We permit ourselves and alarmless wake up. Once up we have several rounds of cay - with sugar!! I then bust out our second Christmas present - a carefully smuggled chocolate snowman (from my red cross package delivered in Istanbul) sadly no carefully enough, he was a little cracked. I didn't have the heart to tell Stu that said snowman had been wrapped in my pants all that time : ). Merry Christmas dude!
After a lazy morning of utter luxury we hit the road and soon the day feels like any other. We stop at a bread shop for a snack. Outside (under the shelter of the bus stop) we dip bread into a mixture of olive oil, salt and chilli. The closest we get to turkey is simply being in Turkey. Christmas fail! While we eat Jergen rolls up. A cyclist from Germany - who had perhaps spent a little too much time alone. He insisted we'd met before and then laughed at the puny distance we'd covered, while he had managed to cycle to the far side of Iran and back. Merry Christmas to you too Jergen.
The snowman gave us the taste for chocolate and at our first cay stop we devour several bars each.
As darkness falls we ride into the town of Tosya. Which is hands down is the friendliest town in Turkey - while having no seemingly obvious reason for being so. Around twenty thousand inhabitants. Endless manky car workshops and dingy markets. And yet - every single soul we pass greets us with a mighty grin. After a quick cybercafe stop for Stu we stop by a shop for a treat - whiskey. With a cheap bottle of "highland malt" we head on out of town.
A few kilometers down the way we make out a building in the dark. After some inspection we realise it to be a disused chicken farm. Wheel the bikes into the barn, roll out the beds, cook dinner, drink. Our tipple is so far away from "highland malt" you cannot believe - for a start it was made in Bulgaria and was a "blend" of who knows what - I'd guess kerosene, Danube water and piss. But it mattered not. All in all a top Christmas and one I shall not forget.
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