Turkey Çok Güzel

Ahh... made it (this is the first time in my life that i have read a book in one day!!)
The scenery was amaizing all the way through
But ther was rain!!(and aliens)
What can we say..but 'çok güzel'
We only use the best guides!!

Off we go... setting off from İstanbul on our trails again.. İ have got a cold from being around to many people in such a small place!! started with a sore throat but then came all the snot! Nic at this point had it all to come!
We had set ourselves a bit of a challenge!.. Our frıend in istanbul had said that he did not think that we could make it across turkey in 8 days... the race was on.. we had to prove him wrong..

We got the ferry on thursday morning getting us across the bay by about 11.30 (half the day gone already...bad start) and we found ourslves on a bıg road full of trucks.. but ıt was ok. A good verge to ride on and good drivers.
Camping that night we stopped by a lake nıce spot with the moon risıng as the sun set.. beautıfull!!
a leasurly start and off to the mountains.. Nic realised that if we were to start late every day we would not make it across in the time availible so hatched a plan durın the day to get me up at 5.30 in the morning..to make coffee and breakfast.. bring it to her to coax her out of bed..then we could get a good start.. İ knew nothing about it at this time but would soon find out..
We basicaly headed south (map to follow) and what a delıght.. hıgh mountain passes.. small vıllages (with good guıdes) and fantastic scenery....
All was going to plan (even the early starts) untill on day 4 the heavens opened and started to raın.. cold days.. nothing to do but ride to keep warm.. our spirits were high!!
We did get rescued a few times.. free tea from petrol stations..a meal with a family in the mountains..free cakes.. and allot of encouragement from the locals..
Basıcaly we made it.. 8 days from ıstanbul we were at Dalyan ande waiting for the keys to Geralds place.. and relax...........
Nic had a great bırthday..cakes for first breakfast...eggs for second...the most fantastic mountain road..and a beautıfull sun set..
Since then we have done allot of sleeping and not much else..maby tomorrow?

o.k....its all sort of true ! But Jon does start fiddgetting around in the tent way too early ...just when i.m about to get my best bit of sleep.....and as he falls asleep almost as fast as Morgz,leaving me wide awake for hours pondering the meaning of life and other weighty matters such as any small noises,,,wild pigs approaching....i think the current arrangement where i get coffee in bed is best.
Also..that picture of me drinking a can of beer in the tent (a couple of blogs back ) could be giving entirely the wrong impression.! İt was medicinal beer..drunk at 2.30 a.m in the middle of a sleepless night of hammering rain beating down on the tent. Even jon was wide awake. Luckily he remembered we had 4 cans of beer...so what better thing to do than relieve the boredom by drinking them . So we did....and then slept well!

İ think thats all for now. You will all notice who,s in the hammock !

Turkey here we come. ready or not!!!

The best welcoming party in İştanbul

Even Turks get punctures!

Where East meets West ( and where tea ıs most expensive)

But Turks don't get as many punctures as brits! 16 so far ın Greece and Turkey ( the record ıs 4 ın a day)

Just to keep you all up to date........We had a meal out at 100 days and beer at 7000km

Turkey... land of Cai.. and land of ı instead of i on the key board (can be confusing if you know what İ mean?)

The road we took from the boarder to İstanbul ıs one of the worst roads we have cycled on ın the whole trip! İt is a dual carriage way through Agricultural land rolling hills etc.. İt would have been ok apart from the pouring rain and howling head wind!! İt took us 3 days of hard work to get here. The weather was so bad that we ended up staying ın cheap hotels getting hysterical whilst watching Turkısh TV.. couldn't understand a word of it? but sitting ın your room with your back to a radiator and wearing your down jacket as the wind trıed to blow the windows out ıt all seemed funny. The day we intended to get to İstanbul was the same driving rain and gale force winds with 55km to the town.. Me and Nic just put our heads down and got on with it. Gayton our Swiss Friend just had to follow.. all went well only 2 punctures ( thin bıts of wire off the road) when we hit the outskirts of İstanbul.. Nic mentioned that it was like riding down the A1 in rush hour!! Great fun head down defensive riding.. palming off cars We were buzzing.. Gaton later told us that he wanted to cry! He thought it would be a pity to die before he got to İstanbul! When from out on nowhere!! a Guardıan Angel appeared. A mountain biker.. 'where do you want to go?'....'follow me'.. and that was it. Guided straight into the town centre to a hostel with him and two Friends! then a night tour of the city (on bikes) Eden wheelers special.. if you know what İ mean! Then to a good restaurant and beer.. fantastic..

Since then we have had a rest and wandered this amazing city.. Off on the ferry tomorrow heading south for a bit of a holiday! (cheers Gerald)

Jon seems to have taken to Turkey and ıts hospıtable people.At least i think thats why he has been hugging so many men.! One small but streetwise boy who expected a bıt of a :reward : for his directional help dıd not expect to be grasped firmly by the shoulders and kissed on each cheek by jon. That was a novelty for him.

Anyway....leaving the city and back on the road tomorrow. Hooray.

How to stay dry in Greece

Beach bars out of season!!
Children's Play Parks....
Greek tunnels...

These are some of the things we had to resort to to keep dry over the past week or so!!! don't forget to read the next post either!!!

Greece continued

Mount Olympus at sunset
Greek dogs on Saturday (their day off)
Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tent life.........
Mmmm lunch in the rain...

Just an idea for anyone who has a bit of money to spare...Buy a Hymac a Moxy and a Pecker!! Go out to the coast of Albania.. You would make a fortune!!.. They are knocking the place to hell.. get in there quick there wont be much left soon..

The coast of Greece didn't fail to amaze us.... beautiful
But what was a great surprise was the weather! it has been the worst of the whole trip!! rain cold.. having to spend time in tunnels and bus shelters for a rest from the persistent rain!! it hasn't stopped us from enjoying the scenery though.. the mountains have been fantastic, deep gorges, high mountains and full rivers and water falls..

we have actually met up with another cyclist.. he is from Switzerland and riding to Asia.. so we have been riding together for the last 2 days as we are both going to Turkey. [ Jon and gaetan have been crashing together too, on their first day. ...i wont say who,s fault it was but jon did swerve sharply ]

What else. Well,greece being the cradle of civilisation and all that,it has been noticably civilised here ,especially compared to other countries we,ve been in ,.More relaxing but less exciting...As i said to jon ,they,ve been responsible for some great ideas ,the greeks,and jon said yes,he did think feta and olives were two good greek ideas.

We,ve been chased by lots of dogs now,some quite seriously nasty. The tables though are turning. Now we are riding as a three we,ve started to turn and chase them,,,,ha,ha that gives them something they did,nt expect,. Me and jon though are looking out for the right bit of roadside plastic to make holsters for our big dog sticks that,ll be right at hand down the rear stay. Sorry ,getting a bit technical now,,,have had too many engineering lectures from jon.What i know about S.K.F.bearings amazes me. If you are lucky you will escape this blog without hearing all about greek pick ups.

Forgot to tell you all about the pickups!! I could not believe the age of them.. I saw when we got here a Datsun pick up.. I had one the same over 20 years ago and it was old then.. They are still going.. Datsun.. Mazda..even a Suzuki..

anyway off to drink some beer now Phew!!

Shitet Albania!!!!

Two Ukranian Cyclists (honest)
Lake Ochid Macedonia and Albania (amaizingly beautifull)

Typical Albanian bike touring sceneryMore... How much better can it get??
"I would like one of the top ones and one of the other?"

What a surprise... the Albanians dont think much to their country..(well thats what we thought when we arrived!!)
Everything is Shitet!! a BMW car with Shitet on it ( well you cant argue with that) a Mercedes with Shitet ( well it was an old 200 series..) A shop that was shitet.. and then a Pizza express with shitet on it.. (again we cant argue with that...)
But the we realised that Shitet meant .. For Sale ( well we are a bit dim arn't we ]

The next shocking thing about Albania is that there are no Albinos living there!! whats all that about?? Since then I have found out that there are no Cretins on Crete!!
I really don't know what expect in Mongolia now!!!! ( and I'm not going to Lesbos either !!)

We had a fantastic time there....we were attacked by kindness . Could,nt pay for peppers,for our fuel bottle to be filled up with petrol, got given local sweets to try...on our first morning we got flagged down by a guy who hopped out and gave us a cycling guide map and booklet to albania. How lucky is that. ! And its one of the poorest countrys i've visited [anywhere ],and yet its got amazing scenery,nearly all mtns,canyons, rivers,and people who are so keen and excited for you to visit. Jon had boys racing him on their knackered no brakes bikes, people waving at us, calling out, tooting their horns [they dont realise this makes me nearly fall off]. So consider albania as an exciting holiday destination. ...they deserve more tourists.[any,would be a start !]

Now in greece. What a shock. ! After all those exciting "undiscovered '' rough and ready countries....so, this is where riley lives his life! Its all ex-pats, and yachts , and even the dogs have perked up as if they know they are no longer at the bottom of the pile. Impressively beautiful though,and the first country since germany that has a system to cope with rubbish.!! Everywhere else it gets tipped into rivers,down hillslopes,anywhere cos there is nowhere.

Albania stretched jons vehicular knowledge beyond the final frontier. There were things he didnt know what they were,and they werent donkeys. Also no albanians had cars until after communism,so they are desperate to learn to drive,but nobody has more than 14 years experience. Quite interesting styles have developed.

The main vehicle in Albania is the Mercedes 200 series diesel.. a real work horse.. but just behinde that is any vehicle from England!! we went into one town and about 30% of the cars were from th UK..
It also seems that any Albanian that has been to the UK went to Newcastle?? and did all of the Euro Clubs? Figure that one out if you can!

Next time who knows where we will be!!!

Montenegro

this is a mad montenegran railway
This is the view from the top of a mad montenegran road
These are mad montenegran animals (well they are wild now they have been picked up!!)

Later today we will be going to albania ,if they'll have us....dont know whether we.ll continue down coast or go inland. Montenegro has been great...not only the durmitor nat park.,but everywhere we've been. Its all mtns,right down into the sea ,and amaying mad roads that are good quality too. The sea must be about 20 c right now,and we are so out of season you can have a perfect ayure beach all to yourselves....so it would be a good destination for an autumn bike /walk/swim and theres got to be some climbing theres so much limestone.

There should be a photo of some wild animals we managed to track down and even capture before they scampered off. They must be quite rare as have,nt seen any since.
Talking off wildlife last nights idyllic ancient olive grove bivi turned into mayhem....and it all started so well, with the moon lighting up the silvery leaves,and the cicardas chirping away.Even the donkey braying was.nt too bad. But then.....All of a suden 4 or 5 dogs shot past where we lay and in to the grove!! barking and panting... they had got a scent of something and were after it. It should have been quite exciting but in the middle of the night when everything was calm then to be woken up with about an hours dog barking was not much fun.. we think that they may have been after some pigs that Nic saw earlier (when I was fast asleep!) After that we didn't realy relax, waiting for the dogs to come back? and bark at us!

After albania we should prob go to greece..so anybody fancy meeting us there ...well ,you could borrow our bikes. Possibilities are corfu, the pindus mtns...we have.nt done any research as usual.....

Serbian People

These are some of the people that were so generous to us in Serbia, yes I have finally managed to get the pictures to download, (less of the laughing!!) Read the bit we put up earlier about the people we met..... then look at these pictures.. if you want, or have a cup of coffee or tea or a beer.. its up to you, you dont even have to read this.. we are not forcing you (Nic has told me to stop now)

Serbian olympic hopefull. and iron man Marco
Fruit picker from the mountains
Maric and Tatiana Alexsanoar.. best mountain bike contact in Serbia, (think he may be quite good on a bike himself!!)