We get to Koycegz in Turkey

It seems like another lifetime since I left the grey city of London behind me. I look at my tanned arms now and find it hard to believe there was a time I worked in an office with air conditioning, artificial lighting, keep-the-employees-happy vendor coffee and clean toilets. I haven’t worn my watch for so long I can’t remember when last I wore it or when last it mattered what the time was. Is this the same woman that used to organise her life using Outlook?
I’m finding I don’t know what day of the week it is and have conversations with people along the lines of, “There is a market on Monday.”
“And how many days is it until Monday?”
“Tomorrow.” At which point, I’m surprised that it is currently Sunday.

It’s become usual for Paul and me to open the guide book over dinner, take out a map and begin figuring out what to do over the next days or weeks. There is a plan to get to certain places before the visas run out and eventually back home but when on the road, all those spreadsheets with calculated dates and distances just don’t mean a thing. It feels utterly irresponsible but we both know we have limited resources and can’t live like this forever. This is exactly why we are really indulging our happy-go-lucky lifestyle right now.

20 August: Bulgaria – Veliko Tarnovo, Plovdiv and Smoljan

Bulgaria offers excellent value for money and is notably less pricy than the rest of Europe (though bound to change once they are part of the EU). More importantly, it has a lot to offer in so far as beautiful countryside, mountains, rustic villages, hospitable cities and a range of activities. Unfortunately there is not much camping and but there are pensions for the same price as camping. Just a pity we aren’t yet able to start reducing our daily expenditure but we were able to enjoy a more luxurious lifestyle.

Our good friends Dee and Mario had sent us a text message saying they were in Turkey for ten days and could we meet up? The logistics of two couples of happy drifters meeting somewhere in Turkey appeared at the time to be rather unlikely, but we were willing to try. We just had to make sure we weren’t going to blast past Bulgaria and miss it – bearing in mind it was entirely possible that we would miss our friends too.

Veliko Tarnovo is probably “the popular destination” in Bulgaria because of its mountainous surroundings, old town and a castle. We went to visit the castle: I’d like to say because it has historic interest, but the truth is we didn’t want to be so lazy that we didn’t bother to at least go for a walk, and the entry fee was so cheap we didn’t have an excuse not to go. It is quite peculiar but the ruins have been renovated – and I use the word renovated rather specifically. By renovated, I mean, rebuilt in some places with modern bricks and mortar that make no effort at all to resemble “old” or restore what used to be there. It also appears that the renovations are not complete because there are lots of areas with the structural iron rods exposed and rusting away. We have become accustomed to historic sites having excavations and areas cordoned off for archaeological investigation. Something archaeologists appear to be fixated with is keeping things in situ and preserving minute details – it just seemed a little odd to slap a new building in the midst of ruins and decorate with modern art and ideas. Perhaps some time in the future this castle will be a modern themed attraction and maybe that is, after all, the plan. I don’t know! (Paul was not impressed all the same.)

On leaving Veliko Tarnovo, I mentioned, we were parked on a hill… I managed to do a hill turn with the fully packed bike and then do a controlled ride down the hill letting the engine control the speed – just as I had learnt at the off road school. It still stressed me out like mad. I talk a lot when I get really stressed so I was gabbling away at the bottom of the hill. But I did it. Each time I manage to do something difficult with the bike I feel that I’m making progress and it all counts towards the experience I need to get across Africa.

To our surprise, at the bottom of the hill a little kitty ran up to Paul and me (the mean tough bikers with big noisy bikes) mewing as if we were it’s long lost owners. We were both taken aback by this small scrap of a cat that was rubbing on our legs and trying to climb up our gortex trousers. We gave the waif a snuggle and tried to feed it some biscuits and water. It seemed to want to nothing else but to climb on the bikes and purr. We decided that there really was no way we could travel with a cat in the tank bag. It just wouldn’t get through the borders but we did consider it. We left our tiny friend, Bike Cat, feeling a bit heart sore. There is no way of ever finding out how the little bugger is doing – and it so wanted some one to love it.

We continued our journey south reaching Plovdiv, which is the kind of place that I would recommend for a long weekend city break. As mentioned before, Bulgaria is relatively cheap and excellent quality which makes it a shopping Mecca. It has a buzzing pedestrian’s centre in the old town (Roman ruins about) and countless women who are impeccably dressed and groomed to the max. I don’t think I’ve seen quite so many mini skirts with lovely legs before. Minis with lanky legs loped past while I paddled along in zip off trousers making little flip-flip noises from my flops. I am a liberated biker chick but it would have been so nice to look a bit more… clean.

On our map, south of Plovdiv appears to have a border crossing into Greece. Now if we had planned our route and done some research, we would have known this: it isn’t. But instead, we sat in a restaurant at lunch time, saw the crossing and decided that it was a good idea to cross the border there.

It’s a fantastic mountainous road that on the GPS is a 30 mile stretch in a straight line but in reality it works out to be about 90 miles of winds and hairpins at steep gradients. We got to the town that ought to be the border crossing. Fortunately there were two men with shirts saying BORDER CONTROL but when we asked about the border they laughed. It must be really funny to have two bikers pitch up and ask to cross the border because they told other people who were idly passing by and they too started to laugh. There was another border crossing marked on our map but the Border Control is not Border Information and so we had to just drive to the next town to find out if we could cross there.

We arrived in Kardzali late in the evening and so went straight to a hotel. I think it’s just a traveller’s common sense that you don’t try to cross a border late in the evening. It’s a task during the day, so don’t try at night. The hotel receptionist enthusiastically informed me that the border was supposed to be open but the motorway to the border is under construction (due to EU preparations) and was only due to open again in March 2007, did I want to stay for only one night? I smiled sweetly and said, “Yes, one night will be great, no point in waiting for the border to open then.”

That little detour took the whole day and we were about 16 km closer to Turkey than we were the day before and we had one day less to meet Dee and Mario. The good thing about the detour was that we’d seen a lovely part of Bulgaria that would have otherwise missed. Win some, lose some.

24 August: Turkey – Gelibolu, Bozcaada, Ephesis and Koycegiz

Back onto proper motorways and completely resolved to reach Turkey that day, we made sure we knew where we were going and got there.

The border crossing into Turkey had eight, yes EIGHT, different controls and steps to be taken before finally being released into the country. We and sat in a queue for at least an hour to get through a passport control (1) who wrote down the registration details of my bike. About 100m down the road is a police control (2) who then said we had to go to a visa office (3) to purchase our visas (with a £10 note and nothing else which we luckily had with us, but I think I’d planned to stash one away for this but forgot about it – mild panic). We then went back to have the new visa stamped by another police man (4). We then bought our 3rd party insurance from a dodgy little office (5) and had to wrangle the months down from a year to finally get 6 months only. There was another control (6) who photographed my motorbike. After that we passed through a vehicle control (7) who asked us if we were going to Istanbul but we said we’d go to Gelibolu and ferry to Canakkale because city riding was far too stressful. He thought that was amusing and handed papers back unread. By this time we thought we were done, but there was another control (8) who checked my number plate again. Two hours of border crossing and we were finally on the road in Turkey!

Gelibolu turned out to be a shabby little harbour town. I hadn’t realised the significance of the place to Australians, New Zealanders and Turks. In a nutshell: This is the site of one of the most futile WWI battles. Both sides had heavy casualties but Australia and New Zealand who at the time were small colonial countries with limited male populations, lost a proportionately massive amount of men and this had a serious impact on the countries. Whole towns lost their men folk and this devastating loss meant Australians and Kiwis lost the desire to support the United Kingdom in wars that were not their battles to fight in the first place.

In the morning we caught the ferry intending to cross to Lapseki and according to various confirmations by map pointing and yes yes… we arrived a half hour later in town close to Lapseki but not Lapseki. No problem, we were still en route-ish.

Ferry crossing in Turkey is a “no problem” affair. There is no time table – well, there is one but it’s rather flexible. When the ferry is due to come, there is a message on a loud speaker and every body piles out of the teashops, into their cars or trucks, lines up and buys a ticket. As the ferry arrives cars are hooting ready to dash off the ferry just as the ramp barely hits the shore and the on going traffic is revving to get on. Within not more than 30 minutes cars, truck, pedestrians and the occasional motorbike are off the ferry and the next load is on. Whoosh and the ferry sets off into the ocean.

Before I left I did wonder what it would be like being a Bike Girl on the road in foreign countries. So far I have found women to be my most critical audience. Men will often be quite curious initially and usually initiate conversation by talking to Paul first and then realise they can chat to me too, although I have no untoward reactions when I walk up to guys to ask directions or something. I get treated much like any other chap they meet and as always we mostly talk about bikes and travel. I haven’t yet had a woman come to me to chat although a few girl backpackers have been intrigued. Only one woman in Czech made a point of letting me know she was impressed. I have also met some Turkish biker’s girlfriends who have been very friendly once they realise I don’t bite. I think, possibly, my most critical audience has been Eastern European women – had a few very hard stares from them. I guess that helmet hair, no make-up and dirty clothes are frowned upon. I admit to not really caring too much but I would like to meet other women – I think I just appear to not have much in common with them. Paul is usually asked, “Why do you have two bikes?” And he usually replies, “Because we both like to ride.” I smile submissively but what I’d like to say is: “Because he doesn’t like to sit on the back.” Perhaps one day, if someone dares to talk to me first I’ll get to make my joke (and hope they get it).

So we got ourselves to Troy which is not half as spectacular as the legend and doesn’t have Brad Pitt wondering about in a short skirt. It all seems to have been stolen and distributed by fair means or foul around the world. There is a fantastically tacky wooden replica of the horse – just to give the tourists their money’s worth.

We were sweating to death in our bike gear looking at the place – or more like Paul took photos and I tried to take the path of least resistance, least effort and least exertion. I haven’t yet mentioned that I’d picked up a cold and wasn’t feeling energetic or interested in most things except the next opportunity to lie down. A friendly looking fellow and his girlfriend approached us and explained that he had an Africa Twin. We went through brief introductions and then he suggested, if we didn’t have fixed plans, that we should go to Bozcaada (an island known for their unique vineyards) and have dinner and talk bikes. In my feeble state I fancied the idea of not being on the bikes in the blazing heat. I weighed up the chance of missing Dee and made excuses like I didn’t know where they were in any case.

That turned out to be a very good idea. To get to the island is another speedy ad hoc ferry trip and then we were off the beaten track and no longer having to find our way about or worry about language or organising things. Our new friends, Halit and Fatos got things organised for us as we tagged along with out having to worry about making decisions – that alone was bliss. So many times Halit insisted on paying for us and as Paul protested, he’d have a cheeky smile and say, “It is Turkish custom.” We did talk about bikes a lot! I enjoyed Fatos’ company too. Even though she didn’t speak English her sense of humour was evident and I could tell by the way we all laughed at jokes that she wasn’t being left out.

Turkish coffee basically, has all the granules in the cup and you have to be careful when you sip or you could get a mouth full of the sludge. I did this once and was ever more careful. Paul drinks the sludge every time and is equally appalled each time too. So after dinner Fatos read our coffee leaves. The only other people I know who regularly read the remnants of beverages (tea leaves not coffee granules) are my mother and Aunt Stella who usually have us all in hysterics doing this whacky, jovial gypsy double act. I wished my mother could share this as Fatos was excellent! Only she did it all in animated Turkish and seemed to take it a bit more seriously, while Halit interpreted into English. She would yadda yadda for ages and then Halit would offer, “There is a rearing horse. It is good to start the project.” I take it I was getting the critical nutshell version. In any case, I decided for myself that the project has to be writing and I should continue writing and see where it leads me. Of course, the project could be anything.

Halit showed us some good places to go to next and at about the same time Dee sent a comprehensible text of where they were and would be for the next while. It was exactly where we were headed and it was possible to get there in time to see them - hopefully! The next day we woke up early to catch the ferry; only to find that the next one was 1pm. Halit said we were not to worry and we sat down for tea. Hardly half an hour later the news of a ferry was broadcast and we dashed out of the tea shop and back to our vehicles. We ferried back to the mainland and waved goodbye. What top people. It was one of our longest days on the bike but we got to our next stop, Selcuk to see Ephesis.

I won’t say much about Ephesis as it is yet another Roman ruin. It is very different from Pompeii in that it’s a provincial capital city and so is far more grandiose in decoration, use of marble and scale of buildings like the amphitheatre and library.

We were back on the road by midday and with some focused driving we would reach Koycegiz by the evening – it would seem… it may actually be possible to see Dee and Mario after all.