance involved finding a woman a husband, with different people showing off different dances. She then went for the one with the biggest beard and then he was shaved in the middle of the room. Later when we all joined in the dancing Mike was dragged out to do the same and although he put a good effort in with press ups and a show of his muscles, the silly cow chose someone else. Then it was the turn of the belly dancer who was brilliant, after a bit of a show she then got people out of the audience and Kirsten was coerced into having a go, then Terry (who took much less coercing, in fact he ran up there when she asked for volunteers) had a go, which was hilarious! Video of that one to follow…
Went back to the cave for more drinking with some of the EOE group, somehow managed to get through 1½ bottles of Vodka between a couple of us and ended up in bed at 4 - luckily it was only in the next room. What a brilliant night!
Next morning was spent in bed, then into town about 1:30 for food before quad biking at 3. Had over 2 hours, 8 quads with 3 guides and only 55 turkeys each (about 20 quid). Could get the bikes upto 50-60km/h, slide them all over the place and do donuts in the dust on the tracks – absolutely brilliant fun, and we even saw some sights along the way, though for most of those we just said no lets carry on driving. Andrew managed to flip his by sliding into a ditch at 40km/h but luckily no damage was done to the bike or himself! Quiet night as we had an early start planned…
Next morning we were up by 5 and met at 5:30 to go down to the Hot Air Balloon launch site, where there were already 6 balloons being inflated. 12 of us went in one and it slowly took off. Unfortunately there wasn’t much wind so it took a while to get anywhere, then we went down and round some of the rock formations before heading up towards our campsite in a zig-zag fashion, eventually close enough to wake people in tents up by shouting at them! Shame there was a tree in the way as we could have got a good photo of Penelope from the air. Landed just outside, had champagne and walked back in. Great place to do it because of the rock formations and the sheer number of balloons that go up – there were at least 25 up with us gently drifting about.
Headed off about 10 that morning and had a days driving through varying countryside – from the rocks and warmth of Cappadocia to green valleys and high mountain passes as we headed north again. Camped out in the middle of nowhere, the only lights we could see were that of a car that went up the other side of the valley that evening. Had really nice chicken done on the fire and had an early night.
8:30 leave this morning and up some more mountain passes, even had some snow falling at 2200m and still some left on the floor – certainly not shorts weather yet!
A day in the life of Penelope...
For those of you wondering, no I haven’t taken to calling myself Penelope, that’s the name of our faithful 20-year-old big blue truck with over 500,000 miles on the clock.
Thought I’d give anyone who’s still reading this an idea of our daily life because it’s now become routine to us but it was interesting whilst getting used to it. First off, there is no normal day – it depends where we are and whether we’re staying somewhere for a few days or moving on, but I’ll try to get the important bits in.
A travelling day starts with the breakfast crew getting up about half an hour before everyone else to get breakfast ready. This is normally cereal, toast done on a grill over the gas burners, bread, tea, coffee etc. Sometimes scrambled eggs and other bits, I’m not 100% sure as I normally stay for a lie in. Food is done on a rota of 5 groups, each one stays on to do breakfast and lunch until they’ve done dinner. If we’re in a city and eating out in the evenings then that can mean the unfortunate group doing breakfast 3 days in a row but it all evens out over time. The food group also does the washing up for that meal, but everyone does their own plate and cutlery. Everything is just left to drip dry (or if we’re in a hurry then it gets a quick flap about) as tea towels spread germs – going to have to remember that one for at home…
Once food is done everything is packed away – there are groups (separate from food groups) which are set for each leg of the journey – the first is the 43 days from London to Baku. I’m on roof loading and unloading with Andrew and Michael, so when all the tents are packed away in the morning we have to hoik them onto the roof and pack them under the tarpaulin, making sure it’s sealed from the rain as otherwise the tents get wet and so does Pete’s bed! Others are on loading and unloading bags from the rear locker, cleaning, general camp setup, security, waste, barperson and general truck wallha/biatch. Most people are happy to help out with other jobs if they’ve finished theirs and we’ve got the camp setup routine down to a fairly quick, smooth operation now.
This gets us to the stage of having the truck packed (depending on where we need to get to, between 7:30 and 9:30 is usually set as leaving time), so everybody piles on and the security team make sure that we’re all present (can’t go leaving people all across the world!). Nobody has a set seat, it’s a free for all each day so nobody gets bored of sitting with the same people. Generally the call for an iPod to plug into the stereo comes next, there’s quite a variety of music on board, some really good, some mine. We’ve got 6 big speakers on the truck so the Vengaboys and Village People can be heard in the fine quality that they deserve! The next challenge is normally the arrangement of various electrical equipment that needs charging – there are 3 12v sockets and a 3 pin mains type, and with all the cameras, iPods, phones, computers (one of which I’m using now as we drive over a 2200m mountain pass in Turkey, with the odd bits of snow outside the window) and bits on board they’re always being swapped round. We’ve got games like Uno which are a good laugh around the tables in the back, along with some more obscure games (Pass The Pigs anyone?) which haven’t been played so much.
Usual practice is 2-3 hours driving before a toilet stop and leg stretch at a service stop. Pete and Tim normally swap driving then before carrying on. If we’re at a scenic part and someone wants photos or a loo stop is requested then we stop earlier. Lunch is normally at a pleasant spot sometime between 12 and 1, setup crew get the tables out and washing up bowls are filled from the onboard water tank. Food group get it ready with the crew’s assistance. Normally local bread (so far really good) with meat/salami, cheese, tomatoes and all that salad-y stuff and Ketchup/HP Sauce! Again it depends where we are as to the local specialities. Drinks are water, soft drinks from the bar/fridge or anything we’ve bought ourselves from a shop. Plates are washed and flapped, food is put away and everything packed up again. Normally we’re stopped for 30-45mins and have enough food for 2nds or 3rds – easily enough to keep us going until tea.
Set off again with the odd stop here and there for loos/food/drink/scenery/wood and if bush camping we aim to find somewhere about 5ish, or whenever it’s raining. This is so we don’t draw too much attention to ourselves from locals and so that it’s still light when we set up camp. The rain just seems to be following us around; thankfully it never lasts long! If we’re camping at a site then we can arrive later.
Tents are set up once we’ve chucked them off the roof, the normal ones are hefty a-frame ones which have enough room for 2 people comfortably and keep the rain off really well. They’re quick to set up when the ground is soft, less than 5 minutes. If it’s rocky then they’re a pain as you can’t get the pegs to hold. We also have lightweight dome tents for if we’re hiking but we’ve only used them once so far and found them harder to set up, smaller and more leaky if they’re not set up right so we’ll avoid them where possible. The a-frame ones are much thicker so I can sleep when the sun comes up too, much better when we’re not in a hurry to go anywhere!
We have an awning which pulls out over the cooking area and if the weather is really bad then a mess tent which fits over there and keeps the rain off from the sides too. We’ve done fires where possible as we can do food on there which makes a change from the gas hobs and keep warm when the sun goes down. The crew always help with the dinner as they’re experienced in cooking up a treat on the side of a truck, when I’ve been on food group it’s been easier to help out here and there and wash up than try to cook anything. Despite our “assistance”, I think most people would agree that the food done on the truck has tasted better than the majority of restaurants we’ve been to!
Depending on the preceding nights we’ll have a few drinks round the fire on the comfy chairs (no collapsible stool nonsense for us!), and sometimes we’ll have lots of drinks from the on board bar/fridge. This is worked out by Jen at the moment, and started with everyone chipping in $10 and then as we take stuff from it it’s marked down. Every week or so we pay off our tab which then is used to buy the next lot. This system works well apart from when we drink so much we forget to mark them down, luckily this has only happened once and us naughty offenders were charged $3 each to cover the missing ones – oops.
People wander off to bed at different times, we’ve got to the point where the people who stay up later set their tents up a distance from the ones who go earlier so generally there aren’t many problems.
That concludes a “typical” day in the life of Penelope the big blue Odyssey truck. Obviously when in cities we have been staying in hostels or campsites for a couple of days and making use of their showers, washing facilities, internet etc. though as we go further East the hostels dry up and I think the plan is to go to the occasional hotel in-between bush camps. There have been a number days where we haven’t driven anywhere and have just gone out exploring the local towns, or sat around nursing hangovers…
Thought I’d give anyone who’s still reading this an idea of our daily life because it’s now become routine to us but it was interesting whilst getting used to it. First off, there is no normal day – it depends where we are and whether we’re staying somewhere for a few days or moving on, but I’ll try to get the important bits in.
A travelling day starts with the breakfast crew getting up about half an hour before everyone else to get breakfast ready. This is normally cereal, toast done on a grill over the gas burners, bread, tea, coffee etc. Sometimes scrambled eggs and other bits, I’m not 100% sure as I normally stay for a lie in. Food is done on a rota of 5 groups, each one stays on to do breakfast and lunch until they’ve done dinner. If we’re in a city and eating out in the evenings then that can mean the unfortunate group doing breakfast 3 days in a row but it all evens out over time. The food group also does the washing up for that meal, but everyone does their own plate and cutlery. Everything is just left to drip dry (or if we’re in a hurry then it gets a quick flap about) as tea towels spread germs – going to have to remember that one for at home…
Once food is done everything is packed away – there are groups (separate from food groups) which are set for each leg of the journey – the first is the 43 days from London to Baku. I’m on roof loading and unloading with Andrew and Michael, so when all the tents are packed away in the morning we have to hoik them onto the roof and pack them under the tarpaulin, making sure it’s sealed from the rain as otherwise the tents get wet and so does Pete’s bed! Others are on loading and unloading bags from the rear locker, cleaning, general camp setup, security, waste, barperson and general truck wallha/biatch. Most people are happy to help out with other jobs if they’ve finished theirs and we’ve got the camp setup routine down to a fairly quick, smooth operation now.
This gets us to the stage of having the truck packed (depending on where we need to get to, between 7:30 and 9:30 is usually set as leaving time), so everybody piles on and the security team make sure that we’re all present (can’t go leaving people all across the world!). Nobody has a set seat, it’s a free for all each day so nobody gets bored of sitting with the same people. Generally the call for an iPod to plug into the stereo comes next, there’s quite a variety of music on board, some really good, some mine. We’ve got 6 big speakers on the truck so the Vengaboys and Village People can be heard in the fine quality that they deserve! The next challenge is normally the arrangement of various electrical equipment that needs charging – there are 3 12v sockets and a 3 pin mains type, and with all the cameras, iPods, phones, computers (one of which I’m using now as we drive over a 2200m mountain pass in Turkey, with the odd bits of snow outside the window) and bits on board they’re always being swapped round. We’ve got games like Uno which are a good laugh around the tables in the back, along with some more obscure games (Pass The Pigs anyone?) which haven’t been played so much.
Usual practice is 2-3 hours driving before a toilet stop and leg stretch at a service stop. Pete and Tim normally swap driving then before carrying on. If we’re at a scenic part and someone wants photos or a loo stop is requested then we stop earlier. Lunch is normally at a pleasant spot sometime between 12 and 1, setup crew get the tables out and washing up bowls are filled from the onboard water tank. Food group get it ready with the crew’s assistance. Normally local bread (so far really good) with meat/salami, cheese, tomatoes and all that salad-y stuff and Ketchup/HP Sauce! Again it depends where we are as to the local specialities. Drinks are water, soft drinks from the bar/fridge or anything we’ve bought ourselves from a shop. Plates are washed and flapped, food is put away and everything packed up again. Normally we’re stopped for 30-45mins and have enough food for 2nds or 3rds – easily enough to keep us going until tea.
Set off again with the odd stop here and there for loos/food/drink/scenery/wood and if bush camping we aim to find somewhere about 5ish, or whenever it’s raining. This is so we don’t draw too much attention to ourselves from locals and so that it’s still light when we set up camp. The rain just seems to be following us around; thankfully it never lasts long! If we’re camping at a site then we can arrive later.
Tents are set up once we’ve chucked them off the roof, the normal ones are hefty a-frame ones which have enough room for 2 people comfortably and keep the rain off really well. They’re quick to set up when the ground is soft, less than 5 minutes. If it’s rocky then they’re a pain as you can’t get the pegs to hold. We also have lightweight dome tents for if we’re hiking but we’ve only used them once so far and found them harder to set up, smaller and more leaky if they’re not set up right so we’ll avoid them where possible. The a-frame ones are much thicker so I can sleep when the sun comes up too, much better when we’re not in a hurry to go anywhere!
We have an awning which pulls out over the cooking area and if the weather is really bad then a mess tent which fits over there and keeps the rain off from the sides too. We’ve done fires where possible as we can do food on there which makes a change from the gas hobs and keep warm when the sun goes down. The crew always help with the dinner as they’re experienced in cooking up a treat on the side of a truck, when I’ve been on food group it’s been easier to help out here and there and wash up than try to cook anything. Despite our “assistance”, I think most people would agree that the food done on the truck has tasted better than the majority of restaurants we’ve been to!
Depending on the preceding nights we’ll have a few drinks round the fire on the comfy chairs (no collapsible stool nonsense for us!), and sometimes we’ll have lots of drinks from the on board bar/fridge. This is worked out by Jen at the moment, and started with everyone chipping in $10 and then as we take stuff from it it’s marked down. Every week or so we pay off our tab which then is used to buy the next lot. This system works well apart from when we drink so much we forget to mark them down, luckily this has only happened once and us naughty offenders were charged $3 each to cover the missing ones – oops.
People wander off to bed at different times, we’ve got to the point where the people who stay up later set their tents up a distance from the ones who go earlier so generally there aren’t many problems.
That concludes a “typical” day in the life of Penelope the big blue Odyssey truck. Obviously when in cities we have been staying in hostels or campsites for a couple of days and making use of their showers, washing facilities, internet etc. though as we go further East the hostels dry up and I think the plan is to go to the occasional hotel in-between bush camps. There have been a number days where we haven’t driven anywhere and have just gone out exploring the local towns, or sat around nursing hangovers…
Friday 9 May 2008
Still watching?
Just a quick one to say I'm still here and will try to get a decent post together on the truck tomorrow, though we're free camping for 2 days so internet could be difficult...
In Cappadocia in Turkey at the mo and it's great, looks like Star Wars desert-y type place and went quad biking today, hot air ballooning tomorrow morning which should be incredible!
In Cappadocia in Turkey at the mo and it's great, looks like Star Wars desert-y type place and went quad biking today, hot air ballooning tomorrow morning which should be incredible!
Saturday 3 May 2008
This weeks update...
Haven't had much time for updating this recently, mainly laziness on my part. Brief summary so far is...
Spent a few more days in Romania, absolutely fantastic country which I really want to visit again, stayed in a hostel type place with a massive living room with billiards and a bar, though we couldn't use it. Did some free camping and had a campfire out in the middle of the mountains. Drank more, went to Bucharest and drank a hell of a lot more in a club followed by much dancing (YMCA and Motorhead make a good mix?) and trying to walk home despite having no idea which way we were going. Went to the Peoples Palace in town and walked around it, took about 45 minutes as it's so huge.
Spent the night free camping in Bulgaria by a big lake, got one of the canoes out and a few people went for a paddle. Had a great BBQ then carried on into Turkey the next day. Took 5 hours to get through customs as they've changed the rules again and it was May day so they wanted us to take everything out to make sure we weren't going to cause riots in Istanbul. Staying in a hostel in the city centre at the moment, went to see the Blue Mosque (not actually blue) and Hagia Sophia (not as impressive as I was led to believe), went for a cruise on a ferry, wandered round the Bazaars and haggled on a few things and just enjoyed Istanbul. So much going on it's all quite hectic and everyone seems to be in a rush, it's quite nice to just sit around and watch what's going on.
Ended up drinking until 3:30 last night with the barman on the roof so stayed in bed 'til 2 today, went for a pizza for lunch and then to a Turkish Baths. Never been so glad of a cold shower after sitting in the sauna for 10 minutes, had a scrub/massage wash thing and I'm feeling fantastically relaxed and clean now. Sat in the hostel with a few others having a drink or two deciding whether to head into town to find a club whilst Bob Marley sings away on the Ipod, life is good!
Heading up to the Black Sea tomorrow to stay for 2 nights by a beach, hopefully for some surfing and messing around in the sea, then down to Goreme for a few more days...
Spent a few more days in Romania, absolutely fantastic country which I really want to visit again, stayed in a hostel type place with a massive living room with billiards and a bar, though we couldn't use it. Did some free camping and had a campfire out in the middle of the mountains. Drank more, went to Bucharest and drank a hell of a lot more in a club followed by much dancing (YMCA and Motorhead make a good mix?) and trying to walk home despite having no idea which way we were going. Went to the Peoples Palace in town and walked around it, took about 45 minutes as it's so huge.
Spent the night free camping in Bulgaria by a big lake, got one of the canoes out and a few people went for a paddle. Had a great BBQ then carried on into Turkey the next day. Took 5 hours to get through customs as they've changed the rules again and it was May day so they wanted us to take everything out to make sure we weren't going to cause riots in Istanbul. Staying in a hostel in the city centre at the moment, went to see the Blue Mosque (not actually blue) and Hagia Sophia (not as impressive as I was led to believe), went for a cruise on a ferry, wandered round the Bazaars and haggled on a few things and just enjoyed Istanbul. So much going on it's all quite hectic and everyone seems to be in a rush, it's quite nice to just sit around and watch what's going on.
Ended up drinking until 3:30 last night with the barman on the roof so stayed in bed 'til 2 today, went for a pizza for lunch and then to a Turkish Baths. Never been so glad of a cold shower after sitting in the sauna for 10 minutes, had a scrub/massage wash thing and I'm feeling fantastically relaxed and clean now. Sat in the hostel with a few others having a drink or two deciding whether to head into town to find a club whilst Bob Marley sings away on the Ipod, life is good!
Heading up to the Black Sea tomorrow to stay for 2 nights by a beach, hopefully for some surfing and messing around in the sea, then down to Goreme for a few more days...
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