Uzbekistan, nice but a little bit dull

On the road to Khiva we bumped into 3 French guys (Bernard, Jean- Marie and Dominic) and a Russian girl (Eva) travelling in 2 old Citroens. They are writing a book about environmental sustainability in the stans with Eva being their official photographer, we'd previously met them waiting for a boat to Kazakhstan at the ferry port in Bacu. Travelling together, we made our way to Khiva with a brief stop over to wild camp in the desert near an old ruined fort.

Wild Camp in the desert

Ollie forced to use a very public squat toilet

Khiva..

Khiva, formely the centre of the Uzbek slave trade, restored during the soviet era and turned into a city museum, is a beautiful place to spend a few relaxing days with some magnificent architecture. Despite being lovingly restored the old town is very quiet and lacks the life of a living breathing city with most of the original occupants moving to the near by new town.

Khiva City Walls

Khiva old town

After 4 days of recovery we headed off to Bukhara, another town famed for it's architecture.

Upon leaving Khiva I had the first of my crashes...

To get to the main road we needed to cross a floating pontoon bridge, previously crossed to get into Khiva. Half way across I lost the front end making a turn between two sections on the smooth, corrugated metal surface. After going down I ran to check out the state of the bike. No major damaged to me or the bike just a slightly dented right pannier, nothing my trusty hammer couldn't fix.

Crossing the floating bridge for the first time

Bukhara..

Bukhara is a lovely town with striking mosques and medrassas. Less sterile than Khiva with a lot more people going about their daily activities.

More blue tiles in Bukhara

Needing to go to Tashkent to pick up a China visa, we decided to take a train rather than make a 1000km round trip in the searing 40 degree Uzbek heat. We went for the overnight sleeper train, with only third class available it turned out to be a noisy uncomfortable night with very little sleep had by all.

Tashkent..

On arrival, it was straight to the Chinese Embassy to apply for our visas. We queue for 5 hours and still didn't get through the embassy gate. The system for queuing was unfathomable which seemed to revolve around young pretty dolled up girls getting let in by the Uzbek guard. One Polish guy had been there 3 times from 6.30 and only got in once he'd bribed the guard the night before. I felt very sorry for him when he came out visa-less due to the fact his flight to China was out of Kyrgyzstan rather than Uzbekistan. Bar donning a short skirt, high heels and make-up it wasn't going to happen at the embassy. A new approach was needed┘..

80 Euros of Uzbeks largest note

The change from a curry

We checked into a great hotel with a swimming pool and nice restaurant, a great place to chill out for the next 4 days. The hotel also pointed us in the direction of an agency that could help us with our visa problems. The agency gave us the green light, it would cost us twice the price of applying to the embassy direct┘.. It had to be done so we paid the money and headed back to the hotel to sit by the pool for a couple of days and wait for the phone call.

While at the hotel a couple of groups passed through. A dragoman truck carring 17 backpackers across Central Asia as far as Istanbul and a group of 15 bikers travelling from the UK to Vladivostok and then shipping round to the west coast of the US and finishing in New York, all in the space of 4 months!

The day of reckoning came to go and pick up the visas. We turned up at the office and the lady nipped out to fetch the passports from the embassy, hopefully with a shinny new china visa inside.
Luckily, Ollie checked the visa dates before we left which stated we had to enter China before the 10th August, this was a massive problem as all the Chinese permissions we'd obtained had our entry date as the 25th. After a bit of arguing the agency refused to give us our money back for an essentially worthless visa. Also, we wouldn't be able to apply for a new one until the 10th had passed!

The government in Uzbekistan are very protective of tourists after an incident a few years ago where some corrupt police stopped a van of tourists and extorted a few hundred dollars.
After this incident, all police harassing tourists instantly lose their jobs. Armed with this knowledge, Ollie made a fake phone call to the police and the money was quickly produced.
It was then back to Buhkara and a next day drive out to the boarder and the place I'd been dreaming about for over a year, Tajikistan....

Uzbekistan is all about the cities. Fantastic architecture abounds but you do tend to get a bit bored of similar blue tiled buildings. For me landscapes are the thing I love and with most of Uzbek being flat desert scrub -land, I found the country nice but not particularly inspiring.

Tajikistan..

The start of the real adventure..

Tajikistan is the poorest of all the counties in the stans with an annual budget less than a major hollywood film, 40% of which goes into the cost of the army primarly to secure the boarder with Afganistan. The country generally exists on credits and loans with Russian having half the shares in the Nurek hydroelectric plant. A Swiss based charity, Aga Khan Foundation, has pumped large amount of money and resources into the Pamir region (the most remote and poorest region) to help rebuild the infrastructure and stave off starvation during and after the civil war.

Tajikistan, originally of Persian identity was invaded by a succession of Turkic invaders who outnumbered the Tajik people to such an extent that the Tajiks adopted the Turkic culture creating a peaceful and balanced society. This was disrupted with conquest by the Mongols and later Tamerlane, known for his mass-murdering ways. Today, you will still see statues of Tamerlane in the cities all over the region.
During the 15 century the Russians pushed South giving them effect control over the North and West of Tajikistan with the East (modern day Pamir region) an effect no-man's-land. With no country making claim to the region it became a strategic duel, known as the 'great game', between Britain and Russia over control of an area that could potentionally open up trade routes to the then British controlled India. Finally, the Russians prevailed and kicked out the British leaving the whole of Tajikistan under Russian control.
During the early 90's Russia pulled out and Tajikistan decended into civil war as clan factions previously kept in line by the soviets exploded. A ceasefire was agreed in 1996 and the country has been slowly getting up from it's knees since then.

With only 180k's to go we thought we carry on to lake Iskander-Kul. The logical assumption was to push on and meet up with friends we met on the way, especially since we'd heard the main road was shut during the day due to road works and only open at nighttime to let the traffic pass from the north to Dushanbe, the capital. The road then desended into a bad dirt track, which was to be come the norm over the coming month in Tajikistan.

The road from Penjikent

Night started to fall so I started to look for a place to camp. Asking at petrol station if it was ok to put up my tent, I was shown the 100's of scorpions infesting the ground, I decided it was probably a good idea to push on.
I'd previously gone ahead of Ollie and Jenny, with bikes monentum is the key. It sometimes more tricky to ride on a dirt road when you're not travelling at a decent pace.

Finally I hit the main, tarmac road. It was only a 30K ride to the lake and with no places to camp it made sense to push on and wake up with a lovely view of a beautiful alpine lake. A decision I would come to regret....

It then happened....
An on-coming lorry pushed me into the side of the road where I hit a pile of sand (used for upgrading the road) at about 60kph. I was flung across the road and the bike and me went down on my left side then high-sided to the right throwing me off the bike landing on my right shoulder about 5 yards from the bike. The lorry driver didn't stop but just carried on going.

After picking myself and the bike up i assessed the damage.

The list of bike damage:
Destroyed windscreen
Broken headlamp glass and main bulb
Both wing mirrors snapped off
Bolt connecting the handle bars to the headstock was bent
Very scratched visor

And me:
Ligament strained in my right shoulder
Bruised forearm
9 friction burns to the hands and wrists

The damage

I'd been pretty lucky not too much damage to myself or the bike.

I had no choice now to carry on to the lake and try and do some running repairs in the morning.
I hit the lake at 12.30 after climbing over a final pass in the dark. I would have to hold up in a hut before rounding the lake to the campsite in the morning. Time to attend to the wounds and get some sleep......

Turkmenistan not another world, another planet....

Turkmenistan, almost…..

We arrived at the port of Turkmenbashi to find 11 other ships waiting to dock. Fuelled by an incident that happened early in the year where a ship from Azerbaijan had damaged the docking bay, the Turkmen authorities had decided to not allow any ship to dock due to high winds in the Caspian Sea.
We all had to wait on a ship with no restaurant and no bar until conditions were more favourable....

I ended up being befriended by a Turkish English professor working in Ashgabat, he’d just come back from a conference in Azerbaijan. The teachers fed me with bread and olives to stop me starving, and I managed to bribe the cooks (cooking meals for the crew) to give me a plate of food on the final day.

On the boat

The Turkish Teachers

We eventually pulled in to dock 2 days after arriving at Turkmenbashi. What a relief to finally be on dry land…..

I would like to caveat that the next section is about what happened to me while in Turkmenistan, I am not deliberately trying to sound negative I’m just reporting on my experiences and the information given to me by locals and people with their ears to the ground. The local people I met were friendly and welcoming to the extreme, always eager to find out what i was doing and why I had come to see their country.

Getting into the country…….

The bureaucracy at customs was comical at times, I had to visit 9 offices and get upwards of 30 stamps. I came away with about a dozen pieces of paper, some of which I had no idea what they were used for. Everything is paper based and each office writes down the same details in a hardback book stashed away on one of the many shelves. Each form and book entry was filled out with extreme care and when a mistake was made on one form a razor blade was produced and the offending mistake carefully removed from the original and each carbon copy. Once customs were exited and one final police checkpoint 50 yards down the road was cleared, where the familiar hardback book was produced, I was free to enter Turkmenistan 5.30 hours after first stepping off the boat.

Ashore at last…….

With 2 days left on my 5 day Transit visa I needed to head straight for the capital, Ashgabat, to see if my visa could be extended, it would be tight but I was sure I could make it that day.

The road to Ashgabat

The camel replaces the cow

Pulling in at Ashgabat at 10.30 at night I spent the next 1.30 hours trying to find a hotel that would take a smelly and unshaven biker before I attracted attention from the police due to a 11.00 curfew for all foreigners visiting or living in the capital.

The next morning resulted in an unsuccessful attempt to get my visa extended; with my visa running out that day it was now a panicked called to the British embassy to try and get the situated sort out.
It was a first for me. In all my travels I’ve never had to contact a foreign embassy for help.
The British Embassy came up trumps and managed to sort me out a 2 day extension which would give me enough time to get across the desert and exit into Uzbekistan.

I would like to say a big thank you to the British Embassy for providing a brilliant service and getting me out of a potentially problematic situation.

While at the embassy I bumped into the Turkish professor I met on the boat from Baku. He took me around and showed me some of the sights of Ashgabat and also took me to his brother’s place of work for lunch and then to his brothers house for some food that evening. A great guy who will always be welcome at my house when he comes to London on his frequent visits for conferences.

After 5 days of hardship things were definitely starting to look on the up…

A bit about Turmenistan‘s history….

Turkmen’s were historically a collection of nomadic horse breeding tribes from the Altay mountains who discovered alternative pasture lands in the Karakum Desert in Persia, Syria and Antolia (in present day Turkey). The tribes terrorised the Russians when they came to civilise the region and sold large amounts of the Tsars troops into slavery at Khiva and Bukhara.
During the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 the communists took Ashgabat which then became a soviet republic. The Turkmen people didn’t want to give up their nomadic ways so a bitter guerrilla war raged until 1936.
Waves of Russian immigrants brought farming and the blue prints for cotton fields. To bring the plans to fruition, work was then started on the construction of a massive irrigation canal running from the Aral Sea stretching across the width of the republic.
The Karakum Canal stands at 1370 Km, the longest canal in the world, cutting straight across the harsh Karakum desert. This has caused one of the worlds most devastating environmental disasters with the shallow Aral Sea being drained of large quantities of water, the level has fallen by 16 meters since the canal was built and the shoreline has receded by up to 80kms devastating local villages and fishing.

In 1985 Niyazov was elected as General Secretary of the soviet Republic and then was forced to declare independence in 1991 with the break-up of the former soviet union. Determined to hang onto power Niyazov banned all other parties and declared the people should call him Turkmenbashi meaning ’the leader of the Turkmen’. He subsequently squandered the countries resources (from a huge reserve of natural gas) on building outrageous marble monuments and gold statues of himself in the capital, Ashgabat. Turmenbashi died in 2006 from a massive heart attack but his legacy lives on in his replacement Berdymukhamedov (the former Deputy Prime Minister) who seized power and has carried on more of Niyazov’’s work to this day….

Mad facts about the country and the Prime Ministers……

The people who can’t afford a home receive free housing.
All people in the capital Ashgabat receive free gas electricity and water. In fact some people leave their stoves burning 24 hours a day due to the cost of matches.
The president provided free bread until he found out that the people were feeding it to their animals so it was stopped.
Un-employment hovers around the 80% mark but the people can practically live on nothing as most things are provided by the state.
After the Prime Minister became ill with a smoking related disease he banned all smoking on the streets with a $500 fine as the punishment for being caught.
If you enter the city with a dirty vehicle you will be fined $200 but you can have 10 cracks in your windscreen.
In Ashgabat there’s an embarrassingly large tower called the Arch of Neutrality with a comical 12 meter polished gold statue of Niyazov on top that revolves to face the sun.
Niyazov wrote a book called the Ruhnama with wildly inaccurate descriptions of the history of Turkmenistan and is used as a text for how the Turkmen people should live their lives. It’s taught in every school and is touted as a book on the same religious level as the Koran.
Marble tower blocks spring up everywhere in Ashgabat. Costing $20 Million dollars each, $10 Million Dollars going on the pure white marble cladding.
Turkmenistan has bought all of Turkey’s reserves of pure whit marble and has almost depleted all of Italy’s existing stock.
There are 300’000 Turkish living and working in Turkmenistan.
Foreigners have different coloured number plates so the police can identify them from the locals.

It costs $300 dollars a month to have internet at home so most people can’t afford it and have no access to information from the outside world.
Flour is a controlled substance with people buying flour imported from Russia on the black market.


Ashgabat is like no other place I have ever been. The only way I can describe it is Las Vegas covered in white marble. Turkmenistan is a dictator lead state at the extreme it’s probably the closest place to North Korea you will likely get to visit. The people are so programmed that they seem incapable of thinking for themselves. Twinned with crippling bureaucracy, and the populations fear of getting into trouble, it’s virtually impossible to get anything done. I also heard tales of people opposing the government disappearing and never been seen again and foreigners wanting to marry locals being deported on trumped up soliciting charges.
There is still a large amount of poverty in the country especially away from Ashgabat. All the countries resources are ploughed into building marble monstrosities and not into the welfare of it’s people which is a real shame considering the level of wealth that comes with having the 4th largest natural gas reserve in the world. Turkmenistan has the reputation of being the safest country in ‘the stans’ which certainly seems true for travellers. Not so for the local population, where the majority of the dangers come from a corrupt police force and authoritarian government.

The next day it was off across the Karakum desert to the North and an overnight stop at Konyeurgench, just before the Uzbekistan boarder, and a stay in an dilapidated old Soviet hotel.

The people certainly seem a bit more relaxed and friendly away from the control of Ashgabat.

The Karakum Canal, the longest in the world

Across the desert

During the evening the local police came to check out the foreigner in town and worried about the safety of my bike insisted that I ride it up the stairs into the hotel! It wasn’t a proposition I relished as the stopping distance between the rear of the bike and the hotel front door was only 2 feet. I gunned it and popped up on to the hotel veranda with a little shove from one of the hotel staff just to get the bike up the last step. I’d made it!

Stunt Riding

I woke in the morning feeling very ill, with severe dehydration and diarrhoea. I had to leave the country so I downed some Imodium and headed for the boarder. I crossed the boarder with a minimum of fuss in 2.30 hours, despite the officer at the Uzbekistan repeatedly asking me if I was a British spy. It became a bit of a joke towards the end as he asked me for the 5th time while laughing. I then limped my way to Nukus, dropped my stuff off at a hotel and went straight to the local hospital.

At the hospital they put me on a drip and gave me some antibiotics and something to help with the diarrhoea. I was then transferred to the infections hospital and tests were started. The hospital was pretty bad, but I was ill and needed some medical attention. After 3 days I was feeling ok again but they insisted that I couldn’t leave until my results had been returned from the lab, due to government regulations. Apparently they’d had an incident a few years earlier were soldiers returning from Afghanistan had brought Cholera into the country and caused a minor epidemic.

Ollie and Jenny turned up on the Friday. They’d managed to get into the country 3 days before their visas started so they could come and see how I was doing, they were a very welcome sight. I was eternally grateful for their efforts and after greetings and hugs we set about trying to get me freed from hospital prison.

Rescued from a fate worse than death, Uzbek hospital food.

As it was Friday the labs would be shut at the weekend and I would have to stay until Monday if the results didn’t come through that day. The prospect of this didn’t sit too well. With time running out the doctor made an end of day call to the labs. The results were negative, I could leave!
I have to say they were really great in the hospital and do an amazing job with very limited resources and i'm very grateful to all the doctors for patching me up and sending me on my way.

Time to head off to Khiva, the old slave capital of Uzbekistan……

Georgia cont...

Two options for the next day where to take the 350 km motorway to Borjomi or the 170km short cut up an A road to meet up with Tiffany, another British biker. The obvious choice was to take the short cut and after a quick consultation with the hostel owner, who assured me the road was good, it was off down the short cut.This was to become the hardest road travelled so far……

After 50K’s of broken tarmac the road decended into 70k’s of potholes, dirt track imbedded with bolders, mud and a few stream crossings thrown in for extra measure. 6.30 hours later I rolled into Borjomi, a little tired, a bit battered, but pleased to have survived the road with bike in tact. A good test for things that were surely to come in the stans.

A good section on the road to Borjomi

Lovely scenery, ugly road

The roads in Georgia are very similar to a farmers market in that around every bend you are treated to a herd of cows or goats wandering aimlessly in the middle of the road, this even extends to the outskirts of towns.

A view from the hometay window in Bojormi

After 4 day stop over in Tblisi and a failed attempt to reach Kazbegi in the north due to a landslide and it was time to head off to Azerbaijan and a date with a ferry to either Turkmenistan or Kaz.

Travellers at the hostel in Tblisi

The castle - Tblisi old town

The Baths - Tblisi

Azerbaijan....

After crossing the boarder in less than an hour (a new record) and being asked for the 3rd time whether i knew Russell Crowe, it was off to Baku via an overnight stopover at Saki in Northern Azerbaijan. At the boarder i was told that i had to hand my bike into customs within 3 days of entering the country or face a large fine so there really wasn't much time to explore much of the country.

Azerbaijan is visiblymuch richer than Georgia with it's wealth driven from a booming oil industry which can be seem from the neat and tidy towns to the abundance fo fancy 4x4's being driven around the streets.

I'd heard stories from other bikers of the police corruption in Azerbaijan but encountered none of this on the route to Baku. In fact, the police gave me friendly waves and at one checkpoint they even tried to encourge me to pull a wheelie!

Northern Azerbaijan

Cows on the road to Baku

One thing i did manage to do was spend an afternoon on the peninsular North of Baku, infamous for it's environmental damage due to a poorly managed oil industry during the soviet era. I was frankly gob smacked at the rusting hulks and the huge oil slicks that seemed to cover both land and sea. I have never see a place, in all my life, that looks so down beat and environmentally damaged as the island at the end of the peninsula.

The Peninsula

The government building in Baku

Turning up at the 1000 Camels Guesthouse i noticed a familiar jacket on one of the beds and discovered Nathan (biker from the UK last seen in Istanbul) had turned up a couple of days earlier. With Ollie and Jenny also arriving with a huge thirst for beer after being starved of alcohol for 3 weeks in Iran it could only mean one thing..... The start of a trawl of the local bars.

The next day involved trying to get a ferry to Turkmenistan while all the others headed off to Kazakhstan from the same port. Hanging around at the port for 8 hours to buy a ticket and waving goodbye to the guys left me alone on the ferry for the 13 hour crossing of the Caspian Sea to a whole new world, Turkmenistan. The start of the stans was here.......

Cappadocia…

Cappadocia, a lunar landscape of strange rock towers and stone cliffs, first occupy by the Hitties followed by the Persians and then the Romans. The original arrivals burrowed in to the rock towers and cliffs to create their simple dwellings. The heart of the area is a now tourist town called Goreme which became my base for the next few days to explore the surrounding area.

Goreme

Great places abound in the area with a visit to the underground city, the Ihlara valley (a stunning lush green canyon cutting through the dusty surrounding hillside) and a fantastic early morning balloon ride over Goreme being some of the highlights.

Goreme by air

Ihara Valley

The road to Ihlara Valley

Walking in the valley

Cave homes at Ischtar

The underground city at Derinkuyu is probably the peak of the Troglodytes burrowing activity. 75 meters deep spread over 7 stories it’s a veritable warren of passageways and rooms. It is said that several other underground cities in the surrounding area where all linked by 10’s of kilometres of connecting passageways, a true navigation feet in itself.

Some observations about the people of Turkey…….
The people have got to be the most friendly and welcoming race I’ve ever met, inquisitive, with a great zest for life and a fantastic sense of humour. A great example being when visiting the petrol stations. As well as the obligatory Chai (Tea) offered. I’ve been fed several times and even been offered free petrol twice! The later I refused. While fantastic, It can sometimes make buying petrol a time consuming exercise with questions about where I’m from, where I’m going and of course lots of questions about the bike.

A more infamous observation is the apparent infidelity in married men. I chatted to several hostel owners and despite most of them being married with children they still actively chased the female tourists with a real vigour. On speaking with some of the local women it was greeted with a shrug of the shoulders and a statement of ‘they’re still young‘. There seems an almost begrudging acceptance from the women.

It was then time to get back on the road and head east to the rugged mountains of eastern Turkey.

I have to say I wasn’t sure what to expect from Eastern Turkey. All I can say is that the last 3 days have been the best of the trip so far. Immense landscapes, friendly people and a total lack of tourists. I’ve seen 1 other adventure biker and 2 tourists since I left Goreme….The towns themselves tend to have a rough and ready feel, perfect for exploring and getting a real feel for life beyond the tourist traps of Antalia, Goreme and Istanbul.

Generally, when taking a journey you hit areas of scenic beauty that are fleeting. Eastern Turkey is different in that respect. I’ve spent the last 3 days riding through countryside that has been constantly awe inspiring …..from the grassy mountainous regions leading up to Nemrut, to the baking hot open grasslands of cattle country bordering Syria, to the central mountainous region of the Guneydogu Oroslar and the road from Ezurum to Barhol with the most incredible canyon lands you are likely to see anywhere in the world. Eastern Turkey is a scenery lovers dream.

The road to Nemrut

Namrut

From Nemrut to the plains

Lunch on a petrol station forecourt

Heading north

Towards Barhol

Marked differences from the west, apart from the fact that it’s a much more impoverished part of the country, are an appearance of army vehicles and police and army checkpoints. Largely due to the problems with a fiercely proud Kurdish population fighting for the right to express their national identity. Beyond the problems of the past, things seem to be changing for the better with a new Turkish government taking a more liberal approach. The language is now openly taught in schools, there are Kurdish TV and radio stations and even a Kurdish run local government.The women are also more conservatory dressed, with headscarf’s being the norm rather than the exception.
I then spent a couple of days in the little trekking village of Barhol about 120k’s South of the Georgian border to change the front tyre, which was looking decidedly bald by now, and give the bike some general servicing and checks before heading off to Georgia. Barhol is a village with a ticking time bomb. The government are in the process of building a dam down stream which will raise the water level by 750 meters. This will mean relocating all the villagers to higher ground.

Barhol Hostel

After changing my front tyre to a new Bridgestone - Trail Wing, I discovered that I hadn’t bought the correct adaptor for pumping the tyre up again, Doh! A real school boy error but as is the way in Turkey there’s always someone close by to help out a stranger in need. Queue right stage….. the appearance of the hostel owner who quickly ran down the street and returned with an electric pump borrowed from his mate. With tyre inflated in seconds I was ready to head off to Georgia and say goodbye to Turkey.

If I was to sum up Turkey in a nutshell. Amazing history, culture, food, landscapes and most importantly the people. Friendly, generous and funny they make all visitors welcome beyond belief. I have to say it’s one of best countries I’ve ever visited and I’ll certainly be back. To all my friends, I recommend you ditch the other holiday destinations and make Turkey your next trip. Make sure you catch some of the raw East, it‘s amazing……

Georgia……..

After a confusing border crossing, which involved been repeatedly sent back to an office by the boarder police to get a piece of paper (god knows what for) and the office insisting I didn’t need one as an EU citizen, the boarder guard finally let me into Georgia after much raised voices and expressions of frustration.
It was then a quick 15k sprint up to Batumi, a crumbing soviet style seaside town on the Black Sea, and an overnight stay at an aging Russian style hostel that had seen better days. Once kit was removed from the bike, the owner took me to my room for the guided tour which included instructions on how the shower worked. This included a demonstration where by he started flicking the open fusebox type switches on the wall with dripping wet hands as I looked on horror and backed away to the door expecting him to fry himself. Luckily he didn’t burst into flames and with a sigh of relief I said goodnight.

Greece and into Turkey...

Greece Cont…

While wandering home after a final meal on Thasos I bumped into a young guy near the campsite and we started chatting about where we come from and what we do etc. He was telling me about the 18 months service that all Greek males are required to do from the age of 21. The shocking thing he talked about was his time in the commandos, the Greek elite fighting forces. He showed me the cigarette burns and cuts on his arms that he sustained during his interrogation training, a sobering reminder that there are still many differences between the countries in Europe.

Welcome to Turkey….

After a relatively smooth boarder crossing the first sight that greeted was a guy on donkey with a big smile on his face and a wave, a great start to a new country……

The difference between Greece and Turkey is immediately apparent in the change from the barren rockiness of the Mediterranean to lush green fields and a 10 degree temperature drop. Known as the food basket, the SW is the agricultural centre of a country which is one of the few countries in Europe that grows enough produce to self-sustain it’s own population.

It was getting late in the day so a quick blast up the road brought me to a stopover at Tekirdag to sample the regional speciality of cheese meatballs which prompted the start of my love affair with the greatest of all Turkish exports, the kebab.

The Eighth wonder of the world, the kebab

Istanbul, the gateway to Asia. The city formerly known as Constantinople, named after the Emporer Constantine during a 1000 year Roman rule. A huge city built around the mighty Bosphorus Strait among rolling hills. Constaninople a Christian enclave until the ’infadels’ were finally overthrown by Mehmet II from Edirne and turned Constantinople into Istanbul and the predominately Muslim state we see today.

The traffic! Istanbul has got to be the craziest place I have ever ridden. It has been said that the traffic in Istanbul is akin to driving in India. The eagerness of the locals to get from A to B is done with the most aggressive driving I have ever seen with an anything goes attitude to the rules of the road. After getting lost several times and observing 3 crashes I finally made it to the hostel in the centre of the old town, centre of the tourist district, with nerves slightly frayed and a huge sigh of relief.

The old town contains 2 of the truely magnificent buildings of the world. The blue Mosque with it's spectacular domes and towers and Aya Sofya, previous a Christian Church converted to a Mosque and finally a museum which it remains to date.

The Blue Mosque in all it's glory

The blue Mosque at night from the hostel window

The Blue Mosque main hall


Proof of Aya Sofya's Christian past

.......and it's conversion to the Muslim faith

The sounds from the main square, where both stand, evoke a feeling of eastern mystery as the call to pray reverberates from the towers of The blue Mosque and other surrounding mosques. Magical.

The hostel is a great little place, cheap, friendly and loads of backpackers to chat with and while away the hours.
Over the preceding days two other bikers turned up from the UK, Leon and Nathan which started the quest for the reasonably priced kebab and several days heavy drinking. One afternoon chilling out outside the hostel a Canadian girl had us in stitches over a Turkish sauna (Haman) her male friend had received. He was told to get on all fours and had been vıgoursly scrubbed everywhere, i litterally mean everywhere, by a male masseuse. Maybe the Haman experience was one best to be avoided. :)

Once spare tyres were purchased and a parcel received from home it was goodbye to my new found friends and off to the East, Asia awaits.

Further updates to come ın the next few days.