Now I knew Turkey would be the start of the 'expensive bit' of my trip and this was initially confirmed by the $50 compulsory insurance and the $20 visa fees at the border. They didn't seem the most terribly efficient lot I have to say. I found the chief by accident in his room, feet up on the desk watching TV as I wandered around the building trying to find someone who might want to stamp my passport. I immediately got bumped over to another office with a man and a woman busily eating apples but who turned out they would deal with the passport and visa stuff. Then I was bumped off to several other offices to get the bike temp import docs sorted. After nearly a couple of hours I was free to head off in to Turkey.
I have to say that after the dryness of the Iran countryside, the road from the Sero border to Van was just stunning. Lovely rolling hills, winding rivers and green trees all added up to a great ride though the Kurdish kids flinging stones at me brought me back down to earth fairly quickly. I decided to try and camp somewhere outside Van and stopped at dusk in Edrimir at a place which called its self a 'camping restaurant'. Only in Turkey you see a lot of signs like that and they just look at you like you're mad when you ask about the camping as they are just resaurants with tables outside. Fortunately this one let me pitch my tent in their grounds for free and even had some fresh warm bread I could have with one of my (several) tins of baked beans. And beer. Yes, its been a very long time since I could enjoy a beer at the end of the day and now I was in Turkey, I was going to make sure I wouldn't neglect my oldest friend for that long again! The guys running the restaurant were really great fun too and we sat round the table drinking tea later on that night and did our best to communicate with each other where I learned that Mr Ataturk was not overly popular with the Kurdish population of Turkey.
After Iran, the price of petrol elsewhere was always going to be a shock but especially so in Turkey. At 3.3TYL per litre, that amounts to about 1.50GBP a litre. That is expensive petrol but at least the octane rating is good as the stuff in Iran wasn't the best quality and although it was cheap, I was getting around 80kms less per tank than normal. The following day, I had to fill up twice which cost the equivalent of 50GBPs. Thats for fuel alone, no accommodation or food. So that was it. I was free camping again tonight and eating beans again so it was just as well I found a remote but ver pretty spot by a lake that night. I first tried one of the cans of tuna only to find it tasted rank so at least I could off load a few pounds from my bounty of tinned goods.
Next I headed to Gorome in the Cappadocia where Kaya Camping has a really great outlook over the rock formations and even better, its own swimming pool. For the next 3 days and 4 nights, I rode around the area, getting up at sunrise to watch about 20 hot air balloons rise over the rocks in front of the campsite, swimming, relaxing and enjoying meeting the other overlanders there. Thomas from Germany arrived on his massive BMW1150GS fitted with the Touratech 40L tank heading to Syria and there are 3 Italian riders heading to Iran plus several overlanders of the 4 wheeled variety. As Thomas was heading south the same as me, we rode together down to the Med coast and bid each other farewell as he turned left to Syria and myself, right to the tourist trap known as the Turkish Mediteranian coast.
I have to say that after the dryness of the Iran countryside, the road from the Sero border to Van was just stunning. Lovely rolling hills, winding rivers and green trees all added up to a great ride though the Kurdish kids flinging stones at me brought me back down to earth fairly quickly. I decided to try and camp somewhere outside Van and stopped at dusk in Edrimir at a place which called its self a 'camping restaurant'. Only in Turkey you see a lot of signs like that and they just look at you like you're mad when you ask about the camping as they are just resaurants with tables outside. Fortunately this one let me pitch my tent in their grounds for free and even had some fresh warm bread I could have with one of my (several) tins of baked beans. And beer. Yes, its been a very long time since I could enjoy a beer at the end of the day and now I was in Turkey, I was going to make sure I wouldn't neglect my oldest friend for that long again! The guys running the restaurant were really great fun too and we sat round the table drinking tea later on that night and did our best to communicate with each other where I learned that Mr Ataturk was not overly popular with the Kurdish population of Turkey.
After Iran, the price of petrol elsewhere was always going to be a shock but especially so in Turkey. At 3.3TYL per litre, that amounts to about 1.50GBP a litre. That is expensive petrol but at least the octane rating is good as the stuff in Iran wasn't the best quality and although it was cheap, I was getting around 80kms less per tank than normal. The following day, I had to fill up twice which cost the equivalent of 50GBPs. Thats for fuel alone, no accommodation or food. So that was it. I was free camping again tonight and eating beans again so it was just as well I found a remote but ver pretty spot by a lake that night. I first tried one of the cans of tuna only to find it tasted rank so at least I could off load a few pounds from my bounty of tinned goods.
Next I headed to Gorome in the Cappadocia where Kaya Camping has a really great outlook over the rock formations and even better, its own swimming pool. For the next 3 days and 4 nights, I rode around the area, getting up at sunrise to watch about 20 hot air balloons rise over the rocks in front of the campsite, swimming, relaxing and enjoying meeting the other overlanders there. Thomas from Germany arrived on his massive BMW1150GS fitted with the Touratech 40L tank heading to Syria and there are 3 Italian riders heading to Iran plus several overlanders of the 4 wheeled variety. As Thomas was heading south the same as me, we rode together down to the Med coast and bid each other farewell as he turned left to Syria and myself, right to the tourist trap known as the Turkish Mediteranian coast.
Mmmm, oh yeah. High rises, over development, bill boards and crappy restaurants- it's all here. I only came this way because I wanted to see the sea again for the first time since Thailand. I wasn't overly excited by this part of the trip but did stop by Olympos to see the ruins and then headed to Selcuk where I seemed to land on my feet again, getting well fed and entertained by a UK caravan couple in the campsite plus even had dinner with an Anglican Priest who insited on paying for my beers! The Lord does indeed move in mysterious ways! The ruins at Ephesus were worth looking at too but unfortunately the whole site seemed to be overrun by Saga-louts on tour.
My intention had been to take the ferry to Athens from Turkey but at around 130Euros for the ticket, I decided to head up to Gallipoli and cross to Greece from there instead. As is the way with most former battle sites, Gallipoli was very interesting to see for your own eyes and to try and get a bit of an idea of what happened here all those years ago.
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