Tonight I will spend my last night in Turkey, before entering Syria tomorrow. I have cycled 5000km by now, 2000 of them in Turkey. I passed 15 countries so far, but Turkey accounts for 40% on my mileage.

The coastal road was flat sometimes, but mostly hilly and three days were really hard, the hardest since I left home. As for the Anatolian plateau, the initial climb was soft, than I cruised mostly on gentle slopes between 1000 and 1200 meters. Finally the Taurus mountains are very impressive, but I avoided most of them.

Passing Istanbul was quite dangerous. The roads are not designed for cyclists, and I had to be very careful. Three days ago I passed Mersin, a city with 1 million inhabitants. This was far more dangerous. The driver’s style has changed. They are for more aggressive now, totally regardless to cyclists. Especially the bus drivers cut my road without any respect, or squeezed me against the sidewalk.

People’s attitude has changed, generally speaking, since I left Alanya. They are less friendly, sometimes they look hostile. Kids start picking up stones when I approach. I am very attentive to this and make sure they understand that I know their intentions. So far I have been hit only once. A stone out of nowhere stroke ma head.

Before any premature conclusions, let me remind you, that I am still in Turkey, and not in an Arab country.

But if this stone throwing will continue, I will have to buy me a cycling helmet again.  What an idea: Wearing a cycling helmet to avoid getting stoned!

People seem to be even poorer here than in the other parts of Turkey I passed. Their clothes look even more worn out, cars are even older. The only thing that seems to do well, are the cafés. They are always crowded, by men only, of course. Sometimes I have the feeling that nobody is working down here! Except for the petrol stations, where 4 to 5 attendants are ready to fill up tanks. Salaries must be very low for such a luxury. At least their low salaries guarantee their jobs! No need (yet) to switch over to self-service.

Life is definitely cheap here; at the moment I can easily live with less than 25 Euros a day.

The last three very hard  stages were followed by two easy ones. Furthermore I tried to limit my effort to a strict minimum, and I got the hoped result: My health problem is about to disappear. So it was a hematuria due to too much effort, aggravated by a substantial loss of liquid. I take my antibiotics for one more day, than I stop. Besides the antibiotics, I also take Nivaquine since a week. Nivaquine is a anti-malaria medication.

In Turkey, there is police everywhere, even when there is no police