Quiet Miles

  • Where Roads meet Reality
    Where Roads meet Reality

    Istanbul

    I travel by motorcycle across Europe, North Africa and West Asia.

    Not to collect destinations,
    but on business – instead of flying as I did before.

    Not during holidays, but all year round.

    To observe what happens in between.
    To sense distance.
    To feel the elements.

    To be present.
    To be in motion – as everything is.

    Roads, borders, ports, workshops.
    Systems that work. Systems that don’t.

    Truckers, other drivers, villages, cities.
    Encounters long before I arrive.

    Most of what matters is not visible from the air –
    nor in letters.

    It happens quietly.
    In small difficulties on the road.
    And in the help I receive.

    These are notes from those places.

    You don’t understand it from the outside.
    You have to enter it.

    The traffic is not chaos.
    It is a dance that forms around you.

    Here was the first very large city I rode in after getting my license.

    Once inside, I forgot the warnings from home.
    I trusted what I saw.

    What makes you feel safer?

    Cars that follow signs
    or drivers who look at you?

    Before that, I had taken nine full days of safety training.
    Situations you are told may happen once in a lifetime.

    In Istanbul, they happened every day.

    And yet, it worked.

    I felt fortunate when I rode along the Bosphorus.
    Crossed between Europe and Asia, again and again.

    Ate a bowl of sütlaç each day.
    Lived in sight of the Hagia Sophia.
    A place where history feels present, and immediate.

    Even now, when I approach the city on my motorcycle,
    it feels like returning.

    Not anywhere else.

    There.