I caught the Belgrade-Budapest train towards Hungary, getting off in a little town just past the border called Kiskunhalas. With an hour to kill before my next train, I did the logical thing and went looking for berries – I found plenty of wild cherries hanging off trees in parks all over the town. Nice…
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I made my way back to the roadside and again stuck out my thumb. I had passed the point of caring about looking silly, or even feeling that initial irrational disappointment when not picked up. As if I had reached some sort of hitch-hiking zen, I didn’t quite believe it when after ten minutes an…
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Alternative title: How to drink heavily and fail at hitch-hiking. Apparently, the train tracks from Istanbul to the Bulgarian border are broken, so everyone was corralled into a bus and shuttled the four hour journey. Arriving at a… ‘quiet’ border town around 2am, we were helpfully informed by the station staff that the train wouldn’t…
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Istanbul is an easy city to be lazy in. It seemed like every day I would end up in a café for several hours, just sipping on tea and coffee with some people from the hostel. After all, it’s impossible to ‘understand’ Istanbul, a city of 12, 18, or 20 million depending on who you…
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The ferry trundled through the water towards Istanbul. The city slowly rose up from the horizon, a disorganized collection of three, four, five-storey flats, minarets, occasional greenery, and a myriad of other towers. By the time we were thirty minutes out, it fully occupied one half of the horizon. Eighteen million people, all living in…
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Kabak – and Turkey in general – seems to consume time terrifyingly quickly. I had no set departure date from Kabak, but when the friends I had made said they were leaving after three nights I decided to follow. If I had stayed at Kabak much longer, I think my time there would have morphed…
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