It was my childhood dream, to ride all over the world. I don’t know what the motivation is for this dream but may be a movie that I watched, a. book that read or a story that heard may have been the reason. But there is a track of life society put in front of us that is to go to school, to find a job, to marry, to have children, to grow them up, to get retired and to die. It’s very difficult to escape from that track. So I had to wait a lot to start to run after my dreams. After having some hearth problems and conditions got better for me economically, I decided that it’s time to start. First I bought an enduro motorcycle and sold my chopper, then plans. and more plans :)
What a big excitement! Preparations. I got all my hair cut too feel comfortable in the helmet. Got too many clothes with me. I throttled on the 14th of July, 2016. The day before the planned journey, I wanted to go to Edirne, spend the night there so I could cross the Kapıkule border very early in the morning and I could spent more time in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
I arrived at Edirne but couldn’t sleep at night because of the excitement. At about 4 in the morning, I got up and picked my luggages and put on the motorcycle and rode to the border in the dark. It took half an hour to reach to Kapıkule border. It was my first time crossing the border on a motorcycle and I was wondering whether it takes too long or not. But It was so easy that in 5 minutes I was in Bulgaria and the sun was just started rising.
After all the traffic jam, crowded streets in Turkey, Bulgaria, especially the towns and villages near the border was too quite and deserted. It was 7- 7.30 in the morning when I arrived at Plovdiv. I went to the hotel I booked but my room was occupied with the previous customer so they only got my luggages and told me to come back at noon. I went to a bakery, bought a piece of cake and cup of coffee because I hadn’t eaten anything then.
First I wanted to travel in Europe and planned for months. I decided to go to Italy as the destination, spend 10-15 days there, then take a ferry from Bari to Duress, Albany and return back home.
I made a route starting from Edirne to Plovdiv and to Sofia, Belgrade, Budapest, Vienna, Ljubljana, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Naples, Bari, Duress, Tirana, Skopje, Thessaloniki and back to Turkey. 33 days and 10000km
Prepared the journey as much as I could as an amateur point of view. Motorcycle clothes, raincoats, boats and clothes. Remembering today as a more experienced rider, I laugh at myself because all were disappointments. I got wet, felt cold and clothes were discomfortable.
Google map always takes you to the city center If you don’t write a certain address or if you only write the name of the city or town. I arrived at the “old city” in Plovdiv. My hotel was also in the old city. I wandered the old city very fast. Soon after the noon my tour in Plovdiv finished. While I was wandering the old city, I visited a very old amphitheater on top of a hill, there I saw an advertisement saying “Operet Turandot by Puccini”. Looked at the date and surprisingly found out that the performance was at that evening. Happilly bought a ticket because I had never watched an operet before. I had no other plan for the evening and watching an operet in an amphitheater would be a great experience. The ticket was about 32 Leva, 16 Tl at that time and was very cheap. I went to the hotel, got a shover, rest a little, ate dinner and went to the operet. Lights and decorations on the scene in a summer evening at an amphitheater on top of a hill in a foreign town, full of Bulgarian people made a magnificent ambiance for me.
I was affected by the ambiance and by the operet a lot. The operet was a combination of many arts, It had poems, singing, theatre, music, dancing and so on. I loved it. The operet was in Bulgarian Language but they had put a large screen Tv for subtitle in English. In fact what was said in the performance was secondary, the drama performed was quite satisfactory. At the end of the operet, I stood up and started walking through the exit. It was about 11 in the evening, the very first day of 33 days tour of my childhood dream, in Bulgaria, among hundreds of Bulgarian people, I heard some words in Turkish in the crowd saying “Attempt of a Military coup”, shocked, couldn’t be real, listened to the crowd hoping it was my mishearing but again heard “Attempt of a Military coup” and saw a women saying to her daughter. I went to her and asked “sorry, what did you say”, she replied “Attempt of a Military coup happened”. “Where” I asked, “Turkey” she replied, “Are you jogging” I asked but unfortunately was not a joke. I couldn’t believe my ears. I dreamed this trip all my life and look what had happened the very first day. It was a kind of nightmare to me. I went to the hotel in a hurry, called my family, they approved the attempt, I told them to stay at home. All night long tried to get information about the attempt and talked to my family on the phone. It was very strange, one side of my mind was saying it is a comedy performed for some people and the other was saying it is very poor attempt of a religious community. Whichever it is, It was clear that very soon everything will be ok. But I thought I had to go back to my family. All my dreams, plans, the tickets I bought, the hotels I booked, the dreams I thought was over. I was very sorry. Besides I had bought a plane ticket for my daughter to Italy, and planned to spent a week together in Rome. She was also very excited about her travel and it was also the end of her dreams. I talked to them and decided together to wait till morning to see how serious it is.
I couldn’t sleep very well and got up early in the morning and called to my family. They said everything is ok, there is nothing different, people went to their jobs, shops are opened. It was over. The news says it was an attempt of a religious community but was suppressed. I couldn’t decide whether to go on the journey or back to home. Talked to my family and they said “go on now but if conditions change then you may come back”. I rode to Sofia, reading the news in my phone and calling to my family very often. It took a few hours to arrive at Sofia. It was about noon.
I found my hotel and put my luggages in my room and started wandering.
I saw a kind of pity and sorriness in the face of all the people I met in Sofia when they asked where I was from and got the answer because of the attempt of military coup. It was a poor attempt in a middle east country In the year 2016 for them and I was the citizen of it. It touched me a lot. They only have a bad image of Turkey even if it is 10 times bigger, 10 times more developed, ten times richer than theirs. Of course it’s not their mistake becuase it’s the image that we created ourselves.
Scorpions is my favorite rock band for more than 37 years. I first listened them when I started the university in Adana in 1980. I listened them live a few times in Turkey. The last one was only a week before my trip and went to the concert in İstanbul. When planning the trip I learned that there is a Scorpions concert in Sofia too at the day I would be there and bought a ticket for the concert in internet. It would be great to be in the concert with Bulgarian people in Armec Arena, Sofia. It was five times more crowded than the concert in Istanbul a week ago. I felt wonderful. Singing the same songs, feeling the same emotions with thousands of Bulgarian people was great. It was my second Scorpions concert in a week.
Another precious experience was the visit to the museum where the art pieces from the socialist Sofia were collected. You can see the photos below. I believe the people of Bulgaria have many good and and bad thoughts about socialism and its practice in the past. But for me the problems are not the problems of the systems or ideologies but the problems of the people and their instinctual behaviours who run the systems.
The road between Sofia to Belgrade passes through a mountain road with tens of tunnels. Altitude is very high and I started the ride very early in the morning before the sun rise as usual to make more use of the day. But it was freezing cold. I had never felt so cold before. Golesh, Sofia, Bulgaria, Serbia Border.
And the second bad news! Holidays for all state officials were cancelled and we all were asked to go back to work as soon as possible. But why me? I work at a university and there are no students, no classes, no examinations. why me? I could not go back because I was on a motorbike and thousands of km a way from home. I called the rectorate and told them the situation, they said they were sorry but it was not their decision and they asked me to come back in 5 days. Many people were arrested, many officials were fired out and some extraordinary regulations were set and so on. Still felt very sorry about my people and my country when remembered those days. I made the following share in facebook on the right side. I needed another plan to ride back to Turkey for the next five days but I added two extra day to it, taking all the risk. I planned to follow the previous route until Vienna then planned to ride back from Vienna to Turkey from Slovenia, Crotia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria and back home. The returning route was for two days ride, the first day it was about 800km and the second day was about 1500km.
After crossing the Serbian border, I stopped the first petrol station to warm. I bought a cup of coffee and sat near the window. A man with Beşiktaş uniform was looking at my bike. He was Suat Balcı and he was driving to Belgrade. It is a privilege to be a fan of Başiktaş because wherever you go, you can meet another fan.
One of the most interesting places I visited in Belgrade was the aviation museum near the airport. The next was Tesla museum. The animation video below shows Tesla’s project of absorbing the energy of worlds spinning power that may solve all the energy need of the world forever.
I arrived at Budapest in 20th July. I shared in facebook that “I got too tired and bored because it is a straight valley to Budapest, no joy of riding. But Budapest with its stone like architecture and 4 or 5 flat buildings, bridges and statues make a great impression on the first comers”.
There is video of short clips in Budapest. The building in photo on the left is where I stayed. Old but a clean pension was in it.
I was too hungry when arrived, got out and faced a “Törok” (means Turk) restaurant named Karavan. The man run the restaurant was also a Turk and gave double porsion whatever I asked :)
There was a Picasso exhibition in a museum on top of a hill on the western bank of the Tuna river in Budapest. It was wonderful to have a chance to know Picasso and his works. In fact, all of us may be considered to be a kind of artist if the art is a way of expressing feelings and thoughts. We all express our feelings and experiences in a manner either by our acts, by our words, by drawing or by an attitude. A slight difference in our expression that separates us from a good artist is that fineness, creativeness and originality. I saw Picasso’s works again in Vienna after Budapest.
The museum of Natural History in Vienna is the place which enlightened, enriched and gave a different perspective to my worldview. I said “I’m luck to have the chance to visit this museum” many times. It was so big and rich that it might take hours and days wandering around. Many sections and departments. Animals, Minerals, Plants, Fossils, Meteoroids and so on. Variety of everything is unbelievable. I always thought in mind that each student teacher must visit this museum before getting the diploma. I write here in capital letters for you “ GO VISIT THE MUSEM OF NATURAL HISTORY” in Vienna.
The next stop after Budapest, Hungary was Vienna, Austria. The flora and the cleanness is improving moving to the west. The bridges, roads and viaducts look better in a more green and clean environment. I had shared the following message on the 22nd July in Facebook before I arrived at Vienna. “Ottomans arrived at the doors but couldn’t conquered the city but in a short time I will go and get the golden keys of those doors (from a souvenir shop)”
I rode my motorcycle in Budapest streets more than two hours and recorded video. A short summary of Budapest streets (24 minutes) may be watched in the video below.
My ride from Budapest to Vienna in short can be watched in the video on the left. Traffic is wonderful for a rider. Everybody respect riders. When I approach them from behind they drive their cars to the right side of the road and open a place for me to pass. We are not used to this kindness. :(
I visited two important art exhibition in Vienna, one was “From Monet to Picasso” exhibition and the other was Jim Dine exhibition who only draws portraits.
I went to an Indian restaurant in Vienna. While I was waiting for my meal, the smell of the meal cooking in the kitchen was so hot that my eyes got red. I wondered at that moment what type of food they would get me to eat. IT was really very spicy but tasty. My eyes and noose got really wet.
The building designed by the famous architecture Friedensreich Hundertwasser was one of the touristic spot in Vienna. there were many coffee houses and souvenir shops around. Interesting architecture. Human soul has an interest in different things but it is too lazy to be different so has a tendency to behave as it used to.
Another place I was impressed was the museum of Technisches. The variety of technological products from past to present was impressive. I thought that for the societies without this cumulative culture of technology, it is very difficult to invent a technological product.
INTEGRATED HOLOGRAPHIC DISPLAY
Real objects and 3D holograms together. The medicine box written Perzon on it is real, copper plate is real and the others are only holographic display. In future, this type of immersion technology will be more common.
CLOUD MACHINE
I don’t understand the mechanism but this machine produce a kind of cloud or wave.
And the way back home. I rode from Vienna to Sarajevo. It’s about 800 km. Only 10 or 20 km to Sarajevo, a heavy rain and just after that a terrible hail started. I sheltered in a petrol station where I met Boris Budinjas, Bognar Bernadett and Hans Luiken.
I could only walk in Sarajevo a few hours. Sarajevo is just like a Turkish village with many Turkish tourists, meals, coffee houses and so on. I was so tired that I could hardly stay awake. I stayed one night in Sarajevo and at 5 in the morning the next day I started to ride back to home.
An eerie place that I visited in Vienna was the Imperial Crypt under the basement of Capuchin Church. Tens of rooms full of graves made out of metal castings with many statues and carvings were very interesting as much as very eerie. You can see a photo on the left side.
When I arrived home at 02.30am the other day it took 22,5 hours, 3 customs, Bosna-Serbia-Bulgaria and Turkey, 1500 km, I was just like Ghost Rider, burning in flames. I was two days late to work and had no more time to waste. I waited 1,5 hours in Bulgaria custom to enter. It was too hot.
The road from Sarejevo to Serbia was on a mountain and it was raining and foggy. I rode three-four hours on this tiny road and it was difficult to see the road. It was the first time I feared during all the trip. Later the fog was gone and rode a few more hours on the same road. Then I reached to Serbia and near the city Niş, I turned to Sofia-Bulgaria. Hours later I arrived at Sofia and rode directly to Plovdiv where I had to rest a little longer because I got very tired and hungry. Then I rode to Kapıkule border of Turkey and to Edirne. I thought to sleep at Edirne but felt close to home (450km) and decided to go on riding. In Edirne, I stopped at a coffee shop and drank good tea after 11-12 days. Between Istanbul and İzmit, I didn’t ride the motorcycle but the motorcycle rode me. :D I will never ride this long again. It is very dangerous because the senses get weaker, the control gets looser, the risk gets higher. After 1400-1500 km and almost 23 hours riding , I arrived at home and happy. It was my longest ride ever. I hadn’t even driven my car or travelled on a bus that long.
Kocaeli Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Bölümü 41380 İzmit/Kocaeli/Türkiye
