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Monday, October 14th - Plovdiv to Istanbul - 13,394 km
The morning arrives and the three of us, Dragos, Sergei and I, rouse ourselves out of bed and prepare to leave. I am hungry, as I am sure they are too, but there is no time to look for a restaurant meal and make it back into Plovdiv in time for Sergei to get to work. Dragos is focused on his driving, which consists of speeding most of the way. I am not sure if he is showing off here too, but we do get to Plovdiv by 8 am. Sergei goes straight to work. Dragos explains that he doesn’t need to dress more formally for work. Sergei comes across a s a slob, so I am sure that would suit him well.
Dragos drops me off at the hostel where he picked me up. He wants to exchange address so I go through the motions out of politeness, knowing neither of us will ever write. I check that my bags are still safe – they are – and then I head straight to the railway terminal to check the schedules to Istanbul. It is a full day’s ride to Svilengrad, at least 120 km away, and it is mostly flat. From Svilengrad, it is 12 km to the border and from there probably another 160 to Istanbul. I have spent much of the past day, when left to my own thoughts, wondering how I should do this. The valley is empty, void of any interesting sites or sizable towns, and Thrace, the European part of Turkey is almost as empty and seemingly endless. Then there is the difficulty of arriving in a massive city, larger than any city I have cycled through in Europe. I can scarcely imagine the congestion, the confusion, the noise and pollution going on for at least a couple hours as I enter, and if they drive here anything like Egyptians did in Cairo seven years ago I will definitely be taking my life in my hands.
The solution, it seems, is to take the train from Plovdiv to Istanbul, to spare myself two unpleasant days, but there is a problem when I get to the train station. The train will not take my bicycle past Svilengrad. I will have to get off there and ride over the border to Edirne, the first city inside Turkey. From there I will need to buy a second ticket to Istanbul. The train to Svilengrad leaves at 10:30 am and arrives at noon. I but a ticket and return to my hostel to pack and reclaim my bike.
After packing, I have a horrible realization – that I have lost my key to my Kryptonite U-lock for my bicycle. I search everywhere but I must have lost it at the spa. I have made it through 20 countries without losing a key and, with amazing irony, Saturday, when I placed my bike in the storeroom, was the first time I have not locked my bike on this trip. That staves off the crisis for now, but I cannot bring my bike into any hotel and cannot leave it unlocked anywhere else. I am full of worry in spite my incredible luck.
I have time to eat breakfast and cycle to the station in plenty of time. There is a baggage car for by bicycle, something I always check for after my fiasco in southern France (Days 61-67). The train leaves on schedule. As I watch the scenery rolling by the train window, I am glad I chose the train. It is as flat as a cookie sheet and treeless. There is an eastern headwind too, which would have made it harder.
Svilengrad is a drab small town with not a lot of character, except for a low Roman bridge that arches its way across the Maritsa River. I stop by a fruit kiosk in a couple blocks from the train station to pick up some apples and oranges for the rest of my trip. I am not sure what I will find between here and Istanbul.
It is a flat ride by the river between Svilengrad and the border. I cover the distance in less than 40 minutes. I join a queue of people waiting for inspection at the border crossing. “Doing a big trip, uh?” a man who is leaning against his car ask me. He is checking me over, tapping his cigarette case insistently, as if the cigarettes are refusing to come out. “Why is it that you Canadians always feel the need to plaster your bags with Canadian flags?” I am not used to being checked out or questioned critically by others. In response, I am doing a quick assessment of him myself. His accent is French.
“I guess to show we are not Americans, and yes, I have cycled from Portugal for more than seven months. Where are you headed?” I return the question. “Well, I was on my way to my flat in Istanbul from my home in Sofia with my wife and child, but the Turkish border guards won’t let my 3 month old child across without a visa of his own, so my wife has had to return to Sofia with him.” The question has obviously worked him up as he bangs his cigarette case harder. There won’t be much left of those cigarettes when he finally needs to smoke one.
“I have to continue onto Istanbul. Would you like a ride?” My jaw drops open, like a kid who has just been offered a ride to Disneyland. “All the way to Istanbul?” I ask, stupidly. “Well, there’s no point getting off before then. There isn’t much between here and there,” he snickers sarcastically, but smiling at my show of gratitude. “My name is Mario, and I could use your company to keep mind off my thoughts between here and there. I am ready to kill that fucking bureaucrat at the Turkish embassy in Sofia who refused to give me a visa because he said I didn’t need one. Believe me, I will have his head when I get back to Sofia. That incompetent scoundrel will be living on the street.
Mario meets me on the far side of the border and loads my bike and bags into the trunk of his car. I climb into the passenger seat and he takes off. He’s a fast driver but not reckless. I ask about his background. He is from Lyons but moved here within months of the fall of communism to capitalize (get it?) on the situation. As far as I can make out he is in business with a partner, something to do with import, export and possibly investments. He has to meet the said partner in Ankara tomorrow afternoon so he has to leave early tomorrow morning.
“You can stay at my place in Besiktas, while I am away,” he offers me, glancing sideways from his driving to catch my reaction. “Really? That is very kind of you, and very generous and trusting,” I say, meaning every word. “But I will be back on Thursday and my wife and son will join be on Friday so you have to leave Friday morning.” He says this like a warning, perhaps to soften my awe over his generosity. “Of course. I am very clean and considerate,” I add. “I know,” he chuckles. “You’re Canadian.”
Mario is the type who believes in possibilities and opportunities. He is going places and fast – he has ambition. He’s not bad looking but seems a bit cut throat to me, which is not my style. I think he knows that too, but one competitive person is enough in the car.
I watch the Thracian scenery fly by. There are endless rolling brown fields here. The harvests are in and everything looks barren, an ominous reminder that winter is approaching. Past Edirne, which we fly by in five minutes, there do not seem to even be any villages on the route, but then the expressway was built to service traffic to Istanbul, not the villages.
When we reach Istanbul the traffic is nightmarish. There are so many cars crowding the streets and it seems to go on forever as dusk is coming on. “How many people does Istanbul have?” I ask him. “Eleven million by day, eight million at night,” he answers. It is not a flat city either. There are towering hills here everywhere, some too steep to build on. Expressways follow the valleys and streets climb the hills – endless streams of headlights and taillights in every direction, crawling over the landscapes. We are caught in it for more than an hour even though we are headed against the stream. I am so grateful to him for rescuing me from this chaos, and to the Gods who are watching over me.
Mario’s flat is up a steep hill in Besiktas, a neighbourhood about seven kilometres from the core. It is lovely and spacious, with a view of the constant traffic inching its way along the waterfront of the Bosporus, the great, historic waterway that divides Europe and Asia. Traveling as a backpacker or cyclist is often difficult, requiring that one give up his life pleasures and security to experience it, but there are rare moments like this when I am taken in and pampered. It makes me feel blessed. When I return to Canada I pledge to help travelers out whenever I can.
Mario calls his wife in Sofia and they chat in French for a few minutes. All is well, he tells me, but he’s still going to get that civil servant fired when he gets back to Sofia. I believe him. He takes me out to a fancy French restaurant about a five block walk away. We share a carafe of wine, although he says he doesn’t usually like to drink. I ask if he likes Turkey, or Bulgaria. Neither really, but Sofia is a better place to live and raise a family. Both place are rife with corruption, he says, but the Turks are untrustworthy and ruthless. They are one of the cruelest villains of history, he concludes.
Climbing back up the hill, I ask him what all the triangular flags hanging from wires over the street are for. There are thousands of them, like a car dealership that has turned all the side streets into the biggest automobile sale in history. There’s an election on, he explains. There are five parties and the two main ones are the ultra-nationalist Motherland Party, which uses a cartoon honey bee logo, and the other right-wing party, the True Path Party. They are in a real struggle now as the Motherland Party, which has always won, has recently lost its charismatic leader. There is also a rising religious party and two smaller socialist parties. The pro-Kurdish Peace & Democracy Party (PKK) has been banned from this election. The vote will be on the 20th in six days.
We are both spent by the time we return to his flat. He sets me up on the couch, which is very comfortable. I am out like a light.
PHOTO 1: train station in Plovdiv
PHOTO 2: outskirts of Svilengrad
PHOTO 3: market street in Svilengrad
PHOTO 4: Roman bridge in Svilengrad
PHOTO 5: border guards at Bulgarian-Turkish border
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