30 September ’04, Thursday. One of us is celebrating their birthday, and it isn’t me….
Happy Birthday to you…. Louise is now .. I would tell you but, I would have to wash dishes for the rest of my life, and that just isn’t going to happen. Who would have guessed that we would be celebrating her birthday in Turkey or anywhere else but good ole Seattle when we celebrated it last year. What a change our lives have taken. You might think that we would be doing something exciting or challenging or….but no, we just pulled up stakes from Istanbul for a few days, and went back north to re-visit Edirne. Edirne is were we camped our first night in Turkey on the lot of the gas station northeast of town. We left Istanbul because we wanted a change of scenery and a fresh water shower. We must be nuts to travel backward over 200km to have a fresh water shower. As you know, Bonnie and Doug are arriving in Istanbul on Monday, and we just wanted to stay away until they arrived to save some of the “surprise of Istanbul” for us as well.
In celebrating Louise’s birthday, we washed clothes and then barbequed chicken, baked potatoes, and some very good dark beer for our celebration dinner. Oh yes, we ate by candle lite as well. Just as we were starting the barbeque, a large orange truck came into the campground. Up until then, we were the only one here. When we first saw this truck, we thought it was a water truck bringing in water for the campground. Then it did something strange for a “Water Truck”, it parked and a young couple got out and started to set up camp. As it turns out, this “Truck” is an Eastern German Officers Truck. It was all set up for the “Three Officers” to live in. Live is meant to live better than those less fortunate to be “Officers”. Now these two are travelers, Jasper and Monique Hendrick, will be on the road up to 3 years before their trip ends. They are from The Netherlands (Holland), and purchased this truck there. Some of their destinations are India, Iran, Pakistan and extensively in Turkey. In the picture of “Bumble Bee” sitting next to their camper you can see the difference in traveling conditions. Inside they have a full sized bed, full kitchen, full bath with shower, generator, lift for their motorcycle, 250 gallons of fresh water and water purification system. That is just for starters…Happy Travels

29 September ’04, Wednesday. We tried to get off to the bus stop, before it got too hot, but 10:30 am just didn’t do it… It was already in the high 70 to low 80’s, and the humidity was about 90%….let’s put it this way, HOT !!! To get to our bus, we have to cross 2 off-ramps that don’t have sidewalks or crosswalks, cars traveling at HIGH SPEED, and then under 2 overpasses (one with a man and his “home” sleeping under the overpass) and then up onto the other side to find 2 more streets to cross that fit the same description. And then, thread your way through some high-rise condo’s to the next street. Finally, you are there to catch bus #81. 1 million lira each and you are on your way into Istanbul. This is an amazing “mega-city”… it never goes to sleep, and it never ages…it is still thousands of years old. The book says, “Straddling the Bosphorus with a skyline studded with domes and minarets, Istanbul is one of the world’s great romantic cities”…it really is true. As soon as you mix with the people, shops, markets, sounds, smells, and all, you find all of it quite intoxicating and romantic. The history tracks back to the earliest times with the Byzantium then Constantinople, the capitol of the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire…and on…even to day, you feel it as a part of their culture and heritage. One of our goals was to find an internet café…we did. We were able to catch up on some emails (answering and sending). It is always great to hear from everyone…thanks. We also heard from Donna, and we now have our insurance problem solved…THANK YOU !!! We also wanted to see the other side of the Bosphorus, so we caught another bus to across the bridge and take us up into the middle of that side of Istanbul. We had a good day just trying out our luck on the busses of Istanbul and reading our maps. Now the big question…How do we get back??? Once we got back to the location of the first bus we took this morning, things finally went sour. As it was, we ended up taking a taxi back…remember the bus…1 million lira each??? The taxi…10 million each… Well, we are back, and we had a good time…what else is important???
Tomorrow….not sure yet

28 September ’04, Tuesday. Up bright in early, both of us all cleaned, pottied, and fed. I decided to wash “Bumble Bee” with the pre-used water from our sink, while Louise finished up the interior chores. Our stay with Sadam and his crew was uneventful, but very nice. For them to take us in, was above and beyond and with the great meal last night…great!!! We only had 20 million lira left, so I put it into the gas tank. It didn’t fill it, but I thought it would get us to Istanbul ok. Our route was down the “toll road” for about 240 km, and there was supposed to be plenty of “Mega Gas/Restaurant” areas on the way. After about the first 100 km I had noticed that: 1st, there were no off ramps and 2nd, were there used to be the famous “Mega Gas/Restaurant” areas, was now tall weeds….they had all closed after 9/11… It is amazing how much 9/11 has affected Turkey’s tourism, and the closed gas stations is only a small part. Fortunately, we had plenty of gas to get to Istanbul, so we weren’t in any danger of running out on this “toll road”. The amount of traffic on this road was also interesting…hardly nothing. We traveled many miles without seeing another car or truck going in our direction. Although, the closer we got to Istanbul (24-28 million people), the more cars and trucks we encountered. The terrain was kind of like riding into Yakima…rolling hills with farm lands and then, dried brush areas (but, no Mt. Rainier). Finally, our turn off came up so we could find our campground. The closer to Istanbul, the more traffic. Finally, it was kind of like driving in an “All Grown-Up’s Bumper Car” ride. Fortunately, no one actually bumped any bumpers, but the ride was thrilling. Within another 45 minutes we were pulling into our new campground. Lou and I both could hardly wait to hook up and head off to the showers. We grabbed the first 2 showers we found (right next to each other), and turned the water on high….COLD WATER SHOWERS…what is it about the soap not “sudsing”? Can this be…SALT WATER SHOWERS ??? You know after you’ve tasted the water (and you don’t want to taste it, because the Mamara Sea is the most likely spot the salt water is coming from, and it is polluted..), that in fact it is salt water. Second, after you’ve dried off, you fill sticky all over. Not the best of showers we have had… Then it comes to another chore that we just have to complete…washing of our clothes… Well, we knew there would be challenges on this journey, now we have encountered a couple and we will have to work our way through them. Again, 9/11 has become an issue here in this campground. This used to be a highly sought after campground. Now they have a large swimming pool, and wonderful looking restaurant, and campground that have all gone to hell in a basket. The campground is barely open…everything else is closed and covered with weeds and dust. Pretty nasty. The tourist just isn’t coming as they used too, and it is hurting the tourist economy drastically.
Enough politics…Tomorrow…let’s find an internet café (as they call them), and test out the bus system

Still raining the clouds are down on the road. Narrow roads lots of trucks, tunnels and mountains. We drove along the most beautiful river with lots of fish farms. We finally had to stop for lunch. In the middle of nowhere!! We found a small restaurant. Surprise the menu was in English. The young man who waited on us spoke some English but! Everything we wanted to order was not available. So ham and eggs. They were delicious. There were no women in this restaurant only men and they looked at us like we were from mars. We needed to use the bathroom, so we asked where, around back? So we headed around back. What’s this? French style! Well you have to get use to these things. Back on the road, passing in town? Against the law especially in front of a policeman. Who would do such a thing? You guessed it! Well the policeman only spoke a bit of English so he let us off. Happy day!! Soon we reached the Bulgarian border. The attendant was all business and no way was she about to buy the story of a mistake on the insurance papers. We were able to purchase a 24 hour insurance transit card and were on our way. The road soon gave away to rolling hills, farms and animals. Cows, sheep, goats, donkeys, geese and dogs all about to cross the road. Going through the villages it was apparent that fall was upon us. The corn stalks are dry and cut in the fields, and many very tall hay stacks. Many homes have corn, paprika’s, pumpkins and squash stacked and spread to dry. What a sight, with the men and women sitting out watching over their harvest. It looks like Halloween is just around the corner. Well 3 hours later and it is warming up. It gets warmer and warmer. The sun is out and hot, but wait it was just fall a few miles back. That’s right as we approached the Turkey border it was back to summer. It was 86 degrees when we reached the border and getting dark as we had lost an hour. The border was more red tape. We had to get a visa and they wanted American dollars. Oh the bank is closed. Finally they decided they could take Turkish lira. 60,000,000. would do so we went to the cash machine and got the money. Then we need immigration stamps, 14,000,000 more liras. But they never checked the insurance papers. Halleluiah!!! There is a large mosque at the border and the full moon was just coming up what a sight to welcome us to Turkey. Now to find a campground. The book says 9km east on D-100. Well we drove and drove off into the countryside and no camp ground. We finally stopped at a small gas station not even sure it was open. There were 3 men sitting in what looked like a kitchen. They were very surprised to see us, Joel explained we were lost and guess what? One of them spoke English. Sadam a young man in his twenties. We explained where we needed to be and he told us we were not even close. However we could stay there and plug in our frig and use the bathroom. They had a small restaurant and we had a nice dinner of grilled chicken and goat patties with a great tomato salad that Sadam made especially for us. So we stayed there with the truckers coming in all night. It was warm and there were lots of mosquitoes. But all in all it was a great day!!

27 September ’04, Monday. Part 1..We were up early, because we didn’t want to make a nuisance of ourselves in the busy parking lot. As I walked into the “men’s” room, I was asked to halt by two ladies who were inside guarding the other 2 stalls. We even have toilet jams along with traffic jams here…actually, I think we have only been in 2 or 3 traffic jams since we started our journey. Teeth brushed, face washed and shaved and we were back on the road. We had time to make up after our day yesterday. Now on our mind is the border crossing. With the situation of our insurance papers, and some of the horror stories we have heard, we are not looking forward to reaching the border between Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia. Well I guess I should wait for things to happen before I get into a sweat. As we approached the end to the “toll road” from which we have been on for over 18 hours (about 10 a sleep at the truck stop), we were floored when they told us what our “toll charge” was…$12. They charge for the time on the road not the length of the ride… Well, what do you do, but pay, pay, pay. Now we are on E80 and heading onto Sofyia…well, not quite…some how, we missed our turn…HOW FAR BACK???? DAMN !!! “HOW CAN THIS BE???”. Turn around (our middle name), and find the right road….done… Now all we have to think about is the border. An easy ride for 4 hours. We are really enjoying the scenery once again. As before, we have winding roads that mirror the winding rivers. The rock formations are incredible. The traffic is normal, although it seems we have more long-haul trucks on this road. Finally we enter the last town prior to the border and there must have been 150 or more huge long-haul trucks, all in line for the border…Oh My God…Now What ??? Just about that time, a car from Germany and a couple others took off around all the trucks, driving in the on-coming lanes, I thought they were crazy, but I put “Bumble Bee” in 2nd and took off with them. If they were going to find a way to the front, so were we…We were lucky because just as I came into the clear, a long-hauler was just pulling onto the road in “our new lane” but, we had already made it….to the front…what a feeling. The only thing was, the trucks were backed up from the truck only lane and that had over flowed for blocks on blocks. The car only lanes were wide open. Now to confront the patrons of the border. As we pulled forward, passports in hand, title for “Bumble Bee”, and the all famous “GREEN CARD”, we were met by the border lady. All the appropriate questions were asked and answered, the passports looked at, but not handed back, and then it happens…YOUR INSURANCE PAPERS ARE EXPIRED !!! I went into action and tried to explain how somehow someone had mistakenly transposed the month with the year….SHE BOUGHT IT….Thank You Lord !!! We were underway and already starting to worry about…
The next border crossing….

26 September ’04, Sunday. Part 1… Our stay in Sarajevo was wet, wet, wet. As you know from our last posting, we arrived at the campground at night, and it was just starting to mist. The mist didn’t last long as it rained pretty good all night through. We didn’t really have it in us to tour Sarajevo, so we opted to head onto Sofija, Bulgaria. Our route was to take 761 and then connect to E 80 just outside of Nis. Well, you can probably start already to see that we probably made a little mistake….it’s our nature, right? You couldn’t be more right. We missed 761 right out of Sarajevo and found ourselves on 5. Now that’s ok, as 5 will intersect with 761 just before you reach E 80. As we were traveling around this corner and the next, the scenery was really pretty. We were following this fantastic river valley. The water was brilliant blue, the rock formations were awesome, and the Fall foliage is turning every leaf spectacular colors. We were really enjoying all this beauty and the solitude from being the only car or truck on the road….wait a minute…why is this ???? “It’s probably because it’s Sunday”…You think ??? I think over a period of about 45 minutes, we saw 3 cars and no trucks, and they were all coming towards us….now this could be a bad sign, wouldn’t you think ??? We came around a corner and approached a tunnel ….”Turn On Your Headlights…” “TURN ON THE HEADLIGHTS !!!!”…. “THEY ARE ON !!! DAMN, the tunnel is SUCKING the light right out of them”…”SLOW DOWN” !!! “I’M IN FIRST GEAR, AND ONLY DOING 2 MILES AN HOUR”… Let me tell you, I thought we had driven off into “The Black Hole”… As we pulled out into the daylight at the other end, we both said let’s not do that again… To our surprise, we had to do it over and over again for an additional 10 or 12 times, and we weren’t bright enough to recognize that we still we not seeing any traffic. As we rounded another corner, we had another tunnel staring us in the face, except this one was really small and had a stop light in front of it. The light was “Green” for us, but I delayed for a minute thinking do we really want to go into “This” tunnel? We could turn around and head all the way back to Sarajevo (about an hours drive now) or this could be just around the corner from our attended “761”. Now, Louise had been reading this book on the areas that we are now traveling through, and those that we will be traveling through for the next few days, in it, it said….”IT IS BEST NOT TO GET OFF THE “WELL TRAVELED” ROADS” !!! Well, I’m not sure that we are either “REALLY DUMB, or just feel someone is always watching over us. We pull into the tunnel REALLY SSSLLLOOOWWW. It was about as wide and as high as our van and no more…It was TOTALLY black, you could NOT see more than a foot in front of you, the roadway was wet and very bumpy, and there was no end to it… All we could think was…”Dear God, Please Let Us Live” Is there another car or truck coming in the other end ??? Did I really have a “Green” light, how long does it last ??? What if I have to back out ??? I can’t see anything in front of us, let alone have to back out….THIS COULD BE TROUBLE !!! Believe it or not, but we made it…as we pulled out the end, we both said “we will never do that again”. Now that we were through with that, we were on our way to find 761. I’ll have to continue this tomorrow….I’m too weak to finish tonight…

Part 2….The Tuunnneelll… Now ad The Hilll… Now remember 761 was to connect to E 80 and we are on 5 which now has just come to a dead end. This, just as we were to reach our attended 761. “Oh well” (ya, I really said that…), we had another option pop it’s self up in front of us. If we were to take this other road over here on the right (that was just around the corner of our road closed sign), we could detour over to this other town and get to 761 that way….Come on now, that would be too easy. This new road (which doesn’t have a name, but just a pointed arrow that say’s it goes to …) starts out just as any other normal road in Bosnia does…not bad and then goes to ---- in a hand basket right quick. One saving grace for us (I thought), was we had a small car filled with 3 young men in front of us…now you know they have got it together, right ??? We followed them around for about 20 minutes in heavy rain, mud being thrown everywhere, and it was a winding and twisting up hill ride. All of a sudden, the road turns to a dirt path. Just wide enough for your car and no other up or down, and we were now climbing up, up, up. There was no doubt about it, we were climbing a mountain and we weren’t sure were it was going to take us ….We couldn’t turn around, and to back out now would show we were cowards... Ya, right … As it was, we did follow them for about 40-45 minutes up and down the mountain sides, and had no idea were we would end up. Then all of a sudden, they pulled over, stopped, and got out (It looked like a potty break). I was too chicken to stop and ask why, so here we were heading out into the wilds of Bosnia finest mountains (keeping in mind all we’ve read about those un-found land mines) with out a map (not that they have done us any good !!) and try to pick the right cattle trail to get us out. These trails crossed everywhere, and everywhere we looked we saw homes and barns that were bombed, shot up, or burned out….no one around !!! Again, after driving these twisting, winding dirt pathways for another 45 minutes, we saw out in the distance, a town. Not any town, but the one we wanted to find. Now it wasn’t within an arms length, but we could see it through the clouds…Please God, Don’t Close Up Those Clouds…as long as we could see it, we knew we were ok, but when we went around a corner (and there were lots of them), we began to panic. Finally, after all that, we found our road, our RIGHT road…the sweat started to dry under our armpits and we were both very thirsty. Now to finish our day by finding a campground…not that easy, remember, we are in Bosnia and they only have one to NONE !!! Along the “toll way” we saw a sign “Hotel-Camping-Restaurant. We couldn’t wait for the next exit. As we jumped off, we pulled to a stop, paid our toll, and went looking for the “Campground”. What we found was a deserted old hotel and about 3 run down cottages off in the weeds. We didn’t need this, but we are tough. Finally, a few miles further down the “toll way” we ended up finding a large gas station/restaurant and we “camped” the night next to “The Big Rigs”….no grass, just plain old concrete
Tomorrow…. Serbia (Yugoslavia)

25 September ’04, Saturday. Charlie and Tammie from Australia, and now living in London, dropped by early this morning to say goodbye and pass on some literature and advise for our journey into Bosnia-Hercegovina. They had recently been there and had some good advise on were to camp in Mostar and Sarajevo. They also had a couple of funny stories about their border crossings there that they passed on to us. Well, we had to get gas and find a grocery store to spend our last Croatian money in prior to going across the border. As it was, we arrived at the cashiers stand with more goods than we had money for….we ended up putting the additional $5. US on the credit card…not good planning. Ok, finally underway. After back-tracking from our drive down to Dubrovnik for about an hour, we arrived at the border station entering into Bosnia-Hercegovina. We were lucky, as there was only 3 cars ahead of us as we approached. Our luck soon ran out…. We have been through so many border crossings, that I couldn’t even start to tell you how many. Now, not all have asked for our “green card” for the van (That is our proof of insurance), but some had and today was one of those days. It seems that ALL the others had over looked the fact that the insurance rider had the dates for validity all messed up. We were to be covered from March 15, ’04 to March 15, ’05, or as they put it on paper 15-03-04 to 15-03-05. Well, we had never noticed it ourselves, but it reads 15-12-03 for the start, which is ok, but the other side (void after) reads 15-05-03, which means it was cancelled 7 months prior to issue. WE HAVEN’T HAD ANY INSURANCE COVERAGE !!! You might say that I had a lift-off of some type. I am lucky to have a much milder mind and temperament sitting eside me in the van day after day. She stayed cool and made arrangements for us to BUY, 7 days insurance for $20 Euro, to get us through Bosnia and enough time for me to get to a computer and email Donna at Turnervans in Utrecht. The out-come, has yet to be, but we are optimistic things will work out. After all, we have Bon and Douglas to meet in Istanbul on the 4th. We had wanted to stop and spend sometime in Medugorje today, but we felt all we could do was, drive in to see it by car, have a quick lunch, and get on our way to Sarajevo for the night. As it was, we arrived at the campground after dark. This isn’t what you want to do, if this is the first time in the
area. Tomorrow….heading across Yugoslavia and onto Sofija, Bulgaria

24 September ’04, Friday. The Old Fortified City of Dubrovnik was a shelter for the citizens during the war. This war started without warning on Monday, September 30th 1991. There were 2 airplanes that fired rockets at the communication towers and destroyed them. From that time on there was a complete blockade keeping all the food, water, electricity and all communications from the outside world. The city was under attack from air, sea, and land. During the aggression 52 people were killed, 202 were wounded in Dubrovnik, and 15,000 were displaced from their homes. 70 percent of the buildings in the old city received some damage. As we have traveled down the coast of Croatia, we have seen more and more signs of the fighting. Homes, cars, and businesses that were damaged or set a blaze are still empty…weeds growing…unsafe to enter in some cases because of the possibility of land mines still there. We have a large hotel within 100 yards of our campground that still stands empty and shattered. Too many to count small arm pock marks, and 3 or more heavy equipment (tank type) holes, and the building was set a blaze as well. This is only one, there are many. Louise had her hair cut this morning, and directly across the street was, what was, a beautiful two story home with a wonderful landscaped yard….no roof, no windows, pock marks all around the building, some fire damage, yard…gone…tall weeds with the exception of a large group of yellow flowers by, what was the front entrance. Imagine just what was and still is going on in the minds of those that were here then….it has to be tough, although, we have only seen what appears to be a society that is making the best of what was the worst. There is no outward crying, but outward smiles and a warm greeting. Yesterday as we were sitting waiting for the bus, a young man came up and sat down beside us. Really nothing unusual about this. I happened to look over at him as he sat next to Louise, and I noticed that he was paying particular attention to what we were saying, and you could tell he could understand it as well. So I asked him a question about his school, which he answered in broken English. It turns out, he is 9 and goes by bus into the city for his classes, and then returns as well by city transportation. Now, this may not be too unusual, but when you have a city like Dubrovnik, where there are three to four times more tourists than those that live there, I would have thought that he may have been more timid. Not the case….I wont get into a lot of detail, but a nice kid…. Tomorrow…Bosnia-Hercegovina

23 September ’04, Thursday. Out to the little white building across the highway, catch bus #10 for $10 kunas each ($1.50), ride it for 8 km, go under 2 quick bridges, and get off at the first stop. Go across the street, down the stairs, turn left and go down the 2nd flight of stairs and you are at The Polèe Gate. That was the exact instructions that our campground manager gave us and it worked perfectly. Our ride on the bus was like one other that we have had. The bus isn’t new, it definitely is noisy, and the seats are hard. The seats on the bus are just “butt” shaped wood, and there is no give. When the roadways are as rough as these are, you feel every little crack, let alone the bumps. You forget about all this when you look out the window. First, the bus travels fast…second, you are traveling on mountain roads that sit precariously on the edge about 200 feet above the water, and third, the views are unbelievable. You forget all the negative and live for the views. Below you, is the picture postcard of the year, view of Dubrovnik…. I haven’t gotten to take that picture yet myself, but before we leave, we will go back in the van, so that I can add this to my catalog photo’s of Dubrovnik. We got an early start this morning. Upon entering the Fortress, we ran into an English speaking tour. Louise went up to the tour guide and asked if we could join in…no problem, so we slid right in with the group. One thing for sure you do learn more this way. One doorway we walked too, used to be a door that Noble women could bring their out of wed-lock baby too. If she had to leave her baby, she would walk down the street in the evening ringing a bell. If anybody were to see her, they would be sentenced to 5 years in prison, so they all cleared the street so she could have her privacy. Once she approached the door, even the nun on the other side could not see her. She would then leave the child, and move on. After 7 years, if she found she wanted this child back, she could do so if she could identify her/him. This was done, by the mother attaching a ring or something that she could keep half of, around the babies neck. Also, each child was given a name of a saint. That name came from a saint named for that particular day. If the mother knew what that name was, and had that half of the identifying item, she and the child would be reunited together. If not, the child would be well taken care of until adult. It would never become a noble person, but would always have a job of dignity. This is only one small piece of history we learned today, but I will have to wait to give you more later. I can only hold your attention on one page so long…. Anyway, we ended with the tour and then went on our own for the next 4 plus hours. Two hours of this was a walk around the top of the wall. It is 1,940 meters long (6,363 feet), or over a mile, and reaches a height of 82 feet. Some areas are as much as 20 feet wide with a second wall in front of it as well. It has 10 circular “bastions”, or towers. The sights from the wall are incredible, whether looking out to sea or looking into the “Old Town” of Dubrovnik. I personally, really enjoy the old tile roof-tops….Tomorrow….more of today….Dubrovnik