Bolu - Unye Day 10 (22 April, 2012)

We woke up to a nice sunny day.  Despite the good weather, we were a bit fragile from the last night's loss of Barcelona to Real Madrid.  Nonetheless, we must continue the journey.  We originally planned to make it to Samsun, but if we arrived early enough, we would push on to Unye.
Last night before arriving into Bolu, we needed to exit the toll highway.  Using our KGS toll card (we picked it up just after entering Turkey), we tried to scan out.  It denied us.  There was nobody at the toll so we just went around the gate.  Before leaving Bolu, we went to a petrol station to try and put money on the card.  To our surprise, you must only do this at the toll booths.

Here is the infamous toll card...don't lose it!

Fast forward to driving to Samsun...we stop at the booth and again to our surprise, the place where to pay is past where the toll is.  It is a very strange system and a bit backward.  So, for those who are traveling to Turkey and will be driving around, you will need to get out of your car to pay this toll...

Note that the place where to pay is after where you are supposed to pay...very strange indeed

As most every other day riding, today would not be without rain.  Scott has been talking about washing his bike and today was another perfect opportunity for mother nature to clean it. 

The storm is continuing to haunt us every day...

The rain did not last too long and we finally arrived into Samsun at about 5 pm.  We decided to push on to Unye.  (Good thing we did because Samsun is a port city and was not as kind on the eyes as Unye).

A bit of Northern Turkey landscape

We had asked Hakan to phone ahead to reserve us a place to stay in Unye, given that we were going to arrive after sundown.  He ended up finding us a decent little place just outside of town, Otel Hasan Bey.

Scott and HJ in Unye, Turkey in front of the Otel Hasan Bey

All we had time for was a quick jaunt to the city center for some dinner, a quick walk around the center, then back to the hotel for some shut-eye.  (Last comment about Unye, Philips ambi-light is everywhere on the boardwalk of this town, we did not take any pics of it, but it is a bit out of control).