Hello, my name is Ewan, I'm 28 from Nottingham and I am going to Istanbul with my good
friend who's name is John, I'm also 28, look a lot younger and yeah we set off
from London which is where we both live and we're hoping to get down to Istanbul
in the next few weeks. Fingers crossed.
We set off on the 14th of May from London, cycled over to the East Coast of
the UK and then got the ferry to Rotterdam, cycled through Holland and
spent, we've spent most of our time actually in Germany. I've got a
Germany shirt as well.
We are in Hungary, we crossed over the border. Where abouts in Hungary?
You're near Lipot, we crossed over to Slovakia yesterday.
We're hoping to find the answer when we arrive in Istanbul. We discuss this
every day as normally the topic of conversation over breakfast, why are we
here? I think part of it is travelling, see the world, meet people, experience new
things and it also gives you time to think and reflect quite a lot on your
life and what you like doing really. Any other reasons? I think we're both quite
into sport generally so cycling ticks a lot of boxes because we get to go out
and exercise but also to kind of see a place, properly see it rather than a lot
of people we've met particularly in cities tend to fly in from one city to
the next city and whereas with a bike you see it's a progression. You meet a lot
of people? Yeah lots of people. I'd say it's more, it's travelling, it's
definitely travelling rather than tourism.
Yeah, yeah very much so. It's been really good and I think as I was saying to you
earlier when you're not with the bike. No you missed the bike. Yeah after two days
of not cycling. You just get itchy feet. You just get you know you want to see
another place, see something different.
Rain? No, no, wind. Wind is our enemy. Yeah I hate the wind. And Sundays. Unless it's in
my back in which case it's really good. And Sundays. Sundays when everything's
shut. Yeah. I can't get food. That's the main thing. But not everything else but
I don't know, very happy. Yeah definitely recommend it.
We're heading down towards Sophia. Budapest is actually the next big
place that we'll visit and then we're going down into Greece and actually
coming up into Istanbul. So to be honest Ewan's the best person. I know where
we've been. He is more than Maps man which is why I bought him along because
his conversation is terrible.
Like I say it's mainly the fact that he knows where he's going and I'm not
really sure so that's the only reason I cycle with him because most of the time
his conversation is not very good and he's always complaining that his knees
hurt. So yeah I could find better people to cycle with.
A friend. I wouldn't really call him a friend. An associate, someone I know. Just the
only person I know in London who would do the same thing and I wanted to travel
to Istanbul. So no to be honest I take every opportunity to chat to locals
and other people that are not jammed mainly because we can't stand the sight
of each other after five weeks together in the saddle. Is he good for anything?
Is he useful? He's very good at cooking. Very good at cooking. He's brilliant at
ravioli. Tins ravioli however he doesn't know how to open the tin. I have to do
that for him but the actual cooking aspect is brilliant and he's quite good
at coffee. That's about the extent of his use, I'd say.
No I think it's I don't know I just recommend anyone to experience something
different instead of going on holidays to go on like a bike holiday and travel
around because it's easy to do. You don't need to be at this you know an extreme
athlete or anything. Everyone can do it and it's just a good way of experiencing
new places and new things and I think you learn a lot from it rather than just
normal holidays.
