Spare a thought for Bangkok

No blog update tonight in light of the devastation caused by a bomb in central Bangkok, where I am untimately headed. My thoughts are with those killed & injured and my friends & colleagues over there.

I will catch up with the blog tomorrow.

 

Rain & the Addams family hotel

Day 16 270 km (5955 km total)

Today was planned as a short run to get near to the Georgian border & also to enable a little local sightseeing. The stopping place tonight is Trabzon which is a major port for the region and was on the historical silk road between Europe & Asia where it was a trading gateway between Iran in the south east & the caucauses in the north east.

Unfortunately the weather forecast for rain today was accurate, within 30 minutes of leaving Unye it started and we had the works - thunder, lightening & torrential rain for most of the 4 hour run. So what might have been a pleasent coastal ride was a bit of a chore.

The weather may have affacted the locals too as they seemed far less freindly than I experienced in central Turkey. We stopped at a coffee shop at ine point to dry off a bitat one point and just couldnt get served, just grunts & being ignored, so we eventually gave up & left.

The hotel tonight is also best described as 'a bit of a dive' .

It is conveniently located on a dual carriageway (ie 10 feet back from the road) the other side of which is the local airport runway. When planes take off or land you can see their shadow pass over the building (and of course the noise is quite loud!)

The hotel staff are friendly enough but do remind me of the Adams family ...

There is Lurch behind reception

He greeted our arrival with a grim & resonant "HEEELLOO!" a tight lipped grimace & a facial twitch. He said the room would be ready in 5 minutes - which ended up being 1 1/2 hoirs later.

There was another guy who was something to do with the establishment just sitting in reception watching tv looking exactly like uncle fester

Initially there was just the two of them, makng various guttural noises to each other & nodding in our direction. They seemed friendly enough though.

Once in the room it was obvious that this was a smokers establishment, all the rooms unfortunately reeked of it and there are copious amounts of ash trays everywhere :-(

Luckily my room is right next to the fire escape, though I wouldnt fancy climbing down it into all that that debris.

We ventured into the empty dining room and had a local kebab dish which was perfectly acceptable, served, would you have it, by the spitting image of Gomez Addams

Not long after we had finished Uncle Fester came into the room, whereupon Gomez nipped out onto the street & came back with some kind of take away in a carrier bag & plated it up for him - all very weird.

By the time we left the dining room, there were several distant male Addams family members sitting in &around reception doing , well nothing really - it was like they were expecting something to happen, but no clue as tonwhat it might be. Anyway decided to call it a night & hope for a less rainy morning.

Off to the border & into Georgia tomorrow.

 

 

 

To the Black Sea Coast

Day 15 480 km (5685 km total)

Now on the Black Sea coast at a small town called Unye. The sea is not particularly black, more a dark grey and the town is rather uninspiring compared to the last two nights, but the guest house is pleasant enough.

 

I awoke at 5am this morning to the sound of a dog barking outside - I guessed what it might be so got up to take a couple of shots.

One of the activities that the area is famous for is hot air balloon rides....

They were popping up seemingly from every street corner

A pleasant, if somewhat early start to the day. First task after breakfast was to see if my passport had arrived. The previous homestay in Sapanca had forgotten to return it to me when I left - or I had forgotten to ask for it, depending on your perspective ;-)

Good to know that courier services work well over here too and even though it was a Saturday, a quick call to the local depot confirmed it was there and an hour's round trip with the hotel owner put it back in my possession. Phew! - back in schedule & another lesson learned.

So a later start than planned and a long run meant I didnt have time to divert & see one of the underground cities, so that will have to wait for the repeat visit I am sure to make one day.

So I set off north towards the Black Sea.

The lanscape for the first hour or so as I travelled through Cappadocia was stunning (but the same as yesterday so no more pictures I'm afraid). Then it became high plateau (about 1000-1200m) punctuated with these hills that looked like the tops could be removed!

Do far in this trip I had been using Mr Garmin's Europe map for navigation and found it pretty accurate. However today it cleary decided I needed a little more adventure and diverted me off perfectly acceptable roads onto this (which still showed up as a main highway on the satnav)

It looked like it was going to just cut a corner on the main highway, so I carried on - but 25km later, I was still on it.

Quite fun though, if a little dusty and good practce for what is to come in Uzbekistan I suspect.

After a while longer, it sure enough re-joined the main highway, where I was greeted with some nice twisty bits.

 

Basically the next 2 hours were full of twisty mountain roads as the route crossed a number of mountain ranges that cover central & coastal Turkey. At one pount I could see snow on the surrounding peaks as I crossed a particular pass - a sign informed me that this pass was 1650m high.

Eventually the road dropped down to the coast and I entered Unye by the back door, which was unfortunately closed due to road construction. It took 45 minutes to do the last 1km to the hotel, so once again I was hot & sticky by the time I finally arrived. Pleasant view from my room though.

Unye on the Black Sea coast.

Keeping a watcful eye on the bike below my room.

 

I had arranged to meet Russ here, a fellow traveller, who will be riding with me through into Russia & beyond. We both needed a drink & so headed out to find one. After an hour of searching it seems that Unye town centre is 'dry' - this was the best we could manage!

And something to soak it up of course ...

 

The hotel porter did direct us to a 'bar' just outside the town centre. This was an interesting experience, a dark internal bar, with blacked out windows & closed doors, full of heavily smoking locals & of course 2 weary travellers, for a little while anyway.

Along the coast to Trabzon tomorrow, forecast is rain.

 

Other worldly sights

Day 14 0 km (5205 km total) - well I walked about 10 km today, but I'm not counting that.

My first rest day since I left home in the UK, so not including today thats an average of 400 km per day (~250 miles) . I am about 25% of the way through my planned route in terms of distance, but only about 18% in terms of time, the reason being of course the roads after Turkey will become progerssively more challenging so journey times will increase.

The tent & camping gear is unlikely to come out again as its just too hot, although Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan & Kyrgystan are still possibilities if distances between towns prove to be too great.

The Tiger is running fine, tyres are wearing well and may still have life left by the time I get to Astrakhan in Russia which is where I hopefully have a fresh set waiting. I'll decide when I get there whether to change then or carry a set until needed.

I spent a while this morning doing domestics - its the first chance since I left home to do a proper clothes wash. Dont worry, everything important gets rinsed in shampoo each night before being re-used. Also gave the bike a quick check over, tighten up etc.

 

Then it was off out to explore - on foot. .....

I turned away from the main tourist trail & decided to go off-piste. The lanscape round here is unbelievable, with houses carved into the soft volcanic rock being 'de rigeur'.

The area is a UNESCO world heritage site, who say,

"A spectacular landscape, entirely sculpted by erosion, the Göreme valley and its surroundings contain rock-hewn sanctuaries that provide unique evidence of Byzantine art in the post-Iconoclastic period. Dwellings, troglodyte villages and underground towns – the remains of a traditional human habitat dating back to the 4th century – can also be seen there."

All I could say as I worked my way along the narrow sandy trails was ... Wow!

So of course the selfie stick had to come out :-)

Pretty flowers with lethat spiky bits that get stuck in your shoes and legs.

 

 

Close up of a cave dwelling

And a small church carved into the rock

This one had two floors inside, I've posted a short video onto the facebook page

I sort of got a bit lost by this point, but was emjoying myself too much to care. Lucky I had a camelback full of water as it was rather hot!

They had carved steps at this one so you could access the back door.

 

The landscape is punctuated by valleys ... With handsome young men using them as a bacdrop whilst taking selfies ;-)

There was more sights round every turn

This one was still occupied

Back down to the town, many of the houses & hostels (including mine) make use of cave houses for some of the rooms.

 

 

 

Apparently some of the star wars scenes were filmed in the area, so I might go out in my bike gear later & pose as a stormtrooper!

Evening update -

Strolled into the village for some tea, here's a photo of my pad

And one of a shop selling interesting car covers ...

 

And this evenings meal at a lovely family local place i found just out of the village,

 

The traditional bikers starter!

Starter of lentil soup, warm olive bead & a yoghurt, garlic mint & chilli dip

Main course of lamb stew, salad & rice - very tasty ...

Good night ...

 

 

 

 

A long haul, another problem & silver linings.

Day 13 - 615 km (total 5205 km)

They say trouble comes in 3's , and also that 13 is an unlucky number, so I guess I shouldn't really have been surprised when something else happened - i didn't find out what it was though until I stopped for the night.

A nice breakfast to start the day in the garden of the little pension I was staying in ...

I then suveyed the road wondering whether to go left (the way I had come in) or right which promised to be shorter, but surface unknown.

 

I opted for the new shorter route & hoped it would only be no worse than this. Wrong!

About 100m down the hill, the road curved sharply right and suddently became a lot steeper - back in 1:3 territory. No backing out now though, it wasnt wide enough to turn around and even at the 4-5 mph I was doing, the ABS kept kicking in as the back wheel locked and I started to slide. Then I saw a hairpin bend ahead, covered in loose sand. I gently bought the bike to a halt, put my feet down, but it immediately slid another 18inches or so - scary stuff.

I remembered my off road training from Richard Jeynes at trailquest - a plan of action was needed as this corner had to be done in one go with no opportunity to adjust mid turn.

I couldnt move from where I was to walk the route (as we had done in the training) but studied the angles, bends and ruts that I could see & imagined what would be around the other half of the hairpin.

I fully expected to go down again and took this into account in the route so I would be in a relatively safe place when it happened and unlikely to go over the edge. I picked my line & there was nothing left but to go for it.

The tiger immediately started to pick up speed, which I tried to control with the back brake, sending the SBS stuttering as it fought to keep grip, Luckily my chosen rut & line did what I expected around the bend and a few seconds later I was round - only to see what was coming along next.

The track continued down steeply and in a straight line but then joined another road on the apex of its hairpin. The other road looked to be free of sand & so the issue was going to be if any traffic came round whilst I was approaching and I had to stop, which I wouldnt be able to. I figured though, by the time I was 20 feet or so away, I would be able to see any cars & decide either to put on the power & get there before they did, or unceremonoiusly drop the bike to avoid sliding into them.

Anyway, nothing came & I continued the jittery slide down until I felt the tyres bite on solid ground - phew!

The whole episode took no more than 15 minutes, but left so much adrenaline coursing round my veins, Ihardly noticed the next 2 hours on the toll road at all.

The road between Sapanca & Ankara was quite pleasant in parts, with views like this

 

After Ankara the lanscape changed to wide open plains or plateaus to be more precise. I didnt realise until I noticed it was a bit cooler and checked the sat nav, that it was beween 1200-1600m high (thats higher than any of the mountains in the UK) and it just went on and on and on ...

 

At one point I saw what looked like a white lake ... You can see it on the horizen just to the right of the telegraph pole in this picture

As I got closer I saw that it was salt flats, there was still water in the centre of the lake ..

 

And there was the salt bagging facility. It was a big lake & took nearly an hour to get past it.

I have since found out that Its actually called Lake Tuz and is one of the largest hypersaline lakes in the world at 80km long with a total area of 1665 sq km and an altitude of 905m - so there you go!

 

 

Excitement over, the flat plains continued for another hour or so, until I reached Aksary which marked the turning point east to Goreme.

I faithfully followed the sat nav towards my next homestay, entering a picturesque village

It then took me round lots of tiny toads paved with slippery cobbles :-(

 

The place wasnt where it was supposed to be, so after a couple of circuits, I stopped & asked only to be told its in the next village about 15km away! It seems that the Garmin entry has the correct name, street & telephone number, but in the worng village with the wrong coordinates! Found it easily once that was sorted out.

So I went to check in, only to realise with horror that the owner at the previous homestay had not given me my passport back - oh bugger!

Well I wasnt about to ride the 8 hours back to get it & so a different solution was required. The host here very helpfully tried to sort it out, & came back later this evening to say it would be here the day after tomorrow, which if it is will be fine as I had planned to stay here 2 nights anyway.

Tomorrow is my first rest day after 13 continuous days on the road - whopee!

The day ended nicely when my host invited me to join his family for goergeous traditional dinner in their home, lovely.

So if you believe that trouble comes in 3's and 13 is an unluck number, then you also have to believe that every cloud has a silver lining. :-)

Night all.