So, it has come to my attention that writing a blog is a huge pain in the ass. I am so far behind on it that it is literally giving me a head ache trying to recount everything that has happened since my last post. When I look at the calendar it wasn't actually that long ago... but to me, as far as memories go it is like trying to replay 5 months of time bursting with stories, events and good times. Luckily I keep a journal, but for blog purposes there's no way I'm Going to be able to relay it so I will turn the last '5 months' events into a shortened form. I hope it's still worth the read!
I'm laying on the bottom half of a bunk bed in the old town of Budva in Montenegro. My last post was somewhere in the eastern mountains of Turkey.... How the hell did I end up here? Why did i nearly strangle a guy? Why did I ride through Albania, go over a freezing mountain in Macedonia, go into Kosovo, and more importantly why do I have a Canadian dude on the back of my bike?
Well it all started in Goreme....
As I previously wrote, I changed my destination from Georgia to magical Cappadocia. After days of riding and a hard slog I eventually arrived at the Rock Valley Pension in Goreme.
True, it is a touristic place in Turkey, but sad as it may sound I had been alone for a long time and felt as though I would l like some company. In the common room I stumbled accross two guys, Nick from Australia and Donald from South Africa, both were traveling independently. We made plans to go to dinner that night and Pilar, a Chinese girl joined us. Pilar unfortunately had to leave the next day but me Nick and Donald hit it off. So the guys decided to rent a moped each and we went for a 150 odd KM ride, which is of course a very cool way to see any place. We named the bike gang that we had formed, 'Turkish Delight'... Donald especially liked this name.
On the ride, Nick nearly crashed quite a few times, one in particular was pretty funny when his throttle wouldn't shut off and he went zooming past me and Donald whilst we had stopped to check the map. Towards the end of the ride both 's and Nick's peds ran out of petrol... Luckily I had my emergency tank.... Unluckily it was empty so off I rode for supplies
Back at the pension a new girl had arrived, Sadie, from philladelphia. As it was my birthday tomorrow we all made plans to go to Goreme's only bar Fat Boys... Where we all got a little drunk... Especially Sadie... Actually apart from Donald because he's a little smarter than us and didn't mix his drinks and have beers and raki's. Raki's were followed by jenga!
When creeping back into the dorm we noticed two new arrivals.
In the morning we met Miles and Sarah, two very cool canadians. Over breakfast Donald reminded us that we thought last night it would be a cool idea to rent a car for the day and go see the underground cities. Brilliant idea! But now there were 6 of us. So we rented a chevvy jeep and rocked out with that.
Nick had already visited the underground city and so acted as our extremely professional tour guide. I found the cities amazing, and somewhat unbelievable... There are 8 underground floors, only 4 floors are open to the public and that is deep enough for me! The city consisted of Homes constructed around nearly 100 tunnels and passages. All the homes are linked to an impressive ventilation shaft which when peering down looks like a never ending hole (whilst in fact it is 80 meters). There are an impressive amount of storage areas and a large kitchen showing that the inhabitants of the city were economically stable and able to survive underground for long, extended periods of time. The point being that invading, maraiding armies would bypass their underground city. Even if found they had the ability to survive for long periods of time and seal their city off from the outside world. Archilogists believe that up to 3500 people may have lived down there... Nick reckons maybe 200... I have no idea!
After Nick's narly tour we drove on to the Ilhara valley... Well Sadie drove too and I'm glad we made it without driving of a cliff! Which she nearly did as a joke. We took a long walk down into the valley and mooched about for a while!
That night it was birthday celebration time... Two Australian girls also joined our group and so the 8 of us went out for dinner. At dinner I was surprised with a cake with 6 candles... I can't remember the last time Iv had candles on a cake... But was nice of those guys!
Then it was off to Fat Boys the only bar in town, Sadie got pissed and invented the would you rather extremely explicit and weird game... It was a good laugh and a really cool way to spend my birthday.
Sarah and Miles were headed to Olympos the next Day at 10pm on the night bus. Sadie left early morning. Nick and Donald had been at the guest house for a lot longer than they anticipated due to us all meeting and of course and had to move on so they decided to catch the night bus to Olympos too. I had also been there alot longer than anticipiated so I decided to hang around the next day with them and stay the extra night alone, then leave early morning. During the day me Sarah and Miles went to see the massive dick shaped rocks and did a crazy long hike through love valley...and hitched a ride home... We missed the turning out of the valley and so hiked the whole way through, Good hike though.
That night I saw the gang off, would I have liked to of gone with them... yes, probably... But that's the thing with solo motorcycle travel... You are and always will be at the end of the day alone. You can meet people and hang with them for 5 days but at the end of it, you've got to ride the lonely highways single handedly. That night I was the only one in the dorm. The next morning I said my byes to the lovely South African Zada, running the guesthouse and I was off. I had a great 5 days in Cappadocia, I was only expecting to stay for one. I loved the people I met and re-reading this post really does not give the place or the new friends I made justice. I will just have to keep those memories in my head instead.
The second I sit my ass on my bike seat, switch that beast on, feel the throbbing single cylinder pumping in-between my legs.... All thoughts of loneliness... What has passed, what is to come and actually just about everything evaporate . In it's place all I see is the road ahead and I can't help but smile each and every time. Nothing else matters.
From Cappadocia to Duzce.
My target was Duzce as it was time for my 12000 mile service which has to be done by an official Yamaha dealership in order to keep the warranty intact.
Before Duzce I found a super cheap hotel in Gerede as I knew the rain was coming. I ended up being stuck there for two days. A little city with nothing to do. I arrived late on Saturday so slept the night with the intention of finding the nearest yamaha dealer the next morning, forgetting nothings opened on Sunday. Sunday morning I realize my mistake. Also the rain is beating down so I may as well stay another day. There is no point in riding to the nearest dealer as it is only 50km away in the rain and I will just have to find another cheap hotel, pack and unpack... Plus I don't even know if I could get the service done there. I'll see another night out here... Despite the fact that the guy working reception is a miserable git.
That night I was walking to my usual kebab joint when a Turkish man decided to grab my shirt for absoloutly no reason. Instinctively I grabbed his throat in return. Then I had to let go as his friend got in the middle. He swung his arm at me from behind his friend so I caught it and held onto it. Obviously this pissed him off even more. The guy in the middle started shouting behind him, I then realized he was calling another friend over. So I had to let go as if it was about to be 3 against 1 my only chance would have been to keep them at a distance. However, the third man came to help the middle guy pull the pissed guy away. All in all not a big deal. I was told later on by the dozens of onlookers that he was drunk... He was just one of those typical guys trying to look hard in front of his mates, they were holding him back and I truly believe he wouldn't have tried anything if they were not there. The shock in his eyes when I went for him told me that he really did not expect any aggressive retaliatory action from me. I did feel as though it was a shame that it had happened as it was the first incident of it's kind on the trip. But I won't let some prick ruin Turkeys image, it simply isn't fair on the countless good natured, kind and gentle Turks I have met. It is a good reminder though that there are good AND bad everywhere.
So I left early Monday morning for the 50km ride to Bolu, there I found a yamaha dealer... Tiny, run down, dirty, very low stock, in the middle of a heaving thick industrial estate. I spoke to the boss who couldn't speak english and literally looked as though he had no idea what time or day of the week it was.... I thought straight off that this isn't where I'm going to depart with money for a 20000km serious big service... The guy was saying yes yes yes service, oil change yes yes yes....
The conversation went as followed:
Dude: Yes, sir, yes service, oil change... No problem...
Andy: Okay yes, oil change but I want my valve clearances checked and my head bearings adjusted and regressed.... Can you do that?
Dude: Valve? (He looked at me as though I just told him I make love to animals)
Andy: Yes valve...
Dude: Valve?
Andy: Yesss
Dude: Yes oil
Andy: What?!
Dude: We service oil?
Andy: no...Valve... I point at it
Dude: Oil?
Andy: Right I'm off
50 km on and I arrive at my first original option of Duzce.... I'm in luck... It's a huge western styled dealership with a proper service centre and a sexy showroom filled with naughty bikes... Can you check valve clearances? Yes... Thank Allah!
Mehmet does a very professional and in depth job on my bike. I sit downstairs in the service centre with the guys watching and joking for hours and hours until the service is done. Unfortunately they didn't speak any english... But this wasn't a problem as in the office they had a computer and we used google translator to relay jokes and for them to make fun of the guy working upstairs in the showroom.
I was given a dangerous amount of tea whilst down there. When we were waiting for the engine to cool, mehmet took me next door for lunch and wouldn't let me pay! Throughout my time in that garage, at least a dozen young dudes came in on little mopeds and bikes all with random problems from tires to cables and some of them just helped themselves to tools to fix them up, every so often one of the mechanics would lend a helping hand... I don't think any money was exchanged... It was nice to see mehmet and the yamaha mechanic crew waltzing around with a fag between their lips, Turkish tea in one hand and a spanner in the other, telling jokes, making fun of the guy working upstairs, messing about, helping the young guys with their bikes, laughing at my jokes when they were supposed to, taking a genuine interest in my travels and just being men! My bike was given a serious and attentive clean as it was caked in shit... It now looks showroom clean. They finally finished at 7pm, by which time it was dark outside and the heavens had opened up. I decided to leave my bike locked up in the service centre, one of the guys from upstairs took me in his car to a hotel and said he would pick me up at nine the next morning and take me back to the garage so I wouldn't have to worry about finding a hotel that night in the dark and heavy rain. Nice guys huh? I'm pretty sure that you would be very hard pushed to find a service like that in England! Where the mechanic buys you lunch and cokes, let's you sit in the service centre watching and talking away, given an unlimited amount of tea, drops you off to a hotel and picks you up the next day. Funnily enough I was picked up the next day by moped, and the rider was the guy they all make fun off. Nice guy though.
So my bike had been serviced. I'm just on the east side of Istanbul. Europe awaits me and so does Miles at Thessaloniki airport in Greece. As I wrote at the beginning of this post, I am currently in Montenegro and by tomorrow night I will be in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Miles, the Canadian from Goreme was also headed to Croatia, I decided that it would be an interesting experience and adventure for the both of us to travel on one bike through the Balkans together. If I'm honest, I have no idea why as I love to ride alone. But there was something I really liked about Miles, and I have learned on this trip that I must just simply 'go with it'... The idea came into my head and I thought it would be an interesting experience and also experiment for me. So I had to ask him to see where it would go. After emailing quite a few times and me giving fair, preemptive warning that: motorcycle travel is not as glamorous as it seems, there is a high probability that we will get soaked, frozen, lost, tired and chased by dogs... Miles agreed and bought a cheap helmet in Turkey. He then made his plans to get to Thessaloniki airport where I picked him up. My next post which I will write tomorrow if I can will be on our crazy tour from Greece to Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and into Montenegro!
(I will add a few more photos when I get them from the others!)
