Back to the highway. Back to the noise, back to the sight of cars and trucks thundering in my direction. One thing is different from before Samsun, though: there is considerably less traffic here. The main artery connecting Istanbul and Ankara with the Black Sea region has left the coastline and taken much of the […]
I go outside looking for some mobile data for my phone and a bottle of lens cleaner for my cameras. I get 14 GB of data, and when I ask an optician for cleaning fluid he gives it to me for free. Then I stand around for a while. I like doing that, just standing […]
The night was cold and wet. For some time, there was a dog somewhere in the distance that decided to have a barking match with a pack of jackals. The prayer calls in the morning sounded like ghosts, again. The inside of my sleeping bag was pretty cozy, though. The difficult part is always getting […]
I wake up in a large hotel bed, white linens and all. I brush my teeth and go down to have breakfast. While I’m stuffing myself with potatoes and omelette and casserole and bread and cake and mint tea, I feel very conscious of my scruffy looks and of my plan to walk home. Then […]
So this is what the whole Black Sea coast could have been like? Could have. Would have. Should have. Remember how the highway from the Georgian border almost all the way to Samsun was running basically always right next to the water? Well, not here. Here, in the north of Samsun, traffic is being confined […]
People often ask me about walking and the difficulties that it entails. Physical challenges come up, loneliness, bad dudes, mean animals, illness, or just traffic accidents. But there is one major obstacle that looks a lot less exciting than any of above: it’s that ugly old fart called bureaucracy. For some of the countries on […]
Twelve years ago on this day I started my walk. It was the first day, it was also my birthday. I walked for a year, then I stopped. I started writing books. Walked some more. Wrote some more. Time passed. Then I started walking again. Last year, on the eleventh day, I was in Tbilisi. […]
Just after leaving the hotel, I take a photo of a flyover. Upon which I hear a whistle. Upon which a heavily armed guy in uniform tells me to prepare to be interrogated. So I sit down on my plastic chair and drink some water. It’s a hot day. After a while another uniformed man […]
It’s a little less than 30km to Tekkeköy. And then another twenty or so to Samsun. I feel tired, so I tell myself that I don’t want any adventures today. No dogs. No dancing. No getting lost on country roads. The first few hours I stay on the highway. It is loud. During lunch I […]