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After a long night celebrating we woke early with the intention of getting to the Kyrgyzstan boarder early. We didn’t want any problems or long queues to contend with. We had heard that it could take a very long time so we didn’t want to miss the closing time of 8pm…. Thankfully on our high quality (£2) vodka we didn’t have any hang over and felt fresh in the morning.. After packing up and having a big breakfast (again horse sausages and eggs) it was time to make tracks.. for the first time at a border crossing we had got fully prepared with loads of food and water so that we didn’t end up starved and hungry (e.g. Like coming into Russia).. I hope you see the irony in that as the story unfolds…

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After waking up early to get back to the Kazakhstan embassy after our rather annoying discovery that it was not open on Wednesday…

For anyone interested in getting a Kazakhstan visa in Istanbul the opening times are 10:30 to 12:30am on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for submitting applications and from 3:30 to 4:40 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.. Its closed on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. You MUST have your visa support/Letter of Invite printed out prior to submitting the application.

Sampling the local apple tea in Istanbul.

We ended up riding to the embassy as we now knew where it was… It took us around 30minutes to get to there. Upon arriving there was already a line of people waiting… After waiting around in the line for around an hour only to find that we had to have a copy of our Letter of invite.. We had been told previously that we could quote a reference number and they would have a copy on file.. Unfortunately this was not the case, they ended up being nice enough to take our memory stick and print out the two invites to include in our application. All up it took about 1.5 hours to submit the two applications. We got told to return on Friday between 3:30 and 4:30 pm… Now it was time to head back to our apartment. After a brief lunch while a thunderstorm rolled in we headed out to the Grand Bazaar.. The humidity after the storm was almost stifling.. After arriving at the Grand Bazaar we were immediately inundated with the vibrant colours of the jewellery and home goods, energy and smells of the carpets, spices and leather goods and anything else someone could sell.. As expected we got touted for all these things plus more.. “perfume perfume.. get your perfume..” Luckily for us we had become immune to their touts after our previous trip to Marocco. The Markets in Marocco are much more chaotic and the touts much per persistent than in Instanbul.

Some Arabic script on the wall Istanbul

Personally I enjoyed the markets in Istanbul but they are no match for Marocco. After several hours of working our way throught he maze, seeing some of the same shops several times as we got lost a few times we found our way out on the opposite side… We headed down towards the coast through yet more markets, shops and touting.. In the crowds the heat was intense, it was a welcome blessing to get some cool breeze as we came down the hill. At the bottom of the hill ended up finding a small electrical goods store which had portable multi-band radios.. It was listed at 32TL and after being worn out by the other touts we agreed on 30TL which was hugely in their favour.. Anyway we got our radio and paid around 1 Euro less for it.. ho hum.. We are by this time absolutely knackered from the heat (36c) and the constant walking and avoiding touts.. We ended up finding a small restaurant that served some traditional Turkish food and beers with comfortable seats for us to chill out and watch the world go by for some time.. It was great to be able to sit down after being on our feet constantly in the heat for about 4 hours… mmmmmm beer.. mmmmmm Turkish food.. While we drank and waited for the food we decided to bring out our new little radio.. The waiter had a look at it and laughed saying it was probably only worth 5TL…. He then served us our food..But only after trying to come across as being cool.. and instead smashing the terracotta urn that the food was prepared in.. It all went down a little too easily and after about 2 hours we decided to head back to our apartment and get some more beers on route..

Beer, Radio and Cards.. we ended up sitting in our room watching the world go by on the water as the sunset listening to our new radio (which actually worked) drinking beer playing 10 of a kind… Ahh relaxation…

After a few beers the night before we woke slightly later than usual but it was already baking hot.. It was 30c at 8am. It seems that we are finally starting to adjust to the heat. We had loads of chores to do and chased up many of our missing bike parts, replacement bike tyres, banking etc. All of the pieces in the pie are finally starting to fit together which is another reason why we had to stay for such a long time in Istanbul… After a morning of organisation and preparation it was time to head back to the Kazakh embassy.. after the 30minute ride out we ended up arriving about 25minutes before the afternoon visa pick up opening times… There was already a line of people waiting in the heat it was not something that we expected… After waiting in line for around an hour we finally managed to get into the visa office only to be told that our visa’s had been approved but we now needed to go to a Turkish bank and transfer some money into their account electronically and bring the receipt back to the embassy to pick up our passports. This was great news given that it was already 4:15pm and the office closed at 4:30.. The security guide was nice enough to give us a pretty drawing of the directions we needed to get to the bank.. After getting there the bank issued Heather a number for her in the queue while I parked the bike. There was a long wait and it felt unlikely that we would be able to get back to the embassy in time to get our passports today… which meant only one thing.. we would have to wait until Monday afternoon to pick up our visa.. ouch!.. it was not looking good.. It was great news when 5 people before us in the queue appeared to be no shows so we ended up getting in and paying the money in about 15 minutes it cost us 90 US dollars for two double entry visas (70 US dollars for single) making it with bank costs 320 TL.. That makes it record time for queuing since leaving the UK.. We raced back to the embassy as it was now about 4:45. It was a huge relief when the guard let us back in to pick up our passports despite being after closing time.. yay one for the win.. finally something went the right way..

Our trip home from the Kazakh embassy during Friday afternoon peak hour traffic was something of an adventure. The traffic which during normal times is crazy was actually crazy++. At least being on a bike we were able to filter around for the vast majority of the trip cutting the trip time down from what it could have been to only around 50minutes.. The traffic at the turn for the Sultanahmet was so crazy that they had police to enforce the lights as everyone was just ignoring the red lights and blocking the traffic. It was nice to see the police telling cars trying to push in to get lost…

The Turkish drivers really get angry when you can get in front of them on a bike.. especially if your on UK plates.. ha ha ha.. no match for a bike being able to go between the cars.. even when they try and box you in..

Given that most of our administration tasks had now been finalised we could focus on being tourists.

One of the Mosques in Istanbul's Sultanahmet

After leaving our campsite very early (before 8am) we decided that we would go directly into Istanbul to our accommodation in the Sultanahmet. We had all our maps sorted so that we could get in with the most ease.. We decided to just ride straight down the D100 all the way into central Istanbul. Well that is what we had planned anyway.. it was not so easy.. Unfortunately the traffic and driving in Istanbul was absolutely nuts. With cars going all over the place with no indication of what their next move, buses pulling out without caring who as coming along, it was very hazardous to motorcycles..

We ended up taking the wrong turn initially (I will not point any fingers though it was not James 🙂 and going through Bakirkoy which appears to be a big shopping district only about 10km from central Istanbul.. After this we managed to find out way back onto the D100 and head on our way.. We finally found the exit that we needed to take unfortunately Heather was busy looking at the truck that had over turned right at the intersection we needed to turn at.. oops missed another turn.. lets look for a place to do a U-Turn.. oops there wasn’t one.. 15kms later and fed-up we ended up having to go and cross over to Beyoglu and did an illegal U-Turn across the tram lines.. At which time there was a police traffic man yelling as he ran across the road for us to stop.. oops we just kept on going pretending not to notice.. oh well lets go back and find that exit we missed before.. After finally finding the exit we started to look for our accommodation.. Well that’s yet another case of easier said than done. The directions and the map on lastminute.com was not only wrong but it was completely wrong. After spending 2hours riding around the Sultanahmet in the 34c heat we managed to get some assistance from some Turkish people who knew their way around and they gave us the real location of where the accommodation was. “Easy”.. we ended up finding the accommodation about 10-15minutes later in the place that it was actually meant to be.. WOW!!..

Relaxing in the heat after arriving in Istanbul

This is where the fun with lastminute.com started. We booked our self catering apartment through lastminute.com but we never actually received any confirmation receipt via email like promised… It turns out that the hotel was double booked for the first night. Our apartment hosts found us another local hotel for the first night and helped us park our bikes on the footpath outside the hotel in the old town… This was more than fun. The gutter up from the road to the foot path was abnormally high.. probably at least 40cm high which made getting the loaded bikes up a four person job.. Thankfully we had help from our hosts. We unpacked all our gear from the bikes and left it at reception while we went and checked into the other hotel..

James trying to fix Heathers mess!

In our Hotel room Heathers special ability to break anything she touches came into force.. The first thing she broke was the room’s curtains when she tried to close them she just ripped them down from the roof.. Rails and all… Then she opened the closet door and broke that too… while she was sitting on a glass table wondering what we should do, to which she also cracked that.. yay.. the triple combo. We then got transferred to another room which was much nicer and she didn’t manage to break everything 🙂 The hotel was basic but the staff really made the stay there exceptional. The friendliest hotel staff we have had to date (and with free internet). For some reason Heather kept on asking for other hotel guests keys because she kept forgetting which room number we had.. YAY!!

waiting for a train to the kazakhstan embassy in Istanbul

In the morning we woke early with the plan to head to the Kazakhstan embassy so that we could finalise our visas.. after taking the train to bakirkoy we then took a taxi to the embassy… Only to find out that its closed on Wednesdays.. YAY!!… Whilst stopped at traffic lights the taxi driver got out, went to the boot and gave us some Turkish wagon wheel like biscuits and drove us back to the station. As the journey progressed the taxi driver was popping pills and was getting more erratic than usual, kept wanting to drop us off at a hotel, we said no hotel, titanic hotel, no hotel, hotel, no hotel, hotel, no hotel we ended up just asking to get out, We ended up getting back to the hotel while the cleaning lady was cleaning up the room.. She had packed up all our stuff into a big pile as it was well after check out time.

This is where we made two trips to take our gear back to our now available apartment.. on the return for the second leg Heather tried to go into someone else’s room because she didn’t check the number and just saw that the cleaning lady was in there.. she had a big laugh at Heather which was rather amusing.. Heathers room number skills coming into force again!! Haha..

The view from our Apartment Istanbul

Finally we had our own apartment and kitchen we could settle into our stay in Istanbul and get some relaxation…The apartment has a good view over the sea and all the boats which gives us a nice breeze in the heat making it all the more bearable at 36c…Its amazing how many ships off the coast would say over 50….