Trabzon, Turkey...

Cheerio,

This was the second phase of my trip. After sorting out the problems at Askale we departed for Trabzon on the Blacksea coast. We took a bus from Askale to Trabzon. It was about 110 km but it felt like a lot more. We took the main road from Askale to Bayburt, through Gumushane to Trabzon. The bit from Gumushane to Trabzon was hairy to say the least. It was all the way through some serious mountains with hairpin bends so tight that the bus had to try twice to get around some. We got to Trabzon about 11 oclock at night.


The work was a site survey so that was quickly done. After that we had a bit of time to do some sightseeing. Ugur and I went to a tea garden on top of a hill overlooking Trabzon harbour. Cracking views from there.

The tea came in a huge samovar with glowing coals on the bottom. You fill you glass with some strong tea and then fill to the top with boiling water. This is called acek cay, or light tea...

The walk down the hill was quite hard work and I realised that I could do with a haircut as I was getting very warm, sweating like a pig comes to mind... So I nipped in the nearest kuafor shop I could find and told him I wanted a trim. Wow, the barbers in Turkey are excellent. They do you hair, do you ears, scrape your neck with a cut throat razor and all of that for the grand old price of 2 pounds. (3 USD, 3 Eur). This is the guy at work.
Needless to say that I had an audience... there were at least 5 old men sitting outside the shop lauging at the fat foreigner.... Never mind, I had a whale of a time. Trabzon is a good party town, the place is full of kebab shops, bars and Natashas... (Whoever has been there knows what I mean...

More later,

Alex.