Israel to Ireland

A Pub Quiz

2006-08-07T15:44:00.000-07:00

Ireland's greatest export is, of course, people. Pubs come a close second.

Below are seven photos that we took on our trip. See if you can identify the country in which each one was taken. (Clicking on a photo will bring up a bigger version, which might help.)

The countries are Israel, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Holland and USA.

We'll post the answers next week. Good luck!

What a Long, Strange Trip

2006-08-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, folks, the honeymoon's over.

It feels like at least a year's worth of experiences packed into a few months. Right now, after a week back in Seattle, we're still enjoying a familiar routine: sleeping in the same bed, reuniting with our cat, speaking the same language for a few weeks in a row.

It's really impossible to sum things up--I'm still trying to process the sensory overload. Instead, here are some random statistics:

Kilometers bicycled: 3,746
Countries visited: 12 to 14 (depending if you include the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Wales)
Days of cycling: 44
Longest day: 140 km (to Vienna)
Hardest day: 101 km (battling hills and a brutal a headwind to Bursa)
Average daily distance: 80 km
Average speed: 18 km per hour
Pannier weight: unknown, since we never weighed them, but probably around 40 lbs per person

Best cycling:

Transylvania (when you can find a road)
Tarsus Mountains in Turkey
Austrian wine region
West coast of Ireland

Most delicious food:

Czech beer
Israeli breakfasts (soft cheeses, salads, humus)
Turkish desserts
German bread

Most bike-friendly cities:

Amsterdam
Vienna
Budapest

Trip lowlights:

Turkish toilets
Romanian "highways"
British road signs

Gear we would take again:

Ortlieb panniers
Schwalbe tires (not a single flat on Hannah's bike!)
Ear plugs
Photocopies of credit card, passport, driver's license

Gear we would take next time:

Mountain bike wheels (26-inch) for rough terrain
More Ziploc bags (impossible to find and very useful)
Kickstands
Bar-end shifters

Words in the pan-European lexicon:

Ciao
Merci
Problem
Kaput

What North America could use more of:

Turkish barbers
Turkish baths
Street food vendors
Bicycling infrastructure from Germany/Austria/Holland/Hungary

Best hospitality:

Everyone!

Thanks to everyone who put us up, fed us, offered to help, or just came up to say hello. New friends, old friends, new family, old family--the people made the trip memorable. We hope we'll get to cross paths again someday.

And, last but not least, thanks to everyone who's checked out the blog. It's been fun adventuring together.

Shalom, Lehitra'ot, Merhaba, Na shledanou, Auf wiedersehen, Vaarwel,
D & H

Hurling in Dublin

2006-08-07T15:09:00.000-07:00

No... not quite what you were expecting from the title, although afterwards more than a few pints were consumed at the traditional meeting place.

Remember hurling? The ancient and still vital game of Ireland. We had the exceptional good luck to be invited to the all-Ireland quarter finals by Hannah's cousin, Gene. While the first match lacked some excitment--one of the teams was hopelessly outclassed--the second game was a nail-biter, and even featured the underdog, Waterford, coming up from behind and able to maintain a thin margin of points over their opponents, right until the end. Injuries were plentiful but I'm still amazed that no deaths occured. A testament to the skill of the players.

Ahh, but there are even more exciting and odd diversions to be found on Dublin's back streets. We had the privilege of visiting the one, and only, Irish Jewish Museum. A small and unassuming place, rarely heard of and even more rarely visited. But it was charming, a detailed and lovingly preserved history of this small, close-knit community. The story, as it is remembered, is the Jews came by boat to Cork from Lithuania. They had bought passage to America and when the captain stopped and told them they had arrived, it seemed reasonable enough. Everything must have looked different and the streets were filled with people speaking English. So off the deck and on to the New World--Cork, Dublin and Limerick. The captain made a nice profit, going a quarter of the distance, and picked up new passengers for the trans-Atlantic leg of the trip.

Given the desparation of the Irish economy, the population of Jews did not increase, and the population of Dublin's synagogues has dwindled, lost to emigration, assimilation, and migration to the suburbs. But the recent economic boom has seen the return of Jews to this island, even small communities of Israelis.

It seemed a fitting pilgrimage for the last day of our trip. The rest was spent packing, fortifying ourselves with one last Irish fry-up, and preparing for the long and circuitous journey home.

Sunshine, wedding and general madness

2006-07-21T07:50:00.000-07:00

It wasn't a surprise that Ireland has changed completely. My first inkling came a few years ago, when my Dad mentioned he’d visited the Caribbean food market in Tralee. What? When I visited in 1997, the new Italian restaurant seemed out of place--suspiciously close to “ethnic food.” But in the last 10 years the Celtic Tiger has emerged, and left its clawprints everywhere.

We arrived in Galway under a glorious Irish heat wave, and after a day at the beach we enjoyed a pint of heavenly Czech lager. Which is easy to find, naturally, in the local Polish bar. Apparently there are 10,000 Eastern Europeans arriving every month to Ireland, which was one of the few E.U. countries to offer free entry to the new member countries. A vast majority are from Poland. The local Dunnes grocery stores now have a Polish foods section that stocks rye bread and sauerkraut. Billboards advertise cheap calling rates and flights to Warsaw. Any type of service job is now likely to be filled by someone from Eastern Europe. In the 1980s, when all the Irish were emigrating, there was a saying: “Last one to leave turn out the lights.” Now, one imagines they must be saying the same thing in Poland.

And everywhere, everywhere, construction and for sale signs. The newly affluent Irish are building like mad. When I first visited California, I was amazed at people’s never-ending ability to talk about housing prices. Well, I’m afraid the Irish would now give them a run for their money. Young people are speculating on when, if ever, the “bubble will burst” (a two-bedroom townhouse in Dublin goes for a million euros). People lucky enough to own a house are looking for investment properties or second homes in places like Budapest and Croatia. “Forget the so-called important subjects, like politics or religion,” my mom’s friend Maeve told us. “Now everyone’s talking about property values.”

The tourist industry is slow to catch up, no surprise. Yesterday we saw a postcard that showed a herd of cows in a laneway and read “Traffic jam in Ireland.” Who do they think they’re kidding? When people aren’t talking about gazoomping home prices, they’re complaining about traffic. The last weekend the radio announced there had been 12 deaths on Irish roads, in eight separate accidents. Some justification for our being lazy, taking the bus and enjoying the visits.

But more to the point, we were in town for the wedding of my friend Siobhan, whose family lived up the street from us in Ottawa in the mid-1980s. The Dorai-Raj family welcomed us in fine Irish-Malaysian style, with tea and curry, and all seemed amazingly relaxed. Siobhan and Justin had a beautiful wedding on Galway Bay. (This photo proves the wedding photographers have nothing to fear from me.) Drinking started early and lasted into the wee hours, and the dance floor started heating up at 1 a.m. The next day, the younger guests all met up for--guess what?--a few pints in the neighborhood bar. Until last year it was an old mans' drinking hole, but it’s newly renovated and now a hipster joint serving tapas and chips with mango salsa at exorbitant prices.

Yeesh. Did I mention that Irish people now fly over to New York for the weekend to do their Christmas shopping, and take advantage of the exchange rates? Here, it’s hard to even find street food for less than $10. We’re not exactly living it up. Luckily the relatives have been feeding us well and David does wonders with a tin of baked beans, so we're not starving yet.

Deep in the Heart of Kerry

2006-07-17T02:51:00.000-07:00

Hannah keeps saying how tough I am, surviving the onslaught of relatives. I must say, while long drives aren't my favorite way to pass time, I am a big fan of endless cups of tea and hot whiskey, family lore, visits to ol' haunts and long chats around the kitchen stove.

With all this discussion of the "New Ireland," the "Celtic Tiger," rising house prices, aggressive BMW drivers, immigration, and the rest of the modern global village's travails, it was reassuring to start in Ireland's heartland.

Hannah's mother, Margaret, met us in Cork and we watched the scenery fly by as we headed for Kerry in the luxury of a rental car. The bike odometers stalled at 3,600 kilometers, while we enjoyed the rest.

In North Kerry we watched a DVD of Hannah's cousin, Sean, playing in the local hurling championship. (If you don't know, this is a traditional Irish game that's similar to field hockey, except that it's full contact and much of the game is played with raised sticks. They recently introduced helmets. The older players are all missing teeth.) A commemorative DVD includes a charmistic announcer complaining of a hangover, an interview with the hurling-mad local priest, and a final victory of which one player said: "joy would not begin to describe it." This was the first time the local hurling club had won the coveted championship in thirty years, and the celebration showed more real passion, pleasure and joy in the win than any professional footballer winning the World Cup--especially when it's a penalty shoot-out between Italy and France.

But I digress. Hannah's family made me feel not like a guest, but more like just another kid, or cousin, or only-slightly-distant family member. We were ferried to the various family graveyards to wander among the lichen-covered headstones (and fancy new polished-marble hulks complete with laser-etched pictures of Jesus and Mary). We climbed fences and dodged nettles, brambles and gorse walking the ancestral farm.

We toured around the scenic Dingle Peninsula. We even trekked up to the family section of bog, where strips of peat are still cut and dried to make fuel.

One of the Hickey uncles invited us to a Monday night "session" at a pub in a local town. Again, the scene, or the "craic," was gay and genuine. Everyone, their cheeks pink with drink, would be nudged into giving a song for the crowd.

Eventually, the umbilical cord was cut and we got back on the bikes. We took the coast road north through County Clare, home of Ireland's traditional music scene. In a little pub in Doolin, we actually found ourselves a little disappointed. This was a scene of self-styled professional muscians playing for an audience of tourists. They were fine musicans but it wasn't to be confused with vibrant, healthy culture.

Further north along the coast, we crossed the desolate limestone pavement of the Burren, and stopped and looked out on a turquoise sea. We wasted hours lolling about, watching dolphins swim by, cormorants carrying out fishing trips from their perches on the cliffs, and the odd fisherman, swinging by to pick up lobster traps.

But we had business to attend to. The now Siobhan O'Grady was about to get married in Galway, and we needed to get there and find acommodations--not only in high season, but in a town whose population had already swollen in anticipation of the great Galways Arts Festival.

And we thought we were going to get some rest.

A Wales Tale

2006-07-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

It's a complete mystery to our naive selves that Brits would fly off to Bulgaria, Cyprus, and the likes, when we've enjoyed so many sunny days in Wales. I know, I know, it's hard to believe, but it's true.

We've also had the extraordinary fortune to have some adventurous souls join us on this ramble 'cross Europe. Here, Nathan and Virginie experience one of our "short cuts" through the English countryside, English nettles, English gorse, English brambles... brave souls indeed.

Communication must have been poor. Somehow, Helen and Tim weren't warned in time, and they joined us for a urban ride through the abandoned Welsh coalmine country and the down-on-their-heels towns to.... lovely Swansea by the sea.

Ahhh, Swansea. The smell of the sea, the cry of the gulls, the fresh breeze nearly broke my heart with the weight of dear memories (have I been in Ireland long enough to write like this?) But as I was saying to Hannah, Swansea has another side. Gangs of drunken, tattoed toughs lying about the boardwalk, glowering at the passers-by. And the guys were pretty scary-looking, too.

But still, the unbelieveable weather continued. We reached the coast with time to spare, so we did a victory lap around the Gower Peninsula. That night the whole gang camped on the tip of the peninsula, among British surfers waiting for waves. And waiting. And waiting.

The following night we made our way down a gorse- and heather-covered hillside (complete with crumbling castle) to a white sandy beach. Took a swim in the ocean, through a rock arch and back to the beach, and dried off in the heat of the sun. In Wales mind you. Told you, you wouldn't believe it.

Than back to Swansea. It was with no small amount of relief that we boarded an overnight ferry to.... Ireland. For a time, it really felt like our trip was almost over.

The Cotswolds - A Haiku

2006-07-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

English paradise:
Stone manors, flowered gardens.
Why so many hills?

Our Days at Oxford

2006-07-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

We didn't actually attend classes in Oxford. Just biked through and played at being students: slept in residences, drank in pubs, ate tofu salad at the covered market, and visited a museum that's like the attic of a nineteenth-century colonial explorer: glass cases of shrunken heads; guns and exotic daggers; outrigger canoes hanging from the ceiling.

Is this enough to be awarded a degree?

A British Comedy of Errors

2006-06-27T06:25:00.000-07:00

We were looking forward to an easy day. That was our first mistake. We set out from Eastleigh, in the south of England, where we'd been visiting David's cousin and family (three young sons, all very different, but united in their fascination with insects).

The day's destination was Reading, a few hours away. Easy riding, not too many hills, and more friends to stay with that evening. We dawdled in the morning and met Adar at his office for lunch. We cycled for a while, then passed a sign in Winchester saying "Oldest Bar in England." Of course that demanded stopping for a pint.

The distance for the day was 40 miles, which David's ale-infused brain somehow translated to 40 kilometers. I'd been researching the bicycle routes on the Internet that morning, but the Sustrans site was overrun with traffic--the only map I could print was up to Winchester, which I vaguely remembered as being a halfway point.

After walking around the quaint, cobblestoned town of Winchester, we stopped at a bookstore and finally bought a map of the UK, only to discover that Winchester is not the halfway point. It's maybe the one-fifth point. Back on the bikes. A brief stint along a motorway, being passed by frenzied yuppie commuters speeding home from London, convinced us to take the quieter roads. Quieter, it turns out, also means virtually no road signs.

It was, of course, raining the whole time. Before leaving, our friends John and Amity gave us a compass; I'd joked that this would be useful for navigating when we reached the British Isles and could no longer use the sun for direction. No joke, it turns out. As we biked through the drizzle I thought the sky to the right looked a slightly brighter shade of grey, which would suggest we were heading south, not north. But it's hard to compare shades of grey.

Eventually, as we began to see signs for Winchester once again, we got worried. After consulting a local farmer and our newly purchased map, it transpired that we'd done a perfect circle. We were, in fact, just a few miles from Eastleigh.

So we cycled to the train station and got to Reading barely before dark (lucky for us, darkness doesn't fall until after 10 pm). Helen and Tim, friends from Victoria, had Pimm's and a soul-reviving meal waiting for us in their converted barn. We had a great visit and slept soundly--but we decided not to underestimate the challenges of cycling through charming, rainy, densely populated England.

Close your eyes and think of England

2006-06-26T02:40:00.000-07:00

ol' blighty.

The usual mad rush to the ferry. Ever since I met Hannah, I've been rushing to meet ferries. So really, having an indetermined number of kilometers to go, a vauge since of the general direction, the possibility of a strong headwind and a hard deadline, or the ship leaves without us, should be a totally familiar feeling. In fact, it was. So was the mounting stress.

While we promised once again to never make a reservation that needs to be met by bicycle, wandering through the dunes from Haarlem south, even getting lost and having to follow signs through Den Haag, was a fun and nice slice of Dutch life. I suspect the most civilized country we've visited yet. It's even hard to stay lost on bike in Holland. While we tried to follow LD1 (long-distance bike route 1) we had LD 7 and LD 9 to choose from. There's no question who has right of way on the road there.

So, with the usual few minutes to spare we collapsed in our seats, watch a football game with the local chapter of deaf Austrian bikers (why am I always suprised by how friendly Harley riders are?) and had a beer.

We were scooped up by Adar somewhere in the center of London and were able to stay with the whole family for the weekend. Highlights of course, a day in the british "wilds" and a trip to the natural history museum. Once we find a computer that will allow us to upload photos, we'll post a few.

And for biogeeks only--a portrait of Richard Owen

Dutch Treats

2006-06-22T00:57:00.000-07:00

It's another "great leap forward" for us--just not enough time to bike across Germany and Holland. While I wish we had more time to bike every inch of the way, looking out the train window for hours and seeing a largely flat, suburban and windy Germany (with beautiful bike paths), I'm a bit pleased that we can blow past the boring bits.

So we've arrived in Holland.

And oh man, Amsterdam is the bicycle capital of the world.

Four-story bicycle parking garages, filled to the brim.

And World Cup street parties ringed by bikes 10 deep against every available vertical surface. The newest craze in Amsterdam bikes is kid carriers. Some fancy ones with a seat in front, a seat between the handlebars and the saddle and TWO rear seats. So you can sit three kids on at once, each with their own miniature handlebars and footpegs.

Speaking of the World Cup.

Can't escape it at all. On the train, they read the scores of the afternoon games in three languages over the loudspeaker. The America-Italy match was fun to watch on the giant screen in downtown Prague. Lots and lots of Americans there, so good enthusiasm, chanting, drunken stupidity, the usual. It's a bit funny to keep meeting Europeans who are sullenly proud of not being interested in football. The poor, suffering minority...

Lucky for me, Hannah's pretty into catching a bit of the games. It's hard to do, actually, only because so much of our day is spent traveling. Still, it's everywhere and the beer is flowing.

Personally, I don't feel I've seen enough to make a prediction--well, besides seeing Germany get stronger and stronger, but no surprise there.

Right now we're staying with my cousin, Vivienne, in the "family mansion." A big, beautiful old house in the city. Long since divided up into an apartment for my cousin, one for her mom and another for income. It overlooks a canal and borders a park, with grand sweeping staircases and tall stained-glass windows. Signs of bygone eras.

We also visited my other cousin, Jimmy, at the family business. Even got to borrow some genuine Amsterdam clunkers to cruise around the city. Finally, we had a sushi dinner with my great aunt Madeleine, who's eighty-eight and reads two newspapers a day. She knew all about our trip because she'd been following it on the blog, though she only learned to use the computer last year. Hi, Madeleine!

Tomorrow we bike past the windy sand dunes, down the coast to catch a ferry to England.

David's first footsteps in Germany

2006-06-22T00:32:00.000-07:00

Funny, the things that come to mind while traveling. My dear friends, Jr and Malia, have a beautiful son who's already received a good dose of cycling propaganda. I think of Evan's muscular baby thighs every time I see a department store selling bicycle shorts and jerseys for 5-year-olds (only in Germany).

We biked from the Czech Republic to Dresden. It was hot, muggy and a bit buggy. We stopped for the night at a campground in some town about 30 miles south of the German border. As we rode through, we noticed the place was filled with large, and largely abandoned, buildings. The town itself was ringed by massive walls and a deep moat, and I noticed a cemetery with a towering cross and a large Star of David. A bit unusual, but many towns have some monument to the war and to their extinct Jewish population.

In the morning, we went to the center of town to investigate. It turns out that this town of Terezin, the whole town, was a concentration camp--now preserved as the "Museo Ghetto." Many thousands of people were interned there, to be worked to death, killed by starvation and disease or shipped to the extermination camps in the East. At one point, the Nazi government bowed to international pressure and let the German Red Cross and the International Red Cross visit this "Jewish Resettlement Camp." In preparation for the visit, three quarters of the people in the overcrowded camp were sent off to their deaths, by train to the East. Everything was cleaned, down to scrubbing the rocks. Clothes were mended. Posters of concerts and plays were printed and plastered around the town. As the investigators arrived, the concert halls were filled with people and told to clap. The musicians took a bow as if a concert had just finished, and this is what the investigators saw, without a single note being played. As soon as they left, food was literally taken from the mouths of the prisoners.

I am still stupified by the dedication the Nazi government had to this singular idea, "Solving the Jewish problem." Not the happiest place to wake up to, but an important piece of the history which hangs over Europe like a dark cloud.

Maybe it is important to reflect on the mixed feelings in Europe, as we stayed in Dresden with the four German cyclists we crossed paths with in Turkey. They finished their trip to Damascus and met up for a slide show the night we rolled into town--late, of course, and soaked from a rain shower. Everyone was extremely kind and generous to us both, and we stayed with Hagen (on the far left) for two nights.

Dresden has a beautiful center, remarkably restored after the Anglo-American bombing of the city. Bicycling, beer gardens, and paddle sports. Yet another city where it would be easy to stop for a while longer, or forever.

The Best Vegan-friendly Tiki Bar in Prague

2006-06-17T04:50:00.000-07:00

(Note: This is the same post as earlier, we just added a couple photos of Prague at the bottom.)

Things sure have changed around here. Once, we were strange curiosities on our bikes, squeezed on the side of the road, worried we'd end up as a two-dimensional smudge on the side of a Romanian highway. Now we´ve entered the world of Northern European bicycle touring, complete with maps, numbered bicycle highways, and plush Euro campsites.

After leaving Budapest we followed the Danube for 350 kilometers to Vienna. The road was dead flat. In one section, where it follows a canal, it's absolutely straight. We wondered if cyclists ever fall asleep on the wheel.

Still, every journey has its challenges. On the third day we were determined to make it more than 120 km to Vienna by evening. We were pretty pleased with ourselves as we set out, ate lunch in Bratislava, and continued under sunny skies to our second capital city of the day. Sadly, it turns out that cycling in the heat for seven hours is taxing--not so much on the legs, but on the small regions where the legs connect to the rest of the body. It's normal to have friction after two months on the road; but it's usually between the travelers, not between their legs. We spent a day recovering in Vienna. Then we continued on our way, fortified with diaper ointment and KY jelly.

Bicycling north from Vienna through Austria can only be described as idyllic. Small, paved roads over gently rolling hills through the manicured countryside of the wine region. There are many bicycle routes: the winery route, the castle route, the family route, etc. The only accommodation we could find was a winery bed and breakfast. For 50 Euros, which was outside our usual budget, we stayed in luxurious surroundings, drank "fresh" white wine, and ate a simple dinner of thinly sliced ham, local cheese and bread. In the morning, after discussing rural economics, Harley Davidsons and the international wine markets, the owner gave us a bottle of the house red. When David padded into our hotel room sipping his second glass of wine and flipped on the TV to watch the highlights of the Sweden-Paraguay soccer game, he remarked that maybe the bourgeois lifestyle he´d mocked in his youth isn´t quite so bad, after all. (The place is Hotel Burger, highly recommended.)

After briefly losing our way among the bicycle routes of southern Czech Republic (there are so many signed bicycle and hiking routes it can be quite confusing) we caught a bus to Prague. We´re staying with Milan, a reporter at the newspaper in Idaho Falls who´s now working at the Prague Post. Milan and his roommates publish an English-language arts magazine, ProvokatoR, and generally try to keep alternative culture alive in a city that´s slowly being overrun by stag party holidayers. One of Milan´s roommates also works nights at a Prague tiki bar... which we plan to visit tonight.

P.S. Budweiser (the beer from Budvar) is really, really good here! Whodathunk?

P.P.S. We did go to the tiki bar, and sampled soymilk-based orange "cream sickles." Yum!

The Hungary Cyclist

2006-06-09T23:43:00.000-07:00

It seems like every time we roll into a new country we feel like we've finally entered Europe. In Bulgaria, it was because there were women on the streets wearing comfortable (and sexy clothes) and people drinking beer in public. In Romania, it was because they spoke a Latin language and ate pizza. But to pass into Hungary is to roll into this dreamy world of smooth roads, bike lanes(!), drivers that know how to brake... it's almost hard to believe. We were cycling along the highway from the border, delighted to have a paved shoulder for the first time in weeks, when we realized there was a bike path parallel to the road. A few minutes later the bike path passed under the highway, with a signed, ramped bicycle underpass. Wow.

This photo is from a small city near the border, where we felt like we'd landed in Amsterdam. Budapest's cycling scene is so huge it would be hard to capture in a photo: bicycle messengers, commuters, young people, everywhere zipping around on bikes. The Budapest Critical Mass ride last Earth Day got 10,000 riders, and in September they had 30,000 cyclists at the rally. It seems bicycle culture is alive and well, and hiding out in Hungary. (Helps that this part of the country is so flat.)

No bicycling for us for a few days. We've totally scored this amazing flat in Budapest. It's in an old building with a central courtyard. It belongs to a friend of a friend, a Japanese gal that Eve met in China and then Berlin, who's now working as a photographer in Budapest. Her Irish friends are back home for a wedding and kindlz offered us their place. The world is turning into one incredibly thick and rich stew. (Fumie's Web site has great photos of Eastern European musicians.)

It's impossible to resist Budapest's charms. Beautiful architecture, plenty of young expats, live jazz, folk, theater every night. The city also has a vibrant interest in the history of its Jews and a living, breathing Jewish community. A very pleasant change from the decrepit and abandoned synagogues to be found in every Romanian town, and no real interest in the Jews who are gone, or in the Gypsies who survived and are begging in the streets. We've happily spent a few days visiting the public baths, drinking beer with Fumie and Bob, and wandering about the city.

So it's kicking and screaming that we're finally leaving Budapest (in the rain, once again). We've met more than one person who came for a summer in the early 1990s and stayed for 15 years. So I guess at three days, we're not doing too badly.

Romancing the Vampire

2006-06-08T00:48:00.000-07:00

Trip update: Cycled across the border from Bulgaria and along the Romanian coast north, to Constanta. Then we took a train in and out of Bucharest and spent a rainy week bicycling west on the Transylvanian plateau.

In the city, it's easy to imagine that Romania will join the E.U. as planned in 2007. Foods of choice are pizza, spaghetti and schnitzel. Everyone seems to speak some English, German, Italian, French. Many people have spent time abroad and they've been very kind to us, offering directions or a place to stay. One hostel owner drove us around Bucharest in a personal tour guide. Another teacher offered for us to stay in the gymnasium (by far our largest accommodations!).

On the down side, I got pickpocketed at 9:00 on a Sunday morning in Bucharest. Just your usual drunken thugs bumping into me on the street. Annoying, but didn't suspect a thing at that time of the day. Very professional in that respect. So, spent the day making expensive phone calls to the U.S., cancelling credit cards, bank cards, etc. A real pain in the butt (and I do know about pains in the butt with some authority). Tragic but some consolation that even the Romanians get taken. It's a rough and primitive country, in some respects.

Then into the Transylvanian Mountains. Ahhh... the beautiful mountains. Streaked with snow, shrouded in rain clouds and dark forests. Castles, vampires, beer, did I mention the beer? Lots of beer. And really, really good sausage. More of the 8 AM beer crowd. Not so bad, so long as you don't have to be anywhere real fast.

The total lack of infrastructure, is an uncomfortable reminder of Caecescu's tenure, even if while we were in Bucharest they were holding a beer festival in the park in front of his former castle. The major highways are potholed, single-lane affairs running through small villages, the air foul with exhaust and littered with the bodies of dead animals. Once we got off the highway, though, we had some of the best riding of our lives, through mountain passes, green and marked by outcroppings of pock-marked limestone. Small, red-tiled roofed villages every 10 km selling 30 cent espressos. All following a long and winding road, following a mountain stream swollen with unseasonable rain. (The Danube is still at a 100-year record levels and global warming is on everyone´s lips.)

It seems the countryside didn't change quite so much during the Communist years, and it hasn't changed so much now, either. In the villages everyone was on bikes and the bicycles and horse carts far outnumbered motorized vehicles. It's strange to see a Europe where the horse-drawn cart is alive and well, houses that received electricity in the 21st century, and scythes and pitchforks carved from branches. We imagine bicycling through the villages has the same appeal that bicycling through rural Ireland had in the 1970s.

So it was with mixed feelings, that we headed to the border and bicycled out on to the windy Hungarian plain.

Cyclists We Have Known

2006-06-01T01:48:00.000-07:00

By now we've crossed paths with quite a few other bicycle tourists. Two weary Australians pushing the limits of traveling endurance. One was on a solo China-to-England trip and too tired to keep a record of his journey. The other one (we've mentioned him already), a sunburnt, road-hardened traveler heading south towards the African continent, two years on the road and no end in sight. No energy for a blog.

On the other hand, many tourers tend to have a particular expedition in mind and have created an online diary of their schemes. We benefited from reading about other people's experiences while we were planning our trip. Now we'll be following blogs to hear about the path we chose not to take. We hope that as bicycle touring gets more popular, there will more and more information available, and more and more people will be tempted to try it.

A four-man German machine whizzed by as we were having lunch by the side of the road in Turkey. They were traveling from Dresden to Damascus at the breakneck pace of 150 km a day. (We hope to meet up with them when we reach Dresden, in a few weeks.)

Last night we camped just outside Sibiu, Romania and met a guy just starting a year-long journey from his home in Marseilles, ending at some yet-to-be-determined location in Asia. You can find the story of his trip here.

We didn't actually meet this French couple, but we stayed at a couple of the same hostels they'd passed through in Turkey (they must also be using a Lonely Planet guidebook) and heard about their trip. They're embarking on a two-year, round-the-world bicycle tour. Their impressive site (in French) is here.

More details on our own experiences in Romania to come, soon...

Bulgarian Backpedaling

2006-05-30T00:53:00.000-07:00

Psst... there are a couple of late posts on Turkey further down on the page.

We finally found a nicer, quieter part of Bulgaria. Up north the tourist resorts eventually fade away, leaving rolling fields and quiet coastlines. We camped in a nature preserve just south of the Romanian border, to the sounds of migrating birds.

Despite the delicious Bulgarian cheese and wonderful salads, though, after some negative experiences we decided to avoid Bulgarian commerce and cook our own food. We bought supplies at the local grocery store. The milk was sour. The lighter didn't work. Ah, Bulgaria. We feel we haven't seen your best side. But it's time to go, and we're not sorry to pedal on.

Vulgar Bulgars

2006-05-25T13:48:00.000-07:00

I've done my best to reserve judgment. Now, after a couple of days, I can say a few things with some confidence.

Bulgaria has got problems. Granted, any country would have a hard time competing after Turkey, and this one has close to 80 years of Communist rule to deal with, plus a rotten economy. Still, the view from my saddle is often a picture-perfect portrait of post-Communist aftermath. The broken-down Ladas with the hoods up by the side of the road. The smaller towns filled with beer-bellied, thick armed men, slightly sunburnt. Teenagers hanging around drinking beer and smoking cigarettes at 9 AM. The listless, bored stares and service so surly it seems deliberate. Sidewalk money-changers foisting old currency to unsuspecting tourists (us). Stained, concrete monoliths of apartment buildings. Prostitutes at the side of the highway. Pornography on sale at every corner kiosk.

A lot of things that can twist the people of a country. Well, apparently something did. The people are a suspicious, scowling lot. After some introduction or interaction people have blossomed and shown some spark of interest and even been helpful. A dramatic change after the Turkish tendency to shout, honk, wave, grab you by the arm, foist tea and sweets on you, and promise to send their brother to meet you in "Amerikay".

Bulgarian drivers are the worst. Sure, everywhere--Israel, Cyprus, Turkey--people drive like madmen. But it's different here. People are just rude. There's no shoulder to the road and especially the trucks won't give you 6 inches more even if the road is empty. Apathy? Perhaps. I watch them cut each other off, endlessly passing each other on blind curves and the crest of hills at full speed. There's a death wish, or at least an utter disregard for death and destruction and the roadside graves attest to the consequences. Any one of these things on its own isn't so bad, but the sum total makes for an unnerving place. All the while, the countryside is the most beautiful I've seen, birds everywhere, rolling hills filled with grapevines...

The tanking economy is nice for budget travelers but not so much for the unfortunate locals. The only healthy industry we've seen yet is the package tourist resorts, filled with sunburnt Brits and large Germans. Not the kind of thing to improve the locals' attitude toward life, I suspect.

Now it's Istanbul... (late post)

2006-05-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

Or better known as "Veni, Vedi, Shoppi," David's trip to the Grand Bazaar. No, I won't bore you with the details. It's one of those places that despite the overblown tourist scamfest that it is, the deeper you go, the more rewarded you will be. Whether it's painted tiles, copper, silver or goldworking, antiques, meerscham pipes or carpets, the best in Turkey ends up here. The goods won't be as cheap as in the village, the small town or at the farmer's back door. But the finest quality craftsmanship is saved for the Grand Bazzar.

Suprisingly little to say about Istanbul. We did a few things, saw a few things and were only left with the strong impression that it would take time to scratch the surface.

Still, I'm left with mental images, these vignettes that play over again in my mind's eye.
The ferry dock at night. People rushing for the last ferry across the Bosphorus. Everywhere people selling greasy fish sandwiches, mostly from feeble-looking boats rocking crazily in the churned-up water at dockside. Acrid smoke billowing, people yelling, groups huddled around low, plastic tables and chairs stuffing their faces with raw onions and the oily fish. Venders line both sides of the wide pedestrian street that serves as the ferry dock. Mostly the usual crap: Knock-off jeans, Zippo lighters, homemade Turkish pop CDs. But there is also a long line of short, wide-faced men squatting around blankets filled with leather good and sheepskin vests and hats. The Asian faces, leathery skin, sheepskin jackets mark them as Central Asian herders... in town to sell the winters production I suppose?

From the same ferry dock the next day, we took a short trip up the Bosphorus. Including missing our stop and refusing to get off the boat. In typically Turkish fashion, after yelling at us, the security guard sat us down and made the cafe attendent make us coffee while he joked with the janitor and harrassed the poor cafe guy. Then helped us off the ferry at their last stop, directed us towards the bus and waved goodbye.

It's a crazy city with so many centers. Like New York, LA or Mexico City I'm sure. We took our tour of the Galatasaray neighborhood-- for you soccer fans out there-- and watched the hip and sophisticated go about their socializing and shopping, and finally found our own place where we could have a beer in public.

It's no suprising that a city of 17 million people is a rotten, terrible, scary, dangerous and just plain stupid place to bike out of--no matter how early you get up.

Bountıful Bursa (late post)

2006-05-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

A long, hard day of rıdıng ın the mountaıns ıs rewarded wıth a beautıful cıty full of amazıng food markets and our fırst dıp ınto the hamam. One more thıng that desperately needs to be ımported to the US. I've never felt so clean ın my lıfe. Helps to have some ham-fısted Turk beatıng and latherıng and scrubıng you wıth terry-clothed mıtts after a thorough steam, sweat and soak. The buildings themselves are beautiful. They were built alongside mosques and are old stone and brick. The insides, solid roof to floor in creamy marble with an enormous heated marble bench in the center. It's like being inside a giant frosted cake. The hamam "experience" deserves the same sort of waxing emotional that a Turkish haircut received but, I won't waste your time with my fond remembering.

(pic of Hannah looking blissed, outside the hamam)

Our hotel was run by an older couple from a mountain village. A pair of brothers married a pair of sisters and now take turns running the hotel for a couple of weeks at a time. Since they have to be there all the time, they've flung their doors open to all sorts of crazy characters who've made it their hangout. One such person is a highschool principle and a passionate fan of Turkish traditional culture. He told us about a cafe where, after work, people meet to play traditional music, sing, smoke and drink tea. Great fun and good training for Ireland, eh?

He also practically dragged us to a performance by "The society for the preservation of Dervish ceremoney and Mevlana poetry and philosophy".

The whirling dervishes.

A mix of religeon including readings from the Koran and a lecture (this time about the evils of littering), music, performance art and ecstatic ritual. Words will fail me so I hope we'll figure a way to post the video.

And of course, more amazıng food. Candıed chestnuts, more kepab, 30 kinds of olives to chose from and drıed carob pods anyone?

Then a ferry to the industrial heart of Turkey. No wish to bicycle into a city of 17 million people.

Turkish Heartland

2006-05-20T10:35:00.000-07:00

Cappadocia Rocks!

It's pretty strange to rıde ınto thıs town ın the regıon called Cappadocıa/Kapadokya (spellings here are completely phonetic, thanks to the great modernizer Ataturk). Travelıng across the Turkısh heartland ıs fun. People are ıncredıbly frıendly and the sıte of two whities rıdıng through town on bıkes ıs a bıt of a novelty. Food and lodgıng are cheap and we haven't seen any tourısts ın a long tıme. Then suddenly we're ın the land of expensıve food, carpet salesman, dıcos, beer, blondes and tour buses. But the strange formatıons and the chance to wander for ourselves among these cave homes and churches datıng back to the Hıttıtes makes up for the cheese ın spades. Not to mentıon, Hannah feels comfortable enough to wander around ın short skırts and shortes, to the delıght of her travel companıon :)

The Great Leap Forward

But after a much needed rest of a couple days we've found ourselves behınd schedule. The two days leadıng to Goreme featured paınfully slow slogs across a desolate grassland. Beıng raıned on off and on and the paınful push ınto a strong headwınd dropped our average speed to a pathetıc 12 km an hour. We've realızed that havıng a schedule means everyday we spend exhaustıng ourselves agaınst the wınd and thıs barren landscape ıs one less day we have in the UK drınkıng beer wıth frıends ın pubs. The decısıon to jump ahead was relatıvely paınless and ınvolved a certaın amount of satısfactıon as we sat on the bus, notıng the strong headwınd and the black thunder clouds sendıng raın and haıl down on to the plaın.

Turkish Climbers' Camp-Out

After a night bus ride we arrived at the station in Kutahya, city of painted tiles, bleary-eyed at 5 AM. While I was hunting a place to crash for a few hours David met three students from the local university. They were members of the mountaineering club, and that very afternoon they were unveiling a new climbing wall on campus. A bunch of students were camping out, they said, and we should come join them. For some absurd reason we debated this a while--whether to make some distance despite being pretty exhausted, or check out this town and visit the university. We decided on the latter and very glad we did. The climbers welcomed us to their 3-day party, gave us a spot to pitch the tent and even cafeteria passes to get meals. They wall itself is impressive--the tallest in Turkey, and fourth-tallest in Europe. Climbing culture was reassuringly familiar, with camp-outs, music, friendly faces and relaxed atmosphere.

Baris, who invited us, left that evening to climb the snow-capped peak we'd seen in Cappadocia. He said he's been dreaming of a bicycling/climbing trip to Mount Ararat someday. We wish him luck. Also huge thanks to the climbing club in Kutahya--we hope they'll come check out the mountains in Seattle sometime! (link to the club's Web site to follow, as soon as we find it)

Bursa Death March

On the other hand... To the climber camping next to us who suggested the scenic route to Bursa--"Nice views, quiet roads, not too many hills," he said. We looked at the copious shading on that corner of the map and asked him again. No, he assured us, not too many hills.

Two aching days later, we beg to differ. The scenery was beautiful and the hills not too steep the first day, and we found a beautiful campsite in the woods. But by lunchtime on the second day I was totally beat, sprawled out on the grass too tired to brush off the ants that were crawling all over me. Still 45 km to go. It turned out the rolling hills only got steeper, and we got a headwind so strong I had to keep pedalling on the downhills just to maintain some speed. The day ended with an ear-popping, jaw-dropping climb over the mountains into Bursa, complete with the little tourist cabins and the coffee shop at the summit. This is absolutely the last time we take route advice from a non-cyclist.

The recovery day in Bursa was perfect, though. A trip to the hamam, another shave for David, much honey and good food, and in the evening whirling dervishes and folk music in a local cafe. People, food, landscapes--no other country is going to be able to match Turkey.

Now it's Istanbul...

Another Close Shave...

2006-05-13T01:07:00.001-07:00

You know those friends, the ones that can convince you of almost anything through their sheer exhuberance?

I have a frıend like this, by the name of John Mickett.

Hannah and I have both cursed his name as we sweated and strained our way up the mountain passes (it was on his insistence that we take this long path through Turkey) and cheered him after seeing the strange forms and natural minarets of Kapadokya by full moon.

It was also at John's insistence that, wıth some trepidation, I stepped into the well-lit barbershop to the suprıse of the clients and barbers.

Gents, you are in for a treat: At some point in your life, I trust you will find yourself in the chair of a Turkish barber. This small ritual, the haircut, might be the most addictive thing to date. (Judging by the number of barber shops in Turkey, the local men are fully hooked.) Forget crack, heroin, nicoiıne and Saturday morning cartoons. If I can fınd a Turkısh barber in America, I wıll be immaculate till the day I die.

Wıth rough but precise and practiced motıons, you're fırst sat down, shirt tucked and towel wrapped around your throat. Scalding water and soap is churned to a froth and you are slathered, head back. A long, straight razor ıs whipped out and the chopping begıns. No hair is safe. Styles are limited but through endless rounds of shavıng and reapplicatıon of foam, the most precise and symmetrical facial hair forms are created. You are rinsed and roughly toweled. You break for coffee. Then the sıde of your haır ıs buzzed, the rest of your haır scıssor-cut. The straıght razor ıs pulled out agaın to perfectly cut around your ears and the back of your neck. Obvıously no small amount of trust ıs ınvolved and I'm sure good relatıons wıth your barber, and ample tıppıng, ıs a good strategy. Your haır ıs rınsed and agaın your head ıs roughly towled. Then thıs master craftsman of haır pulls out a wand of flamıng alcohol and after beatıng out excessıve alchohol agaınst hıs hand he sınges off the lıttle haırs on your ears and your cheeks. Agaın, thıs fıne lıne between paın and pleasure ıs present. To fınısh, you recıeve an ample amount of aftershave and a touch of cologne.

Honestly, I stumbled out of the chaır ın a daze to the amusment of the shop. The prıce? Five bucks U.S. I was barely able to fınd my wallet. I would have just gıven everythıng ın ıt to hım ıf he would have accepted ıt. I dıd my best to tıp the man. I had to be remınded to pıck up my bag wıth passports and wallet. He then had to run down the street to brıng me my glasses. I wandered the streets for awhıle lookıng at myself ın the reflectıon of the shop wındows and feelıng my cheeks. Naked for the fırst tıme ın many, many months.

Through the Mountains

2006-05-13T00:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, the worst of the Tarsus Mountains are behind us. It was a long slow climb and, though this may come as an anti-climax, not actually that bad. The scenery made up for it. Wildflowers, birds, butterflies everywhere. Our highest pass was at 1600 meters and then we descended into a vast mountain plain. Sort of the Alberta of Turkey (note to copy desk: substitute 'Wyoming' for U.S. edition of the blog). It's great cycling and great scenery. We're behind schedule already but it's hard to care.

The only downside comes from traveling through the mountains and in a Muslim country with only a single pair of long pants. Easy to slip them on over my cycling shorts, but no opportunities to wash the damn things. Two weeks now, and counting...

A Lucky Flat

2006-05-12T23:30:00.000-07:00

We'd heard of the Turks' hospitality, but nothing prepared us for the reality. At first I stopped at gas stations to use the toilet. In America this might be a problem because we weren't actually buying gas. Not in Turkey. Each time we'd have a curious station owner come out to investigate us and our bikes, then invite us in for a cup of tea (a loose-leaf tea with sugar cubes that's served in flower-shaped glass cups). We'd converse in a mixture of pantomime and Esperanto and invariably meet the whole family. The only problem is that after a 20-minute chat, we'd ride for half an hour and have to stop again. Then the cycle would repeat. Eventually, we had to stop visiting gas stations at all--otherwise we'd never get anywhere!

In the rural areas we're quite the curiosity, which is nice but also exhausting. But people have been extremely friendly and helpful. On Thursday we needed to refill our water bottles in the mountains and it turned into a two-hour breakfast at the local Jandarme station discussing politics and tourism with the Commander and students doing their military service. But yesterday was the best.

Until yesterday we'd escaped flat tires, but then David got a flat in the morning, and then another in mid-afternoon. The second was annoying, but we were just a few steps away from a gas station and lunch stop, and were ready for a rest.

Little did we know how lucky we were. As David began to repair the flat this guy sidled over and watched, then picked up the empty tube and started playing with it. We weren't sure what he was doing (many things become mysterious when you don't speak the language) and a bıt skeptıcal but didn't want to be rude. Then he motioned that he had air to pump up the tire. Next he took the tire, and I followed him over to a tank of water, where he dunked it in water and found the puncture. Finally he went into a little hut in the parking lot and suddenly I understood. It turned out he was a professinal tire repairman who'd had a shop at this gas station for ten years. He took the tire and patched it in a few seconds, then moved on to our other punctured tubes, and gave us pointers on the quickest way to change a tire.

In typical Turkish fashion he refused payment but instead invited us to sit for a cup of tea. Mmm... morning till night, the tea and Nescafe flows freely here. Even David has switched from murky Seattle coffee to the sugary pleasures of Turkish tea.

Ups and Downs in Turkey

2006-05-10T05:24:00.000-07:00

Hannah failed to mentıon that I ran ınto her, fell over ınto the road ın front of a cement truck. Luckıly everythıng happens ın slow motıon goıng up a steep hıll. The truck lumbered, the drıver yelled, I kıcked and screamed my way out of the clıps and rıghted the bıke and myself wıth tıme to spare. But of course ıt's love and to Hannah's credıt, she neglected to add there were ın fact two hıgh passes we had to cross. The fınal one had a castle and a monastery perched hıgh on craggy rıdges accessıble only by dırt roads wıth a sheer clıff above and below.

So thıngs are goıng great. We're really just gettıng ınto the rhythm of bıkıng every day now. No more frıends or famıly to buffer the days, just the landscape speedıng by and the usual adventures assocıated wıth meetıng the basıc needs of survıval, food, shelter, etc. The sweet endıng of the day yesterday was a slog among the forest of cheaply constructed apartment towers. Apparently buılt ın speculatıon of some tourıst boom that never happened and now sparsely populated by mıgrant fıeld workers and perhaps the odd famıly or two. We had a day of marvelous weather, a strong taılwınd all day, one marvelously frıendly Turk spared the tıme to help us fınd a place to camp and by the end of the day we were on the beach havıng an ımpromptu dınner party wıth the caretaker of thıs lıttle beach cafe. He sold us a couple of enormous beers for 3 bucks, hıs buddy made shısh kebabs of meat, tomato and grılled salmı and shared whıle they pulled out abottle of rakı and ıce. Eventually after much pantomıme and endless searchıng for words ın our Englısh-Turkısh dıctıonary the local mayor shows up for a drınk and a bıte on thıs empty beach. About that tıme we toddled off to our.. Tree house! Secure, cool and pretty dangerous wıth the flımsy boards for a floor. A truck came along the beach sprayıng DDT for the mosquıtoes, no we weren't too happy about beıng sprayed wıth DDT durıng dınner, but we fıgured at least we'd sleep bug free. Almost--they ate Hannah alıve for a change ınstead... But, our 'dıvıne wınd' abated ın the mornıng and we were able to swım and shower. Soon, the wınd kıcked up to speed us on down the road.

Oh, dıd I mentıon the pastrıes? Thıs country ıs awash ın sweets and as a hungry cyclıst, I feel ıt's my job to sample every possıble kınd. OK, tıme to run.