It was my childhood dream! Maybe the idea of hopping on a motorcycle and traveling from country to country had lingered from a movie, a novel, or conversations among friends. It was a fantasy, a dream! In the middle of my forties, a minor heart condition sparked the feeling of "Oh no, time is running out!" — and that's when I bought my first big motorcycle: a Honda CMX250 Rebel Chopper. Soon after, I realized I needed an enduro and switched to a Triumph Tiger 800.

In my first journeys, the excitement was all about seeing new places, visiting new cities, experiencing history, culture, the road itself, and the act of traveling. Upon returning from those early trips, my stories were always about the places: cities, villages, mountains, lakes — all about the locations. Later on, in my subsequent travels, it was the people who became the priority. Meeting new people and getting to know them became my main motivation. With each encounter, there was a new emotion, a new thought, a new interaction — and I could feel myself growing richer. It was as if I were communicating with living souls, each touching me with their own colors, painting my spirit.

This feeling expanded during my journey through Russia and the Altai region. For the first time, I noticed it in St. Petersburg: cities themselves were touching my soul — just like Istanbul, Budapest, Prague, and Riga. It wasn't only cities anymore: a mighty river, a towering mountain, a beautiful tree would also evoke deep feelings in me. Everything had a spirit, a color, and by interacting with them, I was enriching my own palette. In my later travels, neither places nor people remained the sole focus. Instead, it all turned into a kind of spiritual experience. I was interested in seeing more, meeting more people — but even more so, in the impressions, emotions, and colors they left on me, whether positive or negative. Travel became a kind of precious inner journey, and I loved it.

During my journey to the Altai Mountains in Russia, I visited the Pazyryk section at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg — the exhibition of artifacts from the oldest known Turkic kurgans. Items like the Golden Man, the Pazyryk carpet, the mummified horse and carriage belonging to the Golden Man, his arrows, and other belongings were all on display. The massive wooden coffins where the warrior and his horse had been buried were there too. There were even relics like harnesses for deer, not just for horses. The remnants of the Golden Man’s golden robe and the tattoos visible even on his mummified body deeply impressed me. I had also been independently researching Shamanism and its way of life, and it especially captured my interest.

While riding through the Altai Mountains, I noticed flattened terraces on some hills, poles like flagpoles standing tall — sometimes even a few lone figures. Later, while resting at the café of a friendly Azeri man named Hüseyin, I asked about those terraces and people. When he told me they were shamans, I was surprised. He began telling me stories: that shamans were called to bless spaces, protect them from evil spirits, heal those suffering from spiritual disorders, or simply bring good fortune. Hüseyin shared that when he first opened his café, he had invited a well-known local shaman to perform a ritual upstairs. He recounted the shock he felt when unexpectedly encountering the shaman in the garden afterward.

After that, during my rides, I found myself scanning the hills and surroundings for shamans. One night in Biysk, my booked accommodation was given to someone else because I arrived late. I ended up staying in a filthy hotel room. The bed and pillow stank so badly that I laid my own towel over them to somewhat block the smell. I was utterly exhausted. That night, I had a strange dream — or at least that's the only way I can describe it. In that room, I heard a bizarre, forceful voice — it was yelling at me, either saying "Why did you come here?" or "Why did you return?" I felt as if I was being grabbed by the neck and paralyzed. I couldn’t move my head to see where the voice was coming from, but a voice inside me urged me to resist. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move my head, but I tried to fight back with my body. The next morning, I woke up to a beautiful day — after days of cold and rain, the Altai Mountains were bathed in sunlight, the air was mild, and I enjoyed one of the best rides of my life: crossing bridges over rivers, winding through valleys, and climbing mountain passes for 300–400 kilometers.

My final destination that day was Aktash, the farthest point in my Russian journey. The next day I planned to visit Ulagan, Balık T'yul, Kat'l Yarık, and then start my return trip. That night in Aktash, I had a deep, healing sleep — after the previous night’s ordeal, it felt like medicine. Early the next morning, around 5 or 6 AM, I visited the Pazyryk kurgans with a sense of deep spiritual significance. I felt that by riding my motorcycle across the valleys where my ancestors once galloped, drinking from their rivers, and seeing their landscapes with my own eyes, I was paying homage to them. You can find the detailed travel notes under the "Altai Mountains" heading in my travel menu, but at one point during that beautiful ride, for reasons still unknown, I lost control of my bike and fell, breaking my foot as I landed. Months later, while reviewing my footage, I discovered something that shook me: just seconds before the fall, my GoPro — which had supposedly run out of battery and turned off — somehow turned itself back on and captured the moment of the fall. What’s even stranger is that the camera didn’t just record a few seconds — it captured several minutes of footage. Normally, a drained GoPro might briefly flash when enough charge builds up, but not record for minutes. Moreover, my GoPro Session 5 has a recessed single button that requires a firm press and a few seconds to activate recording. It’s physically impossible for a broken camera mount to turn it on accidentally.

In short, I don't find this recording normal — I believe purely physical explanations are insufficient. On January 27, 2019 — about six months after the accident — I shared this video on my YouTube channel with the following note:

The spiritual quest that my motorcycle journeys gradually evolved into — the feeling of interaction with places, people, and nature — along with the ancient Central Asian belief systems of Tengrism and Shamanism, which hold that everything has a soul and that all souls on Earth are interconnected, deeply resonated with me. My curiosity toward this way of believing, combined with all these experiences, led me to name my journeys "Shaman Ride."

Of course, I do not claim to be a shaman myself; but I do feel this spirit and emotion throughout my travels, in my personal life, and in my relationships.

I participated in a talk show on motorcycle travel and my journeys with Tanser Katkar on the program Motorcycle Evolution aired on Çanakkale Ton TV. The program was broadcast in two parts and can be found below.

Kocaeli Üniversitesi,  Eğitim Fakültesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Bölümü 41380  İzmit/Kocaeli/Türkiye

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