Turkey to the UK, the final installment (for this trip!?!)
26th Nov 2006

Back in the land of package tourism
Istanbul. No, Constantinople!
A senseless waste of human life
From Europe to EU
Assorted former Yugoslav bits
Drugs for money? No, backgammon for schnitzel.
Another delightful visit to Klaus and Barbara
We couldn't not see Sjaak
A cheerless passage back to Blighty

Fairy chimneys, fair enough

Goreme - What can we say? We had missed it out on our way out through Turkey for the simple reason that it was covered in snow. It is famed for it’s rock formations which make extraordinary pinnacles which for millennia people have used as cave dwellings. Rather tweely these are called fairy chimneys, there is nothing at all fairy sized about them. Also none of them had any chimneys to speak of just windows that had the dual purpose of ventilation in the summer and somewhere for the smoke to escape in the winter.

What did please me is that the locals still prefer to excavate into the rock for their homes rather than build on top of it. Avoiding the need for too much of that really annoying air-con. They have also truly latched on to the tourist potential of their rock houses and every building it seems was offering rooms; cave rooms at a premium. The price of each category of room is set at the start of each season by a committee of hoteliers so there was little potential in the way of haggling.

Dorms were for us. But since we were the only ones in that dorm, we were better off than in an expensive room - acres of space for all our clobber. With a swimming pool and the like we felt suddenly that we were in the land of holiday makers. I think the presence of myriad holiday makers was also a bit of a clue!

This is as far east as most tourists venture. There were even coach loads of tourists arriving just to see the main cave area who were guided to the best shot stops, bustling on and off and then shipped back to their sunbeds on the Mediterranean.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nought wrong with this. But for us we felt that we had lost something. Suddenly we were just one of many. The tourists outnumbered the locals, and where before we were a novelty and offers of chai abounded now we were just lumped with all the other tourists. Everything was different, there were yuppy bars to sit in, nick knack shops, the prices were inflated but no one cared because they were on holiday. We felt like square pegs in round holes, even fellow bikers no longer stopped for a chat, they were all on a schedule, they had their own private agendas.

I felt a little saddened, and that this was the beginning of the end of our adventures.

Luckily for us there were a number of people at the hotel to distract us from drifting into melancholy. There was Jessie and Eunice from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The majority of travelling Americans that you meet are from the NE or the West side of America and it was a refreshing change to hear the sounds of gentle southern drawl. Jess had that wonderful American positivism, about his life and work. He works with people young and old who are travelling through his area. His up tempo attitude to events, was something very alien to British characters and I was jealous. We Brits are uncomfortable about selling ourselves, our brains start shuffling nervously about in our heads when praised, and downplay our achievements to ease the awkwardness. I could appreciate the mental benefit of seeing things in such a positive way, but however hard I try cynical, self-effacing thoughts invade my head against my will. He flattered us tremendously by saying how inspirational we were, but could not see that in fact he was the inspirational one. That a host of unforgettable experiences is all very well but if you then taint them with British understatement it belittles them.

Jessie must be unique in the contents of his travel luggage. Seemingly it contained no clothes or very few and an apparent endless supply of games, puppets, balls, and even a 12 inch high battery powered Buzz Lightyear toy. His generally gaiety was dampened by that fact that his perfect ball, was not - perfect that is and kept deflating and his Buzz Light Year had been dropped off a balcony and his head no longer spun around. The ‘perfect’ ball had failed in the same way that his last five had. It was a team effort, Pat took Buzz in hand, Alex took charge of fixing punctures and I set to improving the design of the material cover to the ball that hopefully would mean that the valve was not hidden again.

Alex was part of a family from Oxfordshire. There was Rose and Brian the parents with Shula and Alex. They were the sort of family that should convince me to have children. They were polite, fun-loving, sensitive, intelligent and confident - they respected each other and others. Why though do I feel that if I decided to follow that route it would all be very different.

There had been strange disconcerting noises coming from our back end, of Berthette that is. Pat had had suspicions for a few thousand kilometres that the shaft drive was dying again. We were in a nice place, 95% of people spoke some English and there were bike shops renting out two-wheelers to tourists. So all in all it seemed a suitable place to investigate the nasty noise coming from down under. As with all these things there was good news and bad. The shaft drive was OK, it was the bevel box (aren’t you impressed, nearly 5 years on the road and I can name working parts of the bike, not that I really know what it does, something to do with making the wheel go round, which is always useful). Now a shaft drive we could have sent for and Pat could have put on himself, but the bevel box is one of those annoying bits like the gear box that you need special tools BMW to open. Nearest being in Ankara or Istanbul. It had been making odd noises for a long time, does that mean that it will rumble on happily for another 1000 km or does it mean it is about to croak. We would have to hope that the travel Gods are with us. The only options for fixing it were to strip the rear end out and take it to Istanbul, get if re-conditioned and then bring it back and instal it or simply to risk riding on to Istanbul. I worked on the slightly risky principle that it had been rumbling since Goa and not getting appreciably worse so we might as well go on ....

The unique attitude to Turkish business confused me yet again. We were staying in a dorm big enough for about 12 people and there were just two of us. A group of 10 French people arrived, 2 families complete with a hairy mutt. The manager started moving beds from our dorm into a smaller one next door. For some reason he had decided that our privacy should not be disturbed. Why, we had felt ourselves lucky that for a few nights we had had the place to ourselves so it seemed just that we share for a couple of nights, but the manager, Dervish, would have none of it. He now saw us in that limbo land between guest and friend, basically because we had had the craic with him.

The confusion continued unabated. We went for a stroll to see some of the 7th century frescoed cave churches in the area. Some enterprising locals who happen to have one of these churches in amongst their vineyards charge entrance fees to see the frescoes. As soon as you arrive someone leaps out from apparently nowhere and announces,very insistently, a grossly inflated fee. If you stand and chat for a while with the guy, he’ll let you go in for free and give you free chai to boot. It seems that once you show people respect they move into hospitality mode. In fact this particular chap also invited us back to drink copious amounts of his home-made wine. One of our many regrets of the trip is that we didn’t take him up on the offer. Although, as we continued in a state of rude good health perhaps this had been a wise move after all.

The caves and pinnacles of eroded rock are wonderfully beautiful in early morning or evening light. Some more moneyed or in our case less stingy visitors take advantage of the situation and splash out on balloon rides. That means that the cheapskates on the ground have a free balloon show every morning.

Baris, the biker we had met in Dogubayazit and now our main hope to get help in Istanbul, would not be available till the Monday, so it made sense to hang around and enjoy the easy touristy living of Goreme and allow ourselves to drift into comfort zone, sunbathe, take a swim or two and play cards.
Pat limped from the swimming pool. He had cut his foot walking on the tiles on the floor of the pool. In jest he tried a wind up with Dervish that he would sue for damages, he was outwitted by the sharpness of Dervish. ‘What were you doing walking in the pool, it’s a swimming pool not a walking pool!’ Fair point.

We set off wending our way to the big metropolis. We found a little spot for rough camping half way-ish. In theory it was a great spot, enough down a dirt road off the highway to be out of sight, shelter from the wind by tumps and a view of a watery area inhabited by a bunch of birds. But the fact that it was a dried up wadi was taking a risk. The dry cracked mud forming a tiled effect on the ground. All we could hope for is that the rain would hold off, otherwise it could turn very pasty indeed. Things worked in our favour and even the grating bevel box was holding together.

As per normal for a pair of very square bikers like ourselves, we planned to stop a short haul from Istanbul itself by stopping in at the Black Sea. It was not Black, in the same way that the Golden Gate Bridge is not golden. but it did have sea-like qualities. It was a Saturday and party time for weekenders from the capital. The singing went on night long and was pleasantly harmonic. The restaurant at the campsite even laid on a bonfire and fireworks; many campers had come prepared with the essentials, one man was making do with a tiny pup-tent but alongside had a full size fridge to store his beer supplies. Cool!

The circumnavigation is completed as we cross the Bosphorus

And so to Istanbul and the completion of our world tour. Yes, it was that deflating.

I tried to keep a bit of motivation going by thinking that we hadn’t really done a round the world trip yet as we’d changed bikes. Getting Berthette back to Britain would mean that she had done a lap in her own right, having left westward to America and returned via Asia.

We returned to stay on the backpacker street we had stayed nearly five year’s ago. I am sure it had not changed very much; but we had. A place that had felt exotic was now brashly European in our eyes. Gone were the genuine friendly invitations to drink chai and instead everyone’s friendly offer was tainted by either sleaziness or carpet sales banter. The clothes were western; the food international and the shops globalised. It felt sadly ordinary. Maybe we had been travelling too long and the jadedness was beginning to overwhelm us. The backpackers were of the drunken mobile phone variety. One in particular had the seemingly common disorder of setting his alarm on his phone for early in the morning and then rolling in drunk in the wee hours, falling into a coma and sleeping through his alarm that seemed to set on very annoying noise mode. On the second morning, a very disgruntled Pat rustled through his backpack to turn off the offending phone. Then there was Genghis. Genghis was not a murdering rampager but a Kurdish Liverpudlian. Genghis had disturbingly vivid and vocal dreams, with sporadic clear announcements all night. All chaotically random.

There were also those that were at the beginning of their own world tour, going in the opposite direction as it were. It was strange meeting up with them, it was somehow like meeting ourselves in the past. They seemed so fresh, apprehensive and excited. How would we have seemed to someone on our outward journey; cocky, naive maybe. One thing I thought listening to people at the start of their journeys was their concerns that they would not make it. I know we had worries about getting visas and the like, and I had known that there would be delays and problems but I never really though that I wouldn’t make it. Was that arrogance on our behalf? Realism? Belief in ourselves? Or sheer bloody-mindedness?

Care of Koray, I was introduced to Seffet the BMW guy, who intoned that the bevel box thing was not terminal. Luckily we had an old agricultural type bike which apparently meant that the fault had not proved as debilitating as it would have been in a new shiny model. He reckoned that on one of the newer incarnations of the BMW GS we would have been looking at flying home from Pakistan. Maybe with less luck along the way we may not have made it after all. I was certainly confident in the hands of Seffet; outside his shop were parked an array of different models and he chatted knowledgeably about them all. It turned out that he’d been brought up in Germany as the son of a Gastarbeiter and had served his time in the BMW bike factory. On return to Turkey he had run the service side of the main BMW dealership in Istanbul before branching out on his own. Just as we’ve seen all over the world, BMW dealers really can’t be bothered with repairs to older models and only really want to change oil and plugs. The upshot is that one of their technicians will move on and set up their own business in the area to do the ‘real’ mechanics. Only in one respect did I find Seffet a bit odd; as with almost all machines, BMW build their bikes around off-the-shelf bearings this means that instead of paying through the nose for bearings in a plastic bag with a BMW sticker on it you can get the same item for half price or less by going to a bearing supplier. Strangely, Seffet would only fit genuine BMW parts. Whatever. When I saw the main bearing that had been taken out I realised how easily everything could have gone extremely pear-shaped; this particular item is about 75 mm in diameter and has caged balls running between the races. The cage had split apart and curled out wards from the bearings and only good fortune had kept it from spreading far enough to knacker the adjacent oil seal or, on the other side, curling in between the gears and locking up the whole shebang. Phew!

Koray and Sibel also gave us a more real view of capital life, and led us to a riddle of streets filled with tables for alfresco eating, this was a mostly tourist free zone. The food was fantastic and Koray and Sibel were charming company. It was heart warming to see that Istanbul is absorbing all European facets, as we sat enjoying our meal a drunken lout started a fracas and tables and chairs started falling about.

We felt somewhat in a limbo, we were neither local nor a proper tourist; interested in sight-seeing and buying souveniers. It was good coming through Iran on the was back, I was now a little more knowledgeable about the carpets for sale in the shops, now it was easy to cut through the banter and sales pitch of the dodgy geezers. The quality was not up to Aladdin’s standards, and the prices inflated. It felt good to have enough savvy to see through their cons. I made the mistake of accepting an offer of chai from one such fellow, mainly because I really fancied a cuppa. Only to have the conversation drift into the awkwardly sexual. The questions were progressively more invasive.
“Where is your husband?”
“How do you have sex in the dorms?” - I was politely dismissive.
He then offered his services - at which point I stood up and told him he would be unhappy if his wife or daughters were treated in such a way, and he should be more respectful. Thanked him for the tea and left.
It was sad to see the kind hospitality of Turkish people so distorted and warped. I wanted to go round and make the pervy bugger squirm a bit. The only possible reason that I could see for his behaviour was some completely misguided notion that Hippy had been making up a mythical husband for her protection and that he felt that he’d seen through it. Whether his rather pathetic sex talk ever gets him anywhere I doubt. I guess if it weren’t for people like this we’d be complaining that Istanbul is a bit ordinary; it needs a little sleaziness to add to the exotic.

On a quest for a sunset dose of beauty we went for a stroll along the pier. We sat down and immediately became aware of an aura of awkwardness close-by. We noticed a middle-aged man self-consciously sat with a four pack below us. He fidgeted nervously. We pondered his situation, was drinking in public illegal and was he worried about being observed? Had he planned to sink the 4 pack and do a Reggy Perrin and we were cramping his style? We glanced up and down the pier and noticed that he was not the only lone male looking rather uncomfortable. Light dawned...... how dim are we....... we had unwittingly stumbled on the cottaging district of Istanbul. Oops! Sorry, to those who had planned on an anonymous pick up for the evening and two dumb travellers put the dampener on things.

Johnny Turk he was waiting,
He’d primed himself well,
He showered us with bullets
and he rained us with shells
When it was over
He’d shot us all to Hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia

As we headed West towards Greece there was one last stop to make. Galipoli is on a bit of a peninsula hence it’s strategic importance in a war; giving complete control over the Bosporus Straight but relatively easy to defend if you own the boss navy as there would only be one narrow front to fight on.. The Turks politically were siding with Germany, and whoever controlled the passage to the Black Sea would have a huge advantage. but being a peninsular I wished to go down and up it on different roads. I saw a small road down the East side and thought it was a good plan, but I failed to notice that the yellow minor road turned white on the map. The road surface disappeared along with signposts. I immediately regretted my choice of route. But we were here now, and continued blindly south. Then it went bad to worse the road was blocked completely. Rubble filled the road, a dozer was dumping more and more fill onto the road. We would be there was a while. The major problem with this was that I was dying for a pee. I wished I was a bloke. There was no cover, no where to nip behind a tree, to hide from the views of the road workers. Almost to drive the point home Pat made use of the break to relieve himself. The b.....d.

The silver lining in all this minor diversion is that we rode through some lovely tranquil villages, with holiday condos for the Turkish.

We found some great camping on the peninsular a stone’s throw from the memorial sites. This was clearly the place where the Turks holiday, it was packed to the brim. When we found our little corner opposite ‘Men Behaving Badly’ Turkish style. The pile of garbage surrounding their tent grew into a mini-mountian over the weekend. When they left we shuffled over to take advantage of the power socket, light and picnic table. We set about wombling. They had left everything from frying pans to a full box of chai, sugar to tee-shirts and loads of bottles and polystyrene packaging. Weird! But it did mean that we acquire more chai, salt and sugar just as we were running out, so it wasn’t all bad.

My knowledge of the WW1 events was, I have to confess, fuzzy at best. I am not a big believer in the merit of wars and mentally have tended to switch off to the details and just remember that all wars mean a lot of dead people, soldiers and civilians. So visiting Galipoli was an education to me, I knew from the recesses of my mind that it had been Turks versus troops from New Zealand and Australia. I had not realised that there had also been French and British troops there. What struck me as I stood in ANZAC bay (renamed by the Turks in memory of the antipodean troops who lost their lives) and looked at the small landing bays and the escarpment that the Turks were defending and realised how much this was geographically a fool-hardy campaign directed by the British. From the top of the steep escarpment the Turks were in a position to see the enemy land and to pick their time to fight them. It was sending people into an inevitable massacre. I began to understand the Turks respect for the ANZAC troops. Both parties were sucked into a war that really had nothing to do with either of them. But despite that the Antipodean soldiers were relentlessly brave and determined, even after so many of their fellow soldiers lay dead and the situation was increasingly hopeless. The whole Anzac bay area is laid out in a respectful memorial to the dead, and give a humbling feel for the futility of war.

Glancing through the lists of the dead, the striking thing was the age of many. Pat began to read the names out loud, somehow reading the names made the people more real, it made more of a conscious effort to acknowledge. We wondered if Blair and Bush had to read aloud daily the names of the casualties of their actions they may begin to feel each death as a real life gone rather than just a number.

Back at the campsite things were back in the here and now. It was a couple of days before full moon and the camp managers were trying to rustle up enthusiasm for a rave party. Being square people, we have never attended a beach rave party, so it seemed churlish not to when one was on our doorstep. Unfortunately it turned out to be a nearly full moon, not so raving party, so we are still effectively rave virgins and thoroughly square.

Back in, back in, back in the EU

It was all very strange. Berthette was running wonderfully driving us on at a fair old crack into the teeth of a stiff breeze but the exhaust was making a bit of an odd noise. Maybe it was just my ears till buzzing from the nearly-rave party. Then about 20 miles from the Greek border, the indicator went sick. The front one was still flashing but at twice the speed of normal and so there was obviously a problem with the rear unit. Oops.......... because of hurried packing, the flexibly stemmed indicator had been pushed in line with the end of the exhaust orifice - there was a messy melted lamp, the exhaust gasses had blown away the casing. Miraculously, after it had cooled down and I scraped the melted plastic off the terminals, the bulb still worked and although the heat treated lens was now a tad opaque, it still functioned. Which was good news, since the bulb was now welded into the casing and we couldn’t change the bulb if we wanted to. The baggage rearranged, we got to the border.

Now, of course, we were running late and it was just our luck to have the most gormless person on a border we had yet encountered. She gave the impression that we were too complex and our carnet was something that upset her mundane routine. It was clear she had no clue what to do with to and put it on one side and hoped it would evaporate. Exasperated by our refusal to be ignored she eventually went to see the supervisor, came back and put the carnet on the side again. When she tried to dismiss us and deal with the next in the queue Pat pressed himself up to the window to prevent anyone getting past. She tried once more to enter the details into her terminal only to get stuck again.

I began to get a sick feeling, thinking back to the data entry fiasco when we came into Turkey. Was the wrong registration number still logged into the system making it impossible to process our carnet? I tried to suggest the she tried re-typing the string using a zero instead of the letter o but she either thought I was mad or up to some shenanigans and studiously ignored me. We rooted ourselves to the spot and eventually her boss came over and processed us in a matter of seconds. Why do you always get the trainee or the numpty when you’re in a hurry? By contrast, entry into the EU involved a single question; “Do you have anything to declare?” Replying in the negative brought us a brisk wave and so there we were back in Europe without a fanfare or an honour guard.

Northeast Greece really doesn’t do it for us. The road from the border to Thessaloniki is really rather drab. Annoyingly, it is not even complete so you can’t get past the blandness with brisk efficiency but instead have to make detours here and there that slows the whole boring journey down even further. Our target was the dangly bits to the east of Thessaloniki. Shaped rather like an udder with three teats, each teat has a different flavour. The west most is full of package hotels, the middle one a little more laid back, hosting mostly Greek tourists and the eastern one is off limits to general tourists being home to a cluster of orthodox Greek monasteries. We didn’t quite make it to the teats and settled for a bit of beach camping on the eastern side of the udder. We muscled in with local free campers as all of the campsites were full (and hugely expensive anyway). We were knackered, depressed and frustrated that we’d ended up somewhere so dull and so we bickered a bit and went to bed sulking. The imperfect end to a very strange day.

The only bonus to this camping spot was the plethora of blackberries, so we had the treat of a pudding to go with our meagre camping provisions of a package of instant soup, and a some of biscuits.

Down memory lane for Pat, he had fond memories of a trip around Greece in his infancy with his family and a stop near Mount Olimpos and a campsite near Katrini beach (Platamon, a Watson landmark campsite). It all felt a bit strange. Everyone was on holiday, everyone was essentially permanently wandering around in their underwear all day. Five years ago I would not have felt uncomfortable with this, but now having travelled for so long in countries where modesty is expected that it seemed wrong to be seeing so much flesh. I was beginning to empathise with how some islamic countries view us and feel that our liberality is confused with immorality. Somehow I was OK with people being undressed to be on the beach, but wandering through town and the campsite seemed wrong.

It was a step up in quality this campsite from the ones that we had been stopping at, but it was not until one in the morning did the site take on it’s true colours. We were sandwiched between two nightclubs playing Techno music till dawn. Then to top it all, when the music finally died out the lads in the tent next to staggered in and took over with the car stereo to fill the silence. Come back rough camping all is forgiven, there may be no spotless showers, power points and washing lines, but at least we get some sleep.

But we met Dimitri, quite a character was Dimitri, a biker on a bike cobbled together from all manner of parts to form an eclectic rat chopper bike. His English was about as good as our Greek, but he was able to pass on his respect for our trip and pressed an old Drachma into our hands for good luck.

The sun was warm and the shops were filled with the usual mixture of beach balls, sun cream and fur coats. Yes, shops and shops filled with very un-pc animal skin. It took a while to figure out why. The Poles were the answer. For some reason the place was hugely popular with Polish tourists, and what more appropriate souvenir from a beach holiday than a nice winter fur coat.

Balkanising

From here we turned North and into Macedonia, and camped near Ohrid. The town itself was old and wriggly, the municipal bits flowery and welcoming. What was great was that we were out of the EU again and the beer and wine worked out cheaper than the imported Fanta. Shame, looks like will be drinking mostly beer then, just in the pursuit of economy you know.

There were other bikers, but now the bikers were holiday makers not travellers and there was none of the camaraderie we had taken for granted. All their bikes were shiny and new, ours was road weary and tired. Ours was not of any interest to anyone. To all about us, we were just on a scruffy bike. I did not expect anyone to look up to us as world travellers but I did expect them to not look down on us. I was a little resentful that they could not see Berthette for what she was, she had carried us around the world, yes she was bent, patched and faded, but she had done a lot more than these shiny, teenage bikes.

We met Ray and Rhana a couple of Kiwis in a Brit camper van heading towards Turkey. I felt for them a little, no-one in England had told them about a green card for insurance and with their Kiwi passports they had been stung at every border.

I think it was true to say that we had both lost enthusiasm for the trip. Now that we had hit holiday zone, it felt like the adventure was over and it was now just a matter of traversing Europe to get home.

In the north of Macedonia we went through the town of Tetovo near the border with Kosova. Generally a very ordinary town there was the most delightful mosque, marking the beginning of the islamic Europe.

The border was manned in part by UN troops. We had a bit of banter, the Kosovans see themselves more aligned to Albania because that is their heritage, and had temporarily at least adopted the Albanian flag. But they seemed quite determined to want ultimately to be an independent country.

Nothing prepared us for what we encountered on the other side of the border - it was stunning; Alpine in it’s grandeur, mixed with the lake district on a good day for prettiness. Delightful little villages nestled in valleys with minarets instead of steeples. As we crested the top there were ski runs. It was a wonderful, it rekindled you enthusiasm for the trip, maybe travel through Europe would not be that predictable after all. It all was in sharp contrast to the bombed out homes and ruined streets, the tanks and hummers parked up in lay-bys full of UN troops. It is impossible to imagine what these people have lived through.

We had intended to stay in Prizren but we failed to find the centre and it did not inspire us. We were advised not to rough camp, land mines and the like. Hotels in the towns were mostly for the UN troops and NGOs on expenses so the prices are hiked up beyond 50 Euros, so we pressed on. Out of town we saw a place, smartish looking, no harm in asking the price. It was clean, there was hot water a TV and it was 20 Euros perfect. I joked with the guy showing us around asking if there was any TV in English, he gave a knowing smile.

OK it had been a while; we were in a brothel for the night again. The TV was not a TV it was just a video, with an uncompromising film in it. No wonder the knowing smile. No doubt the staff will be laughing at my naivety for days. There was a restaurant over the road, the car park was full which meant one of 2 things, this was the meeting point to pick up your entertainment for the night or the food was good. It was the latter. As we sat the tables filled, a band began to play, and the dancing began. As we had seen in so many places around the world, years of hardship had not dampened their ability to have a good time. The music was intriguing kind of a cross between Turkish music and Russian folk music.

That was the only day we spent in Kosova but I left hoping that it’s future is a peaceful one, this is a country, a beautiful country with it’s own culture. We will return one day.

The road to Montenegro, that sounds like a title of a book, twisted to the top of a hill range. We were in no hurry, so we stopped for a coffee, and watched the holiday makers queuing up in the line at the border. Little Alpine huts were border posts and places to buy insurance.

We were spoilt again with some stunning scenery. The horrendous recent political history of these countries has completely obscured the fact that they are truly beautiful. We headed for the coast, Budva in particular. The campsite was in a prime site but it’s grand entrance belied the run down facilities inside. We camped on a rise near a shower block only to discover afterwards that the shower blocks had it seems been defunct for decades. It then materialised that there were only 2 working taps for the whole of over 200 campers, two cold outside showers.

Now the showers created something of a dilemma, being cold and knowing the limit of the facilities it seemed prudent and polite not to linger, but because they were outside with no screening modesty suggested that one should wear underwear. But underwear slows down the cleaning process. Of course there were Germans bathing au natural. Which set a precedent that Patrick followed, I went for the swimsuit options working on the basis that with most of these things what is OK for a man is often not quite so OK for a woman.

We found that we were in the Italian corner of the campsite. Now you can always tell that you are camped by Italians when there is a camp expresso maker on the table. But this group of lads came complete with a large dog. I was fascinated as I watched pack 3 grown men, the dog and complete set of camping gear into their Fiat Punto. A wonder of modern science. They were then placed by another Italian couple who offered to cook for us. Typically the food was wonderful. We made the fundamental mistake of offering to make a desert. These were Italians after all, we thought we would do something simple, a European version of the Las Vegas car park delicacy of melted dark chocolate and banana. In Vegas it was all so easy - the chocolate just melted by itself into a perfect gloopy sauce. Could we re-enact this with the camp stove, no! We ended up with a lumpy mess, not fluid enough to dunk our bananas. The only good thing in all this is that I am sure the Italians felt their pride in the culinary expertise confirmed. We will never, offer to contribute to an Italian meal again, for fear of a second humiliation.

Budva was pretty but overly touristy, Kotor was the place that we loved. Not that tourists had not discovered it, because they had but because it was still a proper functioning town, in amongst the souvenir shops were little supermarkets, shoe shops and the like. Which made it feel more lived in than visited.

The tyre that had been fixed by our lovely Kurds was losing air again. But we were in the West now brother, our shabby bike was considered to clutter up people’s forecourts. Where a couple of weeks ago, people would have welcomed us, helped us, fed and watered us and probably refused payment. We were now an annoyance, they wouldn’t make enough money from us to warrant their time, a price that was so inflated as to spur us to pump it up and carry on regardless.

Re-entering Europe was emotional ups and downs. We longed for the kindness and friendliness of the places less travelled, we had been surprised by the beauty of the Balkan States, and it was less stressful to be somewhere less ‘foreign’. The shops had things we knew and had not seen in years, but that in itself felt like we had lost something, it was no longer an adventure.

Croatia has truly latched on to the tourist thing and fortunately for them when Yugoslavia split up again it ended up with the lion’s share of the coastline and picturesque historic fortified cities. There were lots of flash new touring bikes going the other way, we waved in acknowledgement of fellow bikers, they snubbed us, Berthette was beneath their acknowledgement. Sod ‘em I say. We love our Berthette.

Dubrovnik proved to be a bit of a problem. It’s fame meaning that it was rather out of our price range. We rode around and back out down the coast again towards Montenegro to find a campsite. Pat was all for moving on. After all he had seen Dubrovnik. I had not though, and since we were driving past it seemed churlish to move on without a visit.

Dubrovnik has a very big wall. I have visit a number of fortified cities but Dubrovnik takes the prize for walls. They somehow manage to blend their hugeness with delicacy of intricate gargoyles and the like, that theoretically should look out of proportion but somehow look perfectly appropriate.

The city has been sympathetically restored after the bombing in 1991. It is truly impossible to tell which parts are replacements, only by looking as the memorial photos of the damage done during the attacks by the Serbians could you get to grips with the scale of this impressive renovation.

I was feeling the pinch, there was a plethora of wonderful restaurants to eat in, but on our budget we would be returning to our camp stove. I was envious of the holiday makers splurging on treats, and probably feeling that it is so cheap ‘compared to England’. I began to realise that travelling through Europe was preparing us for the expense shock of the UK.

We pottered up the coast to Split, found a little camp site. The place was run by an octogenarian, who was wonderfully gregarious, and oblivious to the fact that we had no clue what she was saying. At one point she wandered off with our penknife, and then we winced as she used it to cut through a bit of washing line which turned out to have a steel wire core. Our perfectly honed scout knife became a serrated mess. Hey, ho.

There was a like minded Dutch couple Styn and Sandara, who we shared a few beers with, they were the sort of people who kindly covered our tent with a tarp when we were out for the day when it began to rain. Now those are the kind of camping neighbours you need.

We had spent the day in Split. Split does not have the perfection of Dubrovnik. It is a chaotic blend of history, Diocleacian’s palace integrated with narrow twisting mediaeval cobbled streets. The city reminded me of Bosra, in the way that antiquities were absorbed into everyday existence. It made me smile that there were a few oddities, a sphinx from Egypt an antique bought by a Roman Emperor to no doubt show off as much as adorn his palace. There seemed something strangely Escher-like about the ancient containing the ancient. But was an unexpected bonus was free wi-fi. We had been struggling to find affordable internet and there we were in a flash coffee house with wi-fi. We sipped our coffee for an age but the waiter seemed unconcerned.

That night the rain deluged, the wind gusted. We had been unsure about the waterproof-ness of our hand-me-down tent from Arianne and Steve. But we had underestimated it, our apologises to our Oakland benefactors. Having sheltered from the storm in the Dutch guys porch while we finished cooking our pasta, when we ventured out to investigate the damage to our tent, we found it dry as a bone.

As we set off the next day we just got the tent down and the heavens opened. We relayed our stuff to a portico and pondered our options. Should we stay when camping in the rain is no fun, or pack up and ride in the rain. Neither was an inviting option. We set off in the hope that the North would be drier. I had this disconcerting feeling that I had left the flask at the camp ground, Pat said No. We stopped to top up petrol and air, and we had left the flask behind. It was torrential rain, truly wet rain. Do we add on an hour’s riding time by riding back or do we go on.

We went back through the storm, the flask was battered and worn but a godsend in these inclement times and a money saver, with these ever increasing prices. It was the right choice.

In Goa I had foolishly dumped my bikini on the basis that we needed to make room for a certain chess board and the fact it hadn’t fitted for the last 4 years, and we were heading into Islamic zone. But now with a load of sunbathing opportunities my clothing was a little too covering. Patrick had told me that it was OK, ‘cos the Croatian coastline was littered with nudist beaches, where of course the bikini is unnecessary of course. But could we find one. Maybe there is some code for such places that we were not au fait with. But they eluded us.

We rolled on past Zadar to Paklenica campground. Paklenica a gorge was nice for a stroll, and was crowded with summer climbers. We had not escaped the bad weather and spent a day hiding from thunder storms hogging mugs of hot chocolate and playing cards. Peter, a British chef and his Czech wife entertained us a couple of evenings. Blanca made me smile, her accent was perfect Lancashire, Worsley in fact. After a pressured lifestyle in catering he had wisely decided to sell up the business and take early retirement. Despite the decrease in income they knew they were better off.

We were amused though by 3 families of Germans who had formed an encampment in the middle of the site, of identical burgundy VW campers. It was all a bit scary, they had identical numbers of children, matching dogs and camping gear. They set up their chairs in perfect circles and everything. There was something so incredibly organised about them that it awoke the mischievous in me. I struggled with a burning desire to shuffle up their orderliness while they were bathing on beach or paint one of their burgundy vans green. I did not.

I cannot think why now, but I had taken the decision, to head inland. I vaguely remember thinking that it may be that the rain is clinging to the coastline and that inland it would be drier. I also was becoming aware of our impending deadline of the 15th of September, but was forgetting that we were now in Europe with guaranteed good roads and small countries, so if we really wanted we could be back in the UK in 3 days maximum. I was wrong, Delnice would have been a lovely place in the dry but in the mist, cold and damp it was not. We past a delightfully blue lake with holiday homes around it where people were dry and warm.

We had the inevitable row, this had been my idea, and it was a mistake, but Pat had not been clear about his reservations. There were tears, we could not afford any of the meals on offer and settled for a packet of biscuits. Pat was right that it may rain on the coast, but at least it is warmer than a 1000m up. It was a miserable night in all senses.

Having made a reassessment of the map I was reassured that we could easily afford a few more days on the coast and headed back to the warmth of Piran in Slovenia. It sounds that we are on a bit of a flag collection mission but it was not deliberate.

In Piran we found our dream plot of land; a house with about half an acre of orchards overlooking the medieval town of Piran. But judging by the house prices in the town below it was somewhat above our budget. This will not stop me keeping an eye out for it on the internet when we get back to see if it goes up for sale.

In our campsite, only a stroll up the coast from Piran, life was good; free wi-fi from the local hotel, sunbathing opportunities, and a fiesta to look forward to. It was to be a ‘Lollypop’ party - we were intrigued. It sounded worrying like some kind of paedophile convention. It was another non-party, a party for supporters of a local political candidate. Never really worked out the connection with lollypops.

After a few days enjoying the holiday thing we headed inland again towards Lake Bled. The Soca valley is gorgeous. It has running through it one of those river that is a surreal aquamarine colour. The scenery was soothing, not dramatic like the main Alps, but green and rolling with excellent biking roads navigating it.

The campsite which we found by chance was one of the the best campsites we have been to. It had an unassuming thoughtfulness about it. Candle laterns lit the site at night, fresh flowers in the toilet block, a roofed area with power and lines to dry clothes in wet weather, a fridge for communal use, there were big laundry bowls for doing clothes washing. None of these things were flash, or expensive but they made camping a much easier experience. Villi who ran the place was equally unassuming, it was not until we were leaving that we discovered his cooking was something of a legend in the valley and an invite to a Villi winter dinner party was highly sought after. We stupidly had politely declined his offer of cooking us a meal, not wanting to be any trouble.

There we met Fritz a mad German in full lederhosen riding an R60 combination, a bit of a character. There was also David and Rose, a couple of Brits just starting out on their world trip, in a converted Landrover. They seemed very self assured about their preparation and planning but were whittering in the way we had about getting Iranian visas. I hope they learn to appreciate that the joy of travelling is in the unplanned not the planned. In the words of Pat’s guru Ted Simon, ‘The interruptions are the journey’.

It was a lovely place to chill and relax for a bit, not yet swarming with outsiders with holiday homes.

For those who thought that Dolomites were just sporty Toledos

We headed into the Dolomites. There we were definitely the poor relations; the roads were cluttered with executive bikers. I could see why. These mountains may not have the height of the Andes or the Himalayas but they were deservedly awesome. There were bikers that had just come to do as many passes as possible. One American had created a route for his GPS that included 350 miles and 17 passes. Why? I presume to prove that he can. The bends were so tight that fully loaded and two up we kept pace with sporty racers. OK so they whizzed away from us on the straights but we were in no hurry. At the top of every pass there was the obligatory parking for bikes and a restaurant and gifty shop to pick up the T-shirt and the sticker. We stopped at a couple to admire the view and supped from our flask, but while bikers paused and oo-ed and ah-ed at the other shiny bikes Berthette was dismissed with disdain. I felt an urge to stand up for her, but I knew no-one would understand.

I had been looking forward to some Italian food and was sorely disappointed to discover that the Dolomites is filled with Germanic food. The campsite was within spitting distance of the motorway which was convenient. But it’s proximity to the railway line was a bit much. We had to laugh though, when the night harvester started up in the field next door. Was someone having a laugh?

We had heard that the Brenner pass charged a whopping 18 Euros to go into Austria, so we planned to take one of small passes. B......s! We crested the top and bumped into a toll booth demanding 12 Euros. This is effectively an entry fee for Austria. There is no way to enter Austria without either paying for their toll on motorways or for each pass. It is an EU country, no other EU country charges you to enter it.

We decided in protest to not spend another cent in Austria, determined not to buy a coffee or fill up with petrol until we reached Germany. We did it, rolled into Lindau and set up camp. There were other bikers we tried to strike up conversation with but they had to point out what macho bikers they were, they have done 3000 km on this trip, they had an aura that we were not in their calibre. We bit our tongues and allowed them their moment of bragging rights. Even with all their experience they seemed unaware that their valves were knackered and needed fixing. We refrained from telling them, what did we know about anything after all.

Waldkirch, a mission accomplished

From here we were on a mission. To Waldkirch, to deliver a chess board that had been sitting in our panniers for over 5000 km, to the home of Jurgen and Elvira, Jan’s parents. Waldkirk is a lovely town, all Bavarian and pretty houses and churches.

Jurgen and Elvira were so welcoming, after all we were just a pair of intransigents who by chance had met Jan in Siem Reap. There seems to be a misconception that when you are travelling you never eat anything. So they were determined to feed us up. The food was wonderful, but we began to suffer from protein overload. The piece de resistance was a restaurant meal of snitzel. It was all too good and tasty and despite the mountain of food in front of us we ate with the pure gluttony. Our digestive systems had become used to simple mostly vegetarian food, it complained - this was all too rich.

Elvira told us of Jan’s hill, that is so much part of his being that he does not feel he is home until he rides it. They were clearly proud of their son’s free spirit. Sure that he had enough common sense to survive but like any parent’s they worried anyway.

Their home overlooked Waldkirk which in most terms was delightful, but it did also mean that they caught the worst of the church bells. Now on the whole bells can be quite cheery, but these rather overstayed their welcome on the chiming. Ringing out every 15 minutes for over 5 minutes a time. I could see how the noise could become truly annoying. Jurgen had all kinds of undercover schemes to sabotage the main offender. It would of course be wrong of me to divulge them here, but they were amazingly inventive.

Wickrath, more closure

We decided to head straight North from there towards Wickrath, through a corner of France and Luxembourg. For 2 reasons firstly to avoid the autobahn where our lack of speed would be a liability and the excuse to collect a couple more flags.

We were now truly on the homeward leg and is was time to use up the last scratchings of provisions in the boxes.

Wickrath saw us return to the same point and another stay with Klaus and Barbara friends of the Watson family. But this time there was the unexpected bonus of Claire, their daughter, being there. It felt odd to be back again, again they looked after us, did our washing, fed us and entertained us. They themselves had had they own adventures in their time travelling to Turkey in their camper van before their marriage. It was good to compare notes on places that we both knew and how they have changed. It was amazing to hear how many trials and tribulations they had been through since our last visit and it brought home to us just how long we have been away.

What is Holland famous for? Surely not gravy!

Just over the border in Holland was the home of Sjaak Lucassen, the R1 guy, first met in Chile, then Loas and again in Bangkok. He had beaten us back as he passed us in India where he went straight west when we went south and back. But he was home. It seemed unnatural somehow to see him at his home, with his parents. And he likewise seemed like a bit of a fish out of water. After all he had been on the road for 10 years in all. Five years on a Fireblade and five on the R1. Being on the road is more of a normality than being static. Obviously he was enjoying spending time with his family, in the short term, but I could see it was the long term that worried him, and in truth it was worrying us, too.

The best thing about staying with him was that his Mum made gravy. We had not had real gravy in over a year, and it was wonderful. I think his mother was confused by how excited we were about what was to her very ordinary gravy. I’m not sure she was very confused, she just correctly observed that we were a bit raving mad to be so obsessed with something as mundane as gravy.

We downsized and went on a bicycle ride, with his sister and nephew. A gentle little tour of local windmills, educated Sjaak about why I never learnt to ride the motorbike. I forgot to use the brakes, fell off and lay on the ground. It would be just my luck to break a leg all the way around the world without an injury and then break a leg on a bicycle in Holland.

There was a touching shrine to a preacher who had persisted in performing clandestine services in the woods during WWII for the local farmers in hiding from the occupying Germans.

I had to admire Sjaak, he has a way of seeing his own commercial worth, he ws in the process of organising talks and the like to fund himself. He is right, of course, that people are happy to pay for talks about travelling, from the safety of their arm chairs. Were we interesting enough to make a living from our travels, I doubted it.

Sjaak guided us to a photo-shoot windmill venue and headed off to lunch with Marcella, last seen in Ecuador, and her daughter Norma. And then to the ferry in Hoek of Holland.

Fair weather but a miserable crossing

The ferry back, felt weird - it is hard to explain. We had nipped back to Blighty a few times in the trip for a number of reasons, but this was different. This was the end. The end and a new beginning, but the beginning of what? We felt mixed feelings, accomplishment, expectation, apprehension, sadness.

We said hardly anything on the crossing, both lost in our own thoughts. Then we began to dock. Tears welled up in my eyes, I looked at Pat and he was the same. We had an overwhelming urge to ride the bike off and just get the next ferry out again. But we had made arrangements, we had a party organised in Croxton Kerrial the following night, we had a photo-shoot at BikeSure Insurance the next morning, Andy and Sarah were expecting us that night. We had committed ourselves to a return. And now we were back.

Andy Smith and his other half Sarah, welcomed us back to Blighty. Andy had, throughout the trip, been one of probably 2 avid readers of our web site, and we didn’t even pay him. But more than that he had somehow managed the rare art of being a true friend, by sending thoughtful emails when he sensed we needed an uplift. It was a good place to land.

Sarah, spoilt us with possibly the best spare ribs I have ever had. I am not sure that we were very good company. It all felt very unnatural being back.

A quick drop in at Kate and Ian’s nearby for brekky and onwards to our publicity shot. I should explain BikeSure (aka Adrian Flux) had offered us free insurance because we were so amazing or something. We then agreed to donate that sum to our 2 charities on their behalf and then they said they would have a whip round and we agreed to have a few photos taken of us. 150 quid for each was better than a kick in the teeth. In truth is was also a relief to be busy and distracted from the realisation that it was all well and truly over.

They were such nice people, the photo shoot was low key and good fun, even the rain held off.

And so to Croxton and our home coming party which had had various incarnations in the planning process and in truth relied a lot on the efforts of Tricia who managed to conjure up a good band at the last minute when our first choice pulled out. My mum and my sister popped up in the afternoon as well. It was a nice affair and a we have to thank those who welcomed us back. I look back on it and we were probably useless hosts. It was all very surreal, and dreamlike. It was wonderful to see people and thankfully most understood that we were likely to be dazed and confused.

In truth, we chilled in Croxton for a couple of days mainly to get our heads round the idea of being back. On the Monday it was the final stage of the process, return to our house in Newbold Verdon. It had been empty for 9 months and we were naturally apprehensive about the house. We kicked our old Polo into action that had been cluttering up Tricia and JPs drive for year’s and headed South in convoy with Pat on Berthette.

We were home; the house immaculate, the garden a jungle, but we were home, or was it our home any more?

The multipronged frustrations of CRB checks, the Data Protection Act, Freedom of information act (which seem to be set up so that businesses and the government win and you lose out) and an aggressive TV licensing policy were waiting in wings to torment us..... Would we manage to organise our little haven to become Mr. and Mrs Good or would get vacuumed up onto the treadmill of ‘normality’.

Currently we’re rattling up the tube and hoping to recover the strength to escape before we get sucked into the bag.