Home, On The Way

Hungary, Recsk (temporary HQ at my parent's house), 2 am. It's time to write. How did I get here? And why here is the place where I get how? And why I'm writing at 2 am?

The Start of the Beginning of the End

I've spent 21 days in Anamur after my Mototour. I freed myself from Paradise after 21 days. It was not easy but I succeeded. Now I'm in Istanbul sitting in a tea-house on the shore of Bosporus. It's getting dark, it's raining and it's cold. It's not the Istanbul I've left one and a half months ago. It's much better - tourists hardly can be found, instead, the local people finding me.

Hundred

I started this trip a hundred days ago. I didn't count the days, but my mom did. And she wrote me a nice mail yesterday reminding me on this number. So let it be the day of writing again. I'm doing this at the same table where I wrote the last two posts. It means I've spent more than two weeks in this perfect camp in Anamur. And still I don't want to leave. Ok, sometimes I thought about it, maybe. Sometimes and maybe.

The Why Not Switch

Sometimes an insane thought or idea comes: do this or do that, try this or try that. In the next moment an avalanche of thoughts and excuses start: I can't do it, I'm not prepared, it's expensive, it hurts, it's dangerous, it's not for me, I'm tired, it's not so important, I can do it later, I can try it next time. Well, to help coming out of this close-mindedness, I found out I just have to push my Why Not Switch hard saying: "Really, why not? Let's do it!".

Base of a Banana Freak

I'm writing this mainly to have a post for refreshing the gallery - and I also wrote a long time ago, so I'm checking in. This time from Anamur, from a lovely campsite called Dragon. If I look up from the keyboard I see the sandy beach, the sea, and Cyprus: today the weather is clean and clear, the sun is burning, there is no windstorm. Ah, and I have one and a half kilos of locally grown bananas beside me. I've found another place to spend a few days without moving.

Wherever

I'm camping in a beautiful place in Ayas, on the south coast of Turkey. My tent is on the beach - I can listen uncousciosly all night to the sounds of the sea. The sun is shining, there are no clouds, it's about 30 degree celsius, a light breeze is on. I'm sitting on a terrace in the shadow between pillows and puffs, on carpets, and I'm thinking of going nowhere from here this time. The Budapest-Istanbul stuff has already been ended, but I have some more plans and some more stuff to write about.

Dog Eat Dog

Yesterday I had my horror day. Some monsters (not dogs, they can't fit into the dog category) attacked me but two dogs just saved my little ass. As I am writing this, the next day, I know I can't translate the hungarian post of this (I wrote that one still shocked using some hungarian phrases I just couldn't translate), so, forgive me, I just try to make a short summary of what happened.

Cappadocia - Istanbul: 2:1

I'm writing now a short one, kind of a gallery-refreshing one - I was in the mood to take pictures. Before, I had a wild rally in Istanbul from the appartment to the bus station. I had a funny 11 hours all-night-long long bus ride from Istanbul to Nevsehir, Göreme. I had three excellent days in Cappadocia: making excursions, eating out in Göreme, looking around in the nearby and meeting my german friends again.

Mr. Vertigo

Instead of walking through and through again in one of the most astonishing, historical and magical city on this planet, I'm sitting in the caffee of my favourite bookshop reading Mr. Vertigo. I've just finished and put it down. I can do nothing, I had the mood for this, reading day and night - and what happened? Again, the tears.

Cheating

I'll cheat - I'll take a bus. This is the plan, at least this is the plan now. I decided not to play the tough guy and I'll leave the south-eastern part of Turkey out of my trip - the bear-hunter-doggies, the mines, the kurdish riots. Instead, with one jump I take a bus to the middle, to Cappadocia (e.g. to Nevshehir), look around there, than ride south near the Ala mountains. These are the plans, as for now.

Turkish Horn

Istanbul. A little bit of being arrived. Nothing else, for now. Strange, empty feeling. During the three days I rode here from Edirne I totally got exhausted. When I rode up to to lake Belmeken, I wrote that was the hardest part. I also wrote in the last post that Istanbul is almost on the corner. And, hm, after this comes a "simple" 250 km, and kiks me out, but totally.

Thoughtbook

Turkey, Edirne. So far so good. The harder part comes now: here is the blinking cursor and I'm about to write something. But what? There are, again, too many things happened, inside and outside, it is almost impossible for me to catch anything of it. Well, I know this effect, and I'm trying to trick this. Beside my maps in my handlebar bag I am having a little thoughtbook and a pen, to have some brainwaves written down. Let's see if it helps.

Breaking In The Boots On Belmeken

I promised to try to avoid writing a usual blog like iwashere-itwassonice, irodealot-itwassohard. But this day, this day was really something I have to write about in a style like this. And also about how I got here. Here, where the flipflops and the SIDI (my cycling shoes) was not enough to handle the situation. I was waking up in Hotel Belmeken and put on my hiking boots (what are more like shoes, but never mind) to climb peak Belmeken.

Malko Po Malko

Sofia, again and again, and still Sofia - as I can't get enough of it! It's good to be here and every time I'm here it is just perfect. Oh, and I love Sofia, as I love Bulgaria and all the bulgarian people - I treat them deep in myself as close relatives somehow. I don't know, how, and why, it is just so. I can't do anything about it. Or, well, actually, I can. I can write about it and also about other things, slowly, little by little, malko po malko.

Ten Days Here and Ten Days There

I'm writing a fast and short one now. It's 2 am, I'm trying to type as quietly as I can because there is a little family trying to sleep in their little home in their little room in Sofia. They had been hosted me for three days, and they are the people who has harts as big as a whale has.

Catch Up With...

This was the text I sent to CouchSufring after spending a day in an expensive hotel in Craiova - I'm looking for a couch so I could stay one more day in Craiova, so I can catch up with my writings and with editing my photos and with planning my trip further. This was the first time I used CouchSurfing.

Slowing Down During Acceleration

I switched to the mode to first write in Hungarian, than translate it to English. I had no possibility to write for many days, so this time I gave birth to a huge, endless post in Hungarian. I won't be able to translate the whole text, instead, I try to get the essence from it in a shorter version.

Riding Alone with Company

After spending two days at Alba Iulia I felt I have to go. I've already knew where are the good and cheep places to eat, where to stop and when the traffic lamps change so I can slip through a road crossing. Also I felt we became friends with the romanian gardener in the camp - who could speak only romanian, but we had nice and funny discussions (as I can't speak romanian).

Just Notes

The man at the romainian border
The jump from the truck down to the roadside on E60 (no fall, no flat tyre).
The kind old lady on E60 / backyard camping
Her husband, the bike lover
The old Semperit he gave me

Thoughts between Lesu and Alba Iulia

This is the first time when I wrote the hungarian version first, so let's see how it works. :) Anyway, I feel myself a bit strange. Sometimes I could write novels, sometimes a word is too much. Also many things happened in the last week (actually, the first week) that I'm a bit confused. Surely it is familiar to everybody who had ever travelled further then the shop on the corner. Dense, intense, full of action and impressions. Huhh, what to say, how to go further?

Surviving and Getting Support

So many people asks me why I go alone. They say it is more dangerous, and I'll be lonely. Partly it is true, but since I'm on the way I met so many people, mostly friendly, smiling and helpful ones - and the list just getting longer.

How things getting smoother

I had the second broken spoke yesterday evening. I found a nice camp in Debrecen, had stand the bike to a tree and make a phone call. And suddenly, while the bike peacfully standing under the tree, one spoke sais: "Paioung". Welcome, second broken spoke! What would you like to tell me?

The Scope of a Broken Spoke

I'm writing now in my tent in a camp in Tiszafüred. I just started but I decided to have a whole rest day here. This is one nice property of not making strict plans day by day - so I make use of it.

Checking the Gadgets - Only for geeks!

I`m thinking of how I`ll manage noting down my thoughts and editing and uploading photos when on the move. I have a laptop but it`s obviously too heavy to carry with me and it`s battery lasts only for one or two hours - I imagine there can be situations when I`ll have time and mood to write but have no access to any kind of power supply. So I`m in the process of finding a better solution.

Why I think it's important to write...

...about my trip. I hope this whole journey will be a big step in the process of clearing, cleansening, purifying my mind. Hopefully a big step forward.

There are so many pages throughout the Internet I've read and what pushed me little by little to this hereandnow, where me, too, am writing about whys and hows. I found those pages made me think of my whole life in a different way, they slowly changed my views on many things. If I don't have some extra time I had in the office reading and browsing the web looking after some interesting and motivating pages, I'm sure I was still sitting there dreaming of some complately different life but in the meantime doing nothing. If I didn't read, I don't move now.

How plans are shaping...

...and how my trip is building up from little fragments - I'm just wondering. I've received a tip to check out a web site where there is a detailed description of a ten day long organized trip in Turkey. As I was reading through the program I've found the name Mevlana (Rumi), and the place Konya. Most probably I'll visit this place.

Hungarian version started

It became obvious that starting a log like this only in English language is not that much enough. So I just started a hungarian one and will update both as the ride is going on.

Also there is a little link below the blog description on both pages linking on each other. Simple solution what works - design comes later. (Uh, I can feel some kind of programmer attitude here).

Why I quit my safe, secure and well paid job

I love riding the bike. I love travelling. I love writing. I love taking cool pictures what others love. To bring this together, I thought why not go on a big cycle ride taking a little camera, a notepad and myself with me, pushing the peadls permanently.

For this, I had to quit my job. There were versions of the trip what I could manage to take in some weeks without quitting my job, but that would be a complately different issue, that would be a holiday. The situation is way more complex and different. Don't stop reading!

Last day in the cubicle...

...after sitting here five years. I can hardly comment on it. Rainy. Wonderful.

Let Mr. Twain speak instead of me:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

And now, partytime!

Start Date

I’ll start the journey from my hometown, Eger, on the 31^st of July, 2011. I choose this location because I was already planning a back-in-time tour with my old friends whom I was biking a lot in the surroundings of Eger. Unfortunately we’ve seen each other rarely in the past 20 years – with some of them only 1-2 occasions. I really hope the old group of friends can come together on the first day ride to the direction of Tisza.

So I’ll hopefully meet my old buddies at 9 am. in front of the Collage building, from where we used to start every Saturday / Sunday morning.

Till that time I have two more weeks in the office and I’ll have one month to prepare and clear all my dealings here so I’ll leave no duties behind. 

Ah, and also, whoever reads this accidentally and interested, of course can join the tour, all welcome!