Turkey!

“Welcome back Riaan” was how the Turkish immigration officer greeted me when I arrived. True Turkish hospitality even from their border agents.

It’s so good to be back!

I broke the trip here up in several key destinations I had to stop anyway: Budaptest (to see my dentist), Belgrade (to visit a friend) and Plovdiv (to do some paperwork and other admin).

So it did not feel like too long a journey, and it helped that the roads were so quiet! The quietest I’ve ever seen them, including the various major border crossings.

All in, it’s just over 4 000 km.

The plan is to hang around the south coast of Turkey for most of the winter - I’ll do some posts about some of the stops - and ideally after being inspired by Tread the Globe and Overland Sophia, go an explore the East of Turkey once it’s a bit warmer.