Let England Shake

In my last blog entry (dated 13th December) I was luxuriating in the fact that we were sat on a sofa in front of a fire gazing out of a window at the mountains of southern Greece. The novelty of having rooms, a hot shower, a kitchen, a flushing loo, sofas to sprawl on, a fireplace….was great! Our days were mostly spent slowly meandering into the local village – where we would eat delicious food, drink cappuccinos and down cold pints of Mythos with the Mediterranean Sea as our vista. In the evenings we would cook, drink and then collapse into an electric-blanket warmed bed – lying in until late in the morning.

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Arriving at the house in Greece

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Winter has Come

(My second Game of Thrones reference on the blog!)

I’m writing this from the comfort of a sofa placed not far from a raging open fire. Large gnarly chunks of olive tree branches crackle and blaze; giving off not only heat but also that flickering light you can only get from a real fire. It is fabulous!

I have been meaning to write this blog post for the past month or two (of course it would then have been titled Winter is Coming) but I never got round to it. I suppose now, in a way, I feel I need to justify why I’m sat here in front of this fire and not out in the depths of Armenia.

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Greece Route

It’s official! Fromeward Bound stage 1 is now complete!! We rolled up at Clare’s parent’s place in Greece sometime just after lunch today.

Plan A was to arrive in very early January. Then about a month ago we formulated plan B, which would see us turning up in mid-December. As it turns out, we’ve arrived even earlier! Mostly that’s down to a combination of cold and darkness – for the last 3 or 4 weeks we’ve had to huddle up in the car from 5pm until 8am, which means we end up playing a lot of Scrabble. To be honest, there’s only so many times Clare can continue to lose and retain any sense of dignity so we made a break for the comfort of home!

From here we have a bit of time to sort things out; the roof rack broke in Mongolia, then broke some more in Uzbekistan and now needs a full-on repair; our oil change is about 3000km overdue; the fuel filter needs replacing; and there’s a few new bits of furniture we want to make for the car.

We also need to plan the next bit of our journey home…. the weird thing being that we could probably be in Frome in 5 days from here!

Reflections on Turkey

#1 Petrol is astronomically expensive which is strange when you think how close to the Gulf it is. I think it’s the second most expensive petrol in the world after Norway

#2 Which means that, apart from Istanbul and Ankara, the open roads have hardly any traffic on them

#3 No massive amounts of luggage on roof racks unlike all of Central Asia

#4 Big meat eaters

#5 We’ve oddly seen lots of Land Rover pick ups and no big expensive shiny Landcruisers (prevalent in Central Asian cities amongst the wealthy)

#6 The Black Sea coast is really dramatic.

#7 Loads and loads, especially in small rural towns, of big really naff furniture shops

#8 If you think Captain can grow a good beard wait till you see Turkish beards – beautiful specimens

#9 First country we’ve driven through where there are lots of beggars

#10 Lots of smokers

#11 Istanbul has very fashionable young people

#12 Very aggressive unpleasant shop sellers that harass you on the streets of Istanbul (re: Shoe Shine Scam)

#13 More kebab shops then you can shake a stick at

#14 The tourist attraction entry tickets are extremely expensive

#15 Istanbul is a massive sprawling city

#16 Wish it wasn’t winter as we would have spent a lot longer here exploring the beautiful coastlines – travelling from beach to beach. Captain could have topped up his tan too

#17 Like Georgia lots of shops and people selling freshly squeezed pomegranate and/or orange juice – delicious

#18 There must be literally a million hotels in Istanbul

#19 Quite a few moustaches

#20 We will definitely visit again 😉

Turkey Route

Our first night in Turkey was great – sat by the sea in our chairs enjoying the warmest night’s camping for months, drinking a nice bottle of wine (amongst the piles of rubbish left by previous occupants – sigh.)

From there on, however, the rain kicked in and didn’t let up. I’m not sure if our tactic is best, but when the weather is grim and the landscape becomes invisible we hit the gas and drive, which is the way things went in Turkey. One night we thought the car was going to blow over as we were battered all night by wind and rain whilst the thunder and lightning raged overhead – it was easily the loudest (and most persistant) thunder either of us have ever heard!

4 sleeps later we were checking into a nice hotel in Istanbul where it wasn’t raining 🙂

Istanbul has been a bit of culture shock for us – after months of either being in the middle of nowhere, or in the cities of friendly countries like Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, it was a bit of eye opener to suddenly have people in our faces every 10 steps trying to rip us off or get us to do something we didn’t want to do – time to toughen up and remember our street smarts! That aside Istanbul is a fascinating place to spend time wandering around.

Our statistics followers will be fascinated to hear that our highly accurate in-car thermometer recorded it’s lowest temperature thus far here in Turkey – a whopping -14ºC.

Shoe Shine Scam

It’s dark and we’re walking back to the hotel. A man walks past and we notice that a small wooden brush falls onto the road behind him. We both don’t hesitate to call out after him about his dropped brush. Captain picks up the brush and hands it to the man who thanks us. I love these simple small acts of unheroic kindness – a fleeting moment when someone instinctively helps out a stranger. (On the tube in Tokyo I would go out of my way to try and find someone older than me to offer my seat to!) 

He offers us a shoe shine – which we presume is a gesture of gratitude. We both say no thanks but he crouches on the floor with the shoe shine block in front of him and insists. We politely refuse again but, so as not to appear rude, Captain offers up a shoe. He haphazardly brushes and gives it a quick greasing. It’s a quick ineffective shoe polish. I can remember thinking how sweet that we helped him and, in return, he’s showing us his thanks in the only way he can. “One good turn deserves another.”

He offers to clean mine. I refuse several times as my shoes are made from mesh and polishing would be ineffectual. He insists nonetheless and so, giggling like a child, I offer my foot. It’s then when he asks us about children (as most people we have met on our travels do) and we return the question. He says he has five but the youngest has trouble with her eyes so he’s just been to the hospital. He talks about the need to work hard to make money to pay for the vast hospital bills. I suspect most of you, by now, would have thought something’s up. We didn’t! I can even remember thinking that someone at his age having a child increases the likelihood of disabilities. Poor guy shining shoes for a pittance to support his family.

Just as he is finishing he mentions that if we have a couple of Lira he would really appreciate it. I feel in my coat pocket where I keep my loose change and pull out about 5 Lira. I cup the change in my hand. Now this is when the atmosphere suddenly changes. With an altered demeanour he demands 18L. He points at both of us, and in an aggresive raised voice, repeats his demand stating that two sets of shoes cost 9L each and we must pay him. I reluctantly pull out a 20L note and hand it to him. We walk off. Yes we were annoyed at ourselves for paying him 20L. Yes we should have just carried on after the initial “You dropped your brush” moment. Yes we felt foolish and silly…… but we walked off, arm in arm, laughing at our own naivety.

It was only back at the hotel that Captain wondered if the man had dropped the brush on purpose as a way to initiate the scam? No way I replied – seriously? Captain did a google search – ‘Istanbul shoe shine scam.’  Let’s just say there was no shortage of results that came up. Pages and pages of shoe shiner scams and other more elaborate scams – even a YouTube video. OMG! The little *#^* – he dropped the brush on purpose!

Now, it’s one thing ripping an unsuspected tourist off by charging too much but it’s quite another preying on an act of kindness to initiate a scam. From feeling rather foolish and silly I now feel angry and used.

I suppose the act of tricking someone, like a magic show, plays on pulling the wool over their eyes. A good trick relies on confusing the five senses; while the best ones expertly tease our cerebral functions. This was no magic trick; this was a dirty rotten scam that punched right at the heart. It crossed the line by taking an act of kindness and subverting and twisting it into a gnarled ugly knot. 

Old man if we see you, or your ilk, again….. that brush lying on the road is going flying.