Tangna تنگنا

Previously published on a blog on wordpress.com, now long gone.

Again, I arrived at a border after bad hitchhiking and more busses. Decided to walk the last 10 km to Turkey. It was hot, but ok. It took a couple of hours, and there very few cars, none of which cared to pick up a sweating, dirty bum. After crossing the border, with more passport checks than usual, I found out that there is no bus whatsoever going to the next village, Dereköy, which is some 40 away. I hang out there for a while, try to talk to people and hitchhike the few cars passing. There is also a taxi driver there whom I talk a little to in the few words of English he knows. He has a little shed there which he sleeps in between the, very few I suppose, jobs he gets. He seems to be mostly a good guy, and also offers me some food. After a couple of hours I understand that my chances here are mostly zero, and the evening is getting late. So I end up being his customer to Kirklareli where I spend the night in a small hotel.

The next day becomes a long mix of shorter hitches and busses, jumping over quite a few cities on the way to İstanbul.

I never managed to get a ride on that big highway, but I did manage to take busses, trams a ferries to get to Üsküdar, an asian part of the city, east of the Bosphorus, and meet Özge. A very slow evening is spend with cooking some food and talking, and then sleeping for 12 hours.

That was yesterday. Today I have been walking around for hours, thinking about many things. Perhaps tomorrow I am taking that last jump to Sinop with a bus, all the way. I probably said it before; the road is tiring this time… Not bad, but tiring. Looking forward to staying 2-3 weeks near one place.

Good evening!

This winding journey took me through Anatolia, over the Caucasus and as far as the Persian Gulf. I returned to Scandinavia in the spring of 2009, but left soon enough for the Baltics, crossing through Eastern and Western Europe once again…