India (part 1 )

Yes, I am still alive  and still pedalling. As you can gather It has taken me some considerable time to gather my thoughts on India. Now several  weeks after leaving there, I guess I’m finally in a position to try and make sense of the place, or at least my feelings towards it. I have decided to write this account in two parts, since I really feel that, for me there were two parts to my journey through India, the first month and a half  in the North of India. I could not help but to view my experiences through the sensitive eyes of a westerner, ones used to the law and order and politeness of the  european world. As a result  I found myself constantly ill at ease with frustration and shocked by some of the indignant if not awful  spectacles I  witnessed, During this time I absolutely  loathed the place  and on many occasion came close to calling it a day.  However, I am so glad that I did not, for in time it gave me the chance to finally understand a little of  the place, and to learn to accept  some of what  was alien to my sensitivities and with a new perspective, finally begin to understand and at times, enjoy all that is special about India.

I arrived at New Delhi airport early in the evening, tired after a cramped flight and a sleepless previous night on the floor of Dubai airport departure lounge. I had been inwardly quite nervous of what to expect on landing in India, Delhi’s reputation had preceded it and I was pleasantly surprised as the arrivals lounge was virtually empty, no problems with my baggage or bike , i looked around the empty arrivals lounge and spotted an Indian equivalent of  Starrbucks, next to it was an ATM where i drew money with no problem, then sat and had a leisurely coffee, smugly wondering to myself , why all the fuss about India being chaotic. I had pre booked a cheap hotel and found my way to the pre-paid taxi kiosk where, after a bit of haggling, secured my transport for the trip downtown and was told to find the taxi on the right side after exiting the terminal.

 It was like being hit by a tsunami when the airport terminal doors closed behind me. The heat ,the noise,the smell, the bustle. there i was trying to fight my way through a sea of people dragging a trolley with a boxed bike and all my panniers behind me, after a sweaty and aggressive dash I found myself stood in front of a heavily dented shiny green taxi which seemed more at home in a 1950′s film, there were no plastic parts to this beast just lots of chrome and steel. My boxed bike was hastily thrown on top and secured by string ,the panniers dropped in the vast boot and I on the heavily sprung front leather bench seat next to the driver. As is common with all men in India the driver sported a large bushy moustache, though he could not have been more that 19 , the whole of the ensuing 45 minute drive to my hotel was spent bouncing around on the leather seat and rebuffing the drivers attempts to extort more money out of me. I had already paid for the taxi , now the driver, whose only command of the english language seemed to revolve around wealth management,  insisted that he wanted extra for having the bike on the top of the car, and that i would have to fork out for the cost of the string securing it ,which was 60 rupees. This was my first experience of the practice of extorting money from the foreigner, a practice which continued incessantly without shame  throughout my time in India, and which left me feeling at times utterly dejected and lonely, it often seemed that  i was only engaged with and valued as a source of money by the Indians, after my wonderful experiences with the hospitality of the Iranian people it was just such a shock to me and was making me so guarded and aggressive which i hated. I lost count of the number of times I opened myself to people in India mistaking  the connivance to con for an open hand of friendship. On one occasion a guy spent  hours one morning befriending me whilst we watched some local lads play cricket. I visited his shop the next day and had a drink with him and he told me of the history of the town we were in, and i genuinely took things at face value with him and was grateful for his friendship and hospitality. However eventually his true motive surfaced as he began to tell me that he had some precious stones and that i could make lots of money by buying them off him without paying any duty and then selling them on  to a friend that he has in the UK. etc. etc. Politely i told him where he could shove his precious stones and having once again my faith in mankind diminished went on my merry way. there were hundreds and hundreds of attempts at trying to take me for a ride, many of them very petty and minor but the accumulative effect on me was quite awful and I began to find it hard to engage with anyone or be civil, at worst it made me quite aggressive and dismissive of people. In Jaipur I had actually twice had people stop the rickshaw and taxis that i was  in and climb in beside me, effectively  hijacking the vehicle and trying to  sell me their services as guides or make me visit their shop, In Bangalore I had strong words with a number of taxi drivers who instead of dropping me off at my destination, dropped me at relatives shops for a look round first, miles out of my way. But for me the most infuriating were the street touts in Jaipur, it took me some time to become wise to their methods, but the psychology of it is amazing , it starts with some one you pass in the street engaging you jovially with an innocuous question. ” Hi, excuse me , can you help me”  to which, being a polite foreigner you of course ask what the problem is.The tout will then ask you ,”Can you tell me why, when i talk to foreigners who visit Jaipur they are always rude to me, when i only just want to talk with them and practice my english” or words to that effect, brilliant , they have you feeling bad about yourself, you are totally disarmed and they can then get you to go for a chat with them over a coffee which is usually in their shop, where the hard sell can take place. In Jaipur I kid you not, if you walk down through the walled city you will be asked this question perhaps 20 times in a bid to lure you in.  Initially i just ignored the touts but at times they became quite aggressive and rude, one guy followed me down a street shouting out how rude he thought i was, for not talking to him, and saying that in India people weren’t rude and that I shouldn’t come to India if i wasnt willing to have manners and talk to the locals. I really lost my rag and ended up having a slanging match in the middle of the street with him, I was shouting out “do you know me , ? have we met before? In my country we don’t talk like that to people we don’t know” eventually I ended up grabbing him by the collar and physically threatening him, yes it got that bad, though unfortunately this wasnt the last time in India, where the need for  physical force was called upon.

Eventually the taxi arrived and deposited me outside my hotel  in  New Delhi, I refused the drivers offer to carry my bags into the hotel as I feared a cost implication and thanked him giving him a smaller tip than he obviously expected . On checking in I was informed that the cost of the room had increased, since i had booked (another common con) In my naivety I assented to pay and hurriedly made my way up in the lift and crashed out in the rather modest room which certainly didn’t resemble the one advertised on the internet.

My first morning in India was wonderful, The hotel was situated in the heart of the bustling Grand Bazaar only a couple of hundred yards away from the New Delhi railway station.I felt like Mr Ben as  I walked out of the hotel into a dazzlingly sunny morning straight into the narrow bustling street market I was surrounded by a me lay of vibrant colours and exotic smells as the traders shouted and pushed their wares, the street was lined with shops and barrows selling all manner of  goods – sunglassess, luggage, shoes, spices,strange  fruit,  great woks hissed and spat as pakoras and samosas were cooked, and brightly coloured  scarves and silks fluttered in the sunny breeze outside the shop fronts. The odd cow could be seen wandering unperturbed between the mass of  people , mopeds smoked and buzzed about like bees somehow avoiding legs and cows, and rickshaws were pedaled with skill through narrow gaps in the crowd, the whole spectacle was accompanied by a symphony of sound as traders shouted, mopeds beeped, rickshaw drivers rang  bells, crows squawked and the crowd murmured as one. As I walked on  one thought kept entering my mind “how the hell am I going to cycle through this lot”. As i neared  the end of  Grand bazaar street ,directly in front i could  see New Delhi train station and the wall either side of the entrance looked like some bizarre re-enactment of the wailing wall in Jerusalem. Suddenly it dawned upon me, it was in fact lined with men urinating against the wall. in the heat of the morning the smell suddenly hit me, that smell of urine stayed with me throughout my time in Delhi it was everywhere and quite common in most of the other towns I visited in india. quite literally the streets were flowing with urine, you could be quite sure that on almost any wall in any town in india there will be seen a stream of urine flowing from it to the roadside gutter next to it , it’s quite simply where indian men go to urinate . I decided to spend a week in Delhi as I felt there would be plenty to see and I would need to acclimatize to the culture shock before venturing out into the surrounding countryside and roads, In reality I could bare no more than 3 days there, the air pollution was making me feel terrible, it really was awful and the pure volume of people in the place was adding its own problems to my sensitivities, everyone I seemed to pass in the street would hold out their hand and demand “rupees”. not just beggars i may add , but schoolchildren and quite plump affluent looking people . The infrastructure in Delhi as with most of India appeared to be crumbling, the paths and roads were a minefield of holes and obstacles, the electricity supply would constantly be failing and by far the biggest problem  was the lack of a refuse collection system, which basically meant rubbish was just dumped anywhere, again this is common throughout India. The only system that is apparent with regards to refuse , is that the underclass will sift through it for anything of any value, what they don’t take is left to the cows and pigs to eat not forgetting the packs of wild dogs, nor the rats and crows, then after that what is left is once in a while splashed with petrol and burnt to add to the already choking atmosphere of one of the most polluted cities on earth. I have one word to describe Delhi “filthy”. I could find solace in only one place there, at the Red Fort, where on entry all of the  noise and filth of the overcrowded city is replaced by the serenity of great open spaces of lush green lawns overlooked by stunning domed pavilions and immense blue skies, where great birds of prey circle. This is the India I had imagined, of Kippling and the Raj. It was so beautiful there, walking alongside the great ponds and watching the  chipmunks dart along the boughs of great Banyan trees and peacocks strutting  proudly .  On leaving  and returning into the horror of downtown Delhi I knew I had to get back on my bike ASAP. 

Leaving Delhi by bike wasnt as bad as I had envisioned, yes it was busy and choking  but with such volumes of traffic, speeds are generally slow and any knocks and bumps are pretty harmless. The further I went the happier I became. The traffic was thinning and the roads were in pretty good condition, once out of the city and fully on the highway to Agra , I was quite amazed by how good the road was. certainly better than I had expected . In fact I must say that most of the larger highways that I travelled in India were pretty good, with big hard shoulders that could be hurtled along being pretty flat and with even Tarmac. But india being a land of extremes, it would be prudent to mention that some of the minor roads I travelled upon were absolutely terrible and in the end I had to start avoiding them for fear of ending up lost or worse.  The highways were great and a joy to cycle down, the only problem was that they had to be shared with other people and for that  in India you really had to have your wits about you.

In India there are laws governing driving , however there appears to be no one enforcing them. Take for instance  which side of the road to drive on. In India, as in England they drive on the left, however this does not appear to be a hard and fast rule. I have encountered hundreds of vehicles heading towards me along the hard shoulder on the wrong side of the road. To have buses and motorbikes heading at you in the same lane as you are  in is quite unnerving, and being at the bottom of the pecking order usually results in we, the cyclist taking the evasive action. At times it was petrifying and very, very annoying. In fact the traffic on the Indian highways was quite amazing . Whatever could be kicked ,dragged, ridden ,driven, wheeled, pushed,pulled,or rolled along a road would  be met , and not always travelling on the right side of the road. Some were very comical like the two guys  and 4 sheep that passed me on a 50cc moped or the car with a camel somehow carried on its roof rack . Some were downright dangerous,  like the jeep taxis with 10s of people clinging onto their roofs for dear life or the herds of  goats and occasional cows that meander slowly  down the fast lane. Some of the trucks that passed me were so overloaded that they looked ready to topple at any sharp bend, in fact I did pass many daily, lying on their sides their contents spilled on the road. The majority of the vehicles that trundled along the roads looked unroadworthy, most of the oxen pulled carts looked about to lose a wheel, most of the trucks sounded like their engines were gonna blow however their drivers were unaware as they played music at a deafening volume in their cabs and would also cram them full with fee paying local hitchhikers. By far  the most uncommon vehicle on the road appeared to be the car, for everyone of which there appeared to exist at least  100 badly maintained trucks 20 herds of livestock be it camels , goats cows or ducks, 50 motorised  rickshaws ,  buses and  mopeds,  and 100 cycles not forgetting the more obscure traffic such as men rolling concrete pipe sections or dragging bundles of sugarcane. On one occasion I came hurtling around the corner on a dual carriageway alongside a truck only to find that a farmer had commandeered a whole 100 metre stretch of the fast lane to dry his crop of chillies upon.

 I  did however really love my time in India cycling along these roads, it was  a fabulous experience, gliding past the beautiful villages with their colourful inhabitants, the great farming landscapes dotted with women working the plush green fields  in vibrantly coloured saris, through deserts, jungles, forests, past exotic plantations of bananas and mangos and old ruined temples, climbing great ghats in the heat of the day and passing scores of adolescents playing cricket on all available pieces of sun parched flat land . My days were only marred by the daily grind of having to enter yet another filthy and crowded town in search of accommodation. These towns were really terrible in the north of India, as they were approached the road would seem to bottleneck with traffic and the smell of traffic fumes and other unsavoury aromas would hit you, along with the noise and the unsightly piles of rubbish being grazed by pigs.  Men stood urinating against walls and people shouted “rupees” at you. In the early mornings when departing these holes I was often confronted with the sight and smell of dozens of  people defecating on the sides of the roads  and though i was only to glad to be leaving  the towns, to be fair most of the accommodation in them was welcome  and  though basic was pretty good and cheap. I only stayed in one nightmare lodge where, when switching the lights on in the middle of the night, to my horror found the floor littered with cockroaches and  myself and the bed in bedbugs, they scuttled away with the lights on and I was happy to sleep with the lights  on until a power cut an hour later  made the rest of the evening a very  uncomfortable one. By far   the biggest problem with any of the accommodation in the towns was the noise. it is unrelenting ,the beeps of horns at all hours, music blaring from shops and most annoyingly the other guests who seem to think  absolutely nothing of standing outside your room shouting and singing or holding loud conversations for hours on end, this seemed to happen in almost everyplace I stayed, if you ever go to India do take earplugs, you’ll need them. One of my biggest concerns about finding suitable accommodation was that my bike would be safe, In most countries I have been happy to leave the bike locked up in the hotel lobby where the desk staff usually keep an eye on it for me. In India this didn’t seem to be the best option as when i tried this I was kept awake all night by the sound of someone ringing my bicycle bell and in the morning i would find  all  my gears  tampered with and on more than one occasion the gear cables stretched, The problem is the Indians just can’t help themselves, they look with their hands, it’s not done with any malice it’s just what they do, even if you are sitting on your bike stopped at traffic lights, someone will start playing with your bell or flicking your gears, it really is infuriating but to them natural.  So I had to start convincing hotel staff that i must keep my bike in the room with me, and started inventing strange stories about having already had a bike stolen in Bulgaria , this seemed to be a quite successful rue in allowing for safe storage in my room and happily I believe as a result, still have my bike in one piece. 

As for the food in Northern India, it was sublime. I was in vegetarian  heaven, I tried everything I could, at lunchtime the roadside snacks of Pakoras and samosas in the evenings great feasts in restaurants of thalis, curries, and all manner of breads, pickles and dahls. it was great though one could not help but think,  that one was constantly engaged in a dangerous game of russian roulette as the hygiene standards were absolutely appalling and on a  couple of occasions  I indeed  lost this game, with many sleepless nights of diarrhoea and projectile vomiting .  In one restaurant i visited,  the waiter put a clean plate in front of me which was still covered in gravy from the last guests meal, he was quite rightly horrified and quickly took it from in front of me, then proceeded to wipe the old gravy off with his bare hand, before placing the plate back  in front of me, he then went and collected some cutlery for me and on his return journey had a coughing fit into the hand in which he was holding my utensils. I quietly left . I have sat in restaurants where people sitting near to me have coughed and hacked up and spat on the floor next to me whilst i ate, i have watched a chef leave the kitchen and go for, judging by the time spent a number 2 before returning and nonchalantly drying his hands on the curtain separating the kitchen from the restaurant. In short, no one seems to have the slightest clue  about hygiene. Everything is served by bare hands, which are seldom washed and  often engaged in highly unsightly activities. Food stalls are set up next to rubbish piles and  near  where people urinate and on occasion defecate, plates are washed up in bowls of filthy brown water, customers are allowed to prod , squeeze and sniff  food then place it back, it is absolutely horrendous, but oh the food! it is so very  gorgeous.  For me this exemplifies India , it is such a land of extremes and contradictions, great food but appalling hygiene.

 I have found some of the sights in Northern India absolutely breathtaking, my first glimpse of the Taj Mahal as  I passed through the entrance gates, seeing its great white   form  bathed in beautiful sunshine will always remain with me. The majesty of the immense Amber fort in Jaipur, the fairytale beauty of the palaces and lakes in Udaipur. I have been in awe of the toil of ancient civilizations as i strolled for hours around the abandoned muslim cities of the north and the carved caves of Ellora which were centuries in the making. I have felt the exhilaration of climbing the ghats through jungles in the heat of the day and on summitting  resting my eyes on the beauty of the vast plains below. I have loved watching the children playing cricket, it is played everywhere on every available piece of land and there must be thousands of games played everyday, I have been mesmerised by the hundreds of brightly coloured  kites that fill the blue skies above every town as they flutter and dart piloted by children and adults standing high upon the rooftops.   But I am also haunted by the North of India, On the road I have seen two fatal accidents as they happened, visions of which will remain with me for the rest of my life. I have seen an angry mob pull a man from his truck and beat him senseless, for which to my shame I could do nothing,  I have had to physically grab a pinion rider and threaten him after being followed for 10km by him and his friend on motorbike as they tried to get money from me with menaces, holding out their hands  and shouting dollars then making the slitting of throat sign , I finally snapped when the pinion rider tried to grab one of my panniers the ensuing struggle took place at about 20km /h  as i tried to kick them and pull them off their bike, eventually they had had enough and sped  off . Sad to say most of my negative experiences in the North of India as with this one seemed to involve some of the people. I have to honestly say, and  I am filled with a sense of regret  that I must say this. I am not racist and have met some wonderful people in India especially in the poorer rural areas, It  is however the one country in which I have experienced frustratingly high levels of in consideration, vulgarity, downright  rudeness, lack of respect and aggressive  attempts at extortion, sad to say that almost every interaction not initiated by myself was an attempt to beg or con some financial gratification from  me . This has really bothered me, I couldnt find any genuine friendship , I was desperately lonely and feeling like a target . I was really shocked at the peoples  preoccupation with money in this famously spiritual nation. Every question I was asked seemed to be about money, no interest in my name or country but everyone wanted to know how much my bike cost or how much money I earnt, conversations which we would find most vulgar, seemed to be engaged in freely and with  reverie by the majority of indian people . I found some of the middle class Indians to be the most obnoxious, whether this is to do with the caste system I do not know, but generally  I found they were openly very rude inconsiderate and condescending.  As I queued for entrance to  the Taj Mahal a number of obviously affluent Indian families boldly tried to push in the queue in front of me, I had been queueing for over an hour and challenged them, they were absolutely astounded at my audacity and their arrogance was unbelievable. My experiences of conversation with some of these middle class  people was equally strange, these seemed more like an interrogation than a dialogue. When asked once what my salary was,  I replied politely that I considered such a question as rude to which my interrogator firmly replied ” but I want to know”. I had been chided a couple of times by such  affluent indians for taking photos of some of the filth and squalor, they apparently thought tourists should only be taking photos of the prettier things and felt no qualms about explaining this to me in a very forthright way, nor did they take too kindly to me cycling through the poorer rural villages, as some would stop their cars to insist that i turn round and take the highway. It seemed a case of the affluent wanting to close their eyes and that of the tourists to the other India, happy in their emerging economy and wealth and at being able to sit hermetically sealed in the local Macdonalds and  be truly obnoxious to the counter staff and sit   boasting of their investments and  stuffing their chubby spoilt little children full of crap , whilst shoeless and hungry children sat begging on the streets outside kept away from the restaurants windows by smartly dressed armed guards.  I know this is a bit of a rant , but it really did affect me, the poor people in the rural villages which the obnoxious middle class tried their hardest from preventing me from meeting were some of the most gracious and proud people I met In india,  though they had nothing . and it incensed me to think that the majority of the rest of India was aspiring to be  like the arrogant emergent  middle class that I had the misfortune to meet along the way.

So, as I say for me the North of India has been full of contradictions, every minute seemed to offer a photo opportunity, every day seemed to be crammed with new experiences both good and bad, and  for a month and a half it was a real rollercoaster ride of emotions  by the end of which I really wanted off. ( to be continued)

street food Yum, but stay close to the toilet.

waste dissposal system

 

Jaipur - the fort wall

Jaipur

Udaipur (whee Octopussy was filmed)

beautiful rural villages

one of hundreds

drying chillies on the fast lane

the hustle and bustle of town life

ancient abandoned cities

2 hours to get from down there to up here

Ellora caves

Village kids, enough to break your heart.

The land of plenty-Dubai

Just a quick post about my time before arriving in India. I chose to travel to Dubai by boat from Iran, basically because I chickened out of crossing Pakistan by road and entering India across its land border. The situation in Pakistan just seemed too risky for me, as bombs were going off on a daily basis. The safest way to go, seemed by the short and cheap flight from Dubai to Delhi.

It was a beautiful sea crossing from Iran to Dubai on a fast jetfoil similar to the ones I am used to  in Jersey. The sun was beating down on the beautiful calm sea and yet again the Iranians didnt fail with their hospitality;  halfway through the journey news  obviously reached the captain that there was an Englishman on board, and i found myself  invited up on to the bridge for lunch  and a chat with the crew.  4 hours later I was  staring out from the bridge at the impressive skyline of Sharjah and Dubai. 2 hours after this I was still sitting in customs whilst the only customs officer on duty (public holiday) carried out his leisurely task of issuing entry visa’s to each and every one coming off the ferry, women first. Luckily the time spent waiting was quite pleasant as i sat chatting with a New Zealander backpaker and a friendly Malaysian, complete with his white robes as he was returning from pilgrimage to Mecca. When the 3 of us finally obtained our Visas we headed out into dusty Sharjah. By now it was becoming late and dark, so I decided to stay in Sharjah. my companions kindly helped me to load my bike on to a rickety wooden boat to cross the creek to downtown Sharjah where the hotels are. We then said our farewells and parted as they headed to the bus station.

Sharjah is very built up and such a contrast to the cities of Iran where nothing is allowed to compete with the height of the Mosques minarets . Iwas absolutely dazzled by it all. When I ventured out for an evening stroll, the lights the bustle and the huge  variety of restaurants that seemed to occupy every intersection. after months of falafel sandwiches and yoghurt I was absolutely drawling at the anticipation of food. Needless to say i prompty found a decent Indian restaurant and had the works, much to the amasement of the staff i just kept on ordering and stuffing myself. an hour later I flopped on to the hotel bed stuffed and content.

cycling from Sharjah to Dubai the next morning was not fun. It was hot, the road was a major highway which was very busy with very big and expensive looking  4 wheel drive /SUV type cars hurtling along at a terrifying pace. For 40km’s I struggled along this road as the remnants of the night before s banquet sloshed around inside me. On nearing Dubai things became very difficult as the place is absolutely vast and I didnt really know where I was going. Eventually I gave up trying to aim for any particular suburb and decided to stop at the next reasonably inexpensive looking hotel. My luck was in, the place i found was cheap enough, had wi-fi a gym and the room was pretty swish, also when I later looked on the internet at its location. it was pretty much perfect for accessing everywhere I wanted to visit. what a result.

Dubai- what can I say , its known as the Las Vegas of the middle east, i cant disagree with that. It is a huge metropolis, it is a marvel of modern engineering and architecture, the buildings are absolutely breathtaking in scale. The shopping malls are vast, some contain ski slopes others skating rinks ,one an absolutely huge aquarium tank filled with sharks and all manner of other marine life. There are race courses, theme parks, and opportunities to take part in every imaginable type of sport or activity. It really is quite an overwhelming place. The contrast to Iran could not be greater. Once again i could walk into a supermarket and find variety, not be faced with one type of bread or the choice of canned goods being  between that of haricot beans or stewed eggplant. and once again to be faced with western outlets, Macdonalds, Levis, Starbucks, Marks and Sparks. It was just so weird. It was great for a few days but to be honest  the novelty soon worn off and I really yearned to be back in Iran. For all of Dubai’s extravagances and modernity, I could find little depth to the place, no history,identity or culture and since shopping was unfortunately off of my agenda I soon became quite bored. I was eager to continue cycling and get on to India but my Visa would take at least a week to process. My days seemed to revolve around visiting Malls and sampling as many different cuisines as i could, luckily i religiously spent an hour a day working out in the hotel gym to try and keep trim  . I did try and venture out for a drink one night, but there were no discernable hip n trendy quarters in the city unlike most normal cities  and I along with everyone else it seemed were  reduced to drinking in the many hotel bars. These were OK but as with the rest of Dubai lacked in atmosphere. In one hotel bar i was treated to the experience of watching a russian tribute Abba band, two very tall, top heavy and heavily made up russian girls singing  hardly discernable Abba hits, without once cracking a smile between them. I actually found it quite comically entertaining after a few beers though had to leave when they started getting requests for  songs in russian and  lost their comic appeal.

after 7 days wait and 3 consecutive days visit to the Visa processing centre I finally collected my Indian visa. A bit of a dissapointment since the visa was for only 3 months when I had requested 6. My query on this led me to be informed that siince the Mumbai shootings visa regulations had changed and 3 months was my max. Oh well my grand tour of India would have to become a mini tour, thats bureaucracy for you. I was still over the moon at the prospect of getting on the saddle again and leaving the ultra modern world behind me . So with bike dismantled and boxed ready for my early morning departure for Delhi I spent my last night in Dubai camped on the airport terminal floor restless in anticipation of a new country and the days ahead.

at the helm to Sharjah

companions to Sharjah

along the road to Dubai

tallest building in the world- Dubai

…………Two months later

It is 3 days before Christmas and I now sit in Delhi India trying to recall exactly what has happened over the last 2 months. As you have guessed I have fallen quite behind with the blog .This is as a direct result of being unable through state censorship, to update my blog whilst in Iran, so I will attempt now to continue where I left off in Ankara 2 months ago………………….

I was so happy to be leaving Ankara after a week of boredom though a little nervous as to what to expect in Iran.  Especially since I knew so little of the place except  the generally unfavourable picture painted by our government and media. It is always the fear of the unknown which I think has the greatest impact upon us all. I arrived at Ankara train station with plenty of time  in hand in case of any difficulties with loading my bike on board. I was relieved at how simple a task this proved to be and afterwards  I was shown to my compartment by the helpful guard. I introduced myself to the middle-aged  man I was to share the compartment with.  His name was Serjah and he was an Iranian sailor (second mate) who was returning home after visiting Turkey looking for work. After  departing  and chatting with Serjah for a little time he confided in me that he was actually a Christian and showed me some copies of the bible that he had in the Persian language. He went on to explain how difficult it is for Christians in Iran, especially those that had converted from Islam as he had.  As the journey progressed Serjah kept disappearing for the odd hour with his bibles and coming back empty-handed. Then he would invite people into our carriage and have bible readings with them in Persian, at police and customs check points I noticed that he kept hiding his bibles under the upholstery of the train seats.  Suddenly I realised that I was sharing a carriage with an evangelising bible smuggler bent on converting as many people on the train as he could.  Having said that, I will say that he was one of the most gracious and caring persons I have ever met and was a real joy to travel with. We had some great discussions and he really took it upon himself to look after me on the journey, he shared all of his food with me and stayed close by to help translate both on and off the train, right up until I left the station in Tehran; even ensuring that I rang him once I was safe and sound in a hotel; a real gentlle-man. What else of the journey? Well it actually lasted 72 hours, twice as long as I had originally been told. and also contrary to my information no food was supplied  , so I am eternally grateful to Serjah who was well stocked with hard boiled eggs , fresh vegetables and Iranian flat breads which he shared without a seconds thought. During the journey we had to get off the train and onto a ferry to take us across a Vast  lake in Eastern Turkey (Van) this was to be  a 5 hour crossing. After arriving at the other side at 3 o’clock in the morning ,we had to walk down a railway line in the dark with our luggage to meet the waiting Iranian train . It was like something out of a holocaust movie a line of people stummbling  along the tracks in the dark, hauling all manner of belongings. Serjah and myself kept going back to help the elderly women and children with their belongings,  when we finally reached the Iranian train and boarded it, we found all the carriages absolutely full with steam, it was totally incredible and I still have no idea as to how or why it was so.

We arrived in Tehran at around 7 am and I felt about ready to drop as the train journey was absolutely exhausting, the last thing I really wanted to do was to deal with the Capitals traffic and hunt around for a decent and cheap hotel, but it had to be done. I said my farewells to Serjah and all my other friends from the train and headed into the smog of downtown Tehran. Riding in the traffic in Tehran is absolutely exhilarating , you ride with it not through it, It is like a vast and powerful wave that just pulls you along with it, there is no room what- so- ever to manoeuver as everything is bumper to bumper , I found myself going straight past exits that I wanted, as I just had no choice but to do so and like a torrid river I had to get onto its banks and walk my way back to its gentler tributaries. I actually really enjoyed being part of  this animal  and can attest to the skill of the Iranian drivers, who apparently, at the thought of complicated legal paperwork will avoid hitting you at all costs. Crossing the road as a pedestrian though is not quite so enjoyable and took me many days to get used to, the key to which I realised was after finding an opening in the traffic to look straight ahead and cross, do not deviate off your course or make any sudden unpredictable movements and the traffic will with great skill avoid you.

I booked into the first hotel I could find and though not so cheap was pleased to find I had my own small kitchen and a comfortable double bed on which I slept on and off for the next 2 days . Feeling fully recovered I eventually ventured out onto the streets of Irans capital.  Ones first attention is drawn to the dress of the women. all wear some form of the Burka or headscarf and many of the older generation wear the full Zorro outfit as Serjah called it.  the second thing that you notice is that you cannot walk a couple of hundred yards without passing someone with a white surgical dressing clinging to their nose. On further enquiry it seems that the whole of the young female and increasingly the male population is obsessed with the notion of having plastic surgery conducted upon their nose. Apparently you’re not anyone in Tehran unless you have had a nose job done and it is now fashionable to just wear the surgical dressing to imply that  you have had the surgery. I joked with the hotel receptionist  about this and said that in the UK  its boob jobs that are popular, to which she replied that in Iran they’re not popular as women must keep their figure disguised by wearing  a loose fitting  chador, and why spend so much money on something that only your husband can see.I laughed, I guess she was right as the only part of a woman in Iran that can be shown to others by law is her face.

On return to my hotel room, I find a note from reception saying there is another couple of cyclists in the hotel who want to meet me,  excellent! some company. I ring their room and invite them up . Tobias and Vera are a young couple from Vienna , Austria who started cycling from Vienna about the same time Jayne and myself had arrived there, in fact it seems that we followed virtually the same route at around the same time and it is a wonder that we never bumped into them earlier, . It was so nice to talk with them, and as we were setting off on the same day and following the same route through Iran, they kindly asked if I would like to travel with them.  This was great news to my ears and I didn’t hesitate to take them up on the offer. It was a good decision as we became great friends and were really compatible as cyclists, it was nice to sit back for a change  and let Tobias do the navigating and I think they were quite grateful for my mechanical skills and knowledge at times so all in all it worked really well.

Our first destination was to Qom, known to  be one of the most religiously conservative places in Iran and a place of pilgrimage for Muslims from all over the world. It is here where the shrine of Fatima (The Prophet Mohammed’s daughter) is located and where many Islamic scholars are based. It was to be a long days ride of about 140 km along a major highway . the day went well and our first experiences with the main roads in Iran was good, in fact I would go so far as to say the roads in Iran were the best I have experienced to date.  All have good well maintained surfaces and most have a good hard shoulder which are a godsend to cyclists. throughout this first days ride in Iran I was to experience many instances of the famous Persian hospitality which was to characterise my time in Iran, people stopping to give us fruit and drinks, invites to come to dinner or to stay at someones home, I was even given a tin of deodorant by one young lady who stopped her car to talk with me.  

It was pretty dark as we entered Qom and as luck would have it a tout took us to an apartment which would house the 3 of us at a reasonable cost (£5 each) , so we decided to stay for a couple of nights and spend the next day exploring Qom . The city is dominated by the huge Mosque and shrine dedicated to Fatima and we had read in the lonely planets guide that with persistance we might be allowed inside. this proved correct or at least the persistance part did.  the security people at the gate would not entertain the notion of us entering the shrine and it was only through the help of an iranian film maker who, was making a documentary there ,that we were able to negotiate an audience with some religious leaders  who would   decide if we might enter or not. We were taken to a very austere chamber within the Mosque where we sat barefooted in audience with the turban wearing  leaders . For the next 45 minutes we were treated to a very cordial and interesting lecture and I stress lecture  upon  the political situation between Iran and the west and how it is a result of U.S foreign policy, about the relationship between Islam and Christianity and how Iran does not support terrorism. As a curious end note to the lecture and I guess because Vera was there, the religious leader started painting Iran as a country of liberation for women  saying that in Iran women were free and even allowed to drive cars and even pilot aeroplanes……having said that he still would not shake Veras hand at the end of the meeting or address any questions to her.

At the end of the lecture we were allowed to wander around the impressive grounds of the great mosque escorted by the kind film director and peep into the building which housed the shrine.  The devout were engaged in tearful reverie and bowing at the shrine. we decided to leave as we saw a group of wailing mourners bringing in  a cloth wrapped corpse.  Not the best thing to bring on an appetite but on leaving I was ravenous and managed to find a stall selling falafel sandwiches. these were to become my staple diet in Iran as the only available non meat fast food , these seemed to be readily available in even the smallest of villages and were a delight, freshly made falafel on a bed of salad and doused in pickled gherkins and yoghurt and housed in a soft sub bun delicious!!! and averaging at only around 40p each, cant be bad. There is however a problem with eating such food  noticeably that they are only sold in dubious looking roadside stalls or cafes, where its best not to enquire too deeply into hygiene practices. Needless to say I awoke the next morning in Qom with a bad case of the Katmandu quickstep. Believe me sitting on a saddle on a bumpy road is no fun in such a state , and due to a lack of cover in the quite barren landscape, my only opportunity for relief  was to dive into one of many culverts that ran under the road every Km or so. Still I struggled on past the now famous  nuclear installation outside Qom  being reminded by armed police not to even think of taking any photos. Went past miles and miles of anti-aircraft gun emplacements where everyone seemed to be on high alert and waiting for an Israeli airstrike. By now  things were becoming  less bearable stomach wise  and to make it worse  the skies darkened and it started to rain,  then we were faced with a some steep climbs up into the mountains where we could see snow. I was so relieved both figuratively and literally when we arrived in a cheap hotel at a small town in the mountains. I spent the remainder of the night making regular visits to the toilet and dousing myself up on dioralyte to replace all of the minerals and fluids that I was losing fast down the pan. Not a good night and physically exhausting though I was glad that the hotel had  western style toilets, it was pure luck as 90% of hotels had the crouch and crap / hole and two footprint style toilets .

I awoke in the morning looking and feeling absolutely exhausted, somehow I managed to rouse myself and gingerly place my full weight on the saddle , my stomach was making some very strange sounds though I felt like I had gone through the worst of the bout. Outside at this high altitude it was very cold and a strong headwind did not make the going any easier through the rolling hills.  eventually after  a few unwelcome visits to culverts; which left me feeling weak , I decided I would have  to give up. After discussion with my companions we decided that we would have to flag down a truck and try and get a lift to the city of Esfahan where we had decided to stay for a few days. This was an easy matter due to the absolute kindness of the Iranian people, never have I been to a country where help is offered so readily to ones fellow human being in need. We loaded ourselves and our bikes into the back of a Toyota truck and after 45 minutes frozen to the bone in the back we arrive a little way outside of Esfahan the city described by many as one of the  most beautiful cities on earth.

It is true that Esfahan has some truly wonderful architecture amongst its  many royal palaces and famous mosques, however as with many of Irans major cities it was a little too manic for my liking,  being  heavily  congested with both traffic and  pollution. After a couple of days we decided to move on and strike out for the dessert regions to the East. The cycling proved pretty easy over the next week or so, it was pretty flat and the weather was warm , the scenery became totally arid, so much so that  I dont think we saw a tree for some 200km. We found cheap and cheerful accommodation easily along the way even spending the night with a family in a small dessert village, this was a wonderful experience as we had the chance to experience Iranian village life and food. Our hosts were wonderful though spoke little english, the old man of the house took a shine to me and insisted that I sit on the floor next to him for dinner. he spoke little english but was able to quote brand names at me , so I spent the remainder of the evening being shown his watch “Casio” and his phone “Nokia” which became a little frustrating after the  first hour, Things took a turn for the better when i pulled out a Farsi phrase book and tried some phrases on him, He particularly liked it when I found the section on employment and we went round the room identifying in farsi what each of our jobs were. He kept pointing at his wife and saying some word over and over, which I managed to translate as “Unemployed” . She didn’t look too happy at this.

After eating a wonderful meal of spicy eggplant with unleven bread and loads of fresh yoghurt, I said goodnight to everyone, I guess there was a good 10 of us sat around the floor for the meal. My room was a cosy white washed room off of a small courtyard, I shared it with a hand loom where a hand woven carpet, which would take a year to complete was well under way. and a small gas fire wich took the chill of the cool dessert night. My bed was the typical Iranian padded bedroll,  which was rolled out along with a blanket and pillow and I slept like a baby. Word of warning for those wishing to visit Iran all beds are hard and it is very seldom that a mattress is used in any hotel, the most usual set up is a plywood mattress with a padded bedroll on top; which is surprisingly comfortable once you get used to it and did wonders for my back.

Our final destination in the desert was to be Yazd. One of the oldest cities in the world and which proved to be my favourite city in Iran. I found this city so layed back and peaceful and surrounded by the most spectacular dessert landscape. much of the city still consists of a maze of narrow sand coloured alleyways where behind old carved wooden doors  spectacular courtyards lay hidden, it reminded me so much of the Kasbah in Marrakech but nowhere near as busy, and twice as hot in the summer, I can only imagine at what it must be like in the usual 50 degree heat of summer when no one ventures out and the days are spent in shaded courtyards lazing under  giant wind catchers, that catch the slightest breath of air and channels it down over cooling  pools of water and fragrant jasmine bushes. On the outskirts of Yazd we climbed the silent towers, perched high on rocky hills , here in ancient times the dead were left to be eaten by vultures so as not to pollute the earth. I could have sat up on those rocky peaks for days, surveying the city and dessert beyond it encircled by great snow-capped mountain ranges, it really was magical, the silence and  cooling breeze, a real feeling of contentment. In the end we stayed in Yazd for 4 days visiting surrounding dessert villages and chilling out to the  beautiful sunsets, it really is a special place and for some reason it seemed to draw other cyclist as well, for we managed to find 9 other cycle tourist in the city at the same time as us, there were couples from Switzerland, Belgium, The Basque region and Australia, it was so strange to see so many in the one place after months of just seeing the odd one or two, before leaving we all said we would keep in touch and I believe that I will meet up with some of them again in India.

We left as a group of 5 from Yazd with the Basque couple Urdin and Izarro joining us. It was nice to be in such a big group and we even felt brave enough in such numbers to camp at night, which although cold was a a joy. The night sky is so beautiful in the dessert, with the milky way  being seen so clearly and all manner of stars and planets visible to the naked eye. The next day Urdin and Izzaro said their goodbyes and headed off on their intended route into the mountains, whilst we headed towards Shiraz . The going became a little more difficult now as we were heading out of the desert and climbing in altitude , which in turn meant colder nights, thoughts of camping were also diminished further when we found a dead animal on the side of the road which was definitely not a dog but had stripes, a serious set of teeth and was definitely wild-looking. It transpired that this was actually a Hyena which we were warned by locals as to being very, very dangerous. Luckily that night after finding ourselves in the middle of nowhere with the light quickly fading we happened upon a gravel pit, where a small works plant was busy filling lorries with gravel for maintenance of the roads. As yet another example of Iranian hospitality the workers put us up for the night in one  of their portacabins. As with all Iranian hospitality this did not just end at being given a bed for the night, The employees set up a gas fire for us and gave us bed rolls and blankets. they made a meal for us that night and breakfast in the morning ,they also kept making us trays with tea and coffee on, and  insisted that we make use of their showering and washing facilities. what wonderful people the Iranians are and all done with a real genuine sense of kinship.

The very next night  we found ourselves caught out again, in between two towns with the light fast fading. this time the keeper of a mosque in a small village came to our rescue putting us up for the night in the prayer room, once again  insisting that we make full use of the facilities and ensuring that everything was done to make our stay a comfortable one.

We eventually arrived in Shiraz after some pretty heavyweight hill climbs that sapped our energy and were glad of a few days rest. It was here that I was to say goodbye to Vera and Toby as they were heading back by bus to Tehran to catch a flight on to Bangkok . So we spent  our final 3 days together splashing out on an upmarket hotel and visiting the many sights of Shiraz. Shiraz was an enjoyable city with a fabulous bazar and some beautiful old buildings, It seemed a pretty laid back place and certainly less conservative than many places in Iran. As with most places in Iran the people loved to meet foreigners and spend time talking with them and I lost count at the number of times people just wanted to engage with me and practice their English. They also all seemed to feel the need to apologise for their government to me and strangely, of the hundreds of people that spoke to me whilst I was in Iran, not one was complimentary  towards their government and were unanimously  of the opinion that at the very least  their current president should be replaced if not the whole of  the religious leadership governing the  country. I tried not to have too many political debates with people in Iran as I felt it unwise to comment on a situation I knew so little about. But I got the sense that although people were openly hostile towards their government and the harsh laws of their islamic masters, They just didn’t take it seriously,  they reminded me of naughty public schoolchildren bucking strict outdated laws at any chance by listening to music, dancing , drinking, showing a little more flesh than is allowed (all highly illegal practices). The sad thing for me was, that although they were content with the status quo as long as they could buck the rules and show decent, they had really little insight into the harsh punishments being dealt out by the regime for such misdemeanors. In fact many people were quite shocked when I informed them that some of the protestors in the recent demonstrations in Tehran had been given the death penalty.

I left Shiraz cycling on my own once again. I was to head for the gulf coast at Busehir a journey across a mountain range before following the isolated coastal road through small dessert villages and along the length of the persian gulf to bandir Lengeh, where a boat would take me across the gulf to Dubai. The first part of my journey took me across some of the most isolated and beautiful landscapes I have ever seen , the mountains were stunning in their craggy barrenness and were awash with differing shades of greys, pinks and reds. The climb through them was both exhausting and exhilarating my only regret is that I had no-one to share the wonderful  experience with once out of this vast barren range I descended onto a low plain where great plantations of date palms started to appear and the climate become visibly warmer. As I cycled through the first large town I had seen for the day I decided to take up the offer of a bed for the night as I knew that hotels were going to be scarce on the ground. Mohammad rode next to me on his moped as I entered the town and I accepted his offer of a cup of tea at his house;  which later turned into an instance that I stay the night. Mohammad was a  world renowned caroonist and teacher  and was glad to have someone to speak to and improve his English with. So we talked and ate dates  harvested from his  palm trees until the early hours of the morning, when he escorted me out of town by motorbike. I realised that accommodation was going to be a problem from now on, as I was certainly on the road less travelled. So I resolved to try and camp as much as I could . This was not an easy decision as I was fully aware now, that there were dangers presented by the wildlife in Iran, but the other alternative was to simply wait for the offer of accommodation from the hospitable Iranians, which was almost always a certainty. However, and this may seem a little conceited of me , It is very difficult after a hard day in the saddle to enter some strangers house and be the centre of attention, to have all manner of relatives be invited round to meet you and to be expected to engage in the same line of conversation with each and every one of them, when all you really wish to do is curl up in your sleeping bag and sleep. to that end I thought I would risk the wild animals. So for the next week or so I headed along the coast road through intermittent dessert and scrub land past small villages and along  the inviting blue shimmering sea , camping on the way without any major problems. just the odd wandering donkey or camel strolling into my guy ropes. the biggest problem I did have, was on a day when I noticed a dark bank of clouds following behind me threatening to ruin the clear blue sky in front. It was on this day that I was invited to stop and have lunch with a bunch of farmers tending an irrigated  field of Tomatoes. All was going well, and the fresh vegetables and bread we shared were delicious, however after the meal the men started to pass around the opium pipe and get pretty wasted, so I decided to leave, though I had intended camping with them. So with this idea shelved and the night drawing in I headed off pretty quickly along the road to find somewhere out of the way to pitch the tent . The place I found and settled on  was not Ideal, being close to some houses , but it was quite a way off the road and had a large sand dune protecting one side of the tent from view. I set up quickly made myself a coffee then as the light proceeded to go at about 8pm, I slid weerily into my bag. Half in a daze about an hour later I heard the rapid  padding footsteps and panting of an animal as it came hurtling over the sand dune to my right. The animal was obviously startled at the sight of my tent and started growling and  whining. My immediate reaction was to grab the lump of wood that I keep close to me, switch on my headtorch and fling myself out of the tent and  into the affray. What faced me in the torch light, could have been a dog ,but the hunched back and hairs standing on end around its neck still lead me to believe it was a hyena. The animal stood motionless growling.  Noticing a rock at my feet, I quickly picked it up and hurled it. the rock bounced a foot in front  of the animal and kicked up hitting it around the shoulder at which, yelping it turned and fled into the night. Unbelievably at that moment the whole sky was filled with a flash of lightning and the impending storm that had been following me all day hit with a vengeance. There is nothing quite like being in a tent during a massive storm and all thoughts of the animal I had encountered earlier vanished. the lightning seemed to be falling all around and the sounds that followed shook the ground under me. The wind and rain came close behind battering my tent  and I was glad that I had taken the time to secure the guy ropes properly, which earlier I had been  um-ing and ah-ing about. I guess an hour or so later the storm finally subsided and I was able to think about sleep once more ,  though dogs seemed to be barking  nearby and with each passing minute the barking seemed to get nearer.  Eventually with thoughts of my encounter earlier I trudged out again onto the now slurry like sand. The barking was coming from directly behind the tent about 50 yards away, I peered into the still darkness and as I bent down to pick up my torch for further investigation a stone came hurtling past me and then another , I immediately shouted out “Salaam” (hello) and switched on my torch to find the figure of a woman stood their with a dog straining at the leash, I dont know who was the most scared her or me but I again said “Salaam” to which she  muttered something and promptly turned and walked away. This night was not going well and it was obvious that I was not going to get much sleep. As I lay eyes wide open watching the inner of my tent lighten with daybreak, I resolved that I would have to be much more careful when considering the options for camping in future.  I wearily stepped out bare footed onto the ground outside the tent and gathered up my panniers from just inside , as I did so I saw something move in the corner of the tent.  as I peered closer it began to dawn on me that there about a foot from where I had stood barefoot was a scorpion of a translucent  white colour  about 4 inches long with its tail stretched out flat . With the possibility of there being more, I quickly put on my shoes  shaking them first of course and very carefully packed up my tent, as I lifted the groundsheet I saw another scorpion scuttle away under a stone,  and I am sure that there were probably more there, sheltering from the storm of  the night before. These scorpions in Iran are some of the most poisonous in the world and regularly result in the death of local children. That was the last night I camped in Iran.

I was nearing my final destination in Iran but had to pass through the town of Assaluyeh, which is quite simply an oil refinery and the biggest one in the Gulf at that. the place was unbelievable as I rode for mile after mile past  pipework and storage tanks, great fire belching towers seemed to  rise into the sky  from every available piece of land and the air hang heavy with the smell of burnt gas, all road traffic seemed to consist entirely of  minibuses carrying white boiler suited men to work. after cycling for an hour through this I frustratingly flagged down a minibus and asked them if there were a hotel anywhere nearby. The guys inside said there was, but it was just really for workers and they weren’t even sure if they would allow me to stay. I thanked the guys and they drove off only to catch up with me a few minutes later and insist that I come stay with them, since one of their colleagues was on holiday and they had a spare bed. not knowing  what I was letting myself in for I warily agreed and followed their minibus through the vast refinery complex.

We arrived at a two storey block of apartments in a compound. I was amazed as I was greeted at the door by about 30 men all of whom were living in this apartment 6 to a room, some in a bunk beds, all working for the same company travelling on the same minibus to work everyday and having the company deliver their  same meals to the apartment 3 times a day. It was for me just like being back in the army and I immediately warmed to the situation . And what a great bunch of guys they were, they were of  all different ages and that familiar camaraderie that you get when a bunch of guys are thrown together in adverse conditions was really evident,  they treated me as part of the crew. We went out on the town together, they helped me service my bike, we all ate and joked around together and it was just such a pleasant time for me. I guess a little bit of me wishes I had stayed in the army and I was glad to be given that taster of camaraderie again. I ended up staying with them for 3 days and  having a great time.

I was now very near to Bandir Lengeh. Being well within schedule for my visa, which I had managed to extend in Shiraz. I decided to take the short hop over to Kish Island, A place that many Iranians said I really should visit. To be quite honest ,I wish I had’t bothered, On paper it sounds lovely a small dessert Island nestling in the warm persian gulf, where the strict laws of Iran have been relaxed for the benefit of attracting tourists. The reality is that it is a rather flat and nondescript stretch of land which is being highly overdeveloped ata fast rate, is highly overpriced for any accommodation, it is also the only place in Iran where there are ulterior motives to the local populations kindness, notably the pursuit of money. A taxi driver tried to charge me $10 for allowing me to follow him on my bike for less than 1km to a nearby hotel. This is in a country where I can feed myself for a week on $10, the Taxi driver was loitering outside a hotel and I casually asked him where the cheaper hotels are , he insisted on showing me by driving in front when pointing would have sufficed , this was done in the guise of being helpful, so when he caused a scene and demanded $10 from me later on, getting other locals involved, I wouldn’t  budge  and I really let him have it verbally. I left Kish after 2 nights and headed straight for my boat at Bandir Lengeh which, I true to form missed and had to wait 3 days for the next one. I however managed to secure a lovely hotel room right on the deserted beach, with a fine panoramic view over the Persian Gulf. during these 3 peaceful days I was able to really reflect on my time in Iran. It was a truly wonderful experience , I have never felt safer in a country than I did in Iran, I saw no crime or real poverty, there was nothing but kindness, warmth and hospitality shown towards me. As a people the Iranians are a highly cultured and educated people with great capacity for generosity which appears entirely without nurture, I am so glad that I was able to visit, as a destination for cyclists it offers great variety of scenery, some fabulous ruins from ancient civilisations and absolutely marvelous roads to cycle on , as a country of  gastronomical delight for us vegetarians…….. I think not.  Cant wait for  my first veggie curry in Dubai.

view to silent tower Yazd

bedding down with the locals

with my friend Mohammad

with fellow cyclists im Yazd

with friends from he gravel works

with my friends from the refinery

with Toby Vera and Anne

the camp chef

bedding down with the scorpions

sunset over the Persian gulf

lunch al fresco (Vera, Toby, Urdin, Izaro)

the mighty ruins of Persopolis

one of the grand mosques in Esfahan

the sun setting over Yazd

making my way through the mountains

A long week in Ankara

It is the eve before I travel by train with bike to Tehran. I cant wait, I have been stuck here in Turkeys capital, Ankara for over a week now and I am completely bored out of my skin. I sit here with two stark choices. Either stay here in my hotel room and watch Man Utd play in the Champions league, or venture out from this cheap hotel,  avoiding  propositions from the multitude of working girls who seem to hang around the nearby streets (classy area). I am not feeling that brave so decide to stay in and suffer.

I arrived in Ankara on a wet afternoon 6 nights ago. I immediately took a dislike to the place on account of the air pollution and the nightmare I had, in trying to find my way around. Unfortunately this opinion has not softened over the week. The place is like London without the attractions, there seems to be little in the way of monuments or historical buildings of any worth and unlike Istanbul there is no Asian feel to the place. In fact it could be mistaken for any large city in the UK  with an imported Turkish population.

The reason I have been stuck here for a week, is on account of there being only one train a week travelling to Tehran and as sod’s law would have it , I actually arrived  in Ankara on the day before it left last week . It was just impossible for me to be ready to go on that following  morning. For one I hadnt even  collected my Visa for Iran . I resigned myself to the fact that I would be spending a week in Ankara,  finding the cheapest hotel I could to accomodate this.

Collecting my Visa for Iran was relatively pain free, apart from trying to locate the place. Having found it and being let through a number of large  remotely operated steel  doors, I found myself seated in a large white waiting room with  large glass counter with no one at it. I sat there for some time looking from wall to blank wall acutely aware of the immense two way mirror, which occupied the space in front of me. Was I being observed and weighed up for suitability for entrance to the Islamic republic? I had taken a shave that morning and looked fairly presentable. I felt more comfortable when I heard one of the electric doors click and a couple of scruffy Spanish backpackers walked in and sat down, unshaven. Eventually  one of the staff appeared and I explained that I had a reference number since my Visa application had already been authorised via an agent in Iran. He asked for my passport and the reference number, before giving me details of a bank account into which I was to deposit 95 Euros . having done this and returning an hour later I was advised to return the next morning and collect my passport with visa. As easy as that 30 day visa in the bag. My next problem was to arrange my finances for my month in Iran. There are no ATM machines in Iran and in fact no means of using plastic at all there. Basically any money you will need, has to be taken into the country in hard cash, preferably dollars. Being an HSBC account holder and a premiere one at that, I thought it would be easy for me to visit the large branch in Ankara and withdraw $2000 from my account. Not on your Nelly, it had taken me , what , 2 hours at the most to get a visa for the so called “Axis of Evil” but it took 4 hours to try and get money out of my account, in my bank, and changed into dollars, I was interviewed by the bank manager, he took copies of my passport and driving licence. I had to speak on the phone to the head office, and god knows who else. eventually after all of this , The bank manager came over to me smiling and said that he was happy to confirm that I could have the money out of my account, but that due to some banking policy they were able only to give me the money in Turkish lira not in Dollars and I would then have to go and change the money at another bank. I was absolutely livid and went into the usual rant. I had wasted four hours of my life stuck in the bank,  to be given money in a currency that I could have simply withdrawn from the cash point machine outside of the bank. what morons. Never the less, I now have my visa , $2000 in cash and a single rail ticket to Tehran costing the princely sum  of  around £40 , not bad for a 36 hour train  journey, complete with bed cabin and meals.

 I really would have loved to cycle over the border into Iran, but things have become a little dodgy with the Kurdish terrorists in the region calling off their ceasefire with the government troops, and I also fear that the weather will just get too difficult in that area to manage on bike (lots of snow is usual) So I am quite happy to arrive in Tehran by train and cycle down into the warmer weather around the Gulf where I can catch a ferry across to Dubai.  So I will sign off for now and start packing for tommorrow and load a few photos of Reading , sorry meant Ankara onto the blog.

sat here updating the blog

 

downtown Ankara

fish market Ankara

one of few monuments

a taste of things to come

Lakes and Fairy Chimneys

I have really enjoyed the last couple of weeks. The weather has been wonderful , meaning i somehow managed to get sunburnt in October, which is a first for me, and I am , once again feeling  fit and good about myself after covering some fair distance by bike over some pretty difficult terrain. My journey took me away from the beautiful Aegean coast of Turkey heading inland towards Cappadocia. The first few days took me through some pretty nondescript areas, following flat and busy main roads, spending nights in large  and certainly not quaint rural towns . To be honest the most interesting part of those first few days , which may seem a little  macabre, was the diversity of dead wild life I spotted along the road side. There was everything from Kingfishers to wild boar, there were tortoises , snakes ,foxes, falcons, lizards and even a dead donkey lying bloated with its four legs raised to the heavens. Amazing, since there seems from my experience  very little in the way of live wild life to be seen in Turkey.

 On route I visited Pamukkale (“Cotton Castle”), where hot mineral enriched water pours out over a rock terrace high above a small village. Forming a cascade of white mineral rockpools. To be quite honest I was a little disappointed with the place. It is really heavily advertised and promoted as a tourist destination and it really does not live up to its reputation.  I expected a vast area of white  cascading pools , as shown in the posters. In reality the area covered is rather small and only a few naturally formed pools are visible. With the majority of pools that are now present being built out of concrete with the water channelled over them to make them look natural. Being so small an area the place also seems constantly overcrowded with tourists and I found it quite a struggle, if not an unpleasant one fighting my way through the crowd of young bikini clad women who seem to litter the area bathing in the mineral pools.

On exiting Pamukkale I headed through hilly country for a few days. Though cursing each hill that seemed to emerge around every bend. I enjoyed the exhilarating feeling of conquering the slopes and could feel my fitness really improving. Eventually I emerged from the hills and descended to the shore of Egidir Golu (lake) What a stunning ride this was. Down into the pretty  little village of Egidir, which sits out on a little spit on the  azure  blue lake. then out to follow the shore of the lake for 40 km along a meandering road. climbing and descending the surrounding hills bathed in beautiful sunshine. In and out of apple orchards where all  the locals were out in force, busily harvesting this years  crop, and keeping me well supplied with peaches and apples. Certainly one of the most enjoyable days riding I have had to date.  Another days ride around another vast lake and I find myself in Konya, the home of the whirling dervishes and one of the most religiously conservative cities in Turkey. I only stay the one night as I am eager to get Cappadoccia as quickly as I can. I know that I have a difficult 100 mile journey accross a flat dessert like plain in the morning, so book into a cheap no thrills hotel, with the view to getting away early in the morning . Very early in the morning say about 5 am. I awaken to the sound of shouting and wailing coming from the hotel lobby, being English and in a foreign country I decide not to investigate and go back to sleep. an hour later I am sitting in the lobby being questioned by a Turkish police officer as about a dozen of his colleagues are running amok around the hotel and a large crowd is gathering outside. I still am a little unsure as to what actually happened, I know that someone had been found dead in the hotel,I know that  the police officer interviewing me seemed very interested in the lump of wood that I had strapped to my bike to protect me from dogs, I also know that when he said it was OK for me to leave, I did so very quickly and without trying to find out any more details.

When I did eventually get out of Konya, I found myself on a flat and seemingly endless road through what I would describe as dessert, though seemingly, not technically called that on the map . At first the ride seemed pleasant enough and I thought I would make it across the 100 miles of flat quite easily, but gradually the state of the road worsened to that of a narrow gravel and potole strewn main road with little hard shoulder.Then  the wind started whipping up into a fierce and blustery head wind. At times it really felt as if  I were on a stationary bike at the gym, getting nowhere fast. One of the worst days riding yet, my only respite were the few service stations along the way, where I could get a welcome can of coke and 10 mins out of the wind.

 I have spent a lot of time in service stations in Turkey, I guess this is only natural, since when on a bike they seem to be the most frequent place you pass and visit for refreshment . Most visits tend to generate friendly discussion with the usually friendly staff and it is not uncommon to find yourself seated with a free cup of tea on your lap and in conversation with a crowd of interested locals. I have started to notice a general pattern to these encounters. As you roll into the forecourt you are firstly welcomed then the order of conversation seems to focus firstly on where you are from and quite naturally next where you are going to, after this there only seems to be one other trail of conversation which almost always  centres upon which football team you support, once this is established then names like Stephen Gerard or Wayne Rooney are shouted into the air in pigeon english and I respond with   ”Galatasary good !” instantly there seems to be some kind of united camaraderie where international borders are crossed and I am no longer a foreigner, tea appears and general conversation around how many miles I have travelled, where I have been in Turkey, and do I like Turkey evolve. However  one thing that has started to cause me some concern in these encounters , is how often after communicating the number of  Km’s  I have travelled, I find a hand clamped firmly  to the back of my calf , copping a squeeze. I am rightly pleased with the shape of my legs and proud that they have covered nearly  7000 Km’s so no matter how little action the local men get around here , having  large hairy nicotine stained hands enveloped around my calf  is often the cue  for me to make a hasty exit and hit the road again.

Eventually I manage to cross the vast flat dessert plain after a stopping the night on the famous Silk Road at Sultanhamet , where the camel caravans had  stopped for many centuries on the trade route.  I am finally within striking distance of Cappadoccia.

My first visit in Cappadoccia was to the Ihlara Valley where I spent two nights . This wonderful place is where the river Melindiz has over thousands of  years carved out a deep canyon in the harsh volcanic landscape of Cappadocia, this canyon streches for some 13 km, and in the steep sides of the gorge are carved numerous ancient churches and dwellings. I walked the full length of the canyon and loved every minute of it. The valley floor was very green and plush with flowers, plants and wildlife  and i spent many hours exploring the numerous caves and churches along the way. a really enjoyable day apart from an incident with a cow which unerved me a little, I thought it was only bulls that chased you? thank god for a large stone wall which I managed to jump just in the nick of time – no more said.  After my stay in the Ilhara valley I made a quick stop to visit a vast underground city, at a place I cant pronounce let a lone spell  (very claustraphobic) and then onto Goreme in the heart of Cappadoccia where I have spent 3  wonderful days  in the most laid back of towns complete with plenty of hippies and backpackers. A wonderful place and area , the scenery is just unexplainable Fairy Chimneys, Hobbit like houses, Pink and Red valleys , strange natural sculptures, rock churches  all very surreal and I would recommend a visit to anyone and everyone. tomorrow I am on the bus to Ankara to pick up my Visa for Iran and to try and figure out my plans for the next 6 months or so.

Pamukkale - not what i expected

beautiful lake and Egidir

nothing for miles but headwind and bad road

caravanesi at sultanamhet refuge on the silk road

above , looking over the Ilhara Valley

down in the Valley

2nd from the left-one mean cow!

Villages, Hills and men on donkeys

saying goodbye to these potatoe pickers , after lunching with them.

underground city - very cramped

exploring in the heart of Cappadocia

ancient villages

fairy chimneys

rock churches

stunningly surreal landscapes

Fat and in Ruins

I have had an interesting couple of weeks since last posting. I  spent most of the time trying to cycle my way around the Aegean coast of Turkey, visiting its many ancient ruins  whilst waiting for news, on whether Tehran is willing to issue me with a visa or not. It has taken me 2 whole weeks to travel less than 300 miles  visiting the ancient ruined cities of Troy, Alexandria, Assoss, Pergamon and Ephesus  whereI am now.

 Let me explain. after 2 weeks in Istanbul and a few nights in Canakkale  holed up in avoidance of the terrible weather, I eventually managed to get back on the saddle. the first day was torturous and I paid dearly for the kilos of Turkish delights and Baklavas I had eaten during my relatively sedentary previous weeks. the hills felt like I was pulling a laden cart up them and my knees began to become irritable under the pressure, I was really out of condition and though the weather was glorious with little headwind , I think I only managed 50 or 60 km for the day and spent a good part of the rest of the day looking around the ancient ruins of Troy to give my knees a bit of  rest. On day 2 things got worse as my gears started to slip badly, at one point forcing me off the road and causing me to get a puncture. It took about 20 mins to replace the tube and get on my way again, fighting my way through the crowd of spectators that had gathered to watch my roadside antics. within another few miles my gears began to slip really badly once again and I became really worried about continuing, though gingerley I persevered. About 500 yards from my final destination for the day (Assos) my gears slipped and locked my chain like a vice and in the process deposited  me at 15 mph onto the loosely graveled  tarmac below. I limped into Assoss with grazed knees and elbows, trailing the juice of a smashed melon which somehow still clung to my back bike rack. Assos was absolutely beautiful with a picture postcard Mediterranean harbour and extensive greek ruins at the summit of its endearing cobbled streets. the population of the town are mainly farmers and as such the hospitality is wonderful as is the fresh produce which is supplied to the local restaurants. In all I spent 3 days in Assoss partly because I loved the place and the overwhelming hospitality of its people and partly because I knew I had to do some serious work on my bike . I had lost all confidence in it and its  ability to get me up the incresingly large  hills of Turkey. I spent one whole day stripping my bike gears down replacing the cables and re- adjusting the front and rear derailler I was helped by the farmer who ran the £8 a night bed and breakfast where I stayed, he didnt speak a word of English but insisted on helping me, he even drove his moped to the next town to get the cable housing cut for me at an engineers. Throughout the day his wife kept bringing me out food and tea  even though it was Ramazan. She would not accept any payment from me.  In the evening I walked through the ruins down to the Harbour sat drinking tea with the locals and decided that I would have to push on the next day. I couldnt afford to lose more fitness by staying another day off the bike. On the way back up the steep climb from the harbour the local hospitality was in evidence again when Ishemel stopped and picked me up in his tractor and gave me a lift up the 2km climb. This was a real hair-raising experience, since it was Ishemel’s new tractor and he wanted to open it up and show what it could do on the steep cobbled incline. I clung on for dear life as did the old man  we ‘d picked up halfway along the climb . There we were a fat grazed cyclist and an old man in his late 70′s sliding around perched on the wheel arches of a shiny new red tractor, being bumped and  hurled up a steep cobbled hill past marble white greek ruins as the sun set  behind us - priceless!.

My next destination after Assoss was to be Akcay only about 70 Kms away, things seemed to be going smoothly, no problems with the gears, the sun was shining no head wind, flat terrain , perfect ,was this too good to be true. Something is wrong the back wheel feels funny, I had pulled off the road for a drink and within 30 yards of continuing I had a flat tyre. luckily there was a garage less than 100 yards ahead, the usual crowd of spectators gathered as i Pumped up the now extrtacted flat inner tube. as I fed it around in a bowl of water It was evident that this tube had about 9 punctures in it. On inspecting the outer tyre I found the culprits. The tyre had about a dozen cm long thorns stuck in it, this was quite unbelievable given that the tyres I am using are kevlar lined and supposedly unpunctureable. My little venture off road had been costly, since the tube was now beyond repair. With my last spare tube on I set off again, a little anxious that I if I had missed removing any of the offending thorns this tube would also be punctured within a few miles. I felt relief after an hour or so when the tyre was still fully inflated and started to relax into the ride again. Then it started to happen again, clunking from my gears and they started to slip again. I was once again more than a little  concerned. I pulled into Akcay , which is a pretty little holiday resort where the Turks holiday and  there are few foreigners, once again I m a bit disheartened with my mechanical problems and decide to stay put for a couple of days untill the festival of Bhiran is over and I can try and find a decent bike mechanic to look my bike over. I am a bit worried that I may need to replace some of the components and know that my best chance of doing that is in Izmir or Ankara. I spend much of my time in Akcay socialising with a Turkish couple who used to live in Leicester, they were a lovely couple and fun to talk with, we talked about many things including my bike problems and with their local knowledge and advice I decided that I would  take it easy on the bike and head for Izmir using the buses where more practical. Izmir is  Turkeys 3rd largest city where there are plenty of bike shops and where high end shimano components are readily available. On route to Izmir I cycled the short distance  to Pergammon where I spent a couple of nights so as to visit the extensive and impressive ruins there, It was here that I spent some time sitting with the old men at the tea shop buying rounds of tea and  talking with them through the interpretation of  a carpet shop owner who spoke some english. I  was shown by them how to sneak in the back way of the ruins and thus avoid the high entrance fees. However this involved a trek up through a gypsy settlement and though holes in fences and across chicken pens. I can imagine it was quite a humorous site to see a couple of old Turkish men and a pale middle aged Englishman acting like school kids jumping over peoples back gardens to the sound of squawking chickens and barking dogs. From Pergamon I travelled by bus, bike and all to Izmir where I immediately found an impressive looking  bike shop and left it with them to sort out. Whilst they got to work I went looking around. What a City , I loved it , so refreshing after Istanbul. It was cosmopolitan had a wonderful harbour and was less hectic than Istanbul, there was none of the “fleece the tourist” mentality of Istanbul, the Bazar was wonderful, the second biggest in Turkey but not just full of trinkets and fake designer clothes  to flog to tourists, this was a proper market catering for the local people, there was every thing to be had, I even managed to get tent pegs there, items that had eluded me in Istanbul .There was also a decent bookshop which sold good maps and a wide selection of  books in English.

My bike now has a new chain and all of the gears have been adjusted along with the brakes. I have 2 more spare inner tubes and probably 2 more spare tyres given the amount of Turkish delight i have eaten in the last 2 days , more tent pegs, a book, a new pair of sunglasses to replace the ones that i managed to sit on in the hotel. I also have a more detailed map, I have sussed out how to use the manual settings on my camera. I have also replaced the plug adapter which I left in the hotel in Pergammon. And most importantly I have a Visa for Iran which is waiting for me to pick up in Ankarra , which is by the way about 600Km away on the other side of the mountains.

I am now in Ephesus 70km up the road from Izmir getting ready to make the long arduous journey over the mountains via Pamukkale  and Cappadocia to Ankarra I have spent 2 days here now visiting the ruins of Ephesus. All I can say is wow! amazing , the scale of the place is breathtaking just wish I could be there on my own without the hordes  of guided tours and camera wielding tourists jostling for that perfect picture. I will leave it there for now, please keep your fingers crossed for me that my gears are now fully functional  as I have some bloody big hills to tackle in the next few weeks .

Ishemels Taxi

Assos Harbour

view from the stalls Assos amphitheatre

View accroos Aegean from Assoss

 

 

lots of hills

Ephesus

The usual , person stood in arch photo

Turkey

After crossing the steep green hills of Bulgaria and heading into Turkey we immediately noticed quite drastic changes. that is compared to the rest of Europe where country seemed to roll into country and minor differences would evolve  slowly along the way. Turkey overwhelmed us immediately. It was loud and alive every other car would beep us, the towns and villages were busy with traffic and people callling out to us. It is a land of noise, be it from the minarets calling people to prayer or from the general 24 hour lifestyle of  the Turkish people. the landscape was also different, gone were the green forested hills of Bulgaria we were now faced with a much harsher land, dryer with less greenery and more rolling hills much dominated  by grazing  rather than agricultural land. The roads were also a revelation, in short they were fantastic compared to what we had experienced within the former eastern bloc countries. the majority of roads had a wide hard shoulder and no matter how heavy the traffic, we managed to feel pretty safe on this lane. especially as there was a noticeable reduction in the number of roadkill animals encountered . On entering Turkey we headed Southwest down towards the Gallipoli Penninsula. It took us 4 days to reach this area and though the hilly terrain of Turkey made this heavy going, we really enjoyed the scenery and the wonderful weather. We were able to keep the tent packed away and opt for the luxury of Hotels, only costing us £10-£20 per night with Breakfast. The Gallipoli Penninsula was strange. It is a remarkable place where tens of thousands of British, Australian, NewZealand and Turkish soldiers died during the first world war. We followed the path of the Allied forces from the beach at Anzac cove to the surrounding hills where the extent of the allied advance was realised in a series of still visable trenches. It was such a confined area where so many lives were lost and the area is still littered with debris from the battles. It was a real sombre experience to be at this place, but also very strange since it is also a place of celebration for the Turkish people where they feel that their nation was born and the seeds of their republic were sown. Even so there is much warmth and freindship shown by the Turkish people to the many Australian and English people who visit to pay hommage there, even though are  doing so to the memory of an   invading force who were responsile for thousands of Turks deaths.

I had to spend a few days holed up in the Gallipoli penninsula with a chest infection, Jayne looked after me pretty well, I kept putting on my dying swan impression and sending her out for chocolate , crisps and coke, and we managed to get hold of some antibiotics. This is good if you are ill in Turkey, no need for a doctor to get a prescription, just diagnose yourself and go get what you want from a pharmacist (not good for hypochondriacs). What is not so good if you are ill in Turkey, at least during Ramandan, Is the guy who is payed to go through the streets at 4 o’clock in the morning banging a drum to remind people to eat before sunrise. nor is it good to have a hotel room which faces a mosque especially one which has a very large loudspeaker attached to it through which the call to prayer is emmitted complete with the whistle of feedback at all hours of the day. If you are really unlucky, as I was they will also set off loud explosions to remind you to eat after the sun has set. After recovering from my chest infection we were eager to move on and head towards Istanbul. We crossed the Dardanelles and headed Northeast for a few days battling intense headwinds before giving up and settling for taking the ferry for a couple of hunded miles to Istanbul.

Istanbul- Hectic/Mayhem DO NOT DRIVE THERE. I am so glad we never cycled into Istanbul, It was enough to cycle the 500 yrds or so from the ferry to where we managed to find a decent hotel. Istanbul is like many other cities chaotic, noisy, and to put it nicely a rip-off, every one is after your money having said that we did enjoy our time there, the sights of the mosques and the Waterfront are amazing, and you can spend hours immersing yourself in the sights, sounds and smells of the spice market, bazars and warren of streets. The food was amazing and we developed a liking for sitting in the local buffet style restaurants sharing plates of stuffed vines , rice and bowls of steaming harricot beans . followed by sticky baclavas and sneeking boxes of assorted Turkish delights back to the hotel to munch on during  frequent powercuts . In all we had a great 7 days in Istanbul. It was expensive but it would be  mine and Jayne’s last week together as she was due back in Jersey to pick up where she had left off.  My constant companion of nearly 3 months would be leaving me, This was going to be really strange and I knew I could never know how strange until she had actually gone. For 3 months we had lived in each others pocket, shared everything we had been exhausted together, felt that fear together when being chased by vicious dogs. we had argued we had laughed and we had ached and we had shared that most precious of commodity  time, something that very few couples will ever get to do so intensly for such a long period.  I know that I will miss Jayne’s company deeply and that it is gonna take some time to learn to be comfortable with only my own company.

Jayne flew back to Jersey on the 8th of September -

I have lost my St Christopher!  panic! not that I am too superstitious but, he is the patron saint of travellers. Since losing my St Christopher Turkey has been hit by the worst flash floods they have had in 80 years. over 30 people have lost there lives in Istanbul as a result of it. and now I am stuck here  because the rain has been that bad that my ferry ticket has been cancelled. Now I have to pay another 40 Euros for another night in an expensive hotel in Istanbul. The next day I find my St Christopher, The sun breaks through the cloud and I arrive by ferry at Bandirma. Back where I was almost 2 weeks ago minus a girlfreind. It feels really wierd not having Jayne with me, I am really going to have to get out and socialise otherwise I am going to go stir crazy. As luck has it that evening I venture out on my lonesome and get chatting to Emrah at his restaurant as I tuck into my favourite meal of haricot beans and rice. Emrah invites me out to watch the football with him that evening and we roll back worse for wear some time in the early hours of the morning. This was so welcome to me , I had just said goodbye to my partner a couple of days earlier and felt really low and wondered how I was going to cope with just myself for company. I am really indebted to Emrah for his kindness and hospitality on this evening and this made me realise I will cope, why? because it reminded me of all the kind acts and words that people had given along the way, especially in Turkey. I started to rmember all the people that had taken the time to engage with me, like the 2 Turkish guys who on seeing us buy a melon at the roadside , immediately came over and insised on buying us a further  3 melons ( yes we had to carry 4 melons on our bikes). or the truck drivers who would pull over and offer lifts up the hills. and all those people that called out and offered us glasses of  tea or the man that gave us bunches and bunches of grapes of his cart.

I have applied for my Iranian visa , It will take about 3 weeks to process if I am successful. I will need to pick it up from Ankara which means I have 3 weeks to travel around the South West of Turkey before heading to Cappadoccia and then on to Ankara. Only problem is , Its still raining very heavily, and I am now sitting in Cankkale waiting for it to stop. may build an Ark !

Turkey

Anzac cove

Front line to Suvla bay

The Blue Mosque- Istanbul

Hustle and bustle

dodgy balcony(but only £10 a night)

boxing Jaynes box up to fly back

A Change of Plan

We decided to give Constanta a miss, after all we found ourselves way ahead of schedule and figured we should try and make Istanbul our final destination. So instead of heading north we said goodbye to the Danube , our companion of 1000 plus miles, and headed for the Bulgarian coast at Varna. It was a bit unerving leaving the Danube as I realised my navigational skills would be tested somewhat more than that of having to follow a river. There was also the small problem of not having any roadmaps for a journey accross Bulgaria and  into Turkey.  Remarkably fate played its hand as we bumped into a Swiss guy cycling the other way, the first cyclist we had seen for days and we were able to swap maps and gleen some advice from him for the journey ahead.

We finally saw the sea again after a hairy descent from the hills around Varna.  we were dying to have a dip, so booked into a cheap hotel and headed for the beach. We soon realised the swim would have to wait after seeing the packed beach, without an inch of spare space to sit. Being from Jersey and used to sharing the beach with at most a couple of people walking their dogs, we found the whole situation unacceptable and headed for the neerest bar, the swim would have to wait for another day. Next day we found a lovely resort about 40 miles down the coast, still pretty unspoilt and not  too commercialised where we spent a lazy half day swimming and relaxing.

The next 3 days were spent goinng up and over the mountains that act as a natural border between Bulgaria and Turkey. the scenery was really stunning though some of the hills were exhausting not least because of the really hot weather which seems to have been following us around the continent. We had been taking extra bottles of water with us strapped to the back of my bike, only to find that on one occaission the sunlight had refracted through the bottle  and like a magnifying glass it had burnt a hole through my back saddle bag and into my tent. So that practice has had to stop,  We tend to get enough water now by stopping often to buy melons from  the locals, which we devour along the way. We finally crossed the border into Turkey on the 21st of August , the day before Ramadan starts, I am hoping theyre not too strict on the fasting bit as the hills in Turkey require the burning of  few calories and anyone who knows me will know that being skinny has never suited me.  We really enjoyed cycling through Bulgaria and loved the place  the people and the food (Shopska salad mmm!) but we are  really looking forward to Turkey. We have decided to head down to the Gallipoli Penninsula for a few days to look around that historic part of the world before catching the ferry to Istanbul, partly because We have been warned by many sources to not even attempt to enter Istanbul by bicycle.

last night by the Danube

the black sea at last

bulgarian wildlife

more bulgarian wildlife

the end of another hill

near the top of the mountains

melon stop

Into Turkey

The land of Nod

Bulgaria has been very confusing. Not least because a shake of the head in Bulgaria means Yes , and a nod No. This has taken me some time to discover, after constantly asking locals for reassurance we are heading int he  right direction and being given a shake of the head in reply. Now we have deciphered the locals strange form of non verbal communication ,we are really enjoying the place. The beer is good and cheap (80p a pint of Becks) good quality hotels charge on average about £30 a night for a standard double room. The food is really good and fresh, we’ve just polished off a 3 course meal complete with beers and coffees for  less than £10 each. The only downside to the place is the amount of  long straight busy roads that take you through the barren hilly landscape from town to town.  We have on occaission crossed the Danube into Romania, just for a change of scenery,. Romania and Bulgaria are really worlds apart , yet only separated by a river.

Romania around the Danube is flat. and the dusty main road follows the Danube through countless small villages, where children cycle alongside you and all the locals wave and greet you. The villages and their inhabitants look so poor and yet are so friendly. The roads are also congested with dark skinned gypsies driving their melon laden horse driven carts. Turkeys and chickens scratch around on the road verges and sheep herders lie asleep with their flocks in the shade of roadside trees. On entering the big towns or cities, you cannot help but notice how delapidated they  are . The outskirts seem littered with rusting dissused factories, accomodation is stark and you really have to take what you can get , which is usually an old hotel who’s heyday was in the days of communism. These places seem to have had little attention for decades and seem only to be opend up when the occaisional visitor passes through. Bulgaria in comparison has a sense of much more infrastructure ,  hotels are common and of a much higher standard though gone are the villages of waving children and roads of  horse driven carts. So I guess it has been nice to be able to sample these 2 different countries and literally decide  in the  morning which side of the river to travel for the day and what to experience.

Our next few days will take us towards Constanta and the Black sea. It has been such a long time since I have seen the sea and I really miss it.  There just remains the small matter of crossing the really hilly terain of the next couple of hundred miles, so we are gathering our strength at the moment and loading up with carbs for the pending journey, talking of which I am off to the bar for another pint of  Becks.  bye for now.

crossing the Danube

Melon sale

bustling city centre Romania

What the !

4 star hotel Romania (shower)

bad road

taking a break

Through the Iron Gate.

It has been quite some time since we last posted, so theres a lot to tell. From Hungary we headed for Serbia and Croatia. We were pleased to be leaving Hungary and the chilling gaze of the locals. The first Serbian we met waved and stopped us, we made small talk in German about the weather etc. eventually he asked us where we were from, when we told him we were English he spat on the floor in front of us, ranted ubout us poking our noses in Serbian business called us Shits and pointed us in the direction of the Croatian border, telling us to head for it in no uncertain terms.

We like Croatia the people seem friendly and welcoming. Our first night was in Vukovar a city on the Danube which was layed seige by the Serbians for 3 months in the height of the troubles in the region. The city was flattened through heavy artillery, air raids and small arms fire, during countless attempts by the Serbians to capture it. It really is an amazing place there still remain countless buildings riddled with holes and in a state of ruin . It is also unfortunately the site of many war crimes as after the city fell hundreds of local Croatians were taken to a field ouside the city and executed. The City and its history stands as  grim reminder of the horrors of war and tension still lays very close to the surface in this region.

We headed back to Serbia to avoid some big hills and visit Belgrade. Camping has gone out of the window for a bit as B&Bs and hotels are becoming so cheap.  in Novi Sad we thought we would enqire at a 5 star hotel, more out of curiosity than anything else. When the girl at reception said £50 for the night for both of us, we couldnt believe our ears and imediately got our credit cards out. Honestly we had free run of the hotel spa with steam rooms, jacuzzi, sauna, swimming pools, and spent the night watching  satelite TV in our room and ordering pizzas  and beer from the restaurant. What a night. The next night we camped on a Serbian campsite with cold tanks of water on stilts for showers and pipes set in concrete for toilets. Still that was only £3 for the night.

We are starting to have trouble with dogs.  Over the last week or two we have been noticing a lot of nasty smells as we cycle, It is obviously the smell of road kill which is not surprising given the driving skills of the locals and the 30 degree plus weather we have been having.  The majority of the roadkill appears to be dogs, which at first brought an “ah poor thing ” from us. I am sad to say it has now turned to a “phew, thats one less “. I have lost count of the number of times we have been chased by wild dogs. these are not the type that chase the postmen for a laugh, these are big ,mangy looking things that are really, really hungry and will chase you at around 25 mph for a good hundred yards baring teeth and salivating with anticipation of food. We have both now resorted to carrying stones in our pockets and have used them with good effect.  We  are both determined to fight as if our lives depend upon it as they probrably will.  We have met a lovely french couple Laurent and Audrie, we met them after Belgrade and for the last week have continued to bump into them and usually end up staying in the same hotel and camp site of an evening. I hope that they will read this blog and enjoyed the rest of their travels, bon voyage and  keep in touch.

We entered Romania last week, that was very interesting. We were stopped at the border by a 6ft tall female border guard, complete with grey boiler suit and gun, this ensemble was rounded off by a pair of 6 inch strappy heals encrusted in fake diamonds, very fetching. Romania appears to be very poor but the locals are extremely friendly, though they must be as hungry as the dogs as I have yet to see anything resembling a shop in any of the villages. We are surviving off of crisps and chocolate at the moment and any roadside fruit we can find as we still cant decipher restaurant menus and accept that the word “vegetarian” just does not exist in some languages.  I  have a good supply of ropy red wine which a local winemaker supplied in an old plastic 2 litre water bottle for me for only £1.50 needless to say Jayne wont touch the stuff but it keeps my hunger pangs away.

We spent a whole 2 days cycling through the Iron gate which is the biggest gorge in Europe, it was absolutely stunning, I can say no more than that, I will post a couple of photos but I know it wont do it justice, the weather was hot and there were plenty of refreshment stops along the way with some stunning views. On the whole we have had a great last couple of weeks  a couple of really hilly days and one day caught in the middle of nowhere in a really scary thunderstorm. Where the lightening strikes were really close and we were soaked to the skin; but apart fom that and the dogs – No probs and looking  forward to Bulgaria.

dying of hunger in Serbia

anyones guess

bombarded water tower Vukavorhigh street Vukavor

£10 a night hotel with a view

Romanian homes

into the iron gate

the iron gate

the iron gate

touring caravans very popular with Rumanians

iron gate