TigertoThailand & elsewhere: Into Asia & a slide in the sand

Day 12 405 km (4590 km total)

Two Tiger naps now, the previous one in the first 30 minutes of the day, this one in the last 30 minutes - both whilst virtually stationary! At least this one was on technically challenging terrain! Details later.

Nice start to the day at Guest House Thrassa, had a long chat both with the lovely lady owner Sophia, who was very interested in my travels and having lived in Turkey, gave me some good suggestions for the next couple of days.

It was a short 15km to the border where everything went rather smoothly actually, all in all took about 30 minutes, one of the fastest real borders yet. Then I was in Turkey - phew, because if I had turned right out of the guest house instead of left I would have been in Bulgaria!

The road pretty soon becomes a toll road, only they have a different system in Turkey. Toll booths are unmanned & automatic - you have to buy a subscription card which goes on your windscreen & then whenyou pass through a toll gate it debits your account. I assume there is an RFID chip in the card or something.

The only problem is the first toll booth you encounter on entering the country from Greece, warns you of this but does not give you anywhere to get said subscription. So you just ride through anyway smiling as the lights flash red, siren sound, fireworks are set off and your picture is taken and work out what to do later.

In my case I did this whilst savouring my first Turkish coffee at a roadside coffee shop - boy is that stuff strong! Nice though, just never sure if you're supposed to drink the mud thats left at the bottom of the cup though - ah well in for a penny as they say! .... Must remember to get some more enamel put on my teeth when I get home!

As I was quietly munching away at my coffee grinds, two burley police biker cops walked over & started looking at my bike & then at me - so I saunterd over, trying to look cool in a sort of Robert DeNiro way, though I suspect it was more of a Buzz Lightyear image, given all my clobber. The biker cops by the way were just wearing tight short sleeved dark T shirts , tight black leather trousers boots & shades - so it was a sort of Toy Story meets the Village People encounter!

Anyway, they were just interested in the bike & trip, so I asked how the toll thing works, seeing as I had been on it for 2 hours and hadnt paid anything yet.

They just said "pay at PTT" ..... Well I had told them I was going to Thailand, but suspected they probably didn't mean at a PTT petrol station, which is where I always used to stop for a fill up & cappuccino at Cafe Amazon. So I just set off again towards Istanbul.

A bit further on however, I saw what they meant

The yellow sign says PTT, and this one was just nefore the next toll station - so in I went.

For anyone who is interested what you need is your passport, vehicle log book and 35 TL. This gets you a sticker (with the data tag) to put on your windscreen credited with 30TL I think. Then when you drive past the toll gates you get a green light and a message to say how much credit you have left or how much they have just taken - not sure which.

You can see the yellow sticker in this next shot just below the triumph world record sticker i got a couple of weeks ago.

Once thorugh the next toll gate I encountered the Istanbul traffic which stayed with me for the next hour, no major hold ups though & no worse than Bangkok really.

Before you know it there was the bridge connecting European Turkey to Asian Turkey

There is a little sign just at the end of the bridge that says "Welcome to Asia" unfortunately I wasn't quite quick enough with the camera to get it & wasnt about to go round again.

The toll road runs along the cost for a while, which is pleasant in places but very industrial in others.

Apart from that it is not particularly scenic until you are well out of the Istanbul area.

I was haeading for Sapanca.

Off the toll road the village roads were more basic, but not far to go ...

My Garmin toLd me to turn up this local road which began ascending rather steeply

And was in the process of being repaired or something

Lots of awkward angles in tight corners

And cobbles!

Missing surfaces

Had a few hairy moments on these, but then it finally happened, on a particularly steep & tight hairpin bend With my side of the road blocked by builders debris & sand all over the road. A car came round the corner just as I got there, so I had to stop & as he came past I felt the bike start to slide backwards on the sand - with both brakes on!

I was quickly losing balance, tried to put some power on to get out of it but too late - down we went, the bike with a crunch & I slid backwards a yard or too down the slope. Oh Bugger!

Panniers & barkbusters saved the bike from any damage. A couple of the workmen came off the roadworks & helped me get her back up & then tried to tell me of an easier way to get up the mountain - yeh right!