That's a good question, as the time has flown by. . .
1. I walked around Old Town quite a lot. At first I was very intrigued and interested in it, but gradually I saw why Unesco is not happy at its treatment as a World Heritage site. Much of the original "Old" has been totally replaced, and all of the streets are repaved with new cobblestone and pavers. They didn't even recycle the old stones. The streets are still narrow, and most can't be negotiated by car, which limits traffic. Nonetheless, the newness of resurfaced stone, and sandblasted stone, has taken away the patina of old, and the keyword does not seem to be "restore," bit rather "replace."
2. I walked in the park along the seawall. This park is a beautiful public space, with wide walks, shade trees, children's rides (no less than three carousels, two of which are double deckers, some ferris wheel type rides, motor/bumper car rides, and many others), restaurants, and outdoor cafes. And benches. Lots of benches. On these benches you will see many, many, many young couples. Public displays of affection is clearly NOT banned here, and these young people just ignore passersby. Interestingly, I only saw one couple who were having a disagreement. That portends for a healthy population growth curve . . . I took some photos of the park, but I don't think I can upload them on the wireless at this hotel. It should be better in Ashgabat.
3. I repaired my helmet. At the border crossing, someone (ahem, not the owner) took an interest on my helmet, and jammed the sun visor in the up position. I had to disassemble the helmet to get to the cables that operate it and free them. This actually took longer than i thought it would, a few hours, because I could not download any instructions. I finally managed with two safety pins and a lot of caution. But it works now, and I am thankful, as I still have two months of riding east in the morning.
4. I searched for, found, bought, and installed a new battery. You will recall from an earlier entry that I was chatting up a restaurant owner on Saturday night. He was interested in this ride, so I described it to him in general terms, then told him about my battery problems. The 25 manat, 9 amp hour battery just wasn't up to the task ahead of it, as it was already faltering. I asked him if he knew of any motorcycle dealers in town. He called over his "guy" (every business east of Greece seems to have one or more "guys." They are like troubleshooters, go-to-guys, fixers, maybe even muscle. They are never more than a phone call, or cooked finger, or head nod away from the boss), Shahib, and started talking in Russian. After a lot of discussion, including much gesturing of hands (apparently street addresses are not used until the end of the trip. The directions go more like "Behind the big Catholic Church, near the flag plaza, but up the hill and two or three streets over" which words are accompanied by all the movements the car must make to get there, and oft repeated. Kind of like Italians on speed), they concurred that there were maybe three places to go. The owner, Azaad, said Shahib could take me for 20 manat, which would be cheaper than a taxi. I said okay, and we agreed to meet on Saturday at 1:00. We met then, and went to the Suzuki dealer first. They didn't have any batteries, but the sales manager offered to sell me a new V-Strom as soon as they came in, maybe in November. I said thank you, but no. He also called to some other places to see if they had any batteries that might fit (I had brought with me my hand drawn picture of a battery, with the maximum dimensions in metric). Meanwhile, Shahib and I headed over to the Harley Davidson dealer. I knew from online research that Harley had two batteries in their catalog that would fit if they had them in stock -- the cheap one, and the expensive one. Of cores, they only had the expensive one (203 manat, $238.00). After checking with the Suzuki guy to see if any batteries had shown up in stock at his contacts, and none had, I turned over the cash. But I wanted to minimize risk of future battery failure, because there isn't going to be much of anything available until Russia. The foregoing took a couple of hours, because Shahib kept taking shortcuts that weren't. There is no straight line between any two points more than 500 meters apart in this city, except one one-way street along the park by the seawall. But I digress. The next day, Sunday, I installed the battery. It fit, but barely. It also worked, which was great! Of course it took longer than I hoped because first it rained, so I had to stop and cover it up, and then when the rain stopped, I had to move the bike because some workers were coming with a truck to take away some garbage and building demolition materials. So I moved it, and they all thought I was just a great guy. And someone took and disposed of the other battery. I hope it has a nice home now.
5. I did some laundry.
6. I napped a lot.
7. I read a lot.
8. I mended a broken zipper on my jacket, and did an awful repair job on the rip in the left knee of my pants caused by the running into the post.
9. I walked to the ferry terminal twice: first on Saturday to find it and scout around a little, and again today to see if anyone was at the office who could give me any information. It's about a 5k roundtrip, and in the wind and rain of today, and in the heat of Saturday, I took my time. Plus I just hung out there for about an hour each day, talking with those with whom I shared some kind of language, and just poking around. Today I also got to watch the trains, which was kind of fun. I also discovered the WC, which is an important item of information. It is a "bring your own paper" kind of a place. . .
10. Hung out, goofed off, strolled, ambled, snooped, people watched, and etc. I filled my days.
That's pretty much it. The for at the Burç Restaurant has been good. They sauté their meats in this very heavy steel wok like pan, and it sears the meat wonderfully, and the fats from the meat flavors the vegetables as well. Pretty good dish they make. That's one of the reasons I've been walking so much, I need to keep moving or the fat will stick to me.
I will write more tomorrow as soon as I hear from Vika about the boat. If no boat is in the offing, I have to get on the bike and ride to the Russian border, as my visa expires at midnight on the 3rd. I'm admittedly concerned, because if there is no boat, that will effectively knock Turkmenistan out of the trip. And add well over a thousand miles of bad road! So let's all hope that there is a boat tomorrow, yes?
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