3/2/25
It was great. We had nowhere that we had to go and nothing we felt we had to do. Well kind of. Frankie went out to get some flour. We finally had a kitchen again so pancakes were back on the menu. We started watching a film called Geostorm, it’s old but really popular on netflix right now. At 11am we had to move out and take our stuff downstairs. The cleaners were there and we popped everything in, before leaving them to finish.
Now that we’d reached Istanbul we had a difficult decision to make. We wanted to carry on our adventure but as the cold was upon us, and the way east, we were a bit stuck. The only options were to go through Iran, not viable for British citizens as it takes at least 2 months to get a visa, or go through the ‘stans which is way too cold this time of year. Or wait until winter is over and maybe head to Cyprus to ensure we had enough time on our visas.
None of these options suited us unfortunately. We made the very conflicting and reluctant decision to buy plane tickets to Thailand. We are both deeply committed to protecting the climate and are going to look hard at what we can do to ‘offset’ the 1500kg each of carbon or equivalent emissions (CO2e). For context, using the statistics from this BBC article https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220429-the-climate-benefits-of-veganism-and-vegetarianism, our vegan diet produces 2028kg less CO2e each every single year. We still know better and hope we don’t regret our decision.
We wanted to go over the Galata bridge to Eminönü. It was hard to cross the road, and we had to use an underpass full of technology shops. We were off to get bike boxes in the bike shop district. We’d obviously never shipped bikes before and so had researched online for tips and what to do.
Obtaining cardboard boxes is on the surface an easy task. However, Istanbul has a notoriously high demand for them. A lot of people cycle to Istanbul as an end destination. They also have ‘pickers’, these guys have huge trollies and roam the streets collecting all the cardboard from the bins. They can sell it. So cardboard isn’t free here. You have to buy the boxes and the shops all know the deal.
We went to the bike shop district. In Istanbul all the shops for different things are in the same place. It must work and so it should as the amount of customers needing assistance doesn’t change because the shops are far apart. As we entered the street we saw two boxes by the side of the road folded up. Were they being thrown away? We asked a man in the shop nearby. He said he wanted a whopping 2000 Lira for them. That’s about £40. They were a bit beat up too.
We haggled him down to 1200 but decided to look around. They were the first we’d seen after all. Another shop said he’d sell us two for 800, but they weren’t there and we’d have to go back later. The last shop we tried asked us for €36 for two, brand new boxes. We weighed up the pros and cons and bought the new boxes. We had some Euros leftover and they’re thousands of pounds worth of bike. It’s nothing really.
We took our boxes with us and went to get some strong tape. Obviously we went to the hardware shop district. The first guy didn’t have any but gladly took us to the nearest shop that did. We bought red and white tape. Maybe it would help our bikes be taken care of better. He also had some little luggage scales for £4. We had no idea how much anything weighed and thought it was wise. The only thing left to get was bubble wrap or foam. We circled the shops but then went back to the first guy. He seemed to be in the know.
He pondered for a minute, shouted to a guy on scaffolding above him, and then told us to go straight up the street and turn left in 150m. Pretty specific. We walked down the busy market street and lo and behold there was a little shop with huge rolls of bubble wrap for about £3.50.
We marched it all back over the bridge. It’s Turkey, so no one looked twice at the guy with boxes on his head. They were deceivingly heavy though. When we arrived back at the flat there were sheets drying all over it. We went back out to get food. First to the vegetable market, then a dark little bakery to get simit rings. We were 5 lira short and though she was going to let us off, we told her we would be back.
As we got to our new flat the, surprisingly young, owner was coming out. He said a friendly hello and introduced himself. Our new flat was smaller, and unfortunately smelt a little bit like drain. It seemed to be coming from the bathroom so we just kept the door closed.
We’d forgotten oil and water and coffee. So Jonathan popped out to get some and thought it best to splash out on extra virgin olive oil. We still felt really tired and drained. We had some tea and polished off the hazelnut paste wrapped in rolled dried fruit things. We really needed to find out their name.
For dinner we had rice with an aubergine and tomato sauce topped with fried chickpeas. On the side we had chilli and garlic broccoli and cabbage as well as salad. We relished having more vegetables back on our plates. We finished watching the daft Geostorm and then started an equally moronic film called Back in Action. It was nice to feel so relaxed.😌
Surly They Won't Make It 