It's only been a couple of weeks since my last ramblings, but with Syria (where the internet is banned) and Jordan (an unknown internet entity) I don't know when I'll next be able to write.

'The sea rushes in and seems to stop just before my feet. Wave upon thunderous, mysterious wave. Captain Moon lurks in the background, casting his long white shadow across the black ocean. In the distance a flicker of light.
Is it a ship or maybe a lighthouse helping seafarers home, across on the other shore of the Bay of Marmaris? The pebbles rustle against one another, gossiping about the days events.'

So, I was sitting at the gate of the campsite, literally only 5 metres from the waves gingling over the pebbles.
The light above me gave the moon a hand to illuminate the keyboard of my Psion.

Taking a cynical view one might assume I'm doing a very bad Eric Cantona inmpression, but it's just the way it is. After six days, I finally escape the debilitating clutch that Istanbul had over me. On the Road again. (Isn't that the name of a song?)

I headed west and the south towards the Agean coast, first stop Galipoli on the Dardenelles. The road along the Bay of Marmaris for a about about 50 clicks included some magnificient gravel and dirt. (well it was for me, a boy wet behind the ears in the off road riding fraternity!). A few little hamlets clung to the hillside. They reminded me of Nepal. A complete contrast to the cosmopolitan bussle that is Istanbul only 70km to the east.

The World War One battle fields, cemeteries and memorials of Galipoli were sobering indeed. What a senseless, pointless massacre it must have been. In places the oposing trenches were 8 (eight) metres apart! Barbaric. 3 cheers for the Empire's foreign policy. Get lost

The detour to Troy was a mistake. Nothing to see and a naff looking imitation of a wooden horse.

Stopping for a tea in Syria

While I remember... I hope I don't speak too soon, but Turkish dogs seem more friendly than Greek dogs. In the past 3 weeks not one has attempted to chase my bike or chew my leg.

After visiting the ruins of Pergamon (where my Paris Underground 'Carte Orange' ID masqueraded as a student card and got me in for free) the road passed very smelly Izmir and led to Ephesus.

At 9am the huge 24000 people capacity amphitheatre was still empty. Then the fat, old, badly-dressed (guesses as to their nationality on a postcard) brigade arrived. They still couldn't spoil the magnificence of the place.
Walking along the long cobbled, pillar lined passageways, I kept on trying to imagine what it would have been like to stroll through there 2000 years ago. The only images that came into my head were from Monty Python's 'Life of Brian'! (and I was also wearing sandles!)

All the fuel prices displayed on the road side service stations are complete acts of fiction. all pumps charged the same price: the equivalent of US$1 per litre. I handed over 19 million Turkish smakeroonies for 40 litres.
I dearly hope Syria is cheaper.

I left an uncrowded, naff and decidedly bad taste Oludeniz and tried to cross the mountains via a track I spotted on my O.S. map. 15km up (to a dead end and 15 klicks back down), fully loaded, over some very rocky piste. Hardly a wobble. A short while later, there was a rather large 'wobble'. More like a hopefully never to be repeated complete wipe out.

Going up(!) hill on a smooth road round a right hand curve. The usual: lean bike, sit straight, stear out of corner and hey presto.... completely lost it. the bike ended on its left (!) side pointing down (!) hill with fuel gushing everywhere. I can only figure that the back end went right, the front left and most of the impact was taken by the left side of my pannier box. Its whole bottom is buckled. On this day I learned that hot bitumen without any gravel in it is quite slippy. Don't worry I won't forget this one in a long while! I was very lucky to be only a shaken and only the pannier had to be straightened a little. Maybe somebody was with me, keeping an eye out for me.

The very pleasant Cas campsite had people, whose nationality I am also forbidden to mention, on it. All the deck chairs were taken! Nobody lying on them, just covered in their towels, while the sat at the bar and talked loudly. It's great pretending to only speak English. I met a Swiss cyclist (of the pushbike variety) who had spent the last 7 months riding from Hong Kong en route to Egypt. Mad pal, stark raving mad!

In Olympos I stayed in a tree house. Very mellow and relaxing indeed. I even got some rock climbing in, care of a couple of Turkish climbers from Istanbul. With a top rope I climbed a sea cliff route, about Severe 4c. The highlight however, was walking up to Chimaera to see flames burning on the hill side. There seems to be natural gas under the surface which seeps through to the surface to burn away merrily. The were about 10 different flames ranging from a couple of inches to 2 feet high. Ancient mariners used this as a sighting beacon/ type of light house long before they were invented. As I looked beyond the frames there was more light. Stars in their millions.
The Milky Way formed a huge white band across the sky. I have never seem so many stars as that night.

Yesterday I rose early in order to reach Cappadocia. The 600km were over ever changing terrain. First winding coastal road past disgusting high rise tourist monstrosities to Antalya, then north and inland up into harsh rocky pine tree strewn areas and finally 200 klicks straight on and east from Konya across endless desert savanna to Cappadocia. I did manage to talk my way out of a 11.3 million lire (US$25) speeding ticket (121kmh in a 99 zone)
The 'didn't know, no money, I'm a stupid tourist with a daft grin' trick worked, but I don't want to push my luck again.

Cappadocia is seriously different from anywhere you'll see in the world. There are fantastic rock formations where people carved whole cities into the volcanic rock. I even took the liberty to ride around them (only a bit, mind) on the bike.

So team, it's over and out for a little while. Please do write if you can find time in your busy schedules.
Any news from the real world, however short, is always gladly received.

Bye for now,
Chris :-)

The abominable mudman meets the carpet salesman...

You know all the stuff about the 'long winding road' leading to the goal etc; well I've arrived! I want to become a carpet salesman here in Istanbul! yes it's true...I'm going to stay to flog rugs to foreign punters. Nothing like pulling the rug over their eyes or even out of their flys, or whatever! (for those of you of foreign disposition who think I'm being serious, this is an example of British humour, or possibly me pretending to be funny and falling flat on the carpet, oops, I mentioned the c-word again! It feels so good to be sending this report from Istanbul, especially when I think that if I were still in England, I'd be back at work marking a nice set of exercise books now.

The ride down from my parent's house near Duesseldorf via Bonn to pick up my passport (sans Sudanese visa) to Lyon was as boring as it was uneventful. I got 650km out of the tank, which is about 6 litres per 100 km or 40 mpg in old money. This is what it should be. 3 cheers for the new needles in the carburetors!

Lyon was excellent as usual. Steven, Elizabeth and their friends were very laid back. I did have an adventure with the right hand HT lead falling out of the ignition coil. Before I checked properly, I had the carb apart because I thought it was defective. The bike had started and was running (albeit on 1 cylinder). So, Brighty, do you checks...
fuel, spark, electrics etc before you start to dismantle the bike for 2 ½ hours on the side of the road!
On Tuesday, I set off for Perugia in Italy. I had some grief at a toll booth where they wouldn't accept my credit card, even though it was acceptable in the booth next door. I got a thing to pay at the post office. I may have forgotten to pay, so now Interpol are also hot on my tail. A couple of days later I drove via Assisi to Ancona for the ferry to Iguemenetsa in Greece. Here's Brighty's next hot tip: never arrive early for a ferry in Italy.
I got there at 12 for a 3.30 boat which ended up leaving at 5.30, with me being the last vehicle on. I can't describe the pleasure derived from standing in the midday sun breathing in diesel fumes for 5 hours. I won't mention the nice bloke running around blowing his whistle rather loudly next to my ear.

The roads in Greece are excellent for an enduro bike. Windy tarmac, gravel, dirt and mud (more of that later!)
The first day I made it to Kalambaka, site of the Meteora Monasteries. These were built on huge pinnacles of rock for protection from attackers.
I thought I had a problem with the bike, with the rear bevel/ driveshaft making a slight clicking noise when you spin the back wheel slowly. I asked several BMW mechanics en route to and also in Istanbul of their opinion. All said not to worry, and one chap in Thessaloniki said it was probably caused by the fact the oil was hotter/ thinner through high outside temperatures and lots of miles per day. Let's hope there is no problem as the shaft has only done 6000 km from new.

I headed North and then East around Mt. Olympus. Some top biking roads. Here follows the next lesson for all you budding overlanders:

Scenario: You're riding on tarmac, then gravel, then dirt, when ahead in a dip next to a big tree you see some mud and water. Do you

a. stop, look and drive through slowly

b. ride round the side

c. leave your brain on the trans-Adriatic ferry and accelerate toward the water.

You've guessed it! The answer is NOT c! The reason for this is: the front wheel slips and the bike and rider lands in the mud. The right side of the bike is completely caked in brown cement-like mud and the rider is doing his best to look like an abominable mudman! His sense of humour may also be failing as there is fuel running out everywhere he can't pick up the bike without removing the spare tyres strapped on the panniers.

The following day I drove as far as I could up Mt Olympus. The 8 hour hike to the summit was too much after the previous day's exertions. There was too much cloud anyway! I did meet two Germans who live in Greece riding a 1940s 250 single and a 1950s 500 twin Beemers respectively.

The border crossing into Turkey was quite hassle free, but involved lots of bits of paper. I managed to get insurance ('sigorta' in Turkish) in the first big town. It was a real adventure finding somebody who spoke English to help me. A pleasant woman helped me out and and I got a year's (they couldn't do 3 weeks) third party insurance for US$10!

The drive into Istanbul was absolutely mad. Evening rush hour with cars everywhere. At times it seemed like
99.9% of the road surface was covered by a vehicle.

I've spent the last couple of days chilling, seeing the sights and doing bike stuff, including meeting up with some very pleasant Turkish bikers. Yesterday I drove to the Jordanian Consulate to apply for a visa. Totally mind-blowing.
In most Western cities there is some sort of order to road travel, so a bike swerving in and out of the traffic is quite unusual. Here everything, bus, car, bike, cart, scooter, animal, beggar, pedestrian etc etc is jockeying for space. Somehow everybody gets to where they are going without too much agitation. All you have to do is assert yourself on the road. Indecision spells disaster. When in Istanbul, do...Istanbul is a city of 15 million people and all are on the move all the time. Most are gracious and friendly (even the carpet salesmen!) The food is great, the Mosques a bit noisy at 5 am and fuel is the same price as the UK. About a dollar a litre. I put 42 litres (for
655 km) into my 43 litre tank yesterday. Now I'm poor!

So, what's new at your end? I'll try to respond to your individual mails (that's if you sent me one!) soon.
tjao amigos
Chris

Hello Campers, I trust you are all well and watered. After a week in Germany chez mes parents doing up the bike, you find me in Lyon (if you don't know where it is, get a map) visiting Cousin Steven and Elizabeth and generally enjoying the comfortable life as only the French can.

from Dese to Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

The bike is in top shape and the new needle jets in the carbs mean that the oil companies' share prices will soon be dropping as I'm now no longer propping them up. The 800 klicks from my parent's house, via Bonn (to pick up my passport - without a Sudanese visa!) to Lyon, trundling along at 110kmh, were shall we say 'rather boring'.

Oh yes, visas. I have learnt a new rule of diplomacy. When somebody asks you for a visa, you say 'yes'. Then, 6 to 8 weeks later when nothing has materialised (as you have receive no authorisation from Khartoum), you offer to give the person concerned their money back! That way you never say 'no'. Easy really. All you do is muck people about.

British and American citizen's visa applications are referred to Khartoum. This may have something to do with a certain bit of American gunboat diplomacy when Tony's bedfellow Bill sent bombers to Sudan the other month. So, in some ways you can understand the Sudanese viewpoint. Anyway, 3 cheers for Tony's, Bill's and Monica's foreign policy initiatives! Mine's a Havana.

I'll have to see locally (Turkey, Syria, Jordan) what avenues there are to reach Kenya. Possibly Saudi Arabia, Yemen and by boat to Djibouti, fly over the area... on verra.

I'm sending this email from Steven's phone socket. This might be the last time my Psion works for a while. Hopefully not, but Internet cafes are also possible, so not all is lost.
Hang loose for now and please write!

A bientot mes amis,
Chris

PS. Went mountain biking today (VTT en francais). Somebody suggested I ride a push bike around the world. No way!
Up hill is plain hard work and down hill nothing but dangerous!

My Background:

I'm 33, British, with a Scottish father and German mother. For the past 5 years, I taught German and French at schools in Slough and Birmingham. Before that, I gained a Degree in International Business and German and travelled for 3 years.

Amongst other things, I was a failed waiter in a Tex-Mex restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee (I got too annoyed with people loving my accent and asking me to 'speak some more'...), a taxi driver in Sydney/ Australia (being able to speak English helped a lot, but nobody asked me to speak much) and for 2 winters a photographer in Kitzbuehel/ Austria - (imagine having to ski to get to work...) Except Central and South America, many of the places to be visited, will in some way be old haunts.

The idea for the trip:

Well... various.... Once you start to travel, you can't stop. At least that was what it was like for me. I've sat on enough crowded public buses bouncing over potholed African and Asian roads and looked out of the window at motorbikes cruising by, to think that I want to do the same. So 5 years ago, during my teacher training, I worked as a dustman to afford my bike lessons. (I've had a car licence since I was 18.) Being presently slightly underwhelmed with my life in England, this way I might put a little excitement back into it. Who knows where the road might lead?

My biking experience:

My first bike was a 1990 Honda Africa Twin. A top machine on which I travelled thirty thousand miles around Europe. I found it excellent on the road, but off road a little too top heavy.

The bike for this trip is a 1989 BMW R100GS. I bought it from a friend in Germany and imported it into the UK. After changing the dodgy ignition coil, it runs like a dream. It's big, but with the low down weight, it's very comfy all round.

Motivational reading:

If you're planning any sort of motorcycle excursion, be it a midge-infested and rain soaked-jaunt to Scotland or half way round the world (if you're reading this in Australia, Scotland is of course already half way round the world!), then Chris Scott's 'Adventure Motorcycling Handbook' is absolutely invaluable. It is incredibly thorough and well written. Other books which turned my idea from 'maybe' into 'definitely' include Helge Pedersen's '10 Years On 2 Wheels' and Ted Simon's 'Jupiter's Travels'.

Travel partners:

Another interesting topic. I'm leaving on my own, but hope not to be alone for too much of the time. I already have several contacts from the Internet and I hope there will other like-minded souls going the same way. I left several ads. in the travel magazine 'Wanderlust'. In six months I received about 10 replies. I gained some good contacts and even went on a 'compatibility weekend' with one woman. We were quite compatible, but she had already made other plans. The most bizarre call I received was from another woman who was under the impression I was offering a lift on the back of my bike all the way round the world!

The Route:

I can't recall how many hours I spent looking at maps and being frustratingly (for me and others) indecisive. In the end, I had to choose a route before I pulled out the last of my remaining hair.

A bit of advice I got was to ride from home, rather than ship to a far flung place and realise a hundred miles down the road that I didn't like it. At least this way, I can turn round and ride home. Not that I have any intention to do this!

The route is now to head south via Turkey and the Middle East (September and October) and then try to get through to East Africa, arriving in Cape Town by about March 2000. After that it's either (unsurprisingly enough, as south it might be a bit chilly!) east to Australia (including visiting the Sydney Olympics) or west to South America. I'll have to see what the plan is when I get there. Factors such as weather, finances and my mood will probably play a small role.

Support/ Sponsorship:

Sounds easy... not! First I wrote to guide book publishers offering to write/ update their guides. The resounding answer: 'get lost'. (So I went out and bought a GPS... knowing my navigational skills I'll need it!) I had a 50-50 split of biking/ adventure magazines (in the UK and Germany) which either didn't reply/ said no, or were interested in reports/ pictures from the road/ at the end of the trip. Armed with this info, I wrote to 35 oil, clothing, tyre, bike accessory (etc. etc.) companies asking for support and offering a marketing avenue for their products. More than half half didn't even bother writing back and all except one of the rest uttered the usual 'sponsorship budget full blah blah blah...'

The exception was BRIDGESTONE. (Again, MANY THANKS). So the bike is sporting nice shiny on/off road knobblies and lots of Bridgestone stickers. Maybe if you're doing a trip for charity or something totally wacky you might have more luck. I also received lots of spares on sale or return from the BOXER SHOP in Krefeld, Germany. (Vielen Dank Norbert!)

Paperwork, Planning:

You need the usual passport/ visa stuff (see travel literature, embassies and particularly the Lonely Planet Guides: in my opinion the best on the market) - also see my trials and frustrations with Sudanese embassies above
-, a Carnet de Passage (in the UK through the AA; they're very helpful and efficient - the bike is valued at £750!?)
-, immunisations (see your doc.), a medical insurance (including the 'dangerous' pastime of riding a bike - when they say 'yes' it's included in the policy, make sure you ask them about engine sizes. Most policies stop at 50 cc!), motor insurance (I found it impossible to get any for outside Europe in England (hopefully it can be arranged locally), common sense and a fair bit of luck.

Web sites:

For interesting bike stuff (and my story!!) visit www.horizonsunlimited.com and www.adventure-motorcycling.com. If you read these and visit their links, you should be busy for a while. Pictures of my trip might may take a while, as I obviously need to have my trannies developed and find somebody with a scanner and email facilities. Hence stories in magazines will only be possible at the end of the journey or during a major interruption.

I will be keeping a diary on a Psion5 palmtop (if you've tried to read my handwriting, you'll know why) and as far as possible also sending/ receiving mails from it. Otherwise there are always Internet cafes or being plain unsociable...

Bike Prep:

I completed a motorcycle maintenance course at a local college. Here I learnt a great deal, including how to do a major service and lots of tips, which will hopefully stand me in good stead, should the bike decide to pretend to be kaput.

The bike has the following modifications/ extras: 43 litre Acerbis tank, new drive shaft, aluminium pannier system, large bash and skid plate, raised bars, steel brake cable, voltmeter and oil temp gauge and the usual fancy plastic bits. My father helped in many ways to get the bike in order, including making useful bags to strap onto the fuel tank and modifying the boxes that they didn't hit the shock on a full compression of the suspension. (Thanks for all your help.)

Personal Prep:

Not much, just the light at the end of the tunnel... self belief that all the obstacles (real and imaginary)
being thrown in my way would be solved. I did take the bike for a bimble around the mud of Mid Wales. I thought I did quite well, until I watched an enduro rally the next day, where I saw what real off road riders can do. Please do remind me to avoid the rainy seasons on my trip!

Budget:

If I had taken everybody's advice, I wouldn't have left at all, as I would spent all my money before I left! Fully loaded support vehicles, brand new bike, helicopter following carrying women to nibble the soft bits on the end of my ears etc. etc. (this last bit is purely fictional... but not entirely undesirable!) Anyway, I'm budgeting on £20 (US$30) per day for 2 years. Maybe longer, maybe shorter. I'll have to see how it goes. Working en route is of course also an option. Camping, cheap living, own cooking etc. will hopefully make the money go further.

So there it is. If you're planning something similar, stop procrastinating and just go out there and do it. Thank you to everybody who has supported me with kind deeds and words.