And a lot of the borders are still closed.
There's been a few little updates!
The great thing about Turkey is ... anything is possible!
Oh how confusing is that?
This is what I love about caravan life!
We're Marianne and Chris and we've been travelling full time since May 2018.
Whilst attempting to drive around the world in Trudy our home on wheels this happened.
The coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades.
As borders closed around us, we decided to wait it out in Turkey
until we were able to continue our adventure East.
You may recognise where we are.
We have arrived back in the coastal town of Kas where we were last week,
because we're still heading along the south coast after Kalkan.
There's been a few little updates over the last week with the restrictions here in Turkey which we wanted to just update you on.
So basically what they've done is they've categorised the districts in Turkey by a colour code.
Blue is low risk, yellow is medium risk, orange is high risk and red is very high risk.
So what does that mean? Yes ... What does that mean?
So in the blue and yellow areas basically it means the curfews are eased the most,
so there's a curfew from 9pm every night until 5am the next day and no weekend curfews.
The orange and the red areas still have the same weekday curfew situation,
but on the weekend you're only locked down from Saturday night until Monday morning.
So if you are a tourist remember that these curfews only apply to residents and citizens of Turkey,
so if you're a tourist you're still free to move around during curfew hours.
You will also notice that behind us the restaurants are open there is people sat outside for the first time i think since November!
Basically the restaurants are allowed to open from 7 00 a.m to 7 00 pm with 50% capacity,
unless you're in a red zone then the restaurants are still not allowed to open.
But in all of the zones you can get a take-out service!
Exciting! Oh Yeah!
You may recognise the little cafe bar behind me, that was closed up?
It's so lovely to see everything open up seeing people walk around there's a really lovely vibe actually today in Kas.
And you can just feel the energy and the life coming back to the town,
it's been a little bit sad actually to see how slowly everything is opening up ..... and there's a cat!
So this is where we stopped and had lunch,
and the guys very kindly set up the table here for us,
and now it's nice to see all the tables and chairs back out.
Hey pups!
So this is where we had the amazing lahmacun and pide,
So we decided to come back in,
because it should be open now?
Hello!
How weird does it feel to be sitting in a restaurant? It really does!
i do want to say for the purpose of good tourism and sharing with you the best of what we find
we've done extensive research on lahmacun,
we're pleased to report that this is actually our favourite shop for lahmacun on the south coast of Turkey !
so we're going to sit in an order and eat lots!
We're also going to have a look and see what else they've got today,
look they've got the bean stew, the chickpea stew, whole roast chickens!
Oh look at this, this is lovely and then there's some whole roast chicken with potatoes! some rice.
Oh wow and what is that one? That's the bulgar wheat, nice and these ?
Three different soups? This is meat soup, red lentil soup,
and a chicken soup, wow with some fresh salad,
Thank you, I think we're going to order all of it!
It's so good!
Little salad with some olive oil, some pomegranate syrup over the top, then a squeeze of lemon juice just to bring that acidity!
It just works the salad! A little bit of fresh bread, oh yeah it's hot!
The great thing about Turkey is anything is possible,
so if you come to a lovely little 'lokanta' you can ask for small sized portions and have a mix of everything,
so you get the full experience so we've got some bulgar wheat here with some tomatoes and peppers.
We've got a green bean stew here and a lovely rich tomato sauce.
We've got some lamb here with some aubergines, tomatoes, peppers.
And then we've got rice the famous 'pilav' with the little tiny brown bits in, okay bean time!
Nice because they're in a really rich tomato sauce, it's really flavoursome and homely,
it's like one of those rich stews that like wraps their arms around you really warm and loved!
And this is a meat stew which i'm really looking forward to eating!
This looks delicious with a little bit of aubergine.
how rich does that look?
You are going to love that!
The aubergine just melts in your mouth!
Tender meat, really rich sauce, quite oily,
but that gives it more flavour.
And then one of my favourites the 'lahmacun' 'ezme'
and yogurt dip!
Time to eat!
Good morning!
Well this morning we've woken up here in Kas,
and we found this wonderful little spot tucked away with a view over the town.
How good is that view?
I've noticed that behind the van there is some steps here,
so i think it must go down to a beach or the sea?
So I am going to go and have a little look,
Marianne's just getting up, I've got up a little bit earlier.
Oh this is nice!
That's a good little spot, it's like a little private beach.
Look at this! what a great spot!
Overlooking Kas town here, there's the marina,
and Trudy is parked up in the sun up there,
a little bit bright to see!
but again, there's a little beach area here, look!
Perfect for swimming,
a little bit cold this time of year, but beautiful clear water!
Look how clear that water is!
This is what i love about van life!
You just park up somewhere head a little bit out of town,
I mean we're still walking distance to town it's only probably 10 minutes walk back into the town,
and you just find these little secluded spots.
Since we parked up here yesterday afternoon, I've only seen one person come down here and that was the fisherman.
Magical!
I'm actually really loving Turkey has been a magical place for the van,
and I would definitely recommend coming to Turkey in your van or your motorhome,
because it's just so easy to travel and find places to park up,
and wonderful spots like this even on really touristy coasts.
I know there's covid at the moment and it's low season but still great places.
Back to Trudy, that's my exercise for the morning!
There's a helipad just behind these trees here
and i noticed yesterday evening there was lots of people from the town that came up to watch the sunset
and it's got a nice view, so i thought we'd go and have a little look.
it's always lovely early in the morning, when the sun is just coming up!
So there's the helipad and there's Trudy!
Oh they've got two helipads.
You can see the fishing boats going out this morning.
There's some more steps,
going down so you can access the water to fish or swim.
Then coming down to the end here ....
This probably gives you the best view of Kas marina,
is that not an amazing view?
I can understand why everybody came down to watch the the sunset last night!
Because the sun would set over this direction here,
the villa that we stayed in Kas, was the other side of this peninsula here,
i'm liking Kas!
As you all know, we are attempting to drive around the World!
It's getting a little bit complicated!
and the stage of our journey now with visas in Turkey running out,
weather windows for Russia and all these options,
border closing,
covid, you name it!
It's becoming a little bit of a headache!
But we're not going to quit, are we? We are not quitters!
We've decided whatever happens we're not going to quit !
In fact we spoke to my auntie this morning
and she actually said "don't you dare go home! don't you dare quit!"
We're not quitting, we're not quitting no we're not!
So what we wanted to do was share with you the options that we're thinking about,
and they are still in the planning stages,
We've been trying to work out the easiest way to show and explain on a camera all these different options we have.
And we figured the easiest way would be just to draw it on a bit of paper, so it's clear in our head,
clear in your head, and then we'll talk about what we need to do to make it happen!
all of these discussions that we're having with you,
we're sharing the planning with you,
we know it's all about safety, we know that it's whether the borders will open, there's loads of ifs and buts and maybes,
but one thing we have learned on this expedition during a global pandemic ....
is that not only can't you quit,
but you have to be flexible and adapt,
and you have to adapt,
and you have to keep your sense of humour!
And we're going to share that with you!
And a lot of the borders are still closed,
so we're coming up with plans a b c's d's and trying to find a route around,
and making sure that we don't get border checkmated in this game of van life chess!
But we also thought it would be interesting for you to see behind the scenes,
see some of the discussions that we have and and how we do it, exactly!
So we're going to start right now!
So we're currently in Turkey!
Our Turkish residency permit runs out at the end of May,
we can reapply 60 days before which is next week,
so we're going to be going to Dalyan next week to start that process.
Yeah that will buy us time to make some decisions if borders don't open and we need to just hold on and wait until they do open.
So from Turkey our only real option is to go into Georgia.
So the original plan was from Georgia to go into Russia,
from Russia we were originally planning to go into Kazakhstan to get the visa for Mongolia.
And then if possible from Russia we would go into Mongolia and then back into Russia.
And then from Russia we would go to South Korea,
from South Korea all the way to the USA
That was the first original plan!
Plan B!
So the other option from Georgia is to go into Azerbaijan,
we can then take a boat to either Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan.
so from Kazakhstan, if we can't get into Russia we could go into Kyrgyzstan.
from Turkmenistan we could go into Uzbekistan and then into Kyrgyzstan.
From Kyrgyzstan we could go into China,
or from Kazakhstan if we can't get into Russia we could go into China as well.
So from China we could drive all the way across to the far end of China and ship to the USA.
The other option from China is we could drive all the way South to Laos.
from Laos we can go to Thailand,
into Malaysia and ship to the USA.
The other option from Laos is to go into Cambodia then into Thailand into Malaysia to the USA.
The third option is Laos go into Vietnam then into Cambodia,
then into Thailand into Malaysia and finally ship to the USA.
Oh how confusing is that?!
But that is the beauty of travel in a pandemic is you have to have all the options available,
and we need to research all of the options to know what we can do at each section if a border doesn't open.
Yeah there's so many considerations,
we've already started doing research,
when i say started i spent a whole day!
It is like asking google why I have a headache !
The information you get goes from brain tumour to stress!
So it's very tricky it is and there is so many things to consider,
let me just give you a few examples off the top of my head.
Are the borders open? if not when are they open? Do we need a visa? how long will the visa last for?
Does that give us enough time to drive across the country? Do they allow a right-hand drive vehicles?
How far in advance can we apply for the visa? (because some countries it's only a month or two months)
Do our credit cards have a short expiry date on them?
or do we need to revalidate because we're going to be away longer than the 20 months we planned?
Where do we get the visas from that we need? Do we have to go home? or can we do it in Turkey with our residency? do we do it in another country?
And then of course there is the reality that if you go somewhere,
and the border that you're planning to go to closes, can you then go back? Is there a get out clause?
Because you don't want to be stuck in a country where you can't go back you can't go forward and your visa is running out!
So there is a lot of things to consider, as we say if it was easy everybody would be doing it!
And the pandemic makes it so much harder, so we will share more with you as we know it!
There's going to be lots of planning over the coming weeks and we may suddenly just pick up the pace,
and say right .... We're off to Georgia! so we're going to be keeping an eye on borders,
and we're taking it one day at a time, but you'll be sure to be the first to hear our news!
We'll see you next time!
Oh that is so complicated!
I know there's a lot of planning, but we can get it sorted, it will work out, can you pass me that orange?
Thank you
Oh you're still there!
That is the end of the show!
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