That next morning in Guzelcami, we pulled ourselves out of bed just in time to catch the large group breakfast at the Ecer Pension.

We spent the first part of the morning wandering through Guzelcami’s market and running little errands. The market had some truly stunning products for sale:

After the market, we headed to a certain healing sulfur spring outside of town, dedicated to the god, Zeus, which proved startlingly crowded. Regardless, we decided to hang there for a while, taking a dip in the spring and having a picnic of all the leftover foods from yesterday’s picnic.

Having eaten and had our sulfur baths, we found ourselves at a crossroads. What to do next? Where should we go?

We had heard many good things about the beaches farther south, but we had also heard great things about the fabled inland city of Cappadocia, where houses are built into the stone faces of the local geology. Call it the Petra, or the Pueblo of Turkey. In the end, we decided that we’d seen enough beaches, and that Cappadocia was the move.

So off we went. We drove for hours, listening to NPR’s Radiolab on compact disc.

Our next stop was to eat again, this time at a very interesting food truck we spotted off the side of the road, in a rather industrial part of the city of Denizli. They were serving up some wicked pressed sandwiches, and were more than happy to give us a knife to cut the melon that we’d bought earlier that day at the market.

It was well after midnight by the time we arrived in our final destination of Konya, where we had booked a room at a hotel recommended by the lonely planet, but we had still another two hours of driving around to do before we actually found the place.

When we did, the owner was standing in the doorway looking sleepy and waiting for us. Claudia and Diane headed in and began to handle logistics, which Scott and I drove off to find a place to park the car amidst the maze-like alleyways.

It seemed like we had only slept for two minutes when it was all of a sudden time to leave in order to adhere to the 11:00 am checkout rule. I scarfed down some bits of sandwich and some coffee in the lobby and then we headed out into the city.

Konya is an amazing place, highly recommended – one of my favorite that we had yet visited in Turkey. It was much poorer and much more Arabic than any Turkish city we’d been to yet, more like Syria. Scott and Diane went off to mail a package to a friend, while Claudia and I headed over to investigate a nearby event raising funds to support Muslim causes; it was broadcasting some entrancing Arabic music.

We wandered around looking at the gallery of posters explaining the fundraiser.

Most of the causes were things our government would describe as terrorism, but were here being presented as God’s work. It was a very interesting perspective to experience.

As Americans we felt totally welcome to visit the stand, and view the materials. When the fellows running the fund raiser found that Claudia could speak Arabic, they even gave us free lighters bearing the name of the Chechen Separatist Movement.

We spent a few more hours wandering around Konya, looking at some of the amazing goods for sale, like these variously shaped heating coils before getting in the car and heading off toward Cappadocia.

We stopped part way to Cappadocia to snack on some pide in the town of Aksaray, where we found an amazing place, featuring this fantastic poster illustrating the journey of man through life.

The place was run by goofy teenage boys and pide was delicious.

We stopped at a  small bakery for some sweets and the owner came outside to let us know that one of the tires on the Doblo was getting flat. So we stopped and filled it up a little more before splitting. We had to wait in line behind a man filling his bicycle tire while we did so. We felt proud.

Our next stop was a monument to all the leaders of Turkey. We wandered around viewing the busts of each leader. It was startling how many of them were Mongols. We took a moment to consider how important a place Mongolia was. We were excited to wheel the place. It was not far off now…

Meanwhile, imminent arrival in Cappadocia was being heralded by some very interesting changes in the surrounding geology, which continued to get stranger and stranger. Soon we were surrounded by giant towering phallic-like structures. This must be the place, we thought, as we pulled into the town of Göreme.

We pulled the Doblo into the center of town and turned into a construction site to investigate the lonely planet pdfs, and collect addresses and phone numbers of potential hotels. Scott raged on his computer while the rest of us lazed and attempted to look useful.

After some brief comparison shopping, we ended up checking into The Dora Motel.

After throwing our stuff down, we parted ways, Claudia and Diane heading off to do some shopping, and Scott and I heading out for a little inaugural wheel of Cappadocia.

The wheel consisted mostly of a savage uphill climb through the striking geology. These bizarre towers were all around us, and now that we could get a closer look, it was obvious that most of them had been carved into homes and businesses, evident from the windows and doors scraped out of the rock.

We wheeled all the way over to the next city, where we found plenty more hotels, both conventional and those which allowed people to rent carved out “cave” rooms. We also noticed this classic car, the brand of which has no Wikipedia page, hidden behind the window of a repair shop.

Anyone who can shed more light on this vehicle is heartily invited to do so in the comments.

We continued to wheel on, past ruins, “cave” houses, and finally through the town and back into the countryside.

With the sun setting, we decided it was time to call it a wheel and head back to reconvene with the rest of the TurkLaunch team.

That next morning we woke up to a beautiful view of the Çesme coastline, and a giant statue of a lady holding out an olive branch.

Our slumber in the Doblo had not been amazing, but not bad either. Regardless, we were excited to get back on the road. Claudia’s tooth was still causing pain but less than the day before. She took another azythromicin and we drove down into the city.

Back in town, we stopped at a restaurant specializing in a dish something in between a crepe and an omelet nearby Dost Pide. It was accompanied by a large green jug of delicious homemade salty yoghurt.

From there we drove outside of town to the beach. The water was choppy, but blue and crystal clear.

As we drove along for kilometers, we saw people swimming in the water or walking along the coastline. It seemed the residents of each neighborhood had their own little piece of beach and were taking advantage of it.

We decided this was the place to go wheeling. So we unfolded the cycles. There were, of course, only three Dahons however, and four of us. Diane volunteered to stay back and read by the beach while we three fools wheeled the coastline.

And wheel we did, making our way along the coast, stopping from time to time to head down to the water and investigate little inlets and coves. The water was very clean and inviting. So clear was it, in fact, that we could see the bottom just littered with spiny urchins. These urchins were the only things keeping us from taking a dip some dozen times during the wheel.

We wheeled on past stunning rocks and sea, past layers sedimentary rock and majestic arcs of coastline. It was almost too beautiful, almost cheesy in its idyllic glory.

Finally, we found a public swimming dock that was so crowded we felt there must be a way to swim without being urchined to death, so we went in. The water was colder than expected, but quite refreshing.

From that beach, we wheeled uphill into a small hilltop development, from which we were able to catch a long downhill back to where Diane was waiting for us. It was a short, but very sweet wheel.

We then climbed back in the Doblo and headed onward toward the next seaside town. We stopped partway there to buy and then eat a giant picnic lunch of olives, bread, oil, cheeses, and tiny fish.

We reached Güzelçamlı just as the sun was setting and checked into the Ecer Pension, a small family run guesthouse, where none of the rooms had locks. A large family style breakfast was included with our rate, and we were given an entire floor to ourselves.

We woke up bright and early once again, and rushed upstairs for a quick, olive heavy breakfast before heading down to find our new Fiat Doblo waiting for us. We’d had Prevlaunch. Now it was time for Turklaunch 2010. So we loaded our stuff in the back, a tight, but manageable squeeze, and we were off.

I took the first shift driving and piloted us toward the Kazakh Embassy. Part way through the drive, we realized the tank was completely empty and pulled over to fill up. That was our first encounter with Turkish gas prices, which are some of the highest in the world. We paid well over US$120 to fill the 50 liter tank. Admittedly, we were buying some more expensive variant called Euro-Diesel, but that’s really no excuse. We just hoped this tank would hold us for a while. The Doblo reportedly got amazing gas mileage… we’d have to see.

We got to the Kazakh Embassy and dropped our stuff off. This time we were introduced to the Kazakh Consulate General himself, who also coincidentally favored pink shirts, and personally reviewed our papers to see that they were in order. He decided they were and thanked us for our submission. We resisted the urge to give him a huge high five, and left.

Back on the road, we spent some hours battling Istanbul-related traffic before we hit the open road. The Doblo had a CD deck and we were listening to Wu Tang’s Enter the 36 Chambers like the good old days, and just letting the little 1.3 liter engine of the Fiat Doblo eat road.

We stopped for lunch at a little roadside diner, where we were treated to our first affordable Turkish meal of rice pilaf, kebabs and salad.

Claudia’s incoming wisdom teeth were becoming infected. We’d been monitoring it for some time. It had been waxing and waning in its severity, but today it was getting bad. Her face was beginning to puff up, and she was quickly chewing through the AsiaWheeling supply of pain killers. She was, unsurprisingly, no big eater at that meal. When we headed over to a nearby grocery shop to find some more painkillers, we unfortunately found none and were forced to resist the temptation to just fill the entire excess capacity of the Doblo with Vitaminli drink.

So teeth swollen and stomachs full, we pulled back onto the road.

We began driving through sunflower country, just endless fields of sunflowers in every direction for hundreds of kilometers. It was enchanting.

When we reached the city of Gelibolu, we purchased tickets for the Doblo on the ferry to Lapseki and began our crawl across the sparkling blue Marmara Sea, toward Asia Minor.

Once we hit land again, we worked our way across some more sunflower country until we reached the coast. We stopped for dinner that night at an amazing restaurant attached to a small seaside guest house. We feasted on fresh fish, octopus, squid, and salad, and watched the sun set into the sea. The bread was a little moldy, but so good were the sauces on the rest of the dishes that we all happily sopped them up and ate heartily. The lights periodically went on and off as we ate, which also helped us ignore the mold. We considered briefly staying there, but decided to move on into the night.

It was plenty late by the time we crawled into the cobblestoned town of Assos, where we were able to find a room at a small guest house called the Siday Pansiyon.

We had successfully made our way into Turkish wine country.

The next morning Scott and I woke up at the crack of dawn.

We headed upstairs to enjoy another traditional Turkish breakfast, heavy on the olives, and then downstairs to hop the bicycles. Our destination? The Kazakh Embassy. We knew they would be open today, and we were damned well going to be there.

We wheeled straight down to the shores of the Sea of Marmara, where we picked up the same bike path that we’d ridden with Diane the day before. This time we took it in the opposite direction heading west toward the neighborhood of Florya, where the embassy was located.

The wheel was long and very fast. The path was mostly deserted, so early was it in the morning, and we just let the Speed TRs eat road. Meanwhile, as we pedaled along, hundreds, perhaps thousands of boats bobbed just offshore, moored there waiting to gain access to the port, or for their owners to row back out to them.

On we went, wheeling hard, as the sun began to burn the morning fog out of the atmosphere. At one point we took a wrong turn and ended up at a fully fenced off dead end, culminating in this sign, which we invite any Turkish speaking readers to translate in the comments.

Suddenly we realized that we were massively thirsty, likely due in no small part to the network effect of eating mostly salty olives for breakfast and then wheeling like maniacs for the last two hours. So we stopped at a small beach-side café, where a number of motorcycle cops were eating breakfast and purchased a few bottles of water.

A few tiny bottles of water each later, we climbed back on the Speed TRs and hit the road.

We kept on wheeling, finally reaching Florya. Now, we suddenly realized, we needed an ATM. The Kazakhs would certainly be charging us for these visas, and it was highly possible that the amount would be no chump change. We pulled over to a convenience store, but they were only offering to do some kind of expensive credit card forwarding maneuver, so we decided to move on to a real ATM. They were happy to give us directions, and even happier to pose for this portrait.

We decided then it might be most prudent to part ways, with Scott heading out to get in line and begin filling out any additional paperwork, while I headed out in search of money. The directions that the fellows from the convenience store gave us turned out to include taking a giant and terrifying highway, so I forsook that in favor of moving more intuitively. I began wheeling like a true maniac, very fast and sweating profusely, stopping from time to time to frantically ask pedestrians in sign language where I might find an ATM. Eventually, I began to zero in on a banking zone, as evidenced by a convergence in the responses to my sign language.

Next came a long, slow climb uphill and into the center of Florya. Finally, I began to see banks, and darted into the first one I saw with an ATM. I got out way more money that we could ever need, figuring we had plenty of time left in the land of the lira, and jumped back on the cycle, hoping I’d catch Scott before he had been asked to pay them.

When I arrived back at the embassy, positively drenched in perspiration, Scott was just getting to the front of the line. I strode up to the window and began talking with the fellow.

He began asking me all kinds of questions:

“What do you want to do in Kazakhstan?”  “How long will you stay?” “Who do you know in the country?” and many others. Once he was satisfied with my responses, he told me that I needed to write all the responses down on a piece of paper and address it to the consulate general. I explained that we actually already had a letter of intent, printed and signed, ready to go (you see, we had done our research).

This should give you, dear reader, an idea of the kind of back and forth, which continued on for a while between me and the fellow. The whole ordeal culminated in a somewhat reluctant acceptance of our documents. We were thrilled.

Then the documents were handed right back to us and our hearts fell. “That will be US$60.00 for both of you,” the popped pink collar said.  I reached for my wallet, which contained much more than that in lira and tried to hand the documents back to him. This was great, much cheaper than we had expected. “Can I pay you in cash?” I asked, grinning.

No you must go to this bank and deposit the balance in this account. He then wrote “Türkiye İş Bankası” on a piece of paper, and an account number, and then motioned toward the door. Bring the receipt back with you and we’ll consider your application.

Fair Enough. “We’ll ride there now,” I explained, “Will you be open when we return?”

“Maybe,” he replied. We close at noon.

And then we were off again, in a man vs. gravity race to get to the bank. We were raging on the cycles, just tearing back up that hill. We passed the bank I had taken money out of, then continued on past bank after bank. Where was this place?!

Then finally we saw it, at the end of the street, and Scott sprinted inside while I locked the bikes. He was already part way through the transaction by the time I came in to support him with capital.

While we were finishing the transaction, I convinced the security guard to refill my water bottle from their staff bubbler, and just as he returned with the bottle, Scott snatched the receipts and we were out of there.

Back on the road, we didn’t let up. We had only 20 minutes, but we could so this.

We arrived back at the embassy at 11:53 and ran up pouring sweat and panting to find the door closed. They’d knocked off early! In full knowledge that we were on our way back…

With grumbling proving useless, we climbed back on the cycles. They of course opened back up at 3:00, but by then we’d need to be on the other side of the city meeting with Red Bull.

We began to discuss other options as we rode back to the city. As we pedaled, we called Claudia, who was just waking up at Alps House. She spoke to me groggily, and I responded in a lighting fast stream of data, screaming it into the phone as I rode. She seemed overwhelmed. Fair enough. I hung up and we called Diane.

She was doing no better on the overwhelmed front, with the rental car issue still far from solved, and new confirmation just in that any car big enough for all of us and the cycles was actually illegal to rent in the country of Turkey. She had found a black market renter who was willing to rent us his friend’s car, but without insurance. Fair enough.

Part way through the wheel, we realized we were starving, but not wanting to waste time, as our meeting with Red Bull was already entering a zone of proximity in which we would almost certainly be late, we stopped at the quickest looking and nearest joint we could spot.

It was a place by the name of “park büfe.”  We had a meatball sandwich there that took me back to my experiences at Grinnell Middle School’s Cafeteria and then hit the road, riding hard and fast, back toward home. When we got there, Diane was in a state of nervous delirium over the lack of rental car. “You know we’re planning on leaving tomorrow, right? And we don’t have a car, right?” We nodded and I inadvertently looked at my watch. “This is not what I want to be doing! I’m on vacation!” Fair enough.

We tried to explain that it was okay, that we would take on this task, but just as soon as we’d met with Red Bull. Then we rushed out the door, hoping Diane would heed our advice and cease her work on the rental car front and enjoy herself until we’d returned to throw our efforts into the mix.

Then we were wheeling again, hard. And talking to our Red Bull contact, Bilgehan. He was cheerful, and seemed very forgiving of our admission that we would be tardy.

When we reached the ferry, we fumbled with the machine to produce two plastic tokens, and jumped on.

We then had about 15 minutes to relax, as the ferry made its way across the Marmara over to the “Asian” side of town.  The water was beautiful and blue, and we savored the moment of relative still in this frantic day.

We watched the city of Istanbul roll by outside the windows. Man oh man was this city beautiful. Then we reached the landing and it was time to split, and so we rolled the cycles off the ferry and headed over to the large line of cabs.

We told the cabby the neighborhood and then put Bilgehan on the phone with the man. Our cab driver was amazing, drove like a maniac, and listened to fantastic music, like this song about Facebook.

He also fielded a call from his wife while we were driving. When the phone rang, he turned down the stereo using the controls on the steering wheel, and picked up.

As their conversation continued, he began to perform all kinds of ridiculous pantomime, holding the phone away from him like it stunk, or reaching over and putting it to my ear, giving me a brief burst of Turkish, then whipping it back to his own to add something to the conversation. Quite a fellow we’d found.

Then we arrived at Red Bull’s Turkish HQ, and what a building it was! We knew we were at the right place when we saw some of the Red Bull sampling girls across the street getting the Red Bull Mini Coopers ready for a run around the city.

I’ll spare you the commentary our cab driver had concerning them.

After a bout of miscommunication with the security guard, Bilgehan showed up downstairs and helped us to check in. We stored the cycles behind the front desk, and turned over our passport photocopies to the woman running the show in exchange for ID badges.

Upstairs we met with Bilgehan, where we were introduced to the head of Red Bull Sports for Turkey, Cuneyt. Here too, there as a huge focus on motorsports, which they explained to us was what the culture here was interested in.  We toured their offices, and spent quite a while discussing Red Bull’s business in Turkey overlooking the warehouse district of Istanbul’s Asian side.

Speaking of motorsports, we headed, downstairs to grab the Red Bull we would need for the road trip through Turkey.  But before that Bilgehan wanted to take a ride on the Speed TR, and we were more than happy to oblige.

Then we grabbed the rest of our Red Bull, loaded it onto the back of the bikes, and headed back downhill toward the ferry terminal.

When we got to the ferry terminal, we realized we were starving again, and decided to purchase a couple of “toasts,” which is the way the Turkish refer to grilled cheese sandwiches.

It was definitely a middle school day for the AsiaWheeling diet.

We then prepared to wheel our Red-Bull-laden cycles onto the ferry. It was true they were ungainly, but we were able to slug them on board. From the safety of the passenger cabin, we radioed home letting the rest of the crew know we were inbound.

And Diane was on the other end with great news: She had solved the rental car problem, and we would have a Fiat Dobro ready to go the next morning, manifested through black magic. On our way out of the station, hopping onto the cycles, we noticed these fellows cooking up fish sandwiches and made a special note to revisit them for lunch on our way back through Istanbul before our flight to Uzbekistan.

We had been frantic that whole day, but Istanbul continued to be relaxed around us. As we struggled to ride our cycles laden down with 72 cans of energy drink each, businessmen had just gotten off work and were enjoying playing with their dogs.  Vendors by the water fried up delicious fish at bargain prices.

That evening we met up with our Turkey advisor, Mr. Asher Kohn. He took us to one of his favorite restaurants, a place called Abracadabra where we feasted on tiny fried fish, more chewy Turkish bread, a plate of roast lamb with yoghurt sauce, and a large salad.

After that he took us for a stroll around the neighborhood, pointing out bits and pieces of history or folklore. Then we went out for gelatto, a desert of which I am always skeptical.

We woke up the next morning to a truly luxurious breakfast at the Park Inn in Istanbul.

It was the classic Turkish breakfast of crispy baguettes, tomatoes, cheeses, olives, and had boiled eggs. We took it with plenty of cups of milky coffee and with a view of the Blue mosque off to our left, and the great pink Hagia Sophia mosque on our right.

We munched away and made plans for our time in Turkey. Everything was coming together for this part of the trip, except for one vital piece: the car.

After having such a blast traveling through the gulf with Mr. Jackson Fu in the Toyota Previa, we had decided that we should attempt to do Turkey in a similar way. And it was thus that we began investigating rental cars, with Claudia and Diane taking a central role.

In the meantime, Scott and I had another vital mission that needed to be completed before we exited Istanbul, and that was the acquisition of Kazakh visas.

There was much to do and not too much time here in Istanbul, so we were quick to get moving. Claudia headed off with to meet her friend Alp while Diane, Scott, and I headed out towards the Kazakh embassy on the Istanbul city tram.

At the end of the line, we hopped into a cab and began driving around aimlessly asking people for directions to the Kazakh embassy. We must have been in the right neighborhood… either that or the Kazakhs threw really great parties, for everyone we asked seemed know where it was. Yet despite receiving many directions, the building continued to elude us.  But finally, after a fair bit more random taking of turns, and asking of lounging cigarette smoking apartment security teams, we pulled up to the place.

We spoke to the guard outside, who, though it was closed, happily unlocked the door and let us in.

Inside was a kind of manicured garden area, with a nice cobblestone path that led up to a cottage, with a cutesy, residential style door. We had all our paperwork and passports ready, and we knocked on the door with every hope that we might be able to drop them off right there and then. But this was to be our first window into the world of post-soviet insane bureaucracy which we were poised on the edge of. The door was answered, by a tall and rather Korean looking fellow in an American eagle bright pink polo shirt and tight jeans who was sorry to inform us that while it was a weekday, they were unfortunately closed and we had better come back tomorrow. “Could you just take these forms and put them in an inbox?’ We asked. “That would be impossible.” He answered in interestingly accented English.

Fair enough, we thought, walking away from the place. At least we had found the place, and that was step one.

We took a picture of the sign to remind us of exactly where it was, and hit the road on foot.

As we strolled we investigated the cars parked along the street, making a list of models which we thought might accommodate all of us for the upcoming ride across Turkey. We would, of course, prefer a Toyota Previa, but research had suggested such a car was tough to find, perhaps even illegal to rent here…

We continued on, past a deserted school where a single child rode on his training wheels threw an empty playground, and then past the airport, which sported a fantastic logo on their fence.

From there we made our way down to the water, where we strolled along the sea for a while, playing with the community exercise equipment, and generally goofing around.

Soon we found ourselves at a community beach, where I found myself struck, as I had been by the female luggage scanner, by women wandering around in their bathing suits. It’s just not something that one sees in the middle east. And it had been quite some time since we’d been outside the Middle East. I found myself ever so mildly scandalized. It was really quite wild.

Eventually, we walked back up from the beach, stopping at a grocery store for some water, and then climbed back on the commuter rail, bound for town.

Back in town we collected our cycles, and head out for a ride. It was to be Diane’s inaugural wheel with the team, and we were excited to put some Turkish kilometers under our belts. And so we headed out, through this very ancient and interestingly part-European and part-Arab city.

It was not long into the ride that we began to conclude the European part was certainly dominating over the Arab. People dressed like Europeans here. EU flags were proudly placed around the city on flag which called it “European Capital of Culture. ”

We looked a little into this European Capital of Culture proclamation, and as Wikipedia explains it:

The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong European dimension.

Good one.

It was not long into the wheel that Scott’s Mother caught one of her front wheels in the ditch through which the trolley rails run and went flying over her handlebars and into the street. We screeched to a halt and headed over to see if she was ok. Thanks be to Jah, she was unharmed, but rather shaken, none the less.

One of the trolley attendants lent us the use of his little officer’s hutch, where we could take stock of ourselves and help Diane to calm down. They gave us a towel to clean some of the road grit off, and after a spell, walked over to a nearby park and sat down. It had been a very intense experience for all involved. The whole trip flashed before my eyes as Daine went sprawling into the street, including when Scott had done the same in Bangkok and I began to realize how lucky we had been to have had so few accidents. Not even a single flat…yet…

AsiaWheeling’s guardian angel aside, we explained to Diane that we would understand completely if she wanted to lay off wheeling for the rest of today. But she refused. After a couple more minutes of collecting herself in the park, we were back on the roads, and wheeling up a storm.

And let me underline, dear reader, that Istanbul is not an easy city to wheel in. Traffic is fast here, and none too used to cyclists. The roads are also full of obstacles like, very old, bent, widely spaced grates, and the tramline that had caught the front tire of Diane’s Speed D7.

We continued, past the blue mosque and down the cobblestone streets towards the shores of the Bosphorus. On the seashore, we were able to get onto a bike path, which was of great relief to all involved, for we now only had to worry about traffic consisting of pedestrians, roller bladers, and the occasional fellow wheeler.

Diane was doing very well, wheeling fast, and with a smile on her face. We made short work of that chunk of coastline, making our way by this very interesting turbaned statue, and eventually being dumped out into a part of town which was just littered with, of all things, bike shops.

We even stumbled upon the Turkish Dahon distributer, who unfortunately spoke none of the languages that we knew, but emitted general supportive body language.

From there, we took a bridge across the Bosphorus, and onto the side of the island where Alp lived.

Once on the new island, we began working our way uphill towards a place called Taksim, which is a giant square surrounded by a shopping and hotel district.

We spent some time wandering around there, poking our heads into car rental agencies but not finding much in the way of vehicles large enough for 4 people and 3 folding bicycles.

We even stopped into good old EuropeCar, a company that had served us so well in Abu Dhabi, but alas, the office here in Istanbul was staffed by grumpy and unhelpful characters. So much brand equity was destroyed in our five minutes of interacting with the Istanbul EuropeCar office, that I left the building feeling sorry for the company and wondering how it could have gone so far down the wrong path.

As we continued to poke around Taksim, we eventually got a call from Claudia and Alp, who were ready to meet up for Dinner. Alp ended up leading us to a fantastic joint, though to call it a joint is perhaps unfair.

It was more like a high class restaurant, built for sophistos, another Meze place, where we feasted on a fantastic assortment of dishes.

It had been quite a wheel and we were thrilled to be eating.

Fresh greens, yogurts, spicy fried shapes, crispy French tasting rolls, pickled mushrooms, sweet raisiny chicken pieces. It was a glorious walk through a world of very small portions of very scrumptious things.

After dinner, Claudia traded with Diane, joining us on the cycle to night-wheel home. As we made our way back down hill and across the bridge, I could not help but find myself startled at how quickly the trip had changed with the addition of Diane. Turkey was certainly an interesting chapter, and a delightful experience, but was it going to be AsiaWheeling?

For ages, the hijab, a head covering worn by Muslim women, has been a symbol of the East, a symbol of modesty and mystery. The practice of veiling has deep seated religious roots, originating when the wives of the Prophet Muhammad veiled themselves from worshipers who came to visit their home (which was converted into the first mosque). However, the hijab is an avenue for political expression as much as a religious garment.

Many think (and have thought) of the Middle East and the West as two opposing spheres of thought and cultural heritage. Despite the gross over-simplicity of this idea, the belief has been and is being used in conjunction with the practice of veiling to support political movements and rally people around nationalistic ideologies in the Middle East.  Kemal Atatürk, in his campaign to westernize Turkey in the late 1920s dissuaded Turkish women from wearing the Hijab.  For the garment was seen as a cultural artifact, alienating to the West. Today, with an awareness of the cultural connotations of the hijab, some women use the garment as a socio-political tool and veil in tacit rejection of the West, be it of the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan or of past damage to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and then Palestine during the period of colonization and systems of mandate.

It is certain, though, that many women today still wear the hijab for reasons of perceived chastity and modesty. It seems that veiling can at once empower women and strip them of identity or agency. But there is no doubt that it is an injustice when women are forced to veil or not to veil for social reasons.

One way the veil can empower women is by allowing them to move freely within public spheres and escape sexual harassment on the street, a growing problem in the Middle East. It is thought that women wearing the hijab are harassed less because they are “good Muslim women,” mothers and wives who project an air of modesty. So we can consider the veil as a tool that allows women to be treated with respect in public spheres, rather than as sexual objects open to verbal or physical harassment.

But the question I have is: what came first, the chicken or the egg? Do women veil to escape harassment, or did the trend of veiling prompt widespread harassment of unveiled women?

A strange concept, certainly counter-intuitive, but bear with me. The veil, in religious terms, serves the purpose of covering a woman’s body in order to quell the devious thoughts of men. Perhaps extreme, but there have been campaigns which push women to veil that promote just such an idea. The caption of this add reads: “A veil to protect or the eyes will molest.”

This poster characterizes women’s bodies as sweet and tempting, and men’s eyes on them as spoiling. It seems that the consensus here is that a woman’s body is inherently sexual, something to be desired. The act of veiling springs from this belief, and attempts to counter the issue by obfuscating the temptation of the body.

However, it seems to me that wearing the hijab reinforces, intensifies, and to some extent creates the belief that women’s bodies are sexual objects, cementing this belief as a culturally accepted conviction. This phenomenon fits in with the sociological theorem “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” In this mode of thinking, if veiling is accepted as the norm for women’s dress, a woman who chooses not to veil is automatically deemed immodest, and, however unfairly, can be seen as fair game for harassment. In this vein of thought, the hijab desexualizes individual women, but sexualizes the concept of “woman,” possibly creating issues for women who do not veil.

Others would argue that veiling at times has an effect opposite to that of quelling temptation directed toward the covered woman. Veiling can give women a more subtle power as sexual agents. As Scott and Woody can attest, there is a certain allure and eroticism associated with the garment. Furthermore, when someone sees a veiled woman,  one’s imagination can create the woman as attractive, unbounded by how she may actually appear behind the façade of cloth.

No matter how veiling is perceived — by foreign men as alluring, by foreign women as confounding, or by its wearers as preserving or political, the veil will not be lifted any time soon. As religious conservatism gains momentum in places, more and more women are choosing to cover. With global tides carrying people and Islam across borders and seas, it is becoming all the more necessary to understand the implications of this sartorial phenomenon.

We awoke in Aleppo and Woody’s stomach bug had returned with a vengeance.  This was a particularly tenacious one, requiring water, rest, and the occasional Coca Cola for caloric support.  Claudia and I decided to let him rest and explore the old quarter of Aleppo together.

Wheeling toward it, we were drawn to the giant minarets of the great mosque there, and we paused to admire the courtyard.  Entering as infidels in short pants didn’t seem the most halal of activities, so we gazed from outside and moved on to chain our bikes and explore on foot.

The old quarter of Aleppo is a market of gigantic proportions, selling everything from kebab skewers, to safes, to silk scarves, to painted plates.  We were not in search of anything in particular, and took time to gaze into every couple of shops.

Some sold copious amounts of gold chains and pendants.

Others trumpeted trading relationships with China, which was constantly spoken of in a poor light by many of the men we met in this part of the world.  It was good to see a bit of solidarity between these two great nations.

Strolling around the byzantine caverns proved chock full of eye candy.

Dated ads for paint products and over-eager shop owners caught our attention briefly, though continuing to stroll, getting more and more lost seemed to be the key.

We found ourselves in various antechambers and courtyards, where the economy of regional and international tourism collided with daily life in Aleppo.

Taking a peek at the old citadel and asking for directions at a camera shop only distanced us from any sense of direction.

Though we were able to finally stumble upon the bikes after coming across a fantastic decal of the Syrian president.

We had been discussing ideas for a T-Shirt to forever immortalize Syria in the form of AsiaWheeling apparel, and settled on an image of the beloved president with a command to partake in our favorite activity here “Getting Syrious.”  It is with pride that we present to you the latest addition to the AsiaWheeling T-Shirt Store: Get Syrious.

While Claudia wheeled home to rest and drop a Coke off for Woody, I picked up my laptop and headed out to clean up some photos and process my inbox.  On my way out, as I dodged trucks carrying gigantic tires, a shop owner invited me into his showroom.  They sold tires to the local populous here with “Made in Indonesia” emblazoned on the side.  They came in all sizes, and as I marveled at the inventory, I was invited into the back room to see the boss.  As we drank tea, we discussed in plain English the Aleppo tire market and what exactly it was that I was doing in Syria, as part of this “AsiaWheeling” company.  With praises to Barack Obama complete and the tea cup reaching its vacant state, we bid each other farewell and exchanged visiting cards.

On the street, an open wireless network with a weak signal provided hope of connectivity, and luckily it carried the namesake of a large hotel six blocks away.  Strolling over to the park across from the hotel, I synced and corresponded with the world as pedestrians peeked at my screen and came over to peer at the inner workings of gmail.

Wishing for a bit more comfortable surroundings, I stopped in a cafe whose clientele were utterly rapt in the World Cup.  The vibrations here were homey and rustic, the staff charming and stern, but helpful.   Closing my laptop, I headed home for a night of rest before the next big day of transit.

We ate our second last breakfast, once again at the good old Al Negma. The food was just as incredible and affordable as we remembered it, and the owner was just as willing to give us directions to the bus station.

Except this time we were not headed up the giant booze-shop-lined hill toward the Ante-Lebanese bus station. This time we were headed on a domestic trip, to the fabled city of Latakia.

It was yet another near tearful checkout from the Ziad Al Khabir.

It was beginning to join the ranks of Steve’s Room and Motta’s apartment in terms of hosting AsiaWheeling for extended periods of glory. We said one last goodbye to its welcoming staff, endearing grunge, and Sudanese spiced onion-scented halls.  And with that, we wheeled to bus station.

The ride was pleasant. We had no idea of the schedule of the buses leaving, so we were in no rush. Damascus was as beautiful, dry, and sun-drenched as ever. As we were riding, a car pulled up next to us and called out: ”AsiaWheeling!” We looked over and it was none other than the man who had taken us under his wing on our first day in Damascus, helping us to repair Scott’s sandals and taking us for a tour of the covered market. We pedaled next to his cab, chatting for a bit, and in the end wishing him safe travels.

Once we directed our attention back to wheeling, we realized that we had missed a turn. Not to worry, though, for we were able to pull over in front of a giant military compound where we were quickly surrounded by fellows in all black with giant machine guns. The guys seemed mostly excited to see us and especially interested in talking with Claudia. She was happy to oblige them and was able to secure some very good directions for us. A quiet jaunt on a rather busy highway later, we arrived at the bus station.

I set up shop watching our things while Scott and Claudia headed out to compare buses. It seemed that all the buses to Latakia were selling out as we spoke, and their mission quickly dissolved into a frantic dash to secure tickets. But secure them we did, and soon we were relaxing in the blood red seats of a giant lumbering bus crawling its way across the desert towards Latakia.

The bus stopped halfway through the ride at an Arabic sweets shop, and we decided to buy some to keep us going. The sweets were particularly interesting, featuring the usual baklava-esque variants coupled with a new one, which  consisted of a large flat noodle stuffed with a sweetened cheese and chopped pistachio. Normally I am not too into sweets, but these were just too interesting to hold back on.

While we enjoyed the plate of sweets, Scott went to the counter to acquire diet cola.  While doing so, he struck up a conversation with a fashionably dressed young woman named Hiba who hailed from Malmö, Sweden. She was on her way to visit family in Latakia.  Originally from Palestine, her extended family had been relocated to Latakia in the mid-twentieth century, with her parents moving to northern Europe later on. Hiba and Scott exchanged Syrian phone numbers, and as they bid farewell, her younger brother sporting Nike dunks, a big purple t-shirt, and a fitted baseball cap came to accompany her back to the bus.

When we arrived in Latakia, we unfolded the cycles, and climbed out into the cool desert night. We were immediately befriended by a military officer on his way back to his home town for a little R&R. He led us from the station over to one of the main streets, from which he gave us directions to the city center. We wheeled on from there, noticing that our Syrian flashlights had, despite our charging them all the last night, somehow either failed to store energy, or had broken.

Fair enough. Latakia was lit plenty well enough, and soon we began to spot hotels around us. The first few we wandered into were a bit too pricey, but eventually we stumbled into a Tintin-themed place, by the name of the Hotel Safwan.

From there, we headed out in search of more of that amazing garlic mayonnaise-soaked shawarma, and wiled away the rest of the evening playing whist at a local hookah and ice cream joint.

The next morning, we woke bright and early and headed off to meet Hossam in the same market district of Damascus’ old city where we had met the day before. He met us there with his friend, Delia, who was in very high spirits. We all wandered together through the market, talking excitedly about our plans that day. Not far into the place, Hossam ran over to a vegetable seller and grabbed a few onions and a handful of herbs. “For the kebabs,” he explained.

Our first stop was a meat shop. Hossam definitely had his favorite suppliers, and took great pride in carefully selecting some fantastic cuts of lamb. The first of these he directed the shop owners to blend  and run through a grinder with the bundle of onions and herbs that we had just bought. While they got to work on that, we headed down the street and bought more pieces of lamb from another seller, who proudly hung a bunch of freshly skinned lambs outside his storefront. The lambs had been gutted and cleaned, but for one reason or another, the testicles were left attached. “It is the Syrian way,” Hossam explained to us, grabbing a giant, brown paper wrapped hunk of meat and two chickens, strolling back out into the bustling alley.

We then bought a giant watermelon and a smaller honeydew from an man with a giant room full to my head level with melons. I grabbed the watermelon, and Claudia the honeydew. Hossam protested at Claudia carrying the melon, to which she responded with a feminist retort. Hossam’s friend instantly recognized her and joined in in solidarity. Hossam soon shut up as he became preoccupied with other things, such as fresh cheeses and homemade hummus. We also bought a large bag of fresh cucumbers and more onions.

As we were leaving the market, we noticed this kid selling the kind of child’s bouncy balls that included a set of handles up top, allowing the user to bounce around on it, presumably as some sort of enjoyable though inefficient mode of transit. In any event, he was looking so enterprising and debonair, that while we could not bring ourselves to buy a bouncy ball, we couldn’t resist taking his portrait.

Hossam left us for a moment to run into his friend’s apartment and grab a bag of utensils and a large grill. It was not long before we were met by Hossam’s dentist friend, who pulled up in his Hyundai Verna. There were six of us needing to cram into his five-passenger vehicle, but I was more than happy to climb onto the console, and do my best to avoid the stick shift, snuggled in-between two heavily cologned Syrian men.

Hossam and the dentist began cackling uncontrollably as Hossam told us that he had managed to get off work that day by telling his boss, at the large phonebook company where he worked, that he had just gotten a call from a real big potential client and would need to run off immediately to go close the deal.

We stopped outside Hossam’s place, and he ran inside to talk for a bit with his grandfather. While he did this, we continued to joke around in the car, playing musical sunglasses. Scott looked particularly dashing in the dentist’s shades.

We proceeded from there to drive out of the city of Damascus and into the countryside, where we found ourselves turning left and right into a tangled maze of deserted and dusty back roads. Eventually we stopped outside a giant half-built concrete, multistory structure. “We’re here!” our new friends exclaimed, and we all hopped out of the car, grabbing armloads of food and equipment.

Hossam turned to me and put a finger to his lips. “Shhhh,” he stifled a giggle, “we are going to need to steal our way into this one.” He then jumped over a low-lying wall and into an overgrown courtyard. From the other side of the wall, he took out a knife and jammed it into the lock of the gate, wiggling it around. He then began violently kicking at the gate. Eventually, the old rusty thing gave way and swung open with a gut wrenching creak.

In we went, picking our way through the grasses and over to a small clearing by a somewhat sewage-laden babbling brook. Delia, the dentist, and Claudia began to set up shop there, while Hossam and I scrambled up onto another concrete wall and pulled off some of the corrugated asbestos roofing tiles from a nearby building.

At Hossam’s order, I dropped into the building, which proved full of dusty stuff, and began collecting things, handing them up to him. First two cobweb-covered hand-woven carpets, then the seats from an old couch, followed by a rusty saw, some silverware, and a number of folding chairs. With that done, I scrambled out.

Then we all gathered around the clearing while Hossam and his friend changed from their city clothes into their country clothes: this meant flowing pants and undershirts.

In the meantime, Scott had already headed out to search for firewood. I was about to join him when I decided to question our dentist friend as to the chances of us getting caught in this little ex-Syrian military breaking and entering escapade we had found ourselves participating in. The entire vibe of the experience felt safe, but the last thing I wanted to do was run afoul of the law in this police state.

I was most pleased to learn, however, that Hossam had just been joking, and that his aunt actually owned this land. From there I relaxed considerably, and headed off to search for firewood with much lightened spirits.

We came back with a bunch of firewood,  to find that Hossam had been hard at work putting together the kind of ground meat kebabs that the Russians call “Lula,” meaning ”gun barrel.”

Scott set to work flexing his old Eagle Scout skills and putting together the fire, while the girls gathered around a central plate and started chopping veggies for a salad, and to skewer into shish-kebabs. I had the great pleasure of lounging on the old couch cushions with the dentist and playing the ukulele. Soon the fire had raged down to a good solid burn, and Hossam headed over to start cooking.

He began by filling a couple of wire rack presses with spiced chicken. He then followed up with the kebabs. From time to time he would use a piece or two of the gigantic stack of flatbread that we’d bought as hot mitts, or as tools to transfer the hissing and fat dripping meat from the grill back to the picnic spot.

For each of the kinds of meat, a piece of bread was used as a plate, and as the soft flatbread soaked up the juices, I began to realize I had not eaten all day and was damn near delirious with hunger. Suddenly I heard a chorus of shrieking over by the grill. It seemed that Hossam had realized some of the kebabs were done and, rather than risk them drying out, he had just grabbed the red hot metal with his bare hands, and screaming in pain, but refusing to drop the skewers, made his way, huffing and puffing in brave agony, to the pile of bread. What a fellow we’d found!

We then all sat down to feast.  The girls had put together a very impressive salad, which we squeezed lemon over and salted.

The dentist cut a hole in a large bag of the magnificent Syrian garlic mayonnaise, and squeezed forth a giant pile of that onto a plate. Meanwhile Hossam sliced a similar hole in the corner of the bag of hummus, and squirted a giant spiral of that into another bowl. They spread both sauces out with a spoon, and poured olive oil over them, and then it was time to eat.

And my goodness, dear reader, did we eat that day! By the time we wandered down to the river to get the melons that had been chilling in the water, I was nearly bursting with some of the most succulent meat, bread, and salad I had ever tasted in my life. It was just too good.

The sun shone, and birds sang in the trees. Feral cats wandered up to us, and we gladly threw them pieces of chicken and lamb bone. “Life is good!” the dentist cried out, as he rolled back onto his cushion, stuffing his face with a slice of what turned out to be one of the sweetest and most strongly flavored watermelons I had ever encountered.

Hossam laughed and clapped his hands “Life is too good!”

And with that, we began to transition into a phase of feast-induced drowsiness. We just laid around in the shade of the trees. I played relaxing tunes on the ukulele, and time slide by.

Eventually the sun was sinking and our hosts indicated we needed to go, so we hustled to clean the place up and pick our way back through the grass to the car.

The sun was just setting as we made our way back into Damascus. It had been a beautiful day. You’re right Hossam, life is too good.

We woke up in our room at Talal’s New Hotel in Beirut, Lebanon. Despite the fact that it was well after 10:00 am,  we picked our way over the bodies of the other sleeping guests, which were strewn all around the place, in order to get outside.

The first order of business was, of course, eating. And we found a reasonable looking place not far from our hotel. It was a kind of a delicatessen, advertising falafel wraps, hummus and the like.  Being accustomed to the normal Middle Eastern practice of ordering a number of plates and eating them with bread, we did so.

The owner was more than happy to oblige us, making sure, however, to caution us that plates would be more expensive than sandwiches. The sandwiches were very affordable, though, so we figured all would be okay. Wrong we were, for when the bill came, it was so large that it could have bought 25 sandwiches easily.  It was probably time to protest, but, perhaps in a moment of weakness, we just paid the bill and left in a foul mood, hoping that a little wheeling might help to erase this expensive and distasteful experience from our minds.

And that it did. We headed first down to the oceanside, where we began to skirt the coast, taking in the city of Beirut, which rose into the hills to our left.

It was quite an impressive place, bustling with giant new construction projects, and already punctuated with modern-looking high rise apartment blocks.

Looking to our right, the geology of the coastline proved not only interesting, but strikingly beautiful.  On top of it, giant cast concrete shapes provided an intended erosion barrier between the beach clubs and the sea.

The city was perched on a bank of cliffs, overlooking the luscious blue of the Mediterranean Sea. As the cliffs made their way down to the water, at the point where the surf made contact, they spread out into large plate-like structures which served as the perfect spots to harbor all kinds of sea plants and animals. The structures themselves, I had a suspicion, might even be the result of many years of habitation by creatures that left some kind of sediment behind. These days the wide seaside plates, also acted as a perch for the many sun-baked local fishermen who dotted the coastline.

Traffic was, in a completely unprecedented way, completely insane. We were becoming accustomed to the sound of squealing tires and the smell of burning rubber; the sight of young Lebanese men in luxury cars drag racing at stop lights was also no surprise. I even saw a few cars pull hand brake turns in relatively empty intersections.

Given all this automotive madness, we were quite glad to move off the street and onto a kind of seaside promenade, which had been constructed in what one might call the European style. We rode along this, enjoying the sun, the water, and the various seaside operations that were scattered along our route, many of which seemed to be focused on scraping muck up from the seafloor and monetizing it in some way.

We were forced to join traffic again when the road rounded a corner and we began to climb, following the cliffside as it grew higher and higher above sea level. Soon we were rewarded with a grand view of the Mediterranean Sea.

It was a vision we were familiar with from the posters that hung in most Lebanese restaurants in the U.S. It was the impossibly blue-green glassy ocean, out of which giant golden rocks jutted, accented with tufts of green plant life. The idyllic scene was only slightly marred by a giant flotilla of plastic post consumer waste, which had, due to the prevailing currents, been corralled just below the epic rock face.

On we went, tearing ourselves away from the view and continuing to slug up and over the hill, which spilled out into a long easy downhill back toward sea level. Partway down the hill, however, we spotted a bent and crumbling barbed wire fence, which separated us from a giant abandoned lot overlooking the sea.

We decided that with the fence in so dilapidated a state, and with Lebanon being, as it is, mostly devoid of government, it was likely no one would mind if we just wheeled right on in.

Inside we found a grid of half finished concrete streets that might, at one point, have been intended to serve a small grid of housing blocks. They had long been neglected, though, and were now strewn with trash, and overgrown with coastal grasses. We continued to wheel on into the abandoned lot, past a number of shipping-containers-turned-housing structures. Most of them showed signs of at least semi-recent occupation, but we did not run into any inhabitants.

All around us were the remnants of half built buildings, and the refuse of vagrants. It was delightfully raw. As we rode on, we wondered: what had ceased completion of this housing project? What had taken this prime piece of seaside real estate and turned it into a post apocalyptic wasteland?

At the end of the crumbling half-built road, we were rewarded with a delightful view of the rich blue sea and the patchwork of plate-like formations which were to be found where the cliffs met the ocean.

We took a moment to sit down and rest in a makeshift cliff-side bungalow, where we found a couple of serviceable plastic chairs and a little shade.

We spent a while taking it all in, perched up there with the magnificent view, before climbing back on the cycles and riding back to the main drive.

We headed on, past a rather large road-side sheep-selling operation, which heralded our entrance into the older and poorer part of the city. Lebanon is a very mixed place, with Muslims and Christians of many ethnicities living together, now at least in relative peace. We had been staying in the richer, Christian part of town, but we were now heading into the poorer Muslim section.

We rode on past fruit sellers and countless auto parts shops.  The architecture in this part of town took a turn for the fascinating, with the return of the Damascus-style intersection between traditional Islamic buildings and 1970s brutalism.

Our pining for Syria was only strengthened by this bit of pro-mayonnaise graffiti.

On we went, deeper into the Muslim part of Beirut. Not more than 20 years ago, these two parts of the city had been at war with one another. And though peace had returned to the city, one could defiantly feel that the Christian part of town had come out on top. The streets here were more crumbling, filth was more prevalent, children wandered with no shoes, and the general nature of the buildings and businesses around us was less about flash and glam, and more about getting things done, putting food on the table, and the like.

Speaking of food, we noticed we were hungry and stopped when we saw a few vendors selling bananas and  Arabic sweets out of the back of a bread truck.

The sweets were amazing, though the vendors proved particularly grumpy when they discovered our order was just a small sampling of each.

So on we went, wheeling harder now, really pushing ground by. We stopped at a couple of bike shops, in hopes of buying some new bike lights, but it seemed that in Beirut all bike shops were actually toy stores, which just placed bikes outside to lure cyclists in and them sell them beach and sandbox-related products.

As happens from time to time on AsiaWheeling, we took a wrong turn and ended up in a family’s yard.

This one was particularly interesting as it contained a smiling child holding a rifle. He was more than happy to point us back toward the main road, and waved us off leaning on his firearm.

Soon the city fell away and we were out into a rocky desert. Up ahead we could see a large tunnel looming, and we decided to take it. It was a particularly hairy mission, pedaling through that deafening tube, enduring strange puffs of wind, and close calls with mad Lebanese drivers.

We discovered it was a tunnel underneath the Beirut airport when we found ourselves suddenly outside again, squinting in the sunlight, ears ringing, and surrounded by barbed wire fencing and radar towers. Perhaps even more interesting than the airport was the fact that we had found ourselves also at a giant sewage outlet, where it seemed all the excrement of the city of Beirut was being let out into the sea. We paused to catch our breath and watch the complicated merging of the river of filth and the beautiful blue sea.

When we climbed back on the cycles to head onward, we found ourselves riding though a remarkable wasteland of trash. The garbage was piled high along the side of the road for kilometers. It was as though a thousand buildings had been torn down, still full of stuff, and all the refuse piled along this freeway.

Now well out of the city, and free of traffic lights, pedestrians, and other obstacles, the traffic speed picked up greatly.  Once again, it seemed prudent to move from the road proper onto the large sidewalk that ran alongside it. And once again, like in Jordan, this sidewalk proved to be just littered with broken glass. We once again trusted in our Kevlar tires, and our general ability to avoid especially pointy bits, and wheeled on.

Not far after the sewage outlet we found ourselves arriving upon a new city, by the name of Saida. There, we decided begin our journey back to the Beirut. We seriously considered making some great loop, but it appeared to us that one might end up trapped in some restricted airport zone ahead of us. So we pulled our Dahons around, and started the long retrace back to the city.

We arrived just as the sun was setting, and we were absolutely starving. We dined that night at a pretty swanky Lebanese place, ordering our usual Middle Eastern meal of hummus, salads, kebabs and flatbread. The meal was glorious, and at a white tablecloth, multiple-forks-per-person type place.

As I ate I tried not to let the fact that our mediocre breakfast at a random sandwich joint had cost almost three times as much…