A New Outlook

01-Aug-08: A Welcome Change of Plan
Turkey: Osmancik to Amasya
115km, 5h 12min ride time

Breakfast was served from the carpark of the teachers hostel as per frequent practice if the accommodation does not provide breakfast. Also in the carpark was the white board on which are written our route instructions and other relevant information for the day…today the news was not well received…camping, on a rest day! I was unhappy to say the least as one of the few things holding me together over the past week has been the knowledge (or so I thought) that at least I could rest up in a hotel on the upcoming rest day. The news that we would be camping broke my spirit.

The upside of now being upset and angry, asking myself and others where my money is actually being spent on this tour, was that I had an abundance of excess angry energy to exert through the pedals to help me get through the last day of riding before the rest day. Today my first focus was finishing the day as quickly as I could rather than stopping and dragging the day out…my second focus was to find a hotel on arrival into town.

We had nice roads and good terrain for riding with just enough ups to create some sufficient downs to maintain the momentum and bolster the spirits. We did have to battle some fairly strong and fickled wind which could not decide if it was a cross, head or tail wind so gave us a reasonably balanced combination of all three to tackled throughout the day.

Riding into the town of Amasya was quite breathtaking. The town is nestled at the base junction of a group of mountains which tower protectively above and around the city. Amasya is a very beautiful town and one of Turkey’s historic jewels, being home to a myriad of ancient sites…one of which being a cluster of ancient king’s tombs carved into the side of a mountain above the town which do have a very regal presence just by virtue of their dominance in the landscape.

On arrival at ‘camp’ we were redirected on to a hotel due to complications with the camping arrangements…I don’t know what the story was, nor do I care…we were now staying in a hotel and a very nice one at that and recovery on the first rest day of the Silk Route was now looking promising…my only reservation was the possibility that our entire hotel budget has now been blown and we will be camping for the rest of the trip!

In order to continue meeting my personal ‘must have/do’ rest day list the first thing I did on arrival at the hotel was to arrange a visit to a Turkish bath so I could get a massage. And at 3pm myself and Dan and Max (my 2 bodyguards…who wanted to see the bath themselves), my chauffer (hotel driver) and interpreter (hotel staff member) drove to the ‘Hamami’…with all the ado I thought we must have been taking a long excursion well out of town, but after 5 minutes in the car and well within walking distance of the hotel we arrived at the bath.

During the hours of 10-5 the bath is for women only and at all other times for men only…on entering it was obvious why…many women in various states of undress were milling about the entry vestibule and myself and my interpreter were greeted by a rather well endowed woman wearing only her knickers. My interpreter explained what I was after to the woman and vaguely explained the process to me and left me to it. After which I was guided into the changeroom where I was to remove all my clothes and wrap a sarong around me and then enter the bath area with my soap and scrubbing mit.

The bath area felt ancient almost to the point that I could imagine ladies bathing themselves thousands of years ago in exactly the same manner. The whole room in addition to being noticeably balmy is made of marble with a domed vaulted ceiling and evenly spaced around the circular room are round marble basins which fill with water from taps above them and beside each basin are two seating areas. I was guided to a seating area and removed my sarong…I figured I was never going to see any of these women again in my life…and was counting myself lucky that no one I knew wanted to come with me!

A young woman wearing a tiger skin patterned bra and rainbow coloured knickers motioned for me to use the plastic dish which was housing my soap and scrubbing mit to pour water over myself…I must have been to slow because she took the dish from me and used it to pour water over me at such a rate I thought I was going to drown as I could not even draw breath between the deluges. I then soaped myself up and was helped again to wash the suds off before being led to the sauna room which was so hot that I only managed about 30 seconds before motioning time out and leaving the room. Then as if to lead by example the young girl pointed at the round marble slab in the centre of the room and lay down on it…so I did the same…it was nice and warm and obviously heated from below in some manner.

After a few minutes on the hot slab I was then treated to another drowning before being led into the massage room and told to lay down on the cold marble table. I was then scrubbed down with my exfoliating mit…I could hardly believe how much dead skin was coming off my arms and legs, it was disgusting. As I sat there on the table in all my glory facing the young woman as she scrubbed my arms an elderly lady walked over from bathing herself and patted the underside of my chin while saying something in Turkish…I have no idea what, but something along the lines of ‘don’t look so worried dear’ would have been apt.

After my scrubbing I was drowned for the 3rd time and led into the room between the bath and the entry vestibule, which was nice and cool. It was at this point that I realised I was being led out before having had my massage and so motioned that I was still to get a massage…the young girl looked a little put out and led me back into the massage room and lay me back on the table with a hot water bottle filled with water as a pillow. I was soaped up and given a half hearted rub down by comparison to what the lady on the table next to me was getting and so was a little disappointed as it was the massage that I was most looking forward to. In hindsight though I think I was perhaps lucky to have gotten a softer treatment as the other girls went the following day and most came back with raw patches of skin after having received a very rough scrub down! Manon even had her breasts groped by another bath goer in the sauna!

02-Aug-08: Cliffside Scrambling
Turkey: Amasya – Rest Day

I am yet to figure out how locals ever get a proper sleep in Turkey…the Muslim calls to prayer echo from loud speakers multiple times throughout the day, the last being at about 10pm and the first being at about 4.30am. It seems that no matter where you are you are within earshot of a loud speaker and so unable to avoid being woken up by the chanting which can range from being quite melodic through to sounding more like Tarzan being strangled (to use Dan’s wording). Each call lasts at least 5 minutes, which when trying to get back to sleep early in the morning can seem like 5 hours!

I did manage to get back to sleep this morning and was quite rested after a good night sleep…ready for a morning hike up to visit the rock tombs. After hiking up quite a few stairs, which are never a tired cyclists best friend, we were disappointed that the impressive looking tombs in the rocky face of the mountain were no better viewed up close due to being fenced off from public access. The path between them was quite treacherous with loose rubble and slippery stone surfaces…a litigation nightmare in any western country, but clearly not a concern in this part of the world.

Speaking of litigation nightmares…Louise would be owed some nice compensation in any western society after having her bike slip from under her whilst riding into town over some slippery cobblestone tiles. She was thrown from her bike and knocked out cold when entering town last night. She woke when the ambulance arrived but refused to go with them to be checked out…she has very bad bruising on her upper right thigh and now needs a new helmet!

I spent the balance of the rest day in my nice air-conditioned hotel room doing my tax return and updating my blog with GPS data, which can now be found via the ‘Detailed Cycling Data’ link from my home page.

03-08-08: Longest Day to Date
Turkey: Amasya to Resadiye
158km, 6h 53min ride time

After another good night of sleep I awoke in a pretty good frame of mind to tackle our longest riding day to date…an expected 157km. With little to inspire scenery wise it was just as well the day went by quickly, with the first half being predominantly downhill. Perhaps we are just getting fussy, but relatively speaking the scenery has become a bit uninspiring for the past couple of days. Almost as if to compensate though, we have benefited from cloudy sky to keep the baking hot sun and temperatures at bay.

As you would expect even on good terrain 158km is a long way and by the 120km point I was getting pretty tired and was looking forward to our water/snack stop. About 500m from the snack stop a local standing by the side of the road held out some peaches for us as we rolled by…the peaches in Turkey are one of its many treasures…beautiful and juicy, especially for a tired and hungry cyclist.

After the snack stop my legs regained some strength and I was able to make it into camp in relative comfort…I have certainly have many harder days despite them being shorter…in the end it all just depends on how you feel on the day.

Camp was at the top of a hill in a picnic ground, not really a campground, and as such had very few flat areas to pitch a tent…the one flat patch of dirt I did find had to be swept down to remove the broken shards of glass from what was once a beer bottle before pitching my tent.

04-08-08: Insane
Turkey: Resadiye to Sebinkarahisar
115km, 6h 45min ride time

The brief today was 110km, much the same as the past few days…yeah right!

The morning was much the same as the past few days with the first 55km taking us about 2.5 hours to complete. The afternoon however was a nightmare taking us 4.25 hours to cover the same distance! The blog from last years tour referenced some tough days in Turkey as tough, tougher, toughest and insane…I think today must have been the insane day. We climbed 2/3rds of the total 2100m ascent for the day in the last third of the distance…which pretty much resulted in non-stop and steep climbing all afternoon. And to make matters worse the sun came out and the temperature rose to 40 degrees almost instantly!

With 25km left to ride I found myself with only 2 mouthfuls of water left and started to worry…we had been given no warning of the climbing to expect and no warning that there was nowhere on our route to stop and buy food or water…and the lunch truck did not stop when I tried to flag it down to re-fill my water…I can tell you I was not impressed and very worried about how I was going to get through the rest of the day without water.

Luckily, we came upon a cow trough being filled from an underground water spring to refill our bottles…it was a lifesaver as I went on to consume 5 litres of water in the last 55km and only had the ability to carry 2 litres on me. There was a gross miscalculation on someone’s part for not warning us of the conditions today and it will be interesting to see if we get an apology for the fact at dinner tonight. Today was exactly the kind of day, if it weren’t for the cow troughs, that could have easily killed any one of us through dehydration!

Upon our long awaited arrival at the service station hotel I was ravenous having not been given warning enough to pack an appropriate amount of food for the day….the hotel is intended for use by truck drivers and I am hoping that it does not turn out to be a brothel! I have a nice view of pump 7 from the window of my room and can hear all the comings and goings at the pump so am not too hopeful for a quiet night’s sleep.

We have just had a meeting and only got an apology for the lack of information because we complained...C’est la vie. We have also just been briefed on our upcoming accommodation situation which is now going to be much more camping and mostly bush camping with no facilities and a ration of only 1 water bottle for showering...it was expected to come eventually and just requires a different mindset. But it also means less internet access and so less frequent news for my blog in all likelihood.

Oh, and I almost forgot...at lunch today we had 2 plain clothed police officers ask to see all our passports...as Theresa went to the truck to get hers she discovered that her bag containing her credit cards, passport and camera equipment had been stolen from the front seat of the van...it is pretty much certain that it was taken by a group of gypsies that were milling around the area. So the police were given a new and unexpected task of taking the theft report and promptly forgot about needing our passports!