Traveling light is much more hassle free. Tools and spare parts take up most space... For food, I need lot's of it.. i get very irritated when i'm hungry and Greece really satisfied my needs, unlike Italy. :-
I will continue with some pictures from istanbul. It's still a great place, although was probably more interesting in the past when eastern and western cultures weren't so much alike. We left our buses in a car park held by some Kurds, we payed a daily fee for parking and they let us sleep there. no point going around in cars. they couldn't make me go in there, I don't like religion or being around religious people or want to have anything to do with it. But i gave in, had to admire it just for the architectural value. pretty huge this place. Roman cistern: picking out ugly fridge magnets drinking in public is not very common here, so the pubs are all on the rooftops. view from above: If you come to Turkey, try this specialty. it's called "Midje" or something like that, its a type of sea shell filled with rice and lemon. going over to Asia. Tea? ya right. _1944457_n.jpg" alt="" /> all they drink here is tea. so well, 3 days of Istanbul was hardly enough to preview of what it's made of, but we have to go, our Turkish friends are leaving, and we feel a bit lost by ourselves. hardly anyone speaks English here. we said goodbye and hit the road.. we want to get as close to the Bulgarian border as possible so we don't have to sleep there (apparently it's quite dangerous) We went on the motorway to make up some time, but as it got dark, my friends bus behind me started making a horrible noise. We stopped and decided it is best not to run the engine not to cause any more serious damage, so i took out my tow bar and towed him to the first rest stop. By this time it was dark and we couldn't do much. I tried adjusting the valves, but the noise was still there. we decided to sleep over and see tomorrow morning. Next morning at the rest stop, i took my toolbox out, and we ended up with this: the Valve seat sunk so much the valve broke the guide and made a mess. This is probably the result of him running lean. We don't speak the language, we don't have a spare head, we are somewhere between Istanbul and Edirne, we don't have enough credit on our motorway pass cards because some con's tricked us and took our money for an empty card, we don't know anyone here (our friends left for Ankara), we have limited money, there's broken car glass all over this rest stop with shady people wandering around and we haven't seen a single air-cooled vw since we came. Well.. at least we had one bus left. To be continued...
Sven - this is an absolutely fantastic thread! I've really enjoyed reading it and see the wonderful photos. Have a karma, mate.
Great story and pics Sven really gives you the highs and lows of trips like this. Hope you got the head sorted.
and we think we are adventurous driving to France and back ) Great story and looking forward to seeing the next instalment.
Thanks everyone for your support and nice comments. I guess it's time for me to finish this story, because in 4 day's we begin this years Bus road trip. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stranded on that rest stop, we sms-ed our friends home to find us some help. an urgent message was posted on our forum and a couple of minutes later we got a call from our friend from Slovenia who knows some Greek guy from the air cooled club who then knows some Turkish guy from their club. We were first sent to some strange town full of workshops, but nobody had any parts for our Bus. Finally our Turkish contact Mustafa decides to meet us, he has all the parts to fix our head (type 4 seats, guides and valves), but we need to get back to Istanbul. Remember when I said some thieves sold us bogus road toll cards? well on the exit for Istanbul, the ramp wouldn't open, sirens started flashing and a cue of cars piled up behind us. Then some of those "dealers" came to us wanting to sell us a new card (probably bogus again) but we said we are calling the Police for them and we won't move our car until they let us through. Instantly they gave us a free card and the ramp went up. Finally we meet up with Mustafa, he introduces us to some of his Aircooled friends, we sit and have tea while they fix the head. Even though this normally takes more than a day to do, they did this for us in an hour. We payed everyone for their trouble, thanked them and went back to the rest stop hoping the bus was still there in one piece. It took us about 4 hours just to get out of Istanbul (traffic chaos! i mean chaos! there are 5 lanes on the road, but the cars line up in 8!) By the time we got there, it was too late to work on the bus, we were exhausted from all day trying to find parts and 6 hours of avoiding road collisions. early in the morning we got to work; after about 5 hours of work (the exhaust gave us trouble) Sivko was back on the road! ("sivko" means little grey thing or something) It took us longer than we expected so if we were to continue through Bulgaria we would have to sleep somewhere along the way, and we were told many times it's very dangerous to sleep on the road there. So we stayed at Edirne, a place near the border. made dinner: and had a look around... it's a nice town. Early in the morning before the sun get's too hot for our engines, we Head through Bulgaria. We drove all day, and finally arrived to Sofia. (capital of Bulgaria) We had dinner, walked around, bought some wwII memorabilia on some antique flea market... Our plan was not to sleep in Bulgaria, so we still had a way to go. Our next stop is Niš, Serbia. Late at night we give our friend a call and he shows us the way to a supermarket parking lot where we can sleep over. We meet some Italians there, but we are too tired to mingle. (i think they were a bit offended), but oh well. In the morning our friend gives us a tour of Niš. my girlfriend is an archeologist, so we are sort of interested in all that stuff. Same story over and over everywhere on the east. ancient things are dug up, but no financing is involved and things get neglected, ruined or just dug back in. Buying souvenirs. (if someone said 20 years ago that we'd be buying Serbian souvenirs some day...) Serbs and us have a history, and it wasn't pretty. Cele-kula.. a very unique monument from days of Turkish empires. it consists of 50 skulls that were cemented into 4 walls as a demonstration of Turkish power over Serbs. Its been outside for years so most heads have fallen off... some were taken, but today it is preserved and turned into a museum. The next day we went to Belgrade, slept on a petrol station, next day we were on homeland. we ate the remaining food. and everything was over very fast. I returned home with a very, very dirty bus, and we even had some money left over, which we would spend by celebrating with another road trip to a very special place (not that far though). Results of which I might show you when i find some free time. In 4 days, on Sunday or Monday we are starting a new adventure, our bus, and another friend in an air-cooled T25 are going north this time. Hope they have beer in Helsinki.
I have just read your thread from the start and wanted to say thank you so much for taking the trouble to post up all the photos with commentary and sharing your amazing road trip. Threads like this give both inspiration and the feeling of what its like to visit these places and its like having a mini virtual holiday. It is especially good because you have shown not just the places you have visited but also yourselves and your friends in these places, which makes it so much more real. Thanks again - have some Karma - ps. your gf has beautiful hair
