Saturday 26 May 2012

We're in Asia

 Left Istanbul predictably late, and were taken to the ferry by Hadi from the Club. They were so nice to us and it was sad to leave, but it was definitely time to move on, so we did. Bikes have a few simple mods, like the spokes being cable tied together for strength.

 It was weird being on a ferry to Asia , especially as we are still in the same country, but that's what happens here. Turkey is the same place  but straddles two landmasses.

 How do these things get worked  out like that in the first place? But a short trip across the Bosphorus and we were on the same continent as a our final destination. Still got alot of kms to go though - about 16000 of them.

The traffic thinned as we left Istanbul and the driving got better - marginally. Bashed the motorways today to pack in some miles  but the weather wasn't great. Low cloud and cool, and we eventually got quite cold and sleepy so stopped for lunch at a truck stop.

The lovely man there was so sweet. Not a word of English and we only had to words of Turkish - please and thank you - which are not that helpful without the bits in between. But somehow we ate well and he insisted on bringing everything to the table for us.

Got  pulled over by the police again today but sent on our way almost immediately when they realised we were two foreign women,. Not sure if it was the foreign or the women bit that saved us, but we were off like two scalded cats before they changed their minds.

We also met some really cool people in petrol; stations today. Workmen in trucks and petrol station staff, all of whom wanted to chat to us about bikes, where we'd come from, where we were going, and what we did when not riding bikes. Nice people, all of them, and they all wanted to buys us teas and coffees which we had to decline as we would never have got anywhere. these blokes were all called Mustapha and gave us a souvenir towel each, with the name of their petrol station printed on them.

 In reality though, we stopped short of where we were aiming for anyway because we were both very tired and agreed to stop riding as near to 1800hrs as possible. But we stopped a just before that because we were riding towards the mountains and a rain storm.

So we're now in a nice hotel in  Dozce and have resolved to get up and out early tomorrow to make up the lost miles. Maybe.