No wind but big waves

A few days ago I went up on the pier just where we used to go swimming. There was no wind but big waves comming in from a storm far out. The wooden deck and the steel ladder was gone - no more swimming this year. Or maybe one more more time.It is almost 23 degrees in the water now.

Air supported vessel

There is a strange boat in the harbour.
When it was on shore for a couple of days it was easy to study it. The bottom is very much as a catamaran but  with a conventional bow. In the front there is a big fan blowing air under the hull at a rate of 15 m3/sec. I saw when they started it, the whole boat lifted 15 cm. The boat is powered by two Volvo Penta diesels each at 300 hp. The boat can achieve a speed of more than 30 knots and the power requirements is about half of a conventional boat. It is a norwegian invention and today some americans is testing the boat and will build two 80 feet boats.

Ayva - another exotic fruit

In Trabzon we walked around in the bazar and saw a lot of nice fruits. We stopped at one stall and looked at big yellow fruit almost like a big apple. Immediately a man approached us and said something in turkish but pointed at a younger man and said english. It was his son who had been in London for seven years and now he was back in Turkey to get married. He explained that the fruit called ayva was almost like an apple, quince in english.
We bought two of him and when we came back to Finike Ulla made a very good marmelade of them.

Dogu Ekspresi

We decided to take the night train instead of flying. We booked tickets for the Dogu Ekspresi which goes from Kars in eastern Turkey to Ankara. We embarked in Sivas. The train was already one hour late. but no problem. We are on a slow trip either on sea or land. It was going to take 12 hours but it became 13 hours, so we were 2 hours late in Ankara. The train was good with twobed cabins, waterbasin and fridge with water, juice and snacks all included in the cost of 56 lira.

Pitepalt a'la Turkey

We found the small restaurant Sema Hanimin Yeri recommended by Lonely Planet. It was a place mostly visited by students and obviously very popular. We ordered madimak soup, it's some kind of vegetable and I had Iscl Köfte which looks just like the traditional Pitepalt from northern Sweden. It was a ball of dough filled with minced meat, boiled and with melted butter. Ulla had a gözleme, pancake with cheese.

A visit to the great mosque in Sivas

We walked to the Great Mosque in Sivas. It didn't look like a traditional mosque, it's a low flat building with one minaret. As we walked around it we didn't know if it was ok to go inside the courtyard but we did and suddenly a woman came up to us and by signs showed os to follow her inside the building. After taking off the shoes we walked around an also a man came and showed us around also taking pictures of us. There were men sitting on the floor reading the koran. It was all very quite. It was one big room big like football arena and only men apart from one part which only Ulla was allowed to enter where all the women were. It was built in 1196.

 

the Kangal dog

In the fields we saw a few very big, almost white dogs among the sheeps. It was the big Kangal dog named after the village Kangal outside Sivas. It's a dog used to protect the sheeps from wolves, bears and jackals. It's up to 80 cm high and usually it wears a collar with big spikes to protect it from attacks of wolves.

Express train to Sivas

After enjoying the stay in Samsun we took the express train to Sivas. The choice is easy, there is one in the morning and another in the evening. The trip took nine hours and the cost was 18 lira. Good value per hour but the speed wasn't too impressing, sometimes the old ladies was walking at the same speed on the path beside the rails.
It was a nice trip with an interesting landscape, canyons in the beginning, then a deserted landscape and on the high plateau acriculture with beets and cows.
At the trainstation in Sivas we managed to buy tickets for the Douglu express at 22.00 the next day without speeking any english.

Kokorec - another culinary experience

It's always interesting to try the local food. On the corner we found some rolls being grilled. We asked for a portion with bread.
It was close to what the scots call haggis. Minced intestines from cow or lamb.
The taste was what it looks like.

Samsun was a nice experience, much better than the guide book says. We visited the Bandirma steamer and museum also the very good city museum which tells about the history and the economy of Samsun. There was also a modern Basar next to the tobacco pier where Atatürk landed.

Atatürk in Samsun

Atatürk arrived in Samsun with the steamer Bandirma in 1919 and it was from here he started the liberation war.

Black Sea coast road by bus

After a good breakfast at the hotel we  went to the otogar, bus station, and asked for a bus to Samsun. No problems, next bus was leaving in half an hour. The tickets were 30 lira each for the 350 km trip. When waiting for the bus we were served a cup of tea. The bus was nice we good seats, television at every seat and the bus steward served tea and cakes several times on the trip. The road followed the beach most of the way. It was interesting to see it all. At Giresun we saw a huge building project in the water. It looked as a new harbour but was in fact the new airport, built completely in the water.

Sumela monastery

We . took a tour to the Sumela monastery which is 50 km up the mountains.
The monastery is built on the side of the rock at 1200 m. It was founded in 386 by greek monks and at 1923 they had to leave it due to the turkish-greek exchange.

Turkey's most expensive coffe

All places has it's tourist traps. In Trabzon we took a turkish coffe in the park and two coffes  were 15 liras about three times as much as it should be, After a discussion with the owner the price came down to 10 liras.
However it loked very nice.

The best Pideci in Turkey - Cardac

Hungry ! Where do you go? To Cardac who has the best pide, pizzas, in Trabzon or maybe Turkey. It's like a hole-in-wall but big. There were not too many people but it looked very turkish. We got a menu and after a short while a nice waitress came to help us. No english. We understood what was meat and cheese and she recommended one which we choose together with Ayran and Su, salt youghurt drink and water. The pides were big and good. They asked when we had finished them if we wanted cay, the turkish tea, which are very good and this is the tea district. The waitress went away for five minutes and returned with a bag of baklavas and she gave us four filled with hazelnuts.
This was a very good start in Trabzon.

On vacation by the Black Sea

We decided we wanted a break from the work on board.
We wanted to see the Black Sea coast and flew to Trabzon where we landed in the rush hours of friday afternoon, The streets were crowded. As we hadn't booked a hotel room we tried to find the hotel area. After asking several people and got different answers we ended up at the main square, Atatürk Alani, and tried the Park Otel, it didn't look very impressive but the rooms were very good and the breakfast excellent.
As the coast is very mountaineous the airport is a stretch along the beach.