The city that never sleeps

Coming home for Christmas was definitely a good idea. We finally had some time for our families, but also for ourselves, a few days in an environment that was well known and safe, without huge adventures, but with lots of fun and extra tasty (and familiar!) food. A moment to cool down and sort out the memories and impressions crowding inside our heads. It felt good to be home. Writing the blog turned out to be a great idea too! I was surprised how many people actually did read it regularly. Thanks to that we didn't have to try to sum up the whole story and repeat it over and over again, but could focus on particular questions or details, that our friends were interested in. And it proved to me, that I am not wasting my time completely, writing it all down :)

But all good things come to an end, to make place for new adventures. We have made a general plan, found flight tickets that would not ruin our budget completely and decided to spend the next 10 weeks traveling through Southeast Asia, trying to see as much as we can without making it all too stressful. Since the flight to Bangkok was the cheapest one, we decided to begin our journey in Thailand, hoping for an easy start.

I have to say I don't really like flying and try to avoid it whenever I can. Every time I have to go to Poland I am deliberately choosing a 20 hours bus ride instead of a plane. It's not that I would be afraid, I just don't like it and since it's not really very ecological, I have a good excuse not to do it unless it's really unavoidable. This time it was. The flight was few times longer than anything I have done so far, making me feel a bit uneasy, especially after choosing Eastern China Airlines, which we never even heard of before. Fortunately, we had no reason to worry or complain. The service was perfect and the plane was so nice and clean, that it felt like a high standard hotel. Even the food was good. It wasn't full either, so we had enough space to sleep, but we have never really made it that far, since we were too busy watching movies on demand, checking all the titles we have missed the last 6 months. And the food was pretty good too. Ten hours went by before I even noticed.

The only problem was, we had a small delay. We have managed to catch the connecting flight in Shanghai, but our bags were not as lucky, which left us standing at the Bangkok airport with empty hands, wearing our winter clothes, which we needed in Europe before. The good news was, the bags were not lost, simply delayed. The bad one, they reached Bangkok a day latter then we did. Well, I had to do my first shopping in Thailand a bit earlier than planned.

I believe that whether you like Bangkok or not, strongly depends on what you've seen before coming here. I'm quite sure I would have hated it a year ago. I would probably think it's a total mess and one huge chaos. But the last 6 months changed my point of view completely. Compared to the capital of Mongolia most cities seem clean and well organized. And so did Bangkok. A perfectly synchronized machine, making a constant pleasant noise. And compared to Iranian drivers, the ones in Bangkok are civilized and extremely careful. All in all I liked it a lot.  

The real shock was waiting for us in the touristic center of the city, where we went to look for a hotel. Don't get me wrong, we were not expecting to be alone there, but still, the number of tourists took our breath away. The whole area was full with European people, that were by far outnumbering the locals. I thought I have seen touristic places before, but I guess they were not even close to what we experienced here. But it was not really the quantity that was worrying us. Quality seemed to be a bigger problem. I try to avoid generalization and I know for sure there are quite a few cool people traveling through the region, but it doesn't change the fact that a huge group of tourist seems to come here only to get drunk or stoned until they most probably don't even know where they are anymore. You hear them screaming and fighting every evening, you see them lying lifeless at the breakfast tables a day after and you quickly understand why local people do not seem to be too happy about working in tourism industry. It was honestly disgusting. Fortunately most of those people hardly ever moved more than 500 meters away from their hotel or favorite bar, so we could visit the rest of the city without having to face them too often.

Moving around Bangkok is a tricky thing, as public transport is poorly developed and traffic is huge. That is why we tried to do most sightseeing by foot or taking the public boat for longer distances (ticket costs less than 50 cent). It was a great idea, as in this way we were able to get to the parts of the city not many tourists visit. We even managed to have a whole temple to ourselves once, which I would never consider possible, taking under account how many tourist come here in high season. I guess we were really lucky. We took a public boat early in the morning to see the sunrise on the river. We got out at the Wat Arun to make a few pictures, though we knew that the place didn't open for the next two hours or so. There was even a big sign with official opening hours, so we didn't bother to ask. But suddenly a guy holding a bunch of keys appeared next to us, opened the door and pointed us to the ticket office. A minute later we were climbing endless and really steep steps to get to the top of the temple, all alone in one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city. It was amazing! And I was really glad there was no one around, cause climbing those huge steps was one thing, but getting down again, was the harder part of the task. I managed to keep my vertigo under control, but it took some time and would certainly be much more difficult with hundreds of other people jumping around. But the view from the top was certainly worth the trouble.

Bangkok seems to be busy at any time of a day and the city really has an unique atmosphere, which even thousands of tourist didn't manage to destroy yet. And it is so totally different than anything we have seen on our journey so far. The culture, architecture, even the food, it's a different world, a world full of shiny gold temples and intensive smells, where colorful tuk-tuks are fighting their way through the streets. If the rest of Thailand is equally fascinating, I can hardly wait to explore it! But we have to postpone it a bit. Two weeks exactly, as we already booked plane tickets for Myanmar, a country we wanted to visit for quite some time now. 

Karossi reactivation

The first thing we wanted to do after we got to Ankara was finding our car. We headed to the official Volkswagen center, but unfortunately, it wasn't there. It took some time and a few phone calls to find out, that the truck got stuck shortly before the city, because of some technical problems, but the car would be there tomorrow. And so it was. Unfortunately the truck came to late and was stopped from entering the city (they are not allowed to drive through during the day), so we had to make a round trip to collect the car and get it to the right place, using Gerrit's car and our towing experience again. And the place was right indeed. I do not believe we could have put Karossi in any better hands.

Shortly after arrival we have met Eren, another member of the VW club, who not only speaks perfect English, but also knows T3 Syncros by heart. He has repaired and rebuilt his own car so often, that I guess he could do it in sleep now. He took us to Mustafa, the best VW specialist in town. He is actually specializing in Beetles, but can repair Transporters just as well, which we were happy to witness. The garage was a simple place, no high tech toys or expensive gadget, but a few guys who liked old cars and had fun bringing them back to life. However, the diagnosis stayed the same, we had to open the engine and exchange quite a few parts. We were stuck in Ankara for at least a week.

I will not lie to you, we did not have the time of our lives in Ankara. All days were pretty much the same. We were going to the garage after breakfast and coming back in the evening to get some dinner. We had fun and enjoyed the time we spent with Mustafa and his friends, but we would rather have Karossi running again to get on the road and see the rest of the country. I felt especially useless, as there was not much I could actually do. Guys were running all over the place, helping with parts and tools, while I was spending long hours in Mustafa's room, writing our blog, organizing pictures and reading books.

Ankara is quite a nice place, but it doesn't really have that much to offer for tourists. It does have some nice restaurants and cinemas playing movies in original tone, but apart from that it is just another big city. But we had a friend who helped us communicate and organize everything, a specialist, who knew how to fix our car and all the spare parts we needed, so we had no reason to complain. And we even had some time for sightseeing, since the garage was closed on Sunday.

Monday was supposed to be the big day. The engine was nearly complete and all we had to do was to get it back in the car and pray it would work. It turned out to be quite a challenge, as the engine was not really willing to move anywhere, especially not back to where it belonged. But the guys didn't leave it much choice. I guess we all stopped breathing for a moment when Mustafa turned the keys to start the car. But Karossi responded instantly, sending huge clouds of black and white smoke and plenty of dust into the air. And he sounded good again. Everything seemed fine, apart from the fact, that the oil lamp was blinking like crazy. Something was still wrong, but since it was late, we decided to leave it till tomorrow.

We were not in the best moods when we came back next day. But when we arrived, we saw Karossi running again, no lamp blinking. Mustafa told us he had a sleepless night and stayed awake to analyze everything until he got to the conclusion, that everything had to be all right and the only explanation would be, that the oil sensor got broken on the way. It turned out he was right again. We did a test drive, then another one and when everything seemed OK, we left for Istanbul not to loose any additional day. You can imagine we were a bit oversensitive on the way, checking oil and water every hundred kilometers and listening carefully to every single noise our car made. But everything looked fine. We were loosing a bit oil, but not enough to start worrying seriously and Eren already organized a garage in Istanbul, which agreed to check everything again, just to make sure it's still fine. We were back on the road!

We have both been in Istanbul before and although we liked it a lot we were not planning to stay for too long this time. Especially that Christmas was getting closer and closer and we still had a long drive home. We just wanted to have a nice walk through the city, visit the places we liked best the last time and save the rest of time and money for the big bazaar. We had some second thoughts about it, but when we noticed, that the entrance fees for most sites are around 15 Euro we gave it up for good and decided, we would rather invest this money in a nice backgammon set, since Hafez has definitely managed to get us addicted to this game.

For the last night in Turkey we have chosen a small city called Edirne, which proved to be a perfect choice. Though it was just a short stop on our journey it allowed us to see the beauty of Islamic culture once again. Its magnificent mosques looked especially pretty during the night and the bustling bazaar was a perfect place for the last minute shopping. When all the last presents and souvenirs were bought, we were ready to go back home.

The border formalities went pretty quickly and before we noticed we were back in EU. I would love to tell you that European part of our journey was just as nice and adventurous as the rest of it and as interesting, as we originally planned it to be, but I'm afraid it would not be quite true. We tried to make the best of it, but our time was limited, it was raining all the time and we desperately wanted to get back home before Christmas. So we were basically driving from one capital to another, trying to do some sightseeing in the evening, before we would go to sleep to recover and be able to drive another long hours the next day. It was a pity, but we decided we will visit those countries again as soon as possible, as we are sure they have a lot to offer, especially in sprig or summer time.

But the most important thing is, that Karossi is running well again. He managed to get us home on time, without any troubles on the way, driving across half of Europe. And all that with his summer tires on...

It was not easy to leave him behind, but I'm sure he will enjoy his rest, parked in a nice garage until we come to collect him next spring to get him back home, to Karlsruhe. And for us the journey continues. After a short break spent with our families we are packing our bags again to get all the way down to South East Asia, for the next 10 fascinating weeks. 

Back to the stone age

Turkey is an extraordinary land. They seem to have everything there. They have seas and mountains, sun and snow, modern cities as well as ancient ruins. And above all, they still have really amazing landscape. Make a wish and simply choose the right direction and you'll find what you're looking for. Our direction was clear, we had to meet up with Karossi in Ankara, making the best of our route, getting to see both, the nature and the history. It wasn't a big challenge. Ancient sites are not exactly hard to find there, as they seem to be spread all over the map of Turkey. And so are the most picturesque nature spots. All we had to do is stop the car in the right moments.

The weather was perfect. There was no sign of snow on the roads and the days were sunny, although a bit chilly. We decided to check how it looks like in the higher regions of the country and headed for the Nemrut Dagi, an amazing volcanic crater. The road was pretty curvy and bumpy, but the view from the top was definitely worth the ride. Everything was covered with fresh snow and once again, we were the only people around. We decided to take advantage of it by making a round trip through all the small lakes. It was stunning.

We were not really in a hurry, so we decided to enjoy the ride and check out all the historical places we could find on our way. We were climbing to the temples and tombs, watching monuments and carvings, driving through ancient bridges, which were still strong enough to hold the car packed with 3 people and all our baggage. I have to say I was impressed.

Since it was getting dark pretty early, we were spending evenings in different cities enjoying fantastic local food and very good beer. It is hard to just go and drink a beer in Turkey. Pubs, the way we know them are not easy to find in many places. And normally, when you order a drink you will additionally be presented with a hole assortment of food. You will get fresh fruits, vegetable sticks, nuts and delicious sweets. But often you may get even more... I have already heard a few stories about how people went to get a drink in different places in Central Asia and ended running away from a lap dance or even more direct offers, but I always believed they were simply choosing the wrong places. One evening I had the chance to see how it works myself.

We entered a nice looking restaurant, with live music and good food. It was recommended by a friend we met earlier that day. He was a nice guy and the place looked good too, so I was not expecting anything unusual. Only David had his doubts. But the place was full with girls of different ages, dressed casually and looking nothing like top models, so I though he was a bit oversensitive. And the live music was nice too. The lights went out, people were singing and dancing and before we noticed we were also standing in the middle of the place, trying to learn some traditional Turkish dances. Only then did I notice that the nice girls, who even introduced themselves to us, are somehow going from table to table, either being sent away or instantly landing in the arms of a guy sitting there. Some couples were also disappearing quickly, only to come back separately a moment after. After a while we had no doubts, we ended up in a brothel. Moreover, we were actually having good time there. The best moment came together with a policeman. Suddenly someone shouted something and the whole places turned into a chaos. We were totally surprised and had no idea what's up until someone told us “police, no problem”. In less than a minute all cigarettes and ashtrays were gone (it turned out it was a non smoking place), the air was sprayed to cover the smell and all girls changed tables, looking as if they came there with a group of friends, totally innocent. And there we were, sitting in a corner of a brothel, laughing so hard we could hardly breathe.

With this valuable new experience and few memories we will probably never share with anyone else we continued our journey. Kilometer by kilometer, stone by stone we were getting closer to the expected highlight of our trip, Cappadocia

We were told it is the most touristic place in the entire country and I can tell you, it was not an overstatement. We were traveling way out of season and have hardly seen any foreign tourists so far. Hotels were nearly empty and the room prices were a real bargain. But we quickly found out, it would be slightly different this time. We were heading to Göreme, the most famous of all Cappadocian villages and the closer we were getting the more huge tourist buses were passing us by. To get to the center we had to drive next to the most popular open air museum, where we could really understand what we're up against. There were lines of buses trying to find a place to park, letting hundreds of people in and out without a break. They all looked like one huge colorful river. No wonder that the first few hotels we tried were fully booked. But we were told not to worry, as it was low season and there are not so many tourist in the city. If that's not so many, then I guess I don't want to know how the place looks during the peak season...

But true enough we managed to find a nice accommodation without much trouble. Every second building was a hotel and the rates were actually reasonable, so we decided to allow ourselves some real luxury. We have booked The Flinstones Cave Hotel, which was supposed to serve the best breakfast in the area (and it did!). But it was actually offering much more. The room was a cave, cut into the face of the rock. But it was far from stone age standards. We had a king size bed and a huge bathroom with shower and jacuzzi. We felt a bit out of place remembering the nights we spend in a lousy hostel dormitory or crappy soviet hotel. I don't even want to know how much a room like this would have cost in a high season or in Western Europe. I was glad it fit our budget and enjoyed every minute we spent there. Though, fortunately or unfortunately, Cappadocia had so much to offer, that we spent most of the time outside. The place is simply stunningly beautiful. It's more wonderful than I could have ever imagined. No matter how full and touristic it gets it is absolutely fantastic and incomparable with anything else I have seen so far. For me it was love from first sight.

We decided to start the trip by visiting the open air museum, which is mostly famous for the well preserved cave churches. We went there early in the morning, hopping to avoid crowds, but it didn't really work out. I believe this place is simply always full. So if you want to enter any of the churches or other buildings you have to wait your turn. But it goes pretty quickly, as there are special workers, who make sure no group stays inside for longer than 3 minutes. It makes you fell a bit like a small bottle on a factory line, being moved with all the other bottles form one station to another in precisely described periods of time. Shortly said, it was disgusting. But the place was magnificent anyway. Only that after a while we gave up entering the buildings and focused on the breathtaking scenery.

I guess the best word to describe the Cappadocia is “impressive”. Before we came there I was expecting to see a few caves and some nice ancient buildings. But the place is enormous and full of stones turned into palaces, churches, homes or anything else you may imagine. There are even entire underground cities, with common spaces, food storages and their own water supply systems. It is absolutely unbelievable. So even if it is “a bit packed” and food prices are way higher than anywhere else, it is still definitely worth a visit!

Misery loves company

Everything seemed perfect. Karossi was back on the road and Europe was getting closer with every hour of the drive. Unfortunately, our joy didn't last long. We haven't even made it till Van, our first goal right after the Turkish border, when Karossi started making some really scary noises and began to loose oil faster than we could refill it. We were stuck again. This time on a quiet and deserted fuel station, in the middle of the mountains, where the temperature were somewhere below freezing. Help was on the way though! Gerrit, who seemed to be getting experienced in saving our lives, was only one day behind us. The situation was not hopeless yet.

Fortunately we were in a Muslim country, where people are famous not only for their hospitality, but also creativity. Before we noticed someone organized tea and warm food and heating was turned on in a nearby praying room. Such rooms can be often seen along the highway, those are usually small spaces with a carpet on the floor and few praying utensils lying around. But for one night, right after the evening prayer it became a bedroom for two. Sleeping there was a bit weird to be honest, but since the only alternative was a unheated, nearly frozen car, we decided to go for it. But how do you behave while sleeping in a praying room? Should you put your head direction Mecca? Or the feet maybe? Should you keep your headscarf on? I still haven't found the answers to all this questions, but we slept well anyway. And the next day we took our beloved towing rope out once again and hang it at the back of Gerrit's car, ready to be dragged for a countless number of kilometers, trying to stay warm in the unheated car, that was for some reason still letting the freezing winter air in. We have gathered some significant experience in those matters, but somehow it still wasn't my favorite way of traveling.

We were all completely run down when we reached Van, so we stayed in the first hotel we managed to find. Tomorrow the whole car fixing procedure would start again. We had no idea where to begin with and we soon found out that communicating in English would not get us far. We definitely needed help. A short internet research led us to a site, which changed our Turkisch adventure for good. When we were posting our question on http://www.volkswagen-t3.com we were not having any high hopes. We described our problem shortly before going to bed, hoping that maybe someone would give us an address or a telephone number we could try for a start. We couldn't believe our eyes when we checked the page the next morning. There was a whole list of new posts and T3 fans from all over Turkey were getting involved to help us solve our problems. Altug, one of the fan club members from Istanbul called us early in the morning and the plan was made. After breakfast we would meet with Enver, a member form Van, who would take us to his mechanic to see what went wrong. And so we did.

I have to make a short pause here, as there is one small, but very important detail, that is certainly worth some attention. The breakfast. In Van breakfast is not just a meal. It's a piece of art! For around 4 Euro per person your table turns into all you can eat and drink buffet, filled with fried eggs, olives, different kinds of cheese and meat, amazing honey dishes and vegetables of all sorts. No matter how hard the day ahead may seem, after such a delicious start all problems look only half as hard and scary.

Unfortunately, our problems were still pretty serious. The mechanic heard the noises only for a few seconds before he knew, what was wrong. We would have to take the engine out and exchange quite a few parts. However, it made no sense to do it in Van, as we would have a lot of trouble finding all the parts and tools we needed. Going to Ankara was the only reasonable solution. Enver started working on this task immediately. We needed to transport Karossi through half of Turkey, the land with highest fuel prices in the world, without ruining our budget. We decided to check it with ADAC, our insurer, to see if we can count on them for any support. Unfortunately, they normally do not cover anything more than 150km and we needed around 1000 km more. Anyway, they told us they need an opinion from the official VW garage to provide us with any help in the first place. We considered it a waste of time, but decided to do it anyway, since the garage was not far and we didn't know what kind of help may still be necessary.

Once again a few seconds were enough to clear the situation and the previous diagnosis was confirmed. We needed parts and a T3 specialist, and Ankara was the place to go. Though they had a very professional garage in Van, with some really good mechanics, they were specializing in the newest models and had too little experience with old cars like ours to risk doing the job. But they wanted to help us anyway. Few phone calls were made, information were exchanged, meanwhile Enver joined us again to help clarify the matters in Turkish language and before we noticed we were presented with a solution, better than anything we could have expected. In a few days a truck filled with new cars would come to Van. The cars would stay there, but the truck, nearly empty, would be driving back to the capital, ready to transport Karossi all the way for a standard flat rate of around 120 Euro. Knowing the fuel prices in Turkey (reaching sometimes above 2 Euro pro liter) we knew we could hardly leave the town for this amount of money, so we accepted it without thinking twice. Moreover, when the garage called our insurance company to clarify the matters ADAC agreed to cover all the costs. We had a plan again.

Only one question remained. What would we do in a meantime. The VW garage told us we only need to leave them the key and the copy of the car documents and they would take care of everything else. We knew we would most certainly get stuck in Ankara for a couple of days anyway, so we didn't want to waste any additional time. We still wanted to see the country and have some fun before we would get stuck in one place again. The decision was made quickly. We packed our stuff in no time and threw it into Gerrit's car. For the coming week we would travel together in his Toyota. It would allow us to do some serious sightseeing and help him reduce the exorbitant fuel prices. We took off immediately.