Day 10 - Wednesday 29th June - mileage 3326 - Tasucuo, Turkey

Up at hotel and on my way by 7:15 and onto motorway towards Ankara.
No incidents today with barriers or traffic, (other than to say that to travel about twice as far as I did yesterday it only cost me 16 TL off my barrier card, and so yesterday I was definitely well stitched up by Mr barrier man!!)
Just a boring journey east to Ankara and then south to the ferry terminal at a place called Tasucuo near Silfke on the Mediterranean coast. I have decided to go straight to Cyprus and if I have time on the return journey will dawdle more in Turkey.

Apart form yesterdays unfortunate series of incidents I have to say that today I have found Turkey and the Turkish people to be very pleasant. especially the food, which is delicious.

What I saw of the districts around Ankara was mainly masses of high rise buildings being constructed in what looked like new town complexes. But there were millions of them, and they were what I would describe as "gaudy" colours. Not attractive at all. I didn't take a picture because it was difficult when on a high speed motorway. I am a bit nervous of just stopping and parking on the hard shoulder, I've seen lots of drivers using the hard shoulder to undertake!

Right in the middle of the country the road went past a huge lake which reminded me of the salt lakes in Africa. There was a pink tinge to the water (not sure why) and the beaches had loads of dried salt like deposits near the shoreline.







Not much further along the road a huge mountain started to appear on the skyline. I thought it might be Mount Ararat where Noah's Ark is meant to reside, but on checking google I see that Mt Ararat is right over on the eastern side of Turkey. I'm sure someone will know or we will look it up later, but here are the photos.





Most of the journey down to the Mediterranean was through pretty boring open plains with just the mountains in the distance, but as I approached the last 300km we went through a spectacular mountain range called Toros Daglaria. The Turks have build a brand new motorway that winds it's way right through the middle of this range.

Generally I tend to fill up the petrol tank when it gets to half full on the basis of its better to get it while you can (true of many things in life!). The tank had just got down to half full and we went into this new pay motorway system. There was a quite long message being repeated on the overhead displays and I was trying to work out what it was saying, anyway as I started on the new pay motorway section through the mountains I started to wonder whether the message had said something like "this is a new motorway and there are no service stations for a long time"!

Sure enough I gradually worked out that "onclor kiloman" meant 100 kilometres and then deduced that the rest of the message said something like "do not continue if you don't have fuel to last the next 100 kilometres"
I didn't have enough fuel to go another 100 km, and so as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains and it started to rain, I could start to see headlines saying "geriatric foreign biker dies form exposure on mountain". I started to develop a kind of plan for when I had run out of petrol to flag down any car that looked like it might run on petrol and then try and persuade the owner to let me syphon some out into pop bottles. I was expecting problems, but then on the horizon a junction came into view, and as I approached it I could see in the local town a number of filling stations. Relief! As it was, two of the stations didn't have any "benzin" but lucky for me the third did!
No pictures of the beautiful mountains as I was on the motorway again and didn't want to park up.

Arrived at the ferry port at about 7:30 and so bought my passage (cheaper than the Internet from home option) and I have had a nice meal and watched the ferry arrive from Kyrenia. Here are some snaps of the port area and the boat arriving.
















More later
TOR
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Day 9 - Tuesday 28th June - mileage 2723- between Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey

Woke up this morning and went down stairs and it was like being on the Marie Celeste. There was no other guests staying and the place seemed deserted. Eventually someone arrived, but when I suggested breakfast with an eating mime I got the shrugged shoulder response which either meant "fat chance" or "I don't know what your talking about". We'll give him the benefit of the doubt and think he didn't understand.
To add to the deserted effect both the dining room and the swimming pool area was set out for loads of people but nobody was around. Took a photo of the place.





Tomtom seemed determined today to keep me off the main motorway that runs from Sophia to Istanbul. I would no sooner get on the motorway than it would be telling me to get off onto a side road. The pot holes on these side roads were horrendous, and you needed to be very careful as you come off the motorway. Eventually I gave up with Tomtom and trusted my own instincts and we made good progress. The detours were interesting however, Bulgaria is definitely a poor country, it makes Romania look rich which I can tell you takes a bit of doing!

At about 2:30 I arrived at the Turkish border, and then proceeded to have an hour run around from the Turkish bureaucracy. First had to go and buy a visa, but told by border guard to drive through customs and park my bike and then walk back. I don't think the border guards talk to the customs people. They were pissed off with me driving through and parking up, they dragged me back to their little window and barked at me "green card". I said to them I have no insurance and needed to buy some, could they please direct me towards the appropriate place to purchase said insurance. They barked again "green card". Eventually we started to communicate and now they barked something that vaguely sounded like "deevree" which after a few more queried looks we established meant building "D3". Went to D3 and person there said minimum motorcycle insurance was for 50 days and would cost €25. Here I made one of my big mistakes, I queried this information! I indicated that I had read on the Internet that motorcycle insurance had recently typically cost people at this border €5 for a seven day period. At this point Mr jobsworth's attitude seemed to harden slightly. In the end I considered myself very fortunate indeed to be allowed to purchase his extremely reasonable insurance for a full 50 day period and who knows I may wish to stay on longer !
So I now returned to the customs window with a "green card" which in fact was just a white insurance cover note. Next we got to the problem of my visa ie I still didn't have one. It seems I should have gone and got my visa before I went and got my insurance. Not sure what the problem was but it seemed to be irritating them. All this was conducted by me having to walk from A to B and then D3 and then cubicle 92 in my heavy motorcycle gear in the mid day sun.
Having completed all this I needed to just sit down and calm down so I asked the last (nice) lady I talked to at a window where I could change money into Turkish lire. She said oh you need to go back to the main office building/shopping complex where there is a bank. She said yes just leave your motorbike here and you can walk back through customs and immigration they won't mind. So confident that I had every possible piece of paper to get me from here to New Zealand if necessary, I set off for the bank.
At the bank there is one of those get a ticket machines and then wait for your number to be called. I was number 750. I watched the numbers click up 745, 746, thinking here I go any minute now it will be my turn. But as it got to 749 the person in front of me asked what my number was, well actually we exchanged number information he was 602 ! Compared to my 750. Mr 749's turn came and went and as the display went to 750 the chap in front of me went to the counter and was told by the assistant that he had to go somewhere else. He then changed the number which started again at 600. I stepped forward and showed him that I was the proud owner of ticket 750 which had just been displayed. He said to me that the next person was 600 and proceeded to ignore me. At which point I did raise the tone of my voice slightly as I said "bollocks mate it's my turn" and proceeded to thrust my left over Romanian, Hungarian and Swiss money at him for exchange to their valued Turkish lire. He looked at the money and then me and said in a disparaging voice, we only exchange dollars, euro and sterling. I wished him well for the remaining of his miserable life and took my leave of the shopping complex. I am sure you are all expecting me to now have had difficulties getting back through the immigration and customs sections, but to be true to the nice lady nobody batted an eye as I just walked back through all the barriers to my bike. So I decided to take a photograph of this place just to remind me of the hour I spend with these jolly folk.

It can't be just me can it!!! ?











So now I am travelling into Turkey and wanting to make good progress because I am still concerned about how long the whole journey is taking. I came to the toll road autoroute/motorway and not knowing how it worked but expecting it can't be that hard followed a car in front. He slowest and then passed straight through the barrier, I followed. About 200 miles later we arrive at a 14 wide lane system with half the lanes passing straight through, and the others taking ages. So again I aim for a lane that looks to be passing straight through, but this time there is a person there waving at me to go to a slow lane. I now realise that I should have got what looks like a credit card at the first barrier system, and sadly I was without said item. Always best in these situations to act dumb and say you don't understand with the international shrug of the shoulders. The guy at the barrier entrance who had redirected me now barked at me 50lire which took a while to distinguish between 50 and 15, and now in hindsight I realise he looked more like a ticket tout than a barrier official as he kept thrusting a card at me and demanding 50 lire. In the end I relented and with my 50 lire in his hand he took me to the barrier sensor and waved the card at it and up went the barrier. I said to him "do I use this card at the next barrier" and he indicated yes.
So I went over the Bosphorus bridge toll road with my new card and all seemed to work well. I digress here for a moment just to say that the motorway ring road system around Istanbul is the most congested and pushy motorist place I have been. At one point I took a photo of us all trying to cram ourselves into these barrier lane systems. It really brings out the worst in Turkish drivers.




Anyway to finish the barrier story It is now getting late and I am looking for an hotel. There is nothing on the motorway service areas and so I have to come off the motorway into a suburb of Istanbul. As I get to the barrier I swipe my now trusty card and get a negative/red refusal message on the automated screen and the barrier blocking my way refuses to lift. So now I am in a jam and thinking how do I get out of this one! Fortunately the barrier only stretches 3/4 of the way across the road and I realise being a bike I can fit through the gap left open. I make the decision and round I go thinking I must resolve how these cards work tomorrow. As I pass the barrier and alarm goes off, and no doubt a photograph is taken of me. I now await extradition charges being raised against me when I return!

Went to a garage and asked a chap there who speaks English how these cards work. He said you have to go to a shell garage (only a shell garage) and you load the card with credit before you travel on the motorway. So found out where there was a shell garage and went there and asked another person who could speak English how much I should load the card to get me all the way to the south of Turkey. He thought for a while and when I said perhaps 50 lire he said oh no that would be far to much just do 35 lire. This was the moment when I thought to myself that chap at the barrier did look like a ticket tout !!!
Still half a dozen rotten apples doesn't make all the Turkish people miserable thieving buggers!!
Off to bed now I am sure tomorrow will be better.

More later
TOR
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Day 8 - Monday 27th June - mileage 2223- Vratsa, Bulgaria

Up early Romania is two hours ahead of UK so gradually loosing sleep.

Arrived at the Suzuki dealer at 08:00, and first view from them was that it would not be possible today. The man at the service desk then went away to check if they had the necessary parts, oil, filters and plugs!



After much too-ing and fro-ing eventually he arrived back to me saying they can do the service, but they will just change the oil and oil filter, they don't have an air filter so they will just blow the old filter out with compressed air, and they don't have the spark plugs! However they will stamp the service book and this will keep my European warranty cover in place.

The mechanic is called Cano and here is a picture of him and also the man at the service desk.





Bike all done so on we go, next stop Bulgaria. On the way I went along the Romania / Serbia border which is the river Danube, and could remember some of the road from the last time I was here.
Here are some pictures of the river with barges etc.






Remembered all the interesting transport carts in Romania.



Eventually arrived at a place called Calafat that I thought was just a border crossing, but actually it is a port/ferry/border crossing between Romania and Bulgaria.
The ferry was quite small and there were more lorries and cars than it can deal with, but this is one of those times when it is better to be on a bike. They fit you in when there is no space for anything else. The white lorry at the front was parked part way on the loading ramp, which stayed down during the crossing. Echoes of the Herald of Free Enterprise at Zeebrugger! Ferry cost €6.






They are part way through constructing a new bridge over the Danube



These were some children that were travelling with their parents back to Iraq. I talked to him for a while and he said things were grim in Iraq. He said that before the war Saddam Hussein was a problem, but since the war there are now some 200-300 different political factions all vying for power. There are explosions every day and people are dying on a routine basis. He says 2 million people have died in the last 8 years and most of these are from the internal conflicts.


Into Bulgaria and set route to go just above Sophia.
Noticed that Bulgaria has some very nice scenery and mountain ranges.






To remind people to drive safely they put the remains of crashed vehicles in the centre of some of the roundabouts. I don,t think the people from this vehicle had much chance of surviving!



Not many hotels about and getting late, but eventually came across a very smart one called La Dolce Vita. Very reasonable, room and very nice meal only came to equivalent of €28.
Off to bed
More later
TOR
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Day 7 - Sunday 26th June - mileage 1864- Timisoara, Romania

Slept well in tent and up around 7:30, packed up and away for 8:30.

Tomtom set for Szeged in east of Hungary where I hope to find a Suzuki dealer to do my 16000 mile service. Tomtom set to avoid toll roads (motorways) and the first thing it does is take me to a brand new motorway which has the entrance signs saying vinyetta required! There right at the entrance is a new motorway police station with cars and motorbikes all coming and going. So I put my faith in Tomtom and proceeded along the new motorway just waiting for the cameras with number plate recognition. Anyway I think Tomtom was right we never went through a vinyetta recognition turnstile and therefore this motorway was still exempt.

After short distance back onto normal roads, and on to Szeged. Found the location where the Suzuki dealership should be and nothing. Owner of petrol station opposite said they closed down about 2 years ago!

Checked where next dealership is and it is in Romania at Timisoara so set off for there.

Into Romania and straight away you can detect you are in a poorer country. However they do look after their stork population. I went through this one village and they had three nesting storks on telegraph posts. They have special metal tops to some posts to encourage the birds to nest. The picture below has a nest with young.






My Tomtom does not have detailed street mapping for Romania and so I set up my IPhone which has a satnav system called Igo which does have detailed maps of Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Cyprus, but the sound is only available in Russian, but since you cannot hear it on the bike this is of little consequence. This then took me to the supposed location of the Suzuki dealership. Nothing there at all! As I was parked up thinking what do do next a van pulled up and asked me whether I was with the "Black Angels" motorbike tour. He was a local organiser of motorbike trips and he had lost a number of his party. I asked him where the Suzuki dealership had moved to and he checked with his friend and came back with an address on the edge of town. Plugged this into my Igo and off we went again. Arrived at said address and again nothing that looked like a Suzuki dealership. Decided to give up on Timisoara and head for next likely place on my way through Romania. Set off and after about 2 miles there at the side of the road was a big Suzuki sign. Went over and sure enough this was the dealership required, so found a local hotel, and am now waiting to see if they can service my bike tomorrow.

Hotel nice, food cheap, beer good !

What a boring existence !!

More later,

TOR


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Day 6 - Saturday 25th June - mileage 1653 - Pecs, Hungary

Up early from hostel and took some early morning photos of the centre of Ljublianja (including the drunks who were collected in the main square).















Then off to the Suzuki dealer to see if they were open and could do my 16,000 mile service. As suspected because of the national holiday the garage was not open (it would have been on a normal Saturday) and so I checked the Suzuki dealership book and decided there were enough places in Hungary and Romania to get the bike serviced, so pressed on conscious of the time left available to get to Turkey (and Cyprus).
On across Slovinia (by motorway as I had purchased a 7 day vinyetta) and then into Hungary and back to normal roads.

Decided to camp for the night at a place that advertised itself as "thermal camping" though this really meant they had the use of an adjacent hotel / spa complex with both indoor and outdoor swimming pools.









Went and swam in the outside pool (heated) and then relaxed for an hour at the side of the pool in the late evening sun.

The camp site owners had recommend at local restaurant (just 2 kilometres) up the road and so I decided to walk so I could have a drink. After 3 kilometres walking I was pretty miffed at the owners and as I could not see anything that looked like a restaurant for another 300 metres up the road I decided to walk back and get the bike. So did a six kilometre walk and then went back on the bike. The restaurant was just past the 300 metres I could see however when I arrived there was a wedding reception in full swing and they were not serving the public!

Rode on and found another place to eat. Ordered goulash (soup) and then pork chops done "gypsy style". I don't think I will be having "gypsy style" again as I think it just means cheap cut of meat with lots of fat!

Back to camp and off to bed.

More later
TOR


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Day 5 Friday 24th June - mileage 1425 - location

Up early and had breakfast at 7am, then on the road. Straight up the Grimsel pass.



Then the Furka Pass.



Then the St. Goddard pass wher I came across a herd of cows walking beside the road al with their bells rattling a they walked in long in a procession. Took a short video to capture the moment.

After this beautiful start to the day I then proceeded to get bogged down into the slowest traffic possible on my way to Comoros in Italy. I was not using the motorway in Switzerland because you have to purchase a vinyetta for a whole year, and these small rods went through every town and the lorries using the roads were huge.

When in Italy I decided to make some progress and therefore chose to travel right across Italy on the autostrade. This cost me €21 but I covered almost 500 miles in the day.

On to Slovinia and I decided to go to Ljublianja and stay at the hostel "Alibi" right in the middle of the city that Savi and I stayed at last year. Set Tomtom for the address but as I approached the city centre the police had most of the access roads all blocked off. Later I discovered that it was Slovinia's Independence Day National holiday and that there were many high ranking visiting politicians here for the event, and therefore there was also a protest march (jobs, cuts ?) and the police had herded the protestors via a certain route (just where I wanted to be). I tried taking my bike into a pedestrian zone, but the police turned me back. I ended up parking the bike and walking the other 800 metres to the hostel.



Hostel now €20 for a bed for the night. Woman at reception gave me a key for room 23 with locker no. 91. I found a room with bed 23 and there were two women sleeping in the room. The only spare beds were above one of them so I put the sheet on the bed, and fitted the duvet cover tring to disturb them as little as possible. I knew when I took my motorbike boots off there would be a certain aroma in the room, so I did this quickly and put the boots in the locker and fitted my shoes. Came to lock the locker (23) and the key didn't work. Went downstairs and woman gave me a range of keys to try. None worked! Eventually realised I was in a dorm with bed No. 23 and that there was a room 23 hidden away in another part of the hostel. Went back disturbed the woman again as I now retrieved all the bedding from the bunk above her, took my steaming boots and left them in peace.
Had a shower and as I was leaving the hostel to go out to eat the woman behind reception said she had had a complaint form a woman in dorms 23 - 30 that a strange man had been in disturbing them! Oops!

Out to eat at the indian restaurant that I knew was close by, and as I was eating the fireworks (or should I say explosions!) began.

Off to bed tired after long journey.

More later
TOR



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Day 4 Thursday 23rd June - mileage 956 - Meiringen, ,Switzerland

Dawn was at 03:30 (uk time) what a noise, every bird in the forest was singing at once. Gradually over the next 30-40mins they toned it down a bit and were just singing in one's and two's. Apart from the birds I slept quite well, not eaten by a bear or murdered in my sleeping bag by marauding brigands.

As I was laying in bed I suddenly had a panic moment when I thought "damn where is my money belt". I had taken it off when I was staying at the last hotel and left it on the desk in the bedroom. I was convinced that I had left it at the hotel. So I started thinking about how much money was in there and whether it was worth 2 days lost time to go back and get it. So angrily I got up and as I was packing away some clothes I came across the belt in my clothes pannier. I remembered then that as I was about to go out in the evening I saw the belt on the desk and decided to put it away in the pannier out of sight. With Alzheimer's kicking in I had totally forgotten that I had moved the belt. And so after recovering my composure I finally broke camp and set off again a "happy chappy".

Stopped for petite-dejeuner at a lorry transport stop. Asked the woman behind the counter whether they had a menu? Non! Do they have eggs! Non! When I turned my nose up at croissant she came from out the back with half a baguette on a plate with two huge knobs of butter. So breakfast was bread, butter and coffee. It was the kind of place where overweight lorry drivers stand at the bar drinking ridiculously small and strong cups of coffee, staring at strangers imagining they must have just come from Mars!



Still having troubles with my Tomtom getting it to charge, beginning to suspect it is not the cleanliness of the contacts, but the springiness of the left most contact. Not sure yet exactly how to resolve this problem.
Later looked more closely at the unsprung contacts at the back of the Tomtom and decided that one in particular looked tarnished. Cleaned up this contact well and device now up and running again.

On towards Basel in Switzerland, and then on towards northern Italy just at which point I will have to come off the pot regarding whether to go down via Italy to Greece, or whether to swing east to Slovinia and then Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. I noticed on the map that the ferry from Brindisi to Greece is shown as a nine hour crossing!

Decisions! Decisions!

Stopped again for a rain break, and then on towards Luzerne.






Luzerne is very nice, expensive looking properties along the side of the lake.

The picture below shows the sheer cliffs rising from the lake and a huge crane that looks to be delicately balanced on the edge of the cliff side.



Just after Luzerne on the road to Meiringen there are great views looking back down the Lungren valley.






Studied the map in more detail and I am beginning to get a bit worried about the time it will take me to get down to the bottom of Turkey and over the ferry to Cyprus. I will have to pick up my pace a little and cover more than the sedate 200 miles a day.

The hotel where I am staying is just at the start of the road up to the Grimsel Pass. Bedroom not much to write home about, but the views from the window are great.





Tomorrow I do the Grimsel, then the Furka and finally the St Goddard Pass before aiming to make it at least to Bolzano. I have decided with the shortage of time I should go the Slovinia, Romania, Bulgaria route.

More later
TOR

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