World Run II / Reports

The map shows the position of which the pictures for the day are taken (if any). The start and finish markers are placed at the first and last valid registered position. This is not nessesary the actual start and finish position, if GSM or GPS signals was not available.

Goto: 2008-11-09 2008-11-11 Middle East

2008-11-10:

11
Distance today: 45.0 km (Accumulated: 6345.0 km)
Elapsed time: 04:48:44
Country: Middle East

Start 8:45am., at hotel Grand in Akepazari. 12c, half overcast and l. wind.
Finish 15:01pm. At rds.140-01/34 on rd. 140. 20c, allmost clear and same.

Police-escort from the start of todays running too; the patrolcars changing at the border of each prestinct - about once an hour. We got a nice chat w. most of them and our Turkish' is beginning to build from the basic "Salaam Aleikum" (hello), "Tesche Gulle" (thanks), "Evet" (ok!), "Aiwa" and "Imsh Allah" (if god allows).

Its difficult to know if there is danger in this area (it doesnt seem so, and our research nor the localnews indicate that) and most likely its due to our running on the highway. We run in the emergency lane and the police drives behind and occationally advices traffic via their loudspeaker.

All very relaxed, though. Yesterday our midday-team invited us to lunch at a roadside restaurant. No chance we wereallowed to pay - same thing often happens when shopping in all but multimillion cities: if its a small item like a tomato, orange or cucumber the shopkeepers often insist that we get it as a small gift.
I have to say that so far the friedship and intest has been fantastic here - only downside is that I get embarrased when I compare how strange foreigners are 'wellcomed' back home. But we used to be friendly towards strangers too; and surely we will reclaim that old quality again :-)

Indeed wealth comes in many measures besides money, and friendship is one where Siberia, Finland and Turkey are kings !