Mediterranneo!!!

Another foreword - the last blog from Iran was a bit of a whinge-fest, which I thought would be a turn off, but people seemed to like the change in tone (or return to normal???). Once again, by the tıme the One Man Caravan left Iran, ıt was ın a state of socıal and polıtıcal upheaval (just lıke Thaıland, Nepal, Indıa and Pakıstan) - I thınk I've seen more electıons than a UN monıtor recently (not that there were many of them ın Iran). I can only conclude that a lot of Iranıans are readıng my blog and were spurred ınto actıon by my explosıve crıtıque of theır regıme...

*****

Anyway, I'm pleased to report that things have brightened up again in Turkey, figuratively if not literally. Turkey is a great country to travel through, with great biking, scenery, food and people. However, I had Turkey down as a 'hot' country, but within 5 minutes of crossing the border, some ominous looking thunderclouds formed, prompting me to don my Dryrider rubber suit for the first time the trip. No sooner that it was on, the heavens opened, but the suit fully justified being carried for 30,000km and I was dry as a bone. The only leak was from my gloves, which by now are looking very second hand (pun fully intended...).

Lake Van, Turkey

From the border, we headed west to Van. The countryside in the east of Turkey is very beautiful and makes for excellent bike riding. T-bone and I made good progress and found plenty of good places to camp. My only complaint about the country is the price of petrol - one pound fifty a litre!!! Quite a step-up after 30p a litre in Iran...

Improvised Turkish campsite...

Turkey is blessed with many historic sites, and first stop was Nemrut Dagi, a hilltop where King Antiochus built a tomb-sanctuary flanked by huge statues in the first century BC.

The heads of Nemrut Dagi

View from the top

The next day, we decided to cut cross-country to Cappadoccia across about 100mk of fantastic dirt roads. I came up behind a tuk-tuk, which seemed a bit out of place since it was the first one I had seen in Turkey. Just as I overtook, I noticed a big slogan on the back that read "Kolkotta - Paris" and as I cruised past, a couple of French guys waved at me! We stopped and had a good chat - Sylvian and Elred bought their tuk-tuk in Calcutta and are driving it to Paris to raise money for charity! Great guys, great adventure!

Calcutta to Paris by rickshaw - only the French...

More relics...

Later that day on the road to Cappadoccia, the rubber suit came out again. It takes a few minutes to put on and sometimes it's tempting to ride through light showers without it, but there was no mistaking the ominous grey clouds on the horizon. A few kilometres down the road, I was riding through a storm with hailstones the size of marbles! With no shelter in sight, there was no alternative but to plough on through, even though the hail was a couple of inches deep on the road...

Hailstorms in June? Not even in England...

I battled on, and by nightfall I reached Goreme, the so-called backpacker centre of Cappadoccia. I checked into the excellent Flintstones Hotel, where I enjoyed the most comfortable bed in about three months. I also passed the 30,000km milestone for the trip, and the Transalp still hasn't missed a beat.

Cappadoccia - surreal

Goreme by night

After Goreme and a night in Egirdir, I headed south to Olimpos where I saw the sea for the first time since Phuket - the Med may still be a long way from the UK, but İ'm definitely starting to feel close to home. Turkey is a great country for motorbikes - the hıghways are ın good condıtıon and not too busy, and wıth a few hours to spare, there's usually a back road or dırt track alternatıve to the maın road.

First glimpse of the Mediterranean

From Olımpos, I've just been workıng my way north along the Medıterranean coast, through Fethıye, Bodrum, Kusadası and Ayvalık. The mountaıns drop straıght ınto the sea, so the coast road ıs full of twısts and turns and has beautıful vıews of the blue sea and Greek ıslands just off the coast. Accommodatıon has been a combınatıon of pensıons and free campıng on the beach or ın the mountaıns.

Cross-country to Olimpos

Camping with a view

Spaghetti bolognese cooked on driftwood!

In Ismır I was fınally able to change the tyres on the bıke. The Brıdgestone on the rear that I pıcked up ın Shımla was defınıtely lookıng worse for wear, partıcularly sınce I had two punctures ın three days. The second tıme, I managed to pınch the ınner tube twıce, so I ended up removıng and replacıng the tyre on the rım three tımes. If you've never changed the tyre on a motorbıke before, the process ıs just lıke changıng the tyre on a bıcycle, only ıt ınvolves about 10 tımes the blood, sweat, tears, oıly fıngers, skınned knuckles and swearıng. So I was glad to see the back of the Brıdgestone, and the Contınental on the front had seen 26,000km (sınce Brısbane!) and had about as much grıp as a banana skın.

Slow crossing...

The source of the tyres, new brake pads, and other delıghts was Ergur Motors ın Ismır. The tyres were fıtted at a workshop round the corner by Barıs Tok, local motorcyclıng legend and reıgnıng Turkısh 600 Superstock champıon. Barıs then demonstrated the benefıt of years of racıng experıence by straıghtenıng my bent front brake dısk wıth a hammer... Izmır ıs defınıtely a cıty for bıkers - we spent the afternoon hangıng out at the workshop and talkıng bıkes wıth Hakan and Mustafa, a couple of other racers...

Slightly pleased with himself...

How a professional straightens bent forks...

From Ismir, I headed north again, with a quick stop to check out the ancient city of Ephesus. There are more ruins in Turkey than you can shake a stick at, and I must admit to blasting past most of them with a 'seen one, seen them all' attitude, but we were told that if you only see one, then Ephesus is the place to go. And I must admit that it was interesting to see a two-storey classical building - I was starting to wonder if the Greeks ever got beyond building the foundations...

The Celsus Library at Ephesus

The final run in to Istanbul began at Carnakkale, where we took a ferry over to the Gallipolli peninsula and finally reached Europe after almost 6 months on the road. I may only be a pseudo-Anzac, but it was still pretty powerful to see the Commonwealth cemeteries from WWI.

British memorial at Cape Helles

It was a great feeling riding into Istanbul - until we got completely crossed up with some terrible Turkish signposts trying to find Sultanahmed. But we got there eventually and found a room at Just Bar, where we were very well looked after by Ibrahim and his staff.

Just Bar (although it actually offers food and accommodation too...)

Istanbul is a fantastic city, but to me it had a totally different vibe when I first came here over 15 years ago as a teenage backpacker. It was my first trip outside Europe, and it felt very exotic back then, but this time I was amazed at how modern and European it felt (or maybe it's just me...)

The Blue Mosque

Istanbul was an important milestone for another reason. When I had originally planned the trip, I thought it would be a good idea to 'bookend' it with a trip to Glastonbury. That would neatly cap the trip at 6 months, and Glastonbury was significant because it was the last event I attended 7 years ago before I left the UK and moved to California. So I duly assembled a small crew (Pete, Caroline and Rich jumped at the opportunity - everyone else is too grown up these days) and forked out 185 quid for a ticket (ah yes! Back to UK prices!). But in Nepal, it became apparent that I would struggle to finish the trip in 6 months, so I reckoned that Istanbul was a realistic place to reach by the end of June, and booked a cheap flight back with Easyjet.

Now one thing I hadn't reckoned on was the complexity of Turkish customs. Instead of stamping the Carnet like most other countries, they record the details of the motorbike in your passport. By coincidence, I watched an episode of 'Long Way Down' in Pakistan where the intrepid explorers are prevented from flying out of the Sudan until their motorbikes are locked up in a customs depot. By sheer good fortune, I checked with Turkish customs when I entered the country, and sure enough, the same thing applies in Turkey (try figuring that one out on the fly...). So my last day in Istanbul was spent locating the special 'car customs' office, which doesn't have an address and is located on a motorway-under-construction, and then navigating my way through a convoluted process which required no less than 10 (ten) signatures, took 2.5 hours and made Indian immigration look efficient. But eventually the process was complete, and my motorbike was parked in a lot full of Mercedes that had either been illegally imported by drug dealers or totalled by tourists. To cap it all, I had to sign a form saying that if I didn't collect the bike within 30 days, it would become the property of the Republic of Turkey...

Don't worry, I'll come back for you...

The next day, T-Bone was due to head back to Germany, so it only seemed fitting to celebrate our three months on the road together with a few beers. We were having a bit of trouble finding some nightlife, when we met a couple of local guys who offered to take us to a club... After one drink we were joined by a group of Russian ladies, who ordered champagne, and we were then informed that we would be picking up the tab for everyone, which was 150 quid! We both found it hilarious that after chancing our luck in the snow of the Himalayas, with the Taliban in the Swat Valley, and with the Iranian secret police, that we should fall for the oldest sting in the book! We left the manager in no doubt as to what he could do with his bill, had a brief scuffle with some frankly disappointing bouncers, and walked off into the night - can't beat the taste of a free beer!

Iran - big brother is watching you

A quick warnıng prior to reading this blog posting - it comes across as a bit of a Ewan-and-Charley style whinge... I am starting to appreciate how sometimes you just want the locals to bugger off and give you some space and respect! The good news is that Turkey is shaping up to be much more fun!

*****

Well, I was in Iran for about ten days, and I have to say that I have some serious reservations about the place. Sure, the complete absence of bars, alcohol, and almost anything resembling fun is a negative. And the naivity / xenophobia is extremely tiresome - every couple of minutes in the street, someone will mutter 'Hello, how are you' and walk away giggling wildly to his mates. The treatment of women is also troubling - making them sit at the back of the bus seems pretty lame for the 21st century. And for practıcally the first time on this trip, people have tried to rip me off - in fact, almost every visit to a restaurant or petrol station ends in a heated debate about the bill (even though petrol costs the same per litre at every filling station...).

Sorry Iran - no prizes from this visitor!

But what bothers me most is the not-so-secret police, who have really pissed me off and have brought out a subversive streak in me that has not been seen since hıgh school! Equally strıkıng ıs the ambivalence that most people have to the ınterference of the polıce in everyday life.

The nonsense started as soon as we entered Iran. Our passports were confiscated with no explanation, leaving us stuck at the border. Eventually it was explained to us that we would need a bodyguard to proceed to Zahedan, but no indication was given as to when this bodyguard would arrive. After 90 minutes, a boy-soldier (about 19 going on 12, and doing his best to act tough) presented himself, with no radio, no gun and no transport. Not much of a bodyguard. But he had our passports. Now there's not much spare space on the back of my bike, but this lad can't have been more than about 50kg, and since the alternative was to pay $25 for a taxi for him, he was duly added to the rest of the luggage and we set off.

I'll spare the gory details of the remainder of the day, but it took us 14 hours to cover the ~350km to Bam, with brief spells at 120kph behind police escorts interspersed with lengthy waits in 40+ degree sunshine outside many, many police stations. At one point we waited 30 minutes to be escorted 500 metres to the next post. No smiles, no explanation, no passport. I was extremely pissed off. We eventually received our passports back about 50km from Bam, but only because the final escort ran out of petrol. We were then almost run off the road by another police escort arriving in Bam, who thought they could tell us which hotel we would be staying in. To make matters worse, it was the hotel that I had planned to stay at anyway, so I had to make it absolutely clear that I was staying there because I chose to, and not because they wanted me to...

With Akbar and friends ın Bam

Akbar's Tourist Guest House in Bam proved to be a great place to stay, and Akbar and his son Mohammed were wonderful hosts. My stay there was somewhat spoiled by a chronic case of heat exhaustion / diahorrea, for which I blame the Iranian police for keeping me hanging around in the sun the previous day. Bam was completely devastated by an earthquake in 2003 and is still being rebuilt, and the ancient mud-brick city is a far cry from what it once was, but it's still an interesting place to visit.

Ancient city of Bam

Akbar insisted on calling the police to let them know that we were leaving, and escorts continued on and off to Sirjan. We checked into the uninspiring Fadak Hotel and left our passports with the manager. When it came to dinner time, the conversation went something like this:

Overland biker: "We're going out to dinner. Can we have our passports back please?"
Hotel manager: "You can have dinner here. We have kebabs."
OB: "No thanks. We're going out. Passports please."
HM: "You can't go out."
OB: "Why not?"
HM: "Police"
OB: "Sod the police. Passport please! Now!"

Passports duly received, we went out and had typical Iranian fare (uninspiring fast food). By then end of the meal, there was a couple of plain clothes policemen sat outside in a car, who then followed us back to the hotel. At the hotel, they asked to see our passports and noted down the details. Next morning as we were about to leave, another plain clothes policeman arrived, insisted on seeing our passports and noting down the details (did they change overnight???), and escorted us out of Sirjan (as far as the next escort).

Salt plains on the road to Shiraz

Shiraz didn't really do much to float my boat - it's a reasonable city but there's not much to do there! And Persepolis was a bit of a let down - sure, the 2,500 year-old bas-reliefs from the palace of Xerxes are pretty interesting, but I was over it in about 2 hours. We also got ourselves involved with a bit of a lunatic called Mr Ematy, who claimed to be an English teacher, invited us to lunch at his mother's house (which we accepted), and gave us a very uninspiring tour. Mr Ematy bore an uncanny resemblence to a fat Borat, and after 60 minutes of his company we tried to extricate ourselves from the lunch invitation, at which point he protested that his mother had already prepared lunch, so we reluctantly went along. The lunch was quite good, and when he asked if he could show us his nearby language institute, I had a moment of weakness and agreed. Long story short, he then drove us 35km to his 'institute', whıch was closed, and then started approaching strangers ın the street to see if they wanted to talk to us (thankfully they were as unimpressed by this as we were). At this point, I totally lost the plot and made it very clear to our friend that he should return us to the motorcycles immediately...

An old ruin, and Persepolis...

I wish I could say that thıs was the turning poınt and Iran got better from here on, but it didn't really. On the posıtıve side, we met a very nice girl called Samaneh who showed us the beautiful bridges in Esfahan.

Thirty-three Brıdge, Esfahan

We also met a cool guy ın Oremıa called Resa who drove us round the cıty ın hıs brother's Hıllman Hunter (stıll ın productıon ın Iran...).

The Hıllman Hunter - long belıeved to be extınct...

We also vısıted the seasıde - the Caspıan seasıde, that ıs.

Makes the North Sea look lıke the Carıbbean...

The Turkish border - and my first beer in 6 weeks beckons...

50 in the shade (if you can find any)

Yes, that's right, I didn't know temperatures went that high, but they do, in Pakistan in the summer, and I rode right through the middle of it. Since the last update from Dharamsala, I've holidayed in two of the world's most notorious hotspots (Peshawar and Quetta), endured hours of police escorts, and I am now recovering in Bam from a spot of heat exhaustion (read - extreme diahorrea). I'm still travelling with T-bone, my intrepid German companion.

I would normally have steered clear of Peshawar, but I had received a strong recommendation for a tour guide there, and when I contacted the Prince he assured me that all was well. The ride from Islamabad was fairly straightforward until I got a puncture about 20km outside Peshawar. There was a big chard of metal in the tyre, so it went down pretty quick and gave me a big speed wobble at about 100kph. Fortunately there was a tyre shop about 50 metres away, so after taking the back wheel off, I paid the grand sum of 50 rupees and spared myself the trouble of changing the tube.

Pimp my bus - Peshawar style

On arriving in Peshawar, we checked in at the Rose Hotel and called the Prince, who came out to meet us with his colleague Hussain. While I was waiting for the Prince, I went across the road to a tyre shop to see if I could find a replacement inner tube (for a Transalp? Not easy...), where they told me that the Taliban had bombed an internet cafe in Peshawar earlier in the day with many casualties - I decided the situation was sufficiently hazardous for me to stay off Facebook for a few days. The Prince and Hussain arrived and they were an absolute blast, so we decided to stay in Peshawar for a couple more days so that they could give us the full tour. On the way up to their office, there was a loud bang which sounded suspiciously like a bomb blast, but the Prince assured me it was a wedding - he later fessed up that it was a bomb, but he didn't want to worry us on day one...

Local dress to help us blend in
(although the T-bone looks more like a Parisian painter???)

Fun and games with the Prince

The next couple of days were a laugh - the Prince (who really is a Prince) was a constant source of entertainment and Hussain was a constant source of political debate. We enjoyed fantastic Pashtun cuisine (i.e., meat), we visited architectural wonders, mausoleums, schools, markets...

In a 350-year old house in Peshawar

Dining out Pashtun-style

We met with the local tribal leader, which was a bit like meeting the Wizard of Oz - he was about 35 years old and his inner sanctum was like a teenager's bedroom, with posters, toys, a big TV... and lots of guns. We took the obligatory 'western tourist grinning inanely with an AK47' photographs, which will not be appearing on this blog in case I ever attain high public office and you decide to use them against me.

Is it loaded? If you have to ask...

Making bricks = donkey work

I then had to visit Islamabad again to collect my visa from the Iranian Embassy (come back at 4pm the next day - NO EXCEPTIONS!). Rather than spend another night in the dump that is the tourist campsite, T-bone and I rode up to the hill resort of Murree. It provides welcome relief from the heat of the plains, but has a big problem with touts. After being hassled by the same half dozen or so, that apparently work for every hotel in the town, I had worked up quite a temper, so it was not a good time for the local policeman to pull me over and tell me that I did not have a registration plate on the front of my motorcycle, and my bike was overloaded. After the overloading I've seen over the past few months, the reaction he got was sufficient for him to wave me on quickly...

I then embarked on the long slog across Pakistan to the Iranian border. There are three routes across to Quetta: very unsafe, unsafe, and moderately unsafe. We had originally planned to take the latter, but we figured that we could take about 200km off the journey by riding across the mountains through Lorelei (the 'unsafe' route). Unfortunately the plan came unstuck fairly quickly - we arrived in Dera Ghasi Khan to be greeted first by the traffic police, then by the real police, and finally by some shady looking 'military intelligence' in plain clothes. Our conversation did not get off to a good start - they asked me for my passport, I asked for their ID, they didn't have any... it was made clear to us that we were not to stay in DG Khan, and I was escorted back 100km to Multan. In Multan, the first two hotels I tried were 'full' (read - I don't want this Taliban-magnet in my hotel)... I finally found an overpriced room, but by that point I was beyond caring. We later found out that there was a bombing in DG Khan a couple of months ago that killed 30 people which explains why the locals were a bit twitchy...

Next day, we elected to play it safe and take the longer route to Quetta via Sukkur. Other than being extremely hot, the ride to Sukkur was fairly uneventful. In Sukkur we receieved the same 'no room at the inn' treatment from the locals and ended up paying a bit more than we would have liked (3,600R) at the Inter-Pak Hotel.

Riding through the desert

On the final 400km ride up to Quetta, we had a police escort most of the way. Other than one old Toyota pick-up that couldn't manage more than 45kph, we cruised along at about 90kph so the escorts didn't really hold us up much. They were always very polite and considerate, and we had a chai break every time we switched escorts at the end of each district (far more pleasant than the Iranian escorts - more of that later). I'm not sure how effective they'd be if we saw any trouble, but fortunately it never came to that...

My guardian angels - I feel much safer now...

This was probably the hottest day of the entire trip - in Sibi, the locals told me that this is the hottest place in Asia, and a quick check online confirmed that the maximum temperature on the day that we passed through was 50 degrees (and it felt it!). It's not too bad when you're cruising on the bike, although I managed to drink about 10 litres of water in one day.

Quetta had some pretty stern security, and really felt like it was on the edge of a war zone. We were passed by a convoy of trucks carrying new toys for the US Marines in Afghanistan - I don't know exactly what was under the tarpaulins, but I'm pretty sure that Teledyne don't make washing machines... But all in all, another friendly Pashtun town, and we stayed at the excellent Bloom Star hotel.

From Quetta, there was a gruelling 650km ride to the border at Taftan. To make things even more interesting, we heard that a group of French tourists had attempted the same trip a couple of days earlier, and were ambushed by Al Qaeda - one of them was kidnapped and is still missing. So security was stepped up even further, although I think the police were more afraid than we were (after all, nobody was going to bother kidnapping them...). This manifested itself in Taftan, the final town before the border, where we were unceremoniously dumped at the Customs House by the final police escort at dusk. We spent our final night in Pakistan sleeping rough in an unguarded truck park, deep in unfriendly territory - not the best recipe for a good night's sleep... Next stop, Iran!

Final resting place in Pakistan...