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Visa-hunting in the capital

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30.10.2003 from Ankara, Turkey - 3760km

Merhaba!

I left Istanbul after three days of walking aroung, relaxing and chatting with other travellers. Somehow, I felt an urge to cycle, mostly because I was very curious how the new continent would be like. From Europe you have to take either a ferryboat or one of the two motorway bridges spanning over the Bosphorus... my bicycle does not like water, so I decided to try to cycle over one of the bridges. At the beginning all went well. Once I got pushed off the motorway by heavy traffic, but I just had to lift my bicycle over a low fence and push it across a little forest to join back the right motorway. Traffic was heavily congested, but I could bypass the cars on the outer lane. I passed the first police officer at high speed but 200m further down the road a second one got alerted of my coming. This one blocked my way and made some very clear signs in direction of his weapon... so I decided to stop No discussion, there was no possibility to get me over the bridge other than in a vehicle, the traffic was too dense. The officer immediately ordered one minibus driver to stop and to give me a lift. The crossing was awesome! The view over the Bosporus strait and the shimmering of the Blue Mosque, incredible! Of course, I was a bit angry that I was not allowed to cycle.

On the Asian side, I tried to find the exit for Sile, a village at the Black Sea. This would allow me to get away from the traffic chaos along the Sea of Marmara. But if you don't want (or are not allowed...) to use the motorway, it is pretty difficult to find the right road leading out of a 10-15 mio. agglomeration. Anyway, after several trials and many inquiries I finally found the right way. At one time, I asked a elder man for directions. Normally, I expect something like 'left' or 'right'. But this person gave me a 5 min speech in Turkish and when I asked whether the other direction would not also be possible, I got another 5 min speech. Needless to say that I didn't understand anything from what he said and I had the impression that I just got about all the information until Tibet In the end, I met Abdullah, a very friendly banana seller, who spent four years as a Kurdish refugee in Switzerland. He invited me for a Cay and gave me a couple of bananas.

The cycling towards Sile was a nice relaxation from the urban traffic mess. After Sile, I cycled for about 30km along the coast. It is a pretty region. When I had just finished cycling up a (very!) steep ascent, a construction crew invited me to have lunch with them. Excellent! As I normally just eat bread and cookies during the day, something warm is very welcome The eldest person of the crew took care of me and we tried to have some conversation. My Turkish is still very bad, but I managed to answer the standard questions (from where? destination? how much time?). Strangely, I got asked whether I would have any money with me at all. People are normally pretty convinved that a foreigner always has loads of money in his pockets.

Some 200km past Istanbul, I crossed the main route to Ankara to cycle through the mountains. The traffic became almost non-existant and the villages were separated by longer and longer distances. It was fantastic ride over the mountain passes! In Tarakli, I bought some bread and immediately afterwards the police officer of the village, Hassan, approached me and invited me for a Cay. After two other Cay, I knew more or less all the 'elder men' of the village. One man spoke some German, as he was a 'guest-worker' in Germany for 11 years. It was always a very heartening experience to be greeted with such hospitality. Just asking for some water at a farm? You get invited for a Cay and in the end even for dinner! (This happened a few dozens of kilometers later).

After Nallihan, about 200km before Ankara, I suddenly realised that the landscape had changed dramatically, the hilltops were bare and shaped by erosion, the horizon open up. It seemed as if the Earth had changed in scale... Nicolas Bouvier Asia had begun for me! 3500km after my departure, I arrived in a landscape that was so completely different from Europe. Awesome!

Visa-hunting in Ankara!

The only reason why I cycled to Ankara was to get visas. Back in Switzerland it would have been too early to apply. Armed with my passport, loads of passport photographs, a pen and of course US Dollars, I started my hunt ... At first, I had to realise that the it is quite difficult to find all these small embassies. US-embassy? ... no problem. Tajik embassy? ... what? With help of google, I found all the corresponding street names, the addresses were spread over a several huge residential areas in southern Ankara. In the first two days, I easily walked a few dozens of kilometers. Luckily, when you ask a taxi driver for directions he can help you, as long as you have the street name. But asking directly for the embassy is pointless, you will just get the direction for ANY of the stan-states. Ok, with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, this would still be a reasonable 1:5 chance. But the fact that Georgia is called Guercistan in Turkish doesn't really help Other problems are that there are no city maps for some of the residential areas and that most embassies have moved over the past years, Georgia even twice. I started drawing my own small maps... The good thing of all this is, that I know now southern Ankara quite well and I figured out how the at first a bit complicated bus and minibus system works.

Today, after one and a half week, all six visas for Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, as well as Georgia and Azerbaijan seem to work well. Most of them are already stamped into my passport. A couple of these visas are normally very difficult to get, you would need a Letter of invitiation, sponsors & co. Something that can easily take two months to sort out for that many visas. Here in Ankara, I never needed an invitation, just in two cases a Letter of recommandation was required and in one case probably a good personal presentation.

The embassies differ enormously in the their visa regulations but also in the way your are received. Azerbaijan has a luxury villa at the outskirts of the city, Tajikistan received my at one of their windows and handed out the forms through the iron bars. The English on the Turkmen application form was so bad, that I had to think twice about every case. The Kyrgyz gave me a very warm welcome, the vice-ambassador was clever enough to figure out that I am on a bicycle tour and found this "very wonderful". With a warm handshake I was welcomed in Kyrgyzstan, some 5000 km from the actual border. At the embassy of Azerbaijan, I showed up five times. At first the embassy was closed, then I was told that I need a Letter of recommendation from my embassy, only the next time, they told me to go to a certain bank in the city to pay 40 USD in favor of their account, then I could finally bring my passport and on the fifth visit I received my passport back with my visa. Surprisingly, as I walked back from the embassy at one time, the driver of the embassy stop and invited me to drive to the city center. Excellent limousine!

In total, I will probably spend two weeks here in Ankara, but I am relatively optimistic that I can get all the visas. Beginning of november, I will then cycle on to Eastern Turkey.

See you soon!
Daniel

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