Dust mud and languages

My Turkish lesson group in Dalyan, with the lovely Ayten in the back row (the Turkish teacher)
Message from Nic....Now we are back in Turkey again the Turkish lessons are really paying off! Only 2 days ago we were rescued from a huge storm by a great Kurdish family.. They had a shop on the side of the main road from Silverek to Diyabakir. They seemed to be selling food sweets and just about anything else.. but.. their main buisines was diesel trading, big trucks from Afghanistan and İran would stop and sell fuel to them. They had no large fuel tanks they just used 25 litre plastic drums to hold the syphoned fuel.. Then it was sold onto smaller local trucks.. They were working hard in the torrential rain. The bıg truck drivers could speak Arabic, Kurdısh, Turkish, English and who knows what else.. It was very interesting. Anyway the main point is that İ can speak enough bad Turkish to explain our journey and to try and thank everyone for their amazing hospitality. So İ hope you are all keeping up with your Turkish lessons? İts worth the hard work.

This is the dust that gets into everything in the desert.. İts still in our ears, hats, tent, toothbrushes, everywhere.

The morning after the sand storm! Well done our tent. ( Terra Nova 2.2) You can see the wind is still quite strong, but it is NOTHİNG compared to what it was..

Turkish mud!! İts out to get you and stop you going anywhere!!!!

Diyarbakir Capital of Kurdistan..

On the way to mount nemrut, we met these two old characteres. King Antichos is shaking hands with Heracles, and trying to ignore Jon. ( quite imposible) You will also notice.. not only has Jon got thinner, he is also a lot smaller than the average man ( height wise that is!!)
These are really beautifull sculptures, in almost perfect condition despite being around 2000 years old (Jons in quite good condition too) We feel very lucky to have seen them.

Can you see Nic?? she is down there somewhere!! This is the entrance to a secret religious meeting place. İts over 2000 years old, (but everything is around here!)

We were brought to Şanliurfa by the belgian boys.. (who had been before) they soon convinced us to stay a night and showed us around the city.. What a beautiful place.. its a very important pilgrimage site.. these are just a few of the sacred fish.. in the main park there,s a maze of fresh spring fed lakes and rivers. Since the fish are sacred and fed!! they are thriving..

Gregoires face a week after the accident.. He was enjoying himself so much cycling down hill he thought he could fly!! A huge boulder at the side of the road abruptly brought him back to earth... There was blood everywhere and you should have seen his bike:: Luckily the bike was made from steel ( so repaired at the next town by a welder called Yusef.. he also signed the bike after the repair.) and Belgians have tough heads. Though he did get a trip to a Syrian hospital. Oh yes !!!! and they left us in the desert.. İn a sand storm... wıth NO FOOD!!!!

well actually Jons reknowned one pot cooking means he can create a meal out of camel dung and sand, wıth a hint of tumble weed. So we were alright..

These are the happy happy Spaniards.. We met them at the snow line on mount Nemrhut.. They were the only other people crazy enough to be up there. We had a 2.5 hr moon lit walk up to the summit and back, to look at the stone hats!! that was all that was sticking out of the snow.. the famous heads were well buried. we did see the ones on the eastern terrace though. The spanish however were sensible enough to have walked up there!! you can guess how we got there.. Notice the carpet in their tent! Say no more..

Bits and Bobs.....(Dead Sea bobs )

The Best Salesman İn Palmyre.....He,s a lovely fellow.It was,nt a good day for him.We tried to select more promising customers for him than ourselves (look.that one over there ....she,ll buy something )but there weren,t many tourists around.....and he,d already tried .Anyway.i have the smallest necklace for 100 syrian doodads that i bought out of respect for his efforts. We saw him all day ,putzing around diligently after tourists . He came back at the end ,to report on his sucesses. He told jon that the necklace was his only sale of the day !
The bike ıs an origional Honda CG 125... not one of the many Chinese reps... Although it has had some repair work done.. new barrel and a new flywheel side cover.. however almost all orıgional parts.. How about that!!!!

Taking a desert break. This was on the day where the tailwind got stronger and stronger until record time and distance equations were reached. Nic and me both got blown off the road a times!!

Hair washing.Keeping clean in the desert is not easy as water just isnt around.This leaking irrigation pipe was brilliant. Our other method is the: half a cup of hot water each method
which is what you do when you feel particularly dirty (as oppose to normal constant grime levels )and there is no water around or its too cold /you are too much of a wimp.!

Bobbing in the Dead Sea. Well.it certainly does look pretty and it feels like water but then your legs float up too quick and too far. Strange. It also tastes truly horrible.and you need to rinse it off after.At least we have done it now .

Jon in Damascus.Just to show that he,s not on a slimming diet...this is breakfast no 2.

As our camera can,t take photos our route map will have to wait until phil arrives with a new one. We are really enjoying being back in turkey again,,,it feels comfortably familiar,and its great to see the snowy mountains (Though it would be good if it does,nt rain as much as it is doing today)Tomorrow we hope to visit the famous heads at Nemrut Dag...then on towards Diyarbakir to get fat before phil arrives.

There.s a proper accident report that we need to do....not ours....but we need photographic evidence (gregouires stitched face )before we can tell you the gory details. Jon was brilliant with his first aid,......and it all ended happily ever after .but was a bit traumatic at the time....

We are hoping that the Ortaca school walls are looking fantastic now....can you email us a photo.

Adventures in Syria and Jordan continued.........

Jon and the Belgian boys. sheltering from the desert winds.. we had just arrived at Palmyra.. at last a tail wind. record speeds on the flat over 30kmh for what seemed like kilometers.. 140km in one day.
Just some more Syrian building projects
a spot of luxury thanks to Chez and Rob. After a hot shower in Chezs room in Madaba Jordan
Haneen Jamali helping Jon fix the wheel..(not that he needed or wanted any help)
Filah Jamali (Ahlen Beekum) in his best outfit (you will have to rotate your head cos we have not the talent to turn the picture arround)

We have had some real adventures in Syria and Jordan... howling gales....heavy heavy rain... sand stormes....boling heat...... Just about everything.. more than we thought... In the sand storm we were stuck in the tent for 36hrs..... but more on all of that when we get to Diyarbakir..(in a few days)
We arrived in Turkey yesterday, and are going to get rested before Phil gets out here. So on the next blog we will try to put a picture of our route so far in Arabia.. but camera is on its last legs (maybe no legs left)
Also we are now over 13000 km so far.. and alls well

People in Jordan

The famous Mijali family again!!! We have been back to visit our favorite Jordanian Family. This is a picture of Grand mother Mijali with her Grand children... Zaid, Yayeh, Salem, Hamza and Haneen. We had the best hospitality food friendship you could ever want.. Thanks again

Here is Ollie.. and his cricket bat.. which you cant quite see because it is on his rack.. he is cycling to Australia to watch the Ashes.. and playing cricket as much as he can on the way.. he says that the bat makes a good veg chopping board and a good dog walloper...

This picture should be of nic's camels face... but I made a mess of downloading it.. nic wanted to draw everyones attention to the beautiful eye brows that the camel had.. saying something about them being like mine!!! you can imagine why I made the mistake with the picture now!!

But this is a nice picture of nic walking round the 7 pillars of wisdom..

This is Roland.... Legiondary long distance cycle tourist.. taking a break to say hello to a cats! he has been doing this sort of thing for the last 15 years (cycling not the cat thing!!) but he should cut down on his smoking and buy a new frame for his bike!

Willi and Klaus.. Two of the kindest most helpful Dutch people you would ever like to meet. Willi's coffee is worth cycling the length of Jordan for.. Compared to them we are quite low life forms. I was realy taken by their van.. Toyota Landcruiser.. 6 cyl Diesel.. Freewheel hubs.. extra water tank built into the bumper.. hand built in Germany..(I could go on....)

We are now in Madaba going to spend the night on Chez's hotel room floor. (pure luxury for us) then heading towards Syria (remember... little internet!!)

p.s. the tail wind that we deserved (after head winds heading south) have never materialised on our northern leg!!! whats all that about?????????

Hope you are all well.....

just pictures from Wadi Rum

Camel ride

mountains!!!

Hungry camels

Sand dunes

7 pillars of wisdom.. ( no comments!!) good trek round the hills

Petra { indiana jones] and Wadi rum {lawrence of arabia}

they realy need to do some repair work on this one!!

You can just imagine Indiana riding up to this building

Petra in the background

Beautiful!! stripy rock rooms

The real Indiana Jones!!!! (found the hat)

After 2 days wandering all around Petra [theres lots to see there ] we cycled south to wadi rum. There jon was forced to do camel riding,as surely we will prob never have the opportunity again, and in such a place, As he made a suprisingly good indy we had to see if he could do lawrence as well. Our camels were small but comfy.! We were.nt allowed to do anything pacy on them ,but it was a good way to see the desert [better than roaring around in a jeep ]. There were lots of baby camels roaming around ,and bull camels can do this horrible thing with their tongues.....they have a special tongue bladder that they can inflate and then release air in a farting sort of way. No doubt its very clever, but even the female camels dont seem so impressed...... it looks like they are blowing bubblegum .

Once again the desert has let us down..{It did.nt ...it was better than i thought it would be....would like to go back there sometime and do more exploring] Its so bloody cold!! [ we did have one hot sunny day !] but we have had a great time out here. I have for the first time in my life been snorkeling in the sea above a reef with thousands of multi coloured fish all around me.. Amazing.. Sorry...first it was me nic writing ...then jon ,,,then i nic have annoyingly edited and interferred with jons creative spelling.!

We camped on the beach (or at least near the beach) with our freinds Willi and Klaus and their 4wd house on wheels. So its back up north again now. all allong the dead sea road.