Before we shot on from Istanbul, there were several essential things to be done. Haggle, Turkish bath, carpets, rip off in taxi and eat kebabs.

Since leaving Blighty, Pat has needed new training shoes and he so despises shopping that three months and 7 thousand miles later, we eventually decided that now was the time!

We headed to the Bazaar confident that we could effect a suitable purchase. Knowing that this would be a long haggling process, so set ourselves a limit before we left of 20 million (a tenner to you).

Before we even reached the bazaar Pat found a shop, with trainers starting at 17mill and the antics began. The first pair out of bargaining range, Pat tried on a cheaper pair. 23million they said. Short negotiations the price down to 20 mill. To try on the other shoe the item was removed from the window.

While Pat was bantering with the owners, I noticed that it was the 17mill pair of trainers that had gone from the window i.e. the pair that Pat was trying on must be the same. Pointing this out our assistant could not conceal a grin. The other spent the next 20 minutes trying to convince us that that was a different style, shape, anything that came to him.

Meanwhile me, Pat and his assistant all know what we will pay and are in hysterics at the owners attempts to maintain a lie when we all knew he had been, well and truly caught out.

We are in Turkey after 3 days hard riding so a Turkish bath is a must. There are baths all over the place, but one in particular was recommended by the chap running the hostel.

The cost per person 15 US but he claims there is no additional tips and you get the full works! So we go for it, separate ones for men and women of course. We agreed to meet outside at 4pm

I enter through a run down side door, and wonder whether Pats is more prestigious. The room has two middle aged ladies draped in a variety of towel on two dilapidated sofas. One bustled off and returned with a warmed fluffy towel and gestured me into a run down cubicle.

The other repeated the word Hotel to me. To begin with I thought she was offering accommodation then I realized that she assumed I was from a hotel as no locals come here.

This, for me, was a disappointment as I realize that this is now just a tradition kept alive by tourism rather than general use.

Now in nothing but a towel, I am directed into an empty marbled room and the towel was unceremoniously removed by the more elderly of the 2 women and she gestured to sit on the a marbled curb whilst she threw ladled hot water over me. She then left for me, presumably, to continue the process.

I sat alone and naked in a white marbled room, smelling the dank mustiness of dampness wishing for company. With no real choice, I began to relax on the warm marble and repeated the drenching process at intervals. When I had given up hope of anything further happening the older lady returned naked apart from a large pair of knickers that had been rolled down to a minimum. Her grey hair piled on her head, her chest and belly were large and showing the signs of gravity and age.

I was gestured to a marble table in the room. I lay face down as she scrubbed that layers of dead skin from me, I was rolled scrubbed some more, sat up and scrubbed. I felt embarrassed, as the squames of grime became obvious. When my whole body was covered in tiny little rolls of dirt she gestured me to rinse off again and she left.

On her return she was armed with soap and a bowl. She returned me to the table was the best wash I have ever had. This included a rather brutal massage. Another rinse. She then sat, still naked, on a low seat and gestured that I was to sit between her legs and she began washing and massaging my hair, lovely treat. That rinsed off, I went into the sauna.

A few sessions and more washing and it's time to leave.

I left with mixed feelings, the rundown nature of the building and equipment means that this is a tradition lost to young Turks and will soon be only for tourists, the age of the women meant both experience and again the young are not interested. But I have never had such dedicated washing service before.

I went in through a rather more fancy entrance and was met briskly by a guy who clearly wanted to part me from my cash. Once deprived of my clothes, I was led to a stale smelly marble room and pointed in the direction of the small smelly sauna to get a sweat up.

Regrettably, the sauna was so cool, this did not happen. I had the same wash and massage experience as Hips but for the fact that I was attended to by a bloke - shame that.

The massage was a little limp and he muttered about tips all the way through. I, too, was disappointed in much the same way, but also was it not only true that the baths survived from tourists, but also by charging a tenner for a ten minute massage, fleecing them!

The taxi swindle came on the last trip to consulates to pick up visas. Every previous trip had cost about 4 million. On this last trip, the driver engaged us in conversation about how long we had been in the city etc. Clearly, he thought that we were naive enough to fall for his spiel as the clock rotated at twice normal speed. When we took out a pen to note down his number, his English improved dramatically and he stopped the meter altogether with a mile to go and agreed to accept the 4 mill as before.

When it came to pay, he became all irate because all we could give him was a 10 mill note. I was getting out of the taxi to get change when he became very jumpy. Just at this point, we noticed that Hippy had been trying to pay with a 1 million note. My, how we all laughed.

Kebabs in shop fronts of the recognizable Doner type did not appeal, covered as they were with frost at the top while being served at the bottom. We went into the best-recommended gaff in the Lonely Planet and ate sumptuous kebabs every night for 4 quid for the pair of us including tea. I could be very happy here.

On the final matter, we managed to avoid carpet salesmen for the most part. Our one connection was when visiting the Ayia Sofia. Here we were followed around by a group of 9-year-old boys. We asked the best English speaker of the group what was the secret of his language skills and he explained to us very carefully that his dad was a carpet seller!

Our final night in Istanbul was excellent fun and the source of the fun was Scully. He regaled us with tales of when he was a horse trail guide in the States and riding bare back through Brazil on a horse he bought there and delivering boats in the Caribbean and and andÖÖ.. Quite an astonishing character who puts his wanderlust to his fathers insistence on taking the whole family of eight, annually, from Sligo down to the south of France in a VW golf. Makes the Watsons' go to Greece seem a bit tame!

The ferry to Bandirma was a find, and was far more organized than the one in Greece (sorry Chrys) - all bells and whistles. A little worried about the lack of straps on the bike but the sea looked calm.

The ship rolled in on time and Pat rode through the pedestrians (who parted like the red sea when the horn was sounded liberally) and ground to a halt as he was about to run over the minister of finance - or some such with a bunch of photographers and body guards watching as the minister shuffled through the crowds to his awaiting bus.

The journey down to Selcuk near Ephesus was cold dull and windy, some lovely Police pointed us in the right direction in Izmir and we were home.

Ephesus itself is humungous, and the Austrians have reconstructed a lot. It amazes me how such empires can just disappear to nothing when they were so sophisticated. Which will be the next empire to bite the dust?