Sofia Istanbul Bike Connect

Cycling through Bulgaria and Turkey between 15th of June and 1st of July, 2006... Kerékpárral Bulgárián és Törökországon át Június második felében... През България и Турция с колело...Bu yüzden 2006 Haziran aylarında, Sofia-Sinop bir bisiklet turu planladık

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

sick of/from smog (new)

the journey continues

I mentioned already the nightmare of the trip into the heart of Istanbul, by ways of a huge and terribly polluted highway. in Istanbul I had a great time, and fortunately the effects of my poisoning were not immediately felt, thus I had a brief reprieve. but as I took the 20 hour bus ride from Istanbul towards the Georgian border, I got sick.

this being sick involved almost the whole 2 weeks that I would be in the republic of Georgia. next on the program was the conference "biking beyond borders" which took part in Batumi, near to the Turkish border, on the seaside. later I would be with the conference group in Tbilisi, where we had a Critical Mass, and then after that in the high Caucasus mountains, specifically in Kazbegi, near the 5000 meter high Kazbek mountain, on the border to Russia.

my ailments went like the tide in Batumi: they rose and fell, yet often displayed very large waves. the whole right side of my face seemed to be infected, including a tooth, my lip and even somewhat my right eye. this together with an often altogether general rotten feeling in my body, and I could only deduce that it was a direct result of being poisoned by the feckless Turkish motorists. Things did generally improve after I had a tooth operation at a dentist in Tbilisi, and by the time I was in the mountains it was mostly only an occasional feeling of lethargy and the common occurrence of diarrhea.

Fortunately, I was completely back to good health literally a day before the start of the second cycling trip, from Tbilisi to Sinop. But don't think for a second that I didn't enjoy Georgia....

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