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<\/a><\/p>\nThis morning I realized that I need to spend more time mapping my route. My map of Turkey is too large a scale, and clearly outdated. The map has topo information, but I need to pay better attention. There’s also rain in the forecast for Thurs. I spent an hour this morning looking at my likely next few days on the map, and decided to change plans, and catch a bus directly to Bulgaria. The cyclists yesterday recommended that difficult route, but a bus to the top of the mountain range gives me a day of rest, and the next day mostly downhill.<\/p>\n
I’m regularly asked what do since I don’t speak the language. I cycled to the bus station, and asked about a bus. Some back and forth (which included calling his son who spoke limited English) led to learning the bus was small, and the bicycle and luggage would not fit. *Sigh*\u00a0 Someone then went outside to take a close look at the bike, realized the luggage was detachable, and gestured that I should remove the panniers and front tire; the bus would arrive in 30 minutes. While I waited, the staff brought me tea, then water, then more tea!<\/p>\n
Four people unloaded and reloaded the bus to fit my bike, waved me goodbye, and I was on my way (not quite certain how to bike would suffer the ride). The only remaining problem was I had to change buses. As everyone helped unload my bike, I pulled out my map and pointed to the final destination. They grabbed my panniers, and led me to the other side of the station.<\/p>\n
Upon realizing i didn’t have a ticket, someone led me to another part of the station to confirm the plan in English, and then back where I started to buy the ticket. The next bus didn’t have room, but the one 15 minutes later did. Three passport checks later at the Bulgarian border, and I find myself in the border town. The ticket would have taken me much farther, but this is a cycling trip after all. I adjusted the front brakes (again) but the bike survived the trip. <\/p>\n
When I went out for dinner tonight, I spent a while trying to figure out what was the restaurant; in Turkey and Bulgaria, abandoned building and restaurant don’t look all that different. I asked for a menu, but they had questions about what I wanted. So the cook gestured me to the kitchen, and pointed at ingredients for yes and no. <\/p>\n
I don’t find language an insurmountable barrier. I’ve used Google Translate a few times, but from the response the translations are not very good.<\/p>\n
No vacancies in the local hotel, but they referred me to the hospital nearby, where I could stay for the night. Tomorrow should be 70+ km, and camping on the Black Sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I spend tonight in a Bulgarian hospital. This morning I realized that I need to spend more time mapping my route. My map of Turkey is too large a scale, and clearly outdated. The map has topo information, but I need to pay better attention. There’s also rain in the forecast for Thurs. I spent … Continue reading “I don’t speak the language”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-touring"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3991,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/3991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}