The Black Tea* Coast

Welcome to Asia - the sign reads as you cross the istanstal bridge, leaving Europe behind. Not much changes. Chaos still ensues on crowded roads. We jump onto a bus, waving goodbye to our good friend and host who battled through traffic to bring us forward to the next side of the world and the next stage of our journey.

We finally manage to escape the never ending city, watching from the cabin of a truck as the landscape transforms from grey to green. The image of a dry Turkey proves to be false, with the north rivaling England's green and pleasant lands any day.

Against very sensible advice, we decide to head straight for the Black Sea coast, rather than following the country's main transport route through Ankara. A quick decision at a road junction that would shape the escapades of the following week, as we try desperatly to hop from village to village along scenic but bumpy cliff top roads. Terrifying panoramic views.

Things began slowly, as we struggled to make more than 30km a day.
Daunting with still 970km to go... at this rate we would reach Russia by Christmas. But we clung desperatly to our ill-made plans, based on what our free tourist map told us was a main road along the coast. A main road which appeared to be somewhat... under construction in places. Although this turned out to be a blessing and a curse, with a stream of truck drivers taking us across parts that few others would dare to venture. Crawling up rough mountain roads that make you envy the calmness of the black sea. Followed by plumeting downhill with the full force of gravity pulling you, and the ten tonne truck of rock behind you towards the abiss. Its a real life rollercoaster as you will the unsuspecting pedestrians out of the way of the unstopable mass.

Choosing to hitchhike, the main problem we faced surprisingly wasn't that nobody would take us... or that somebody might chop off our hands, then arms, then head (as one young turk enthusiatically suggested.. with actions). It was the massive amount of tea that we had to drink along the way. Not only from each driver stopping in the middle of their journey, but from petrol station workers, shop owners.. just random people in the street. That, together with sitting in on occassional business meetings, tourist site stops, and being dined in restaurants with more luxury than we deserve, put an end to any attempted time planning. Generally, the generosity and openess of the Turkish people made it impossible to...well..get anywhere at all.

Once we finally did make it further east, the land flattened out and the big towns rose up. We soon found ourselves missing those tiny mountain villages where the men seem to drink chai all day and the women do all the hard work. We made more distance in two days than the whole week before put together. With our Russian visa about the begin we set the port of Trabzon as our destination. Unfortunately our lack of planning ability showed through again, when we literally didn't know what day it was and our visas didnt start as early as we expected. (So after) splashing out our spare cash on a hotel, drinking raki and eating honey soaked baklava, we had 3 more days to kill before the next ferry departed. Back to nature it was, roasting vegetables on the campfire and drinking water from the springs.

After surviving our final spurt in the wilderness, we headed back to the ferry port. Eventually leaving behind the land of tea, for the one of Vodka... next stop... Sochi, Russia's number 1 holiday destination!