CS - This is October 8th the 33rd day of the Peking to Paris. We are talking from central Turkey, where we have seen some very unusual sites since we came in. Three and four story rock houses that had been carved out hundreds of years ago. We saw cabbages that were twenty inches wide. Excellent roads, light traffic making very good time. We held our place at sixth in our class. We seem to be moving up. The car ran very beautifully today. I do want to send a little message to Larry in La Crosse Wisconsin. I hope that he hears this or somebody will call him. We have seen through the whole Asian Continent, from Beijing to Central Turkey, forest management, tree farms, reforestation, and a tremendous amount of it. It appears to be just miles and miles of tree farming and reforestation. There are a lot of poplar trees and evergreens here in Turkey. They are even more prevalent here in the eastern part of Turkey than we have seen other places, but it was also in Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal and throughout China. I want to say happy birthday to my son, Mark, today. I hope that Narcelle has been getting my messages. Our friends, relatives, and people who have been sending email, we appreciate it all. We had a good trip today, we are looking forward to a good trip tomorrow into Istanbul. We will report to you seeing some more of the seven wonders of the world on the Peking to Paris 1997/Don & Carl Around the World. Here comes Don.

DJ - Well Carl I want to confirm that the cabbages were really, really big. They were as big as a bushel basket. You would have to see these cabbages to believe it. They are larger than a basketball, larger than anything you could think of like a globe. They are huge. They are as big as a watermelon or maybe even bigger. Phenomenal cabbages.

Well as we move across Turkey, they say that your moving through different centuries. That is to say that the part we entered into Turkey is considered to be the 17th and 18th century in its architecture and its customs. The 18th and 19th century we passed through today, we begin to see changes in the housing and the landscape in terms of the infrastructure. The 20th and 21st century are about to appear as we proceed to a more cosmopolitan and urban part of Turkey. There are 79 autonomous provinces in Turkey we are told. There is a lot of internal strife and competition for the leadership and the direction of Turkey.

Turkey has always been isolated between east and west, and at the moment, Turkey very much wants to be part of the EU (European Union Economic Community). Consequentially it is trying to make some of the social policy and economic policy changes to make that happen. There is outrageous inflation in Turkey at the moment. 10% increase in inflation in the last sixty days. We would like to tell you about the gasoline shock. You undoubtedly heard us report that you could come over to Iran and fill up your tank for 10 cents a gallon for regular gasoline. Well, now that's a gallon by the way. Here in Turkey gasoline is $1.15 a liter. 3.75 liters to a gallon. $4.51 a gallon. We pulled into our first gas stop here in Turkey this morning and we filled her up and were informed that the price was 16 million of the Turkish currency. That translates into $95.80 of US denomination. The Turkish currency is called lira. The exchange rate is extraordinary, 169,000 lira to 1 US dollar. So to illustrate to you what that means, I exchanged $300 US dollars for the purposes of gasoline and I received 25 million of the Turkish lira. Now that really causes you some mental calculation difficulties when you think about tipping the service providers, whether in a restaurant or at a hotel. For example, 500,000 lira is approximately $3 US dollar. We have had to adapt to this new math. Can you imagine having to deal with it in terms of everyday life.

There is quite a current of unrest in Turkey. The population here is 70 million contrasted to the neighboring population of Iran of 60 million. We travel through a region of Turkey that would be similar to western United States and our trip has brought us out of the mountainous region into the plain. Sort of like the great plain of Nebraska and the central Midwest of the US. Now we are about to proceed toward the sea, which is connected by the Strait of the Bosporus where Istanbul is located. We will be telling you more about Istanbul's strategic location, formally Constantinople. and before that, the Byzantine capital. When the great leader of Rome, Constantine, decided to move the capital of the Roman empire to the city which at that time was named Byzantium. We also, in passing through this marvelous region of Turkey, we could not help but see and observe and watch very intense military presence. This was not a standard military standing on a country road or city street. These were military units who were bunked down in machine gun nests or sitting in armored personal carriers or sitting behind sand bag reinforcements. So we have inquired from some of our Turkey hosts, what exactly is going on and why all this extraordinary manpower and military equipment. We see trains carrying vast amounts of military equipment. We see convoys of military vehicles on the highway. The story that we received is that there is the insurgency of the Kurds, who are an indigenous population to this region, who actually live in not only Turkey, but Iran, Syria, and Iraq. The Kurd population totals 30 million. The Kurds as a group of people would like to have their own autonomous state. To do that Turkey would have to give up approximately 1/6 of its territory and of course other countries would have to cooperate and do something similar. All of which seems rather unlikely. There is a rebellious group called the PKK, which does carry on terrorist activity. Evidently, the Turkish army is on full-scale alert, although we are told that from day to day there does not seem to be skirmishes but it tends to be a terrorist hit and run activity. So as you travel through this region of Turkey, every major pass in the mountain, every strategic location of infrastructure, and every entrance to a valley has a contingent of full on duty, fully alert military personal. We have the unnerving experience of passing one of these installations as we entered a valley, we could not help but notice the soldier had one hand on an activity, fully loaded, with his finger on the trigger, machine gun and the hand he was waving at the 1954 Packard and the other vehicles in the motor challenge from Peking to Paris who passed by. So it is a sobering reminder that there is unrest and uncertainty about the politic destiny of this region of Turkey.

We are in a magical location called Cappadocia. Cappadocia's history dates back to 2000 B.C. The local history books speak about Jesus as being a 30 year old who announced Christianity in Palestine. A few hundred years later under the persecution of the Romans, many Christians fled the Roman empire and the Byzantine empire and sought refuge in the caves and caverns that Carl has described and where we are located at this time. There was also a group of people who lived in this region in past centuries and I have to verify their technical name but I believe it was trigmagras. I, myself, have not studied or heard of that group of people. They lived in these soft rock dwellings which are rather remarkable and are open for public visit. It is rather like Indian dwellings in the side the Grand Canyon and Brice Canyon and other locations through out the southwest of the United States.

After dinner tonight we had a performance of the whirling dervish, which is a religious practice involving transcendental meditation. A form of mental escape and concentration. We watched as six men performed a religious ritual which is referred to as the whirling dervish and it is rather peculiar, unusual, and inspiring to see this ritual performed. They literally twirl their bodies constantly in circle at high rate of speed for an extended period of time. Thus comes the expression, some days you look like a whirling dervish.

We want to acknowledge some email that we received in the course of today. Our son, Joseph, keeps us well informed of his activities and the fate and fortune of the Green Bay Packers. We have been getting regular updates on the Packer and we thank Joseph for that. We wish him and his friends well in the white tail deer hunting season. Could not help but think that as we passed all these soldiers with fire arms today that they were not out hunting as we know it in Wisconsin. They were out in real life and death situations. We understand that many of our digital photo images have appeared on the web site and we have received many compliments about those as well as some questions. Does the Packard have air conditioning? When we are asked that question we say yes and show people the side vent windows. People who are old enough to remember, this vintage car, it has side vent windows which we move back and forth from time to time on both sides and it does throw air into the front bench seat of the automobile. That is in fact our air conditioning. No we have not put the top down yet. We are relishing doing that and we are looking very much forward to present the Packard in a different light than it has been thus far. It is has been like a truck or an armored personal carrier getting us across some very tough terrain. We are not sure when the top will come down. We may hold that off right until our entry into Paris. That would be very special. We also removed the hub caps because of the treacherous road conditions, so the car is not very handsome. We will be putting those back on and dressing the car up when we do arrive in Paris. Mitch Hayne and Melanie Richmond who are related to Burt Richmond in car 41, which is a Citroen, report to us that their family is enjoying following the updates. It is nice of them to compare our commentaries to Lowell Thomas, who as child we grew up admiring and listening to. The Richmond Citroen, yesterday, was gasping for air and there was some concern about the engine. It was taken apart at last nights overnight stop and the valves were adjusted and then it was discovered that it had a wiring problem, which was identified and corrected. Now the Richmond CV is back at full power. The number of automobiles is currently around 75 to 76, which means that roughly twenty have fallen by the wayside. Most of the cars at this point seem to have settled into their performing condition and they are running quite well.

There is, on the political front, some friction Syria and Turkey. Each has accused the other of a significant build up of troops. We read about that account in some of our email information, which our staff shares with us and keeps us informed. Syria has denied this. It all involves the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party and guerrilla activity on both the Turkey and Syrian borders. Iraq, of course, is involved in that dispute.

Tomorrow is day 34 and the plan is to travel 735km, from Cappadocia into Istanbul. This will take us through the city of Ankara, which is now the modern capital of Turkey. It was established by Ataturk the father of Turkey. We will then enter Istanbul and cross the Bosporus and leave Asia and arrive in Europe. A wonderful bridge crosses the Bosporus, that was built by the Japanese. We will have the opportunity to drive across it tomorrow.

I want to thank my mother and my brother, Bob, for their email and for their nice wishes. I also thank my wife, Terri, for sending along her remembrances and good wishes. I want her to know that though our son, Joseph's, use of the computer we have received her message. A couple final acknowledgments, to Bob and Charlotte Butler in Lakeland Florida, we thank them for their message. To Dee and Bro Park in Grantham New Hampshire, at dinner tonight we gave Bill Binnie, the driver of an open Bentley automobile from the northeast of the United States, their email greeting. So it is nice to be part of this digital electronic community of family and friends. We thank you for joining us for this update. We are going to put an end now to this day and prepare for our long and we hope successful journey into Istanbul. We will let you know how that goes. So for now this Don on behalf Carl saying so long. Until tomorrow from Turkey.