Editour

Time to say goodbye to Turkey and head towards Romania. In between them lies Bulgaria. Kay has already interviewed the major players so I can just drive through the country. After the never-ending slog from the East to the West of Turkey, this would be my second long haul. It is

A new experience this evening, sleeping amongst polyolefin bags. Hasplastik opened their factory doors to me at 10pm so that I had an oasis of calm in the bustling city of Istanbul. Promptly at 9am, Murat Aner, Technical Director of Hasplastik, presents himself at the Editourmobil. This is way beyond the

At Eskapet I am met by Ramazan Akar, who shows me round his brand-new factory. The new location has enabled Eskapet to increase its capacity by 300% up to a throughput of 50,000 tonnes of PET per year. He told me that for every child in Turkey the name Inegöl is

Our starting point today is Gaziantep. Here the drinks industry supplies a huge customer base up to and including the oldest mosques. Indeed, in front of the oldest mosque in Gaziantep, the Ömeriye Mosque, built probably in 1150, (but no-one can say with absolute certainty) I found the Coca Cola delivery

My arrival in Turkey was greeted by a soothing 20 degrees Celsius, yet the heating in the hotel is going at full blast. Apparently they are used to rather higher temperatures here. “In summer the temperature here usually gets up to around 40 degrees,” according to Murat Kögoglu, the third generation

Recent events around the world have been turbulent to say the least, yet here I am calmly boarding the plane from Frankfurt to Turkey to continue the second half of the Editourmobil expedition to the Brau Beviale exhibition. Beneath the plane, the whole of the Balkans and Turkey is gradually unfurling.

Last night we parked in front of the imposing buildings which house the Ministry for Human Rights, a recommendation from one of the “Kitchenette”, who were kind enough to show us the way. Actually we were a bit nervous about parking here. We joked that we would either be towed away

Regular readers of the blog will be unsurprised to learn that today was yet another early start. Our goal today is Baku, the halfway point of our expedition, and the place where I hand over the reins to my colleagues. Naturally we are running on a very tight schedule … The

After I had completed my reports yesterday, I decided to go to the same car park I had previously chosen. It’s calm here and relaxing – at least that’s what I thought. Scarcely had my head touched the pillow than there was a furious knocking at the door. What on earth

A few words about Yerevan. I was surprised to learn that it is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, dating back nearly three thousand years. It lies in the valley of Mount Ararat, where biblical tradition holds that Noah built his ark. The city, and Armenia itself, have seen

Following the pattern of the past few days I am up with the lark. It is still dark. The petrol pump attendant is also awake and regarding with interest the goings-on around the vehicle. (I’ve just stepped outside to get a bit of fresh air). Across the road, there is another