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.

Mainly Pictures......

Jon relaxing in the "womens only" pool... Very hot spring
The wadi at DARA..
The best camp site on the kings road
This is Hubz.... Arabic bread
Another one of the Majalia family... Mum Sumai, Sons Zaid 15, Yahe 13, Salem 10, Hamsi 5, and youngest daughter Haneen 4.....


This should be the second post but what the hell who cares which way round they are.. They all get mixed up in the big picture... So read the next post for the story...news event etc.... Nic is on the e mail at the moment (using her one finger.. I think the others are exhausted from cycling??) But she is getting better.. as some of you who have used internet cafes before will know... most of the keys letters have been warn off with time.. (thats my excuse for all the spelling mistakes!!) and she is getting on quite well.. Still having loads of fun out here.. but cant wait to go back north with the wind behinde us.....I am waiting for this steam powered computer to upload the pictures.. so bear with my whittering... we hope to camp here tonight as the visit to to Petra will be the most expensive thing we have done on the whole trip.. 30 squid each!!!! but for the chance to be Indiana Jones for the day .. Its worth it...
Nic has told me to stop this whittering and wish you all a happy new year!!!
So HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!
Oh saw a nice catapiller today...
Forgot to say about the tractors..... This is where all of the Fordson Majors are.. Hundreds of them.. all still running.. fantastic.. Quite a few MF 165's and not much else...
But the roads are covered with old Mercedes bull nosed trucks...
Oh time to go...

syria and jordan

The Mijali Family.. Saved us from being blown into the desert!!
Had a bit of a hang over this day!!... that non alcoholic beer can get to you after a few weeks on the road!!
Saying good bye after the 2 nights in the monestary.. Mainly french speaking (couldnt understand a word) Typical Syrian desert weather...cold,wet and impoddibly nuddy off road.
The Monestary at dawn..(I was the only one tomanage to get up in time for it)
This is what the Syrian kids do instead of school!!! After scrambling up the really steep sides they slide down on their arses and become human pinballs off the stone bollards in the lower section!


sorry for recentbreak in transmission,but internet rare here in these araby countries. Been having lots of adventures though,;hard to know where to start.Backwards is easier for the aged memory !
InPetra in jordan now...been a bit of a battle against constant headwind to get here.Can only hope it carries on so that going back north will be a doodle. Have not had any easy cyling since leaving turkey !After here hoping to go to wadi rum,then to sea near aqaba for snorkeling......ha ha...then plan to get blown back north by dead sea.!(watch lawrence of arabia for general background!).
shall leave jon to relate adventures...interesting nights spent in strange places. (our guardian angels have been working very hard to make things always turn out for the best !]
We keep on finding interesting places to stay.. sometimes they are found for us!!
First there was the Monestary in the mountains of syria.. we heard that it was free to stay (how could we turn thet offer down?) We arrived with our new cycling freinds Davide and Latica.. two cyclists from Switserland who we met a few days before. The place was fantastic and we were lucky to see rain in the desert!! (flooding etc!!)
The next was when we had been cycling through a military zone all day....whe we asked about camping.. we were sent to the police...Problem!!!!... they didnt really want anything to do with us so off to the Army... Problem!!.. but they didnt really want anything todo with us.. so off tho the Mosque.. No Problem.. and a good night
Got into Jordan ok.. and the weather was better b(thank god) warmer and less windy.. We were enjoying the scenery and making good progress south untill the end of our 2nd full day.. the wind was picking up and we had been warned of rain and the possibility of snow..
In the end we had a desperate camp on the side of the road.. building walls arround the tent.. waiting for it to blow down... Then there was a crash on the road!! a pick up drove into a pile of gravel.... all ok but a bit of a fuss.. we were stuck in the tent holding it up!!
The car was moved and all went quiet (except for the wind) untill 10 mins later when there was a constant beep beep beep from the road... Oh no, we thought,, we have been found!! Go out Jon and see what they want.. Out I go and there is an Arab man in a car with hid wife... come with us.. come with us...etc.. no way out.... so down with the tent and off to the Mijali Family house... food.. warmth..and a safe place to sleep...
They were the most fantastic people.. met most of the family.. They didnt want us to go.. "stay another day!!" so we will see them on the way back north..
We think someone is looking after us...
Any way.... as nic said we are at Petra now.. so I will have to do my best Indiana Jones impression, get my whip out anf find the treasure here.....