No. Of course not. It'd be a very stupid idea to go on a long-term journey with the two of us, and bullying each other. What we want to say is: we're in Istanbul. It's no coincidence we chose this place to start. One of our friends told us that Istanbul has 'the gateway to Asia'. A perfect start for our 'tour of Asia'!

Gateway to Asia: Haydarpasa

Istanbul is the only metropolitan city, with 12.9 billion inhabitants, in the world that spreads over 2 continents. We couldn't think of a better city to step from Europe to Asia. We flow to the European side and crossed the Bosporus with a ferry to the Asian side, looking for that famous gateway to Asia: Hydarpasa. That train station, which is actually the gateway and was burnt down a while ago, was still worth the effort a small visit... Well, we actually got of the ferry at the wrong port, which resulted in quite a long walk before we found it.

One hour and a half later, we reached Haydarpasa. Except some soot, the remains of the fire where gone. However, to stay in the burnt mood, our shoulders and neck where sun-burnt red. A result of the long walk along the coast.

Hayderpasa is a very old station, the first connection between Istanbul and the Middle-East. It's possible to take a direct train to Teheran in Iran. We'll take it a little more slowly, taking the bus to the Black Sea to continue our trip to eastern Turkey.

Enjoying vibrant Istanbul

It's really very busy here in Istanbul, but it's peacefully differentiated: woman with niqaab (fully black curtain-like), veiled or not, extremely short shirts and short, all happily looking for the highlights of Istanbul. We really love this vibrant diversity.

The overdose of tourism, however, made us only visit the beautiful Blue Mosque and it's citerns...

.. leaving us to watch the Topkapi palace and the Aya Sophia only from the outside...

Shoving on for an hour to get a ticket, and waiting in a line to look at the different rooms or a curl of Mohamed, that's not our style. We prefer strolling along small streets and spotting sunbathing or fishing locals along the coastline.

And from time to time, we enjoy the extremely tasteful kebabs...

For the ones who like a little quiz

What is my wife depicting in the picture below?

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What did we bring?

The full list of our luggage see episode 1:

• t-shirts, 4 for Ruth, 5 for Kurt
• 4 tops (Ruth) en 2 shirts (Kurt)
• each of us 2 shorts, 2 zip-pants and 1 pair of long light pantsvoor
• each of us a fleece and slip-ons with long sleeves: 2 for Ruth, 1 for Kurt
• each 10 pairs of underpants and 3 bra's, the latter only for Ruth
• each a set of thermal underwear
• each of us 2 pair of hiking sockes and 6 pair of normal ones
• footwear: we wear our light shoes, but each of has takes a pair of boots, and flipflops
• raincoat and rain cover for the backpack
• swim suit and bikini for Ruth, 2 pairs of swimming pants for Kurt
• each of us a payama, sleeping bag and a light sheet bag
• each of us a head light
• each of us 2 towels, a wash cloth and a bunch of paper wash cloths
• toiletries (shampoo, shower gel, sun creme, after sun creme, tooth past, ...), handkerchiefs, EHBO stuff and self aid pill box
• mosqiuto net
• photo material (lenses, loaders, batteries, memory cards, ...) and a tripod
• laptop
• dive mask, diving log book and diving computer
• buff scarf for Ruth and 2 hats for Kurt
• each of us sun glasses and spare glasses for Ruth
• pocket knife, straps, rope and compass
• books and papers (pass ports, money, insurance cards, readers for bank cards, ...)
• each of us a small back pack (20-30 litres) for day trips