2 September, Fatsa to Çarşamba, 73km
Şehir Otel 70TL

Tomorrow we cycle to Samsun. The last time I travelled the road between Trabzon and Samsun was in October 1984. It was a very different world. Poorer, less populated, slower moving, the coast road narrow and quiet. Surprisingly, though, some things have not changed*. Fodder is still stock-piled on self-feeding poles, women wearing scarves still sort and dry nuts and corn and “lead their single cow home”, men still drink tea and play backgammon. The bulk of today’s distance was uninspiring, the road flat and straight and dull, running inland through one town after another. Our first 20km to Ünye were pretty, however, the road taking to the hills south of the city and casting two tunnels in our path. In the first tunnel were workmen laying the paving on the tunnel sidewalk. They had placed bollards down the middle of the road, reducing the tunnel to a single lane, but we could cycle the other, side by side and safe. The second tunnel was just under 2km in length. At first we tried to walk the sidewalk, but the paving was so badly damaged, much of it having collapsed, that in the end we took the risk of cycling through. Our panniers sport reflectors that make us visible, and I have a flashing red taillight, but we are still anxious about being seen by traffic on the narrow road, making tunnels both frightening and exhilarating. 

1984 diary: Everywhere people are preparing for the winter. Stockpiling wood, drying corn and chillies, placing fodder on self-feeding poles or around long slender trunks. You see the women, their heads covered by scarves, drawing water, sorting nuts and corn, cooking in huge pots over a fire built in the garden, washing clothes and beating carpets. And sometimes knitting or gossiping over a fence or spending time with the kids or simply sitting in the Autumn sunshine. Those men who are not sitting in a Lokanta in town drinking çay and playing backgammon, too seem to be spending time with their children. Or line fishing. Or chopping winter wood. The kids play much as do the “kaalvoet klonkies” at home. As do any kids I suppose too poor to buy sophisticated toys. With a wheel and wire. As evening approaches smoke begins to appear from the chimneys. And women, their backs bent by the huge loads of fodder they carry, lead their single cow home.

Çarşamba

Çarşamba