Afternoon at the Sultan's Palace

We spent the afternoon at the last Sultan's Palace, touring the grounds and going inside to see the Harem. They had the most amazing chandeliers I've seen in my life, huge, stunning pieces which accompanied similar rooms, with multidimensional frescoes painted on everything. Very impressive. So is having 8 wives at your disposal at any one time!

Doing the Limbo in Istanbul

We are stuck in Limbo in Istanbul, maybe the worst thing that can psychologically happen to a traveler. We are trying to find a shipping company to send Clara's bike to the US. We are waiting to get our passports back from the Indian Embassy. We are finding it nearly impossible to send money to Iran to get our Visa from there thanks to all the US banking and other embargoes against the Iranians, who spend 1 percent of what we do on military spending every year.

Meanwhile, it gets colder and wetter ever day. There was talk of snow in the Turkish mountains today. The prospects are bleak. Can't really go anywhere without passports, and we don't know where to go, and all of our plans could be thrown in the air if any part of the plan doesn't work out.

We have been making some friends. We had a great dinner with a Canadian and British couple who have been teaching English in Iraq for the last 6 months. Yes, Iraq. They were in the northern Kurdish area, the only teachers there living in a quiet town where not much happened and everyone was very nice to them, very appreciative, and they didn't feel threatened at all. However, with the Turkish putting 100,000 troops on the border they decided it was sensible to retrench to Istanbul and work here for a time.

We met a couple of motorcycle adventure travelers who just came through Iran and Pakistan and had a wonderful time, never felt threatened. They had an interesting comment: In Iran the people are liberal and the government is conservative. In Pakistan the people are conservative and the government is liberal. We need to see for ourselves, we hope.

There is much anger here against George Bush, his policies and America in general. I have definitely felt antagonism from other nationalities especially before people get to know us. Another Canadian said disdainfully, after I told her that Americans and Canadians needed an escort in Iran, "how did we get thrown in with your lot". People are not afraid to be impolite as soon as they find out you are from America with comments about how much they dislike America right now.

Amazing how we see more Canadians traveling than Americans, of course they make up about 10 percent of our population but they seem to be more well traveled. Turkish people usually ask us if we are German or Canadian or Dutch or British before they come around to wondering if we could possibly be Americans. There is a long tradition of German/Turkish relations ever since they were allies in the First World War.

Election day today in Boston, sounds like very low turnout and the candidate who promised us absentee ballots didn't produce so two less votes for him.

I got a shave while I was carpet shopping the other day, when was the last time you had a sharp razor at your throat while you were doing business in America? Too often, perhaps, in some of our inner cities.

Istanbul by night

So, we are back in Istanbul and have settled once again in our hostel in the Taksim area of town. Yesterday began rainy and dreary again, just as it had been when we left the city a couple of weeks ago so we thought we might be in for another two weeks of wet weather and were non too happy to think of this. We spent the day trying to get quotes for shipping my bike back home: on the phone, online and even in person. So far, the prices we have gotten are much higher than expected, so we were a bit unnerved by the end of the day.

However, as fate would have it, we found out once again just how small this world is when Kevin ran into a friend of Jan, our host in Munich! Marco is a fellow RTW motorcyclist who has been traveling for the past seven (yes, seven) years. Kevin made plans to have dinner with him and his girlfriend and we soon invited a Frenchman named Gilles whom we had briefly met before we left. It was our first proper night out in Istanbul and we were very happy that the rain had stopped by the time we were ready to step out. Gilles met us at our hostel on his bike (he has an F650GS just like mine, but black) and he went ahead of us to meet Marco at our predetermined spot in front of the Blue Mosque. Kevin and I took a taxi because I had "dressed up" meaning I had somewhat done my hair, applied some eye makeup, and put on some earrings, so I did not want to wear a helmet and ruin my girly feeling. Traffic was horrendous and it took us about 1 hour to travel about three miles. We were late, but Gilles had found Marco, his girlfriend Carla, and their roommate Casper, and they were happily chatting away when we finally caught up with them.

We found a restaurant near by with some outside seating and settled in for an evening of great conversation, good food and lots of laughs. We talked travel, motorcycles, movies, pop culture and of course, politics. We were a multicultural group comprised of a Colombian, an American, a Frenchman, a South African, a German and a Dutchman, and so we found lots of things to disagree about, but also enough things in common to make the evening really enjoyable. By the time we headed home around midnight, Kevin and I were tired but happy, and looking forward to a good night's sleep.

Since we arrived in Istanbul a day earlier than we had predicted we had to share a dorm room with a loud snorer the first night, but last night we were in our own room and got some delicious sleep.

Time

Time is such a constant part of a journey like this. What is time? When is the sun going to set? Where can we get to in that amount of time? How are we going to remember these times? Why don’t we spend more time somewhere?

But time as history is our companion and tour guide. We are in This time, the dawn of a new century, the beginning of the information age, the age of globalization, and one takes a trip like this as a bookmark, a reminder, an annotator of how it is now. In our eyes. But we are also taking this trip through That time; to see, feel, learn about history as all travelers throughout the ages have. Indeed, it is the part of the definition of traveling to observe history because it is impossible for everything to be all new, all the time. Even if one only chose only Shanghai, Las Vegas and Dubai to circuitously travel to, the recent past but the past nonetheless would be present.

We think of Alexander the Great as part of history, but he was a traveler, a tourist, a student of history. When he came to Troy he sacrificed 1000 oxen as a tribute to the memory of the glorious fighters of a previous time. This is different only in scale to my raising a glass in salute to my ancestors at McCrea castle on our travels.

Without spending time observing history, this journey would not be so interesting or even worthwhile. The major experiences of trips such as this is to see new scenery, observe and meet new people and cultures, try new food, and observe history. There is also shopping, but Clara could speak better than I to that. Other than that, it is just asphalt,
beds, gas and maintenance.

Time and scale are interesting concepts. The first years of my life were spent in New England where history is very important, and goes back about 400 years, with some really important things happening 200 years ago. On this journey, we first went south and visited Mayans who were doing things an astounding 1500 years ago, but recent history was shaped 400 years ago by the Spaniards. We are now in the neck of the world which reached a peak an amazing 2000 years ago. Recent history was shaped 1700 years ago, or 500 years ago, or 83 years ago today with the beginning of the Turkish Cumhuriyet by Ataturk. Or maybe it was shaped last Sunday by the PKK raids against the Turk army?

The entire recorded history of mankind is perhaps 5,000 years. What is that? What do we have to show? I see many examples of the hypocrisy and hubris of man. Sacred burial chambers in their time were disturbed by grave robbers throughout the ages. But isn’t grave robber just a less fancy, but maybe more accurate name for archeologist? At what point in time is it acceptable for someone to dig up someone else who it must be assumed was buried, for eternity, in accordance with his wishes? The reality is that who ever is in power at the time may give permission for “modern” people in the name of science to dig up these graves. But no matter how you slice it, it is for the enrichment of the person or persons digging up the grave that this sacrilegious act is carried out. It often makes it that much easier that the dead believed in disproved Gods such as themselves, Zeus, Isis or Mother Earth. I feel so much better now that our modern theologians have figured out the proper God to honor. Which one is it again? Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Shiva, Mother Earth?

Proper perspective was given a couple nights ago in the deserted resort town of Patara, where you walk past dozens of ancient robbed Sarcophagi (or whiz past in an aircon bus)
on your way to the beautiful beach. We were sharing a pension with a young Turkish PhD candidate in geology. When asked what his specialty was, he responded that it was plate tectonics, but only for the last 5 million years. Only 5 million years? Only 1000 times all recorded human history? We talked about what a short time that was, in comparison to the Jurassic, and other truly ancient events. Think about that the next time, or maybe only time, you spend a ton of money on a Mausoleum!

8 months and counting...

Yesterday marked the completion of our eighth month on the road. As we drove into the town of Iznik, we drove through fields of small trees that were loosing their leaves to the fall weather and making tiny piles of bright orange leaves underneath them which made them look as if they were each setting small fires to keep themselves warm. It was quite a beautiful scene to mark this milestone with.

It was also Halloween in America so it was rather fitting that we spent part of our afternoon in the small city of Iznik looking for a proper "disguise" for me to wear while we travel through Iran. I have gotten conflicting information about just how covered up I need to be and what is and is not appropriate, so we held off on buying anything until we do a bit more research. However, no matter what we end up getting, I think one thing will be for certain: it will not be flattering! (But I guess that is part of the point.)

So, today began our ninth month of travels and in this month there will be a number of changes. Most significantly for me is that once we leave Istanbul for good, I will no longer be traveling on my own bike. The prospect of riding pillion with Kevin for the rest of the trip is very, very, bittersweet for me because while I really feel that I will be losing a part of my freedom and morphing into just another "back-of-the-bike-wife," I also know that I will probably be safer and we will be saving quite a bit of money on gas. I have ridden my bike now for over 24,000 miles across half of the world and though it may have felt in the beginning as if the 650cc red lion was my adversary, it has been my partner and accomplice, and a true pussy-cat for quite some time now and I will miss the purring as we zoom into the unknown.

Day and Night in OLYMPOS

We had a beautiful 100 mile ride along the Mediterranean sea yesterday ending up in "tree house" pension at the gates of the ancient city of Olympos. We took a refreshing afternoon swim in the beautiful, clear turquoise water before seeing some of the ruins on our way back to dinner.

In the nighttime we rode about 15 miles up and then down the switchback mountain road of Mt. Olympos, sacred mount of the God Vulcan and others. We walked up about a mile in the dark, a rock and dirt path to see the Chimeara.

The Chimeara are an unexplained phenomenon, flames coming from the rocks which have been burning as long as mankind has been recording history.

The locals say the methane gas doesn't burn as high as it used to, but they are still pretty amazing. We were both impressed and amazed at this natural wonder, which ships at sea can observe on the mountain. It was easy to understand how this could become a sacred site for the ancients

The Virgin Mary's House

We visited the alleged last home of the Virgin Mary. While Jesus was on the Cross, he is supposed to have told John to take care of 'his mother'. He moved to Turkey, where the St. John church was built. It is thought that Mary came with him. In the 1800's a stigmatic nun in Germany, who had never left the country had visions of the hills in the area of Turkey where she saw Mary living her last days and drinking from the local well. Two digs went to the area which were described accurately and the base of a stone house were found in the area described. It has now become a pilgrimage site for many people and the water is supposed to have brought miracles. We drank some just in case! It is a beautiful, tranquil spot, not very large which is now just a tiny chapel. Many popes have visited it and left their blessings as well. The picture of me with the wall of notes, are requests left by people for Mary. She is mentioned in the Koran, which considers Jesus a prophet, as the blessed mother of the prophet. So, many muslims visit the site and consider it holy as well.

Don't play with the Dead things!

See the 3000 year old Nike Swoosh displayed by the Goddess!



The main expensive street in Ephesus, lined with statues, mosaic tiles, shops and a public bath.



I keep telling Clara not to play with the Sarcophagi!




A turk, A canadian and A Kevin: there is hope for World Peace

brief update

We've decided to wait an extra day in Boldrum, to enjoy the sun, cheap pension, and let Clara look at jewelry!

We received our Visas to Pakistan yesterday, so now we need to figure out Iran and India and we will be on our way East. It doesn't help that Cheney and company seem to want to start bombing Iran before they are swept out the door.

We made friends with an Iraqi Kurd on the boat from the Ukraine to Istanbul. He invited us to his town in Iraq and he told us that it was plenty safe enough in Kurdistan. We've been in email contact with him, and he has since told us with the Turkish and PKK problem in the area that it is no longer safe there. That is how tenuous this area of the world is. One thing that seems to be clear here, which one doesn't get from reading the American press is that Kurdistan is a defacto country now. They have their own leaders, their own army, their own borders. Although the United States may want to try and keep this "one Iraq" policy, it seems as if this part of the world is working well towards accepting this as a reality.

How about those Sox!

Boldrum: England East

We had a wonderful dinner with Eric and Carol last night, right after we visited the Virgin Mary's final home, and drank from the sacred well she used to drink from. It is now a tiny church and pilgrimage sight, visited by many Popes and others.

Clara found a beautiful white leather jacket she bought with her birthday money which we picked up (after she had it altered) on the way out of town. The final words from the salesman were the typical battle cry of the Turkish Businessman: "the stuff at the other guys store really is terrible."

It has become a running joke for us how our 'friends' who is whomever we are talking to are quick to disparage wherever we might be going in order to steer us to someone they know (and will get a kickback from). Usually this also results in someone trying to get you to buy a carpet. None yet!

We drove about another hundred miles today, again mostly in the rain. We stopped to see the Temple of Endymion. Not much to it, but I was drawn by the fact that Endymion is one of the largest New Orleans parades and thus felt a minuscule connection with it.

Later in the afternoon we arrived in Bodrum which is an English tourist haven. Prices are in pounds, Euros and sometimes in Turkish Lira. It is a pretty place with an amazing assortment of wooden yachts in the harbor, white concrete villas overlooking the double harbors, split in two by a peninsula with St. Peters fort at the point.


There are tons of shops, restaurants and activities and we may stay a couple days to beat out the rain. We saw the remains of the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world this morning and there is another one of the ruined wonders here as well. Who knew Turkey was such an historic hotspot.

The Turks are pretty ticked about this Kurdish thing, and we have seen marches and even more Turkish and Ataturk flags than normal. War and rain seem to follow us, guard your borders and open your dams, we're coming through!

Ephesus!

Unbelievable!

Both the ruins of Ephesus, which were wonderful. But also, while we were walking around we walked into my friends Eric and Dot, who are on my Ward 5 Democratic committee and who supported me in my city council run! It is a tiny world. We talked for awhile and we are going to enjoy dinner here in Selcuk tonight.

Torrential downpours!

After a wonderful homecooked meal of pasta and mushrooms, and conversation with our pension mate, a retired teacher from Canada we went to bed. One of us could hardly sleep wondering how a certain game 7 would turn out.

We awoke to great news from Fenway and overcast skies in southwest Turkey. We spent a couple hours looking at rugs again at a govt. Cooperative, learned more about the process and even saw how they turn silk cocoons into thread.

The afternoon was dark and stormy, 3 straight hours of heavy rain, preceeded by one hour of moderate rain as a warm up. We passed through Izmir a city of 3 million, which featured slums reminiscent of Caracas. The roads were flooded and many sewers backed up but we made it through.

We are now in Selcuk, near the ancient city of Ephesus and also home to one of the seven ancient wonders of the world: the temple of Artemis. Yesterday we saw one of the 7 churches of the apocalypse the Red cathedral of Bergama.

Basically their is a lot of heavy shit going down in this part of the world. Oh, and the virgin Mary lived here along with St. John, and 7 guys who fell asleep for 300 years before being resurrected.

And now, Clara has been here as well. Soaking wet from the effort. We clearly are rain Gods as the moisture follows us everywhere. It hadn't rained in 6 months til we showed up.

Go sox!

Greek and Roman ruins up to here!

Today began overcast and wet after last night's heavy rains, but we decided to trek the 3.5 miles up the hill to the ruins of Greek and Roman temples and towns and along the way Kevin jumped back as he almost stepped on our unexpected walking companion! This one was easy to get rid of as he was equally scared by our presence and quickly slithered away. Much to Kevin's dismay, our other walking companion, a young kitten, was not dissuaded from our company so easily and he had to spend much of the early hour of our walk shooing her away from his pant legs. Here are some sights from the ruins of the ancient (1500 to 2500 years old) city and temples on the hill top in Bergama, Turkey.
s
Kevin's goddess?




These last couple of days we have seen perfect blue skies and never-ending rain and everything in between as we have traveled along the western coast of Turkey. The riding has been amazing as we have often found ourselves alone for miles upon miles of great paved roads or smaller dusty mountain roads mostly under blue skies and a very pleasant 70 degrees F. The Turkish people continue to charm us with their smiles and friendly demeanor, but much to our dismay we have noticed more and more trash and our hotels have once again began to promise hot water which never seems to materialize!

It is a bit mind-boggling to visit ruins of temples and cities that were once thriving centers of culture, religion and politics of some of the most advanced civilizations known to humanity from thousands of years ago, yet see all around these ruins the trash and pollution left behind by modern man. The contrast is stark: beautiful white marble columns, not-so-beautiful plastic water bottles. In addition, one sees ancient properly planned water and sewer systems adjacent to 'modern' cities with sewage thrown into, or spilling into rivers and streams. How far ahead is mankind? It is easy to imagine a wonderful night out at the Greek Amphitheater, the stars, mountains and sea stretched out before you as you enjoy the latest comedy or tragedy. Today however, these modern cities have no communal arts center, and the views if they were outside would all too often be choked off by pollution.

The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism publishes some very nice guides for the country's top tourist destinations and in the end they dedicate a page to explaining why our cultural heritage is fragile and what we can do to protect it and ensure that "future generations may have the opportunities to enjoy [it]." The thing is, we have to teach people to protect the environment as well! One thing I know about the effect that this trip is having on me is that it is making me a much "greener" individual, and I don't mean to say that I'm getting any younger! (I wish!!!!)
Besitos.

Hello, Asia!

Knock, knock?

Who is there?

Europe.

Europe Who?

Exactly!

We are on the Asian side of Turkey now, after spending most of a day touring the battlefields, graves and monuments of the war waste known as Gallipolli.

It was a wonderful area to ride through with hardly any traffic, views of the Aegean and of fields, bright blue skies, clean smelling scrub pines and narrow but nice 2 lane curvy roads. Unfortunately, they had just layed some liquid tar on many portions of the road, and our bikes got saturated with the nasty stuff.

After a short ferry to Canakkale, I spent the afternoon with gas and diesel soaked rags getting them cleaned up. We walked the boardwalk along the Dardenelles, filled as everywhere there is in Turkey, with fishermen. We took a picture with the Troy movie prop of the Trojan horse, before getting some cheap dinner. (Completely aside we had a nice lunch in the seaside town of Cumbag the day before)

The locals showed more of the Turkish hospitality by letting us try some Turkish delight and baby cakes that Clara had her eyes on, for free.

Yesterday we spent hours at the excavations of the ancient city of Troy. Fascinating. There are 10 different layers going back 6 or 7 thousand years. They are not sure whether it was Troy VI or Troy VII when the Trojan war took place but there is evidence of a fire and a ruining of the city. It evoked the imagination to feel like King Priam looking out from the limestone hill across the plain, to see the Greek ships on the shore, to see the battle arrayed before you. Did Hector, Achilles, Agememnon and Odysseus really fight down below?


We reached another ancient site in the afternoon: Assos. We explored the Temple of Athena, the old church converted to a mosque, and the large ampitheter looking out over the sea towards the island of Lesbos. St. Paul waled down the road we were on in his trip to Rome.


We settled in for the night, camping in this incredibly cute town, 10 meters from the lapping waves.

And the band played Waltzing Matilda....

We left Istanbul today and are now on the Gallipolli peninsula. Tomorrow we will visit yet another memorial to the absurdity of War. I have Shane McGowan's version of "and the band played waltzing Matilda" running through my head.


The pollution here in Turkey is shocking, 50 miles from Istanbul it was still a strong haze, and as we rode along a dirt road next to the Sea of Marmara there was just a thick layer of smog hanging over the whole body of water.

Gas is $10 a gallon here, but traffic is still bumper to bumper within 7 miles of Istanbul. Once we got into the countryside the roads got much more lonely, which is a good thing. Clara had a cab cut her off and hit her as we tried to leave Takim Square this morning, but he just hit her panniers. I had a car whiz by and hit my crash bars in Munich at about 30mph. Clearly the most dangerous part of this trip is traffic in the heavily congested areas. The cliff side dirt roads with no guardrail and washed out areas look more intimidating, but really we've had no problem.

Clara said she was at one with her bike today and is really becoming a fine motorcyclist. A couple weeks ago she said " I finally get it. The whole motorcycle and freedom thing. It isn't just the riding, it is the freedom to go wherever you want, whenever you want...and the feeling of being so close with nature as you ride" We've got a winner on our hands!

Shopping for Carpets in Istanbul

The last three days in Istanbul have been holidays in honor of the end of Ramadan. Partying and tourists and crowds but not much street traffic which would have been nice to ride the bike around except that it rained for two straight days. Today was back to work, and I looked around for a new rear tire for Clara's bike after 13,000 miles.
The nice guys at ATA motorcycles ordered us one for tomorrow and helped me put on my new front which we've been carrying around since England. They didn't charge me anything despite spending half an hour with me.
The Turkish people have been particularly nice and friendly with us. When we were waiting to get into the Palace, three young guys had two extra tickets which they gave to us, saving us $20. When I took the Metro and the bus out to meet someone last night, a random person on the bus gave me his electronic bus pass (Charlie Card???? please...) to get me on. The shopkeepers and restaurants are very pushy, but they are directly involved in the tourist trade. A good way to tell if you are in a tourist area is if nothing has a price tag, they gauge you before telling you the price.

So we spent two hours today looking at rugs at one sellers place near the Iranian embassy and a famous Turkish bath. I still feel a bit unclean, and have a headache from the whole experience. I feel like I was date raped, and we didn't even buy anything. Turkish carpet selling is definitely a place where No, doesn't mean No.
You know they are doing anything to try and sell when they are complementing me on my jacket, my orderly attention to detail, and my taste in carpets. They sized us up for 2 wool rugs and 2 silk rugs for a cool $20,880 before coming down to about $8000 for the two area wool rugs. When we explained that we were in Turkey and were going to travel around before returning to Istanbul, they brought in the "closer", who first needed everything explained to him in Turkish before suddenly being passably fluent in English. Pretty soon they were explaining something about warm soup and the spirit of spontaneity in Turkey and how I should let myself live a bit. He then put me into a double vice grip so I couldn't walk out and insisted that Clara give him a price for the two rugs, when she answered $5000, he said $4999 and tried to get a handshake to seal the deal, while still holding onto me. Did that guy have 3 hands somewhere?

I had kept my tongue tied during most of the afternoon, but thought to myself when they said I needed to be more like the Turks, that maybe they needed to more like the Americans. How efficient can it be to spend 2 hours with every client and having 5 guys run around throwing spinning flying carpets through the air and giving everyone free coffee and tea. Just put a price tag on it and make your money through volume! WalMart seems to be doing Ok with this business model.

We went to the Golden Arches for dinner, as I couldn't take anything more Turkish for the day, and frankly the food here is not that exciting or varied(as confirmed by expats living here. While waiting in line I cracked Clara up by saying "imagine if you had to negotiate for your Big Mac? 'would you like a cup of tea, my friend while I explain to you the two whole beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, tomato on a sesame seed bun?', 'can you suggest a price that would make this sandwich close to your heart?', 'don't think of it as a sandwich, but as an investment in your enjoyment of your life'...."
The signs out side wouldn't say "Billions served" they would say, "42 close and good friends served, in business for 3 generations!"

Where are we?

By the way, this is where we are in the world and where we are hopefully headed...

Surprise, shock, dissapointment, amazement and awe in Istanbul

Yesterday we visited two of the most famous sites in Istanbul: the "Aya Sofya Muzesi" and the "Sultanahmet Camii". I had much anticipated seeing the first of these historic places because I had been told of its grandeur by many people in my family who had visited it, in fact, one of my dear cousins had told me that she was left speechless upon stepping foot in this former "grandest church in the world" built in 532 AD, which was converted into a mosque by the Ottomans in 1453 and then declared a museum in the 1930s by the beloved Turkish leader Ataturk. Well, I must say that I too was rendered speechless but for different reasons. Even before entering this grandest of buildings I was surprised by the state of disrepair of its exterior, chipped "barely there" red paint and discolored walls, but even that is nothing compared to what I saw inside! The interior of this relic is now in my opinion, in complete ruins compared to its former grandeur. The walls are covered with decades of grime making the dulled marble difficult to identify as such, and the Ottoman layer of plaster is equally decayed to say nothing of the bent and dulled chandeliers that are so abandoned only a handful of them are even in working order. The only things that are remotely maintained in this "museum" are the parts of mosaics that have been uncovered since the 1930s under the plaster. Perhaps because I had such high expectations I felt as empty as the Sofya as I walked inside it. It is noterworthy to say that the Aya Sophya is empty of life and soul, but not empty of bodies as it is the most visited tourist site in Istanbul, and at 10YTL per person, one really has to wonder where the money is going since the only sign of work or restorations being done is the ever-present scaffolding in the middle of the building.




The wondering about where the profits from Aya Sophya are going was short-lived as the mystery seemed to be solved when we visited the Blue Mosque. This Muslim holy site that is still a place of worship is as grand and impressive as it is clean and well maintained. The lush red carpet looks and feels brand new and the famous tiled walls look as bright as if the blue hued tile patterns had been baked in just the other day. In complete contrast to Aya Sophya where I could not even muster a tiny prayer, in this holy place not of my religion, I wanted to kneel down and pray all afternoon.




Today we walked over to Sultanahmet again, this time to spend the afternoon in Topkapi Palace, the grand former home of the Sultans. This huge complex includes many gardens, houses, a humongous kitchen where it was not unusual for the staff to prepare meals to feed 1200 hungry guests, stables, a church, and the 400 room harem where some of the sultan's family and his consorts and concubines and were housed. By a stroke of luck, as we were walking up to the ticket booth to pay our 10ytl each we were approached by three young men of apparent Turkish descent who handed Kevin two free entrance tickets. In addition to visiting most of the sites in the complex, we also walked through four treasury rooms housing the most impressive collection of jewels and jeweled items I have EVER laid eyes on, including an 86 carat diamond, a mother-of-pearl encrusted throne, and two 86lbs solid gold candlesticks encrusted with over 1000 diamonds each!!!! Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed, but really who has time to take pictures when one is busy wiping drool from the sides of one's mouth. There were enough golf-ball sized emeralds and rubies and diamonds throughout the collection to fill a whirlpool and take the most luscious and luxurious bath of all time. This place made me happy, oh so happy and I didn't even feel any guilt about it.

The Harem was a different story. As I walked through the many small rooms, narrow halls and enclosed courtyards of this vast edifice I could feel the sense of incarceration that the concubines may have felt at being destined to a life of confinement. The "queen mother's" and sultan's bathrooms are magnificent odes to white marble and gold leaf, many walls are covered in ornate tiles of many rich colors and intricate patterns and the prince's rooms and main hall are grand affairs with stained glass vitrines and fine upholstered furniture and plush pillows. However, even in the most beautiful of guilded cages, the lovely bird cannot feel free and when it sings it's song is sad, empty and soulless though it may sound lovely to its audience. As melodramatic as it may sound, I found it very appropriate that it was raining when we left harem, as if its former inhabitants were trying to tell me that the sadness I perceived within some of its walls had been a truth.

Back in the US, Back in the US, Back in the USSR....

Back in the USSR

We left Romania, a place where many people look as if they’ve never had a square meal or a square deal in their life, and ventured into the former USSR. Our first stop: Moldova.

We arrived midmorning at the pleasant looking, modern border station. The Romanians in casual uniforms were nice as they checked our documents and okayed us to leave. We asked them about the road ahead and they said Moldova was nice but that Transdniestr was “Putinville”.

We got in line at the other side, with just a few cars in front of us. A young border guard with crew cut and impeccable uniform with the oversized pressed cap came out, gave us the Russian scowl and asked for our documents. It was just like the movies! He looked at our papers and asked for the originals of our Registrations, which we had provided him. We insisted for a few minutes that they were the originals and he disappeared, unhappily, into the guard house. 5 or 10 minutes later he reappeared and again insisted on having the original registrations, which he did. Apparently, Massachusetts Registrations don’t look very authentic, and to be honest compared with many European documents which are laminated they look quite flimsy. After a few more back and forths, he again went into the guard house, before finally reappearing a third time to again insist on the proper documents. At this point, a Moldovan trucker took a glance at the papers and told him they looked correct for America and he went back inside.

I almost felt sorry for the youngster. Now that the Cold War is over, and Moldova is (God Forbid!) trying to encourage openness and tourism and maybe get into the EU they don’t have Visa requirements or fees for most nationals so all he can do is basically wave people through. What fun is that when you’ve trained all your life to put terror and fear into travelers with just a disconcerting glance or disdainful look? So eventually he had to let us pass. But just to the vehicle inspection person.

As we moved up the line we were in for one delightful surprise. A huge rose garden was just inside the border in Moldova. I must say it was easily the most beautiful area at any border crossing we have made yet, completely unexpected. What wasn’t unexpected was the run around they put us through to admit our motorcycles. Go to this office, no one there. Go across the street and pay the lady in the big building. Get to the big building and the lady insists that we pay back where we started. Go back there and be sent to a different window. Then pay for the bikes but only one bike is on the paperwork, etc., etc. Meanwhile, it turns out that the Moldovan truck driver speaks Italian/Spanish and we have a nice conversation with him and he helps us out when he can. He says it is the same way all the time; they are always just bumbling around just like border guards everywhere. After about an hour, without any vehicle check we and about 4 cars made it through into Moldova.

It was about 80 miles to Chisinau, the capital, on a newly paved highway. The day was dry and somewhat bright, quite a pleasant Sunday. The scenery was mostly farmland and vineyards and forest. There were many people, families and couples, out picking mushrooms on the side of the road or picnicking. Only a few people were selling them, as opposed to Romania where there were multitudes selling the same products of either mushrooms or potatoes. Only a couple were enterprising enough to sell both and offer one stop shopping. There were more than the usual number of police on the road, but we got tipped off by opposing drivers flashing their lights so we had no problems. Some things are universal, thank god!

The other noticeable thing was the preponderance of Mercedes and BMW’s on the road. Between a third to half of the cars on the road were late model German cars. Odd, considering Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe, and not something we saw in Slovakia, Hungary or Romania. We got to Chisinau enjoyed a pizza lunch and rode up the Soviet designed main boulevard 8 lanes wide, so as to accommodate BIG parades! We stopped at the “arc de triumph” (no caps to signify its size in relation to the Parisian one) to get our bearings and made our way to “Tourist Hotel” Straight our of the guidebooks, this 5 story concrete bunker had so much charm that when we stopped Clara insisted that “it doesn’t look open”. But sure enough it was, and for about $45 we got the full experience. Dilapidated building: check. Two single beds put next to each other with a queen-sized sheet to make a double: check. Tile, flooring, wallpaper and plumbing from the early 60’s: check. A shower that you had to run 5 to 10 minutes to get warm, while sticking the handheld into the sink to drain so that the floor didn’t overflow: check. Strange people calling us on the phone: check. A ‘maid’ on the floor watching our comings and goings: check. Someone knocking on our door by accident: check. But, it was actually nowhere near as bad as many places we have stayed and for us it was almost comical all the stereotypes we racked up.

We took a walk around the town and were impressed with the two caddy cornered parks in the center of town. One had a lightly treed area around a central plaza that had a bell tower and non-descript church in it. Both held surprises. The tower had the most beautiful chimes to mark the time that I think I have ever heard from such a tower. And inside the plain Orthodox Church was a beautifully gilded setting, with richly painted walls and wonderful voices echoing around the domed ceilings to accent a wedding taking place with a purple clothed bride.

In fact, the whole plaza was filled with brides. There was one with a long limo who looked like a perfect doll, with curled hair of a color and hue not familiar, which Clara thought had pink in it although I only saw shades of white and blond. She had a large pouffy dress and she would have been right at home at Cinderella’s Ball. Another girl was younger, poorer and not quite so happy in her traditional white dress as they moved about and her maid of honor took the wedding shots by the tree, the tower, the fountain.


We passed by the ‘arc de triomphe’ on the way to the other park which was filled with trees, crisscrossing paths with many benches filled with lovers of all ages, and an active fountain in the center with parents and children playing. To enter the park you walked through an iron gate which also had brides and grooms lined up to take the picture of “crossing the threshold into marriage”. Clearly, there was a wedding machine in Chisinau with the Church spitting out brides as fast as they can, before the requisite pictures at the anointed places are taken. However, there wasn’t any cheesiness to it just a typical way to get married in the main church and square in the countries capital.

Clara took a break in the evening as I rode around to check out the town. There were some modern buildings around, definitely building was going on, but the most noticeable thing to me was the large number of casinos all around town. Not Vegas Casino’s but more like 7-11 size casino’s occupying the first floor and maybe basement of 4 or 5 story buildings. By far, casinos seemed to be the most consistent business in town. They usually had John Gotti gangster look alikes manning the door, with some of those BMW and Mercedes parked close by. In fact, the city seemed to need a census category for “Male, close shaven head, expensive shoes, suit with colored shirt, no tie. Chain optional.” This was something that Moldova had in common with Romania, as we noticed most of the people driving the BMW’s in Romania had the same description and gave no indication of any familiarity with an MBA or other advanced degree except perhaps high school diploma. The gangster houses in Romania were high comedy.


But I digress from Moldova. We went to the only restaurant I found earlier that took Visa, as I didn’t want to exchange Moldovan money for just one day in the country. I already was carrying about 7 denominations and didn’t want any more. It was a neat, hip, modern open air Italian place with huge fishtank and flat screen TV’s. Unfortunately, by the time we got there they only were serving pizza, the same as we had for lunch. The other problem was the clientele. It was filled with the FGM: Future Gangsters of Moldova. They were chainsmoking away in their junior Gotti suits, some of them even using a hukkah as their dates cuddled up in the nicely provided blankets. The look for women is short skirt, stockings, high heels or cowboy boots and something tight up top. We have seen this look all through Eastern Europe. Not necessarily a bad thing. But thanks to the open air nature of the restaurant and the surprisingly delicious pizza we had a good time and walked back to the hotel before collapsing and resting for the next days trip into the unknown: Transdniestr. A place not even mentioned by the country that supposedly it belongs to.

Some pictures now that we are in Istanbul

Our Arrival in Istanbul, a Soviet era monument in the Ukraine, the Blue Mosque/blue bike and ships at the port, and Clara snapped a picture of the Customs House where we were interrogated and shaken down before fleeing the pseudo country of Transdniestr.