Central-Asia and Europe 1969 (6).

We reached the Black See with tyres worn thread bare. Along the coast, once on the hard road, we mounted the last spare ones. On the pavement of our hotel, Henny was busy, the hotelier stood there proudly smiling. He had welcomed us as guests of honour, and immediately brought in coffee, yes we even got clean blankets, unique the last months. His wife pulled my sleeve. "Come", she said, shy like all Turkish women. She guided me a few stairs up to a flat roof. Proudly she said "Look how beautiful." Deep down was the bright blue Black Sea on which Tirebolu was situated, climbing up the hill. A small island with a ruin on it, white beaches, colourful fishing boats. "Marvellous" I nodded to her, "I certainly would like to live here." In the evening in a lokanta, we emptied a number of dinner plates again, so many that the innkeeper lost count and forgot to charge us for the rice. But we had included it in our payment. Walking back we heard here and there in the street people murmuring: "Pilaf, Pilaf", the rest we did not understand, but they pointed at us, telling that we did pay for the forgotten pilaf.
"What have they done, what have they done" everybody asked. They put there hand to mouth or shook there head in dismay. The two gendarmes, gun on their shoulders, who had to take us to the law court, gave an extensive explanation. Wheeling our bicycles we walked in parade through the town of Samsun. At the door of the law court stood our interpreter, French-Turkish. He smelled after alcohol. "Tell them you did it", he shouted at us. What we had done we didn't know ourselves. Also the police didn't know why we had been in the office all the time, drinking coffee and having a nice chat. Some kilometres outside the city a bus driver had harassed me again. Quickly a pinch in my leg when I cycled past him. Henny banged angrily on the window of the bus when he ran away. As we continued cycling the gendarme came to us - later on we understood that he had come to arrest us - whom we, thinking that we were harassed again, had pushed back in their car. Henny was smashed to ground by a group of farmers (with hayforks in their hands). We then asked for the police, they came with 5 men and armed! "Bicycles on the car?" No way, we wanted to cycle, the police came trudging behind us. From the police sent through to the gendarmes, police report typed out and then for hours on end in the law court, people were whispering about us and looked at us gloomily. We refused the French interpreter. At last an English speaking person turned up and the judge - with a whig with real white rolls and a crimson robe - pronounced judgement: Innocent. Would we want to press charges because of harassment. They knew their customers! In order to reach Istanbul we had to defy the greatest danger of the whole journey: the traffic, driving like maniacs on a two lane road. A recently burned out bus lay upside down along the road, I shivered when I thought of the people who were in it. More wrecks proved that our question was not unfounded and like hares we often dived into the bank.
We left Asia with a ferry and cycled into Europe. In Istanbul, western and oriental, a fascinating city. Cycling out of the city, with the danger of life again!
When we approached a national border, we always saw to it that we had spent all our small change, in the last restaurant before the border we always were good customers. Namely, changing your money at the border is seldom possible. This time our planning was not so good and we entered Greece with far too many Turkish liras at the border. There was a bank where we could change. "I'll have a look" said the employee, "I have French, Italian, Swiss and Yugoslavian currencies". "No drachmas?" "No." Then we will have to try in Greece. The Greeks don't like the Turks very much, so the bank did not want any liras, only sparsely and for a low exchange rate. At the border we approached some tourists, accidentally Czechs who, without any problem, exchanged our money.

T

he bicycle tour now became a holiday tour. Uninterrupted picknicking, swimming in the sea no peeping, no shouting. Cheap hotels, however, become sparse, youth hostels were bad and the nights too warm. "Why not sleep in the open?". Without tent, sleeping bag or something of a camping gear. In an olive -, pear -, or fig orchard we put down our sheet-sleeping bag on the ground the mosquito net hung between bicycle and tripod. Pears figs, sometimes fresh milk as a bonus, from friendly farmers. The Greek mountains, the Apennines the Alps, nothing was very difficult for us anymore. But the bicycles, always broken spokes, broken cog, worn out chains, had more problems with it, the repairers now charged us the full amount for wages.
"Well, is there still something like this?" the Austrians often said surprised, "all the way from Holland on a bicycle?". "No, from Singapore". "Oh". Finished was the conversation, where that could be, heaven knows and with an expression of 'is that all' they went away again. Detour along Vienna, a thousand kilometres more or less did not matter, a bit of culture belongs to it. We bought tickets for the opera. "Can we go in without a jacket?" "That is possible" the tourist office assured us. As neatly as our cycle bag clothes made it possible, a night out. "No, this is not a football field" the usher said, dressed in a monkey suit. Disappointed we walked to the pay desk to give back the tickets" Give it to that man, he wears a neat suit" said the monkey.

Do we still fit in this culture?