As it was late we did not get very far that day and spent the night in Yeni Mahalle Bahcekoy. Wild Camping, behind the minibus station at the edge of the forest
Unfortunately we were visited by lots of dogs barking at us every couple of hours and a drunk guy who kept saying ”yok, yok” (which means no) when we tried to explain to him that we planned to stay only one night. Finally, we called Cagatay and asked him to speak with the guy, and in the end he had no objections to our staying close to his storage hut.
The next night was great, as we got invited by a cyclist on the road. Anil is on warmshowers, lives in Arnavutkoy and the entire family was really nice and interested. All factory workers, his mother retired after 41 years in a sewing factory, his brother and sister in law active in party politics. He and a friend of his also accompanied us the following day for 30 km which helped a lot to get around the new airport quickly. He then received his next warmshower guest, Ignace, also from Belgium and on his way to Tokyo. We camped again in a beautiful forest halfway to Saray: only one dog that lost interest very quickly, and great cycling to Saray, where we spent the night in a nice little hotel. The next day it was raining cats and dogs and quite cold again, so we spent another night in the nice little hotel and finally after 3 weeks found an internet cafe.... Probably 3 more days in Turkey, I already know that I will miss it....
It then took us two days to get to Kirkareli, as we had strong head and side winds, in Germany there were heavy storms and thousands of people were without electricity in Poland and Czech Republic. Ali, on warmshowers since 3 week kindly hosted us (as he had hosted Ignace a couple of days earlier) gave us on a little tour of the city, a nice dinner and played the Balarma, a traditional Turkish instrument for us (see photo in cafe midi, Ayvalik). Actually he played three different Balarmas and sang some traditional Turkish songs for us and finally we danced a little.
With Anil and his mother
Behind the minibus station, after an eventful night....