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Trans Fargasian Highway

The last 10 days have seen us travel from Hungary to Romania (the Romanian Embassy issued our visas next day in Budapest), through Bulgaria to Greece where we are now on the coast in Thessaloniki and where I am slowly but surely becoming addicted to Ouzo and Rich getting the required levels of Mythos beer back into his system.

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Medievil Sighisoara

We’ve ridden across endless hot, flat, sunburnt plains and fields of corn, grapes and sunflowers and up through cool, sweet smelling, pine clad mountains (although mostly the former and not enough of the later). We had cooler temperatures for a couple of days (low 30’s) but its been in the high 30’s each day since and we’ve seen no rain. Each country has been slightly different with Bulgaria perhaps proving the friendliest, having the best wine but also for us arguably, the most unfortunate.

We left Hungary on 19 August, riding from Budapest towards the Romanian border of Oradea. It kind of felt a little like a celebration day because we had, after earlier problems, obtained the visa and also because we knew today Rich would clock the bike. He’d purchased BOB (recently christened Bloody Old Bike) in 1997 when it had done about 50,000 miles and now 6 years later we were passing the 100,000 mile mark. We pulled to a stop on the long stretch of road just short of the Romanian border and I got off with the camera. Rich rode forward about 100 metres to get the clock reading 99,999 where we would get a photo and again at 100,000 miles (yes, sad isn’t it).

It was with great amusement when I pointed the camera towards him to find anther person in the frame. This stretch of road is riddled with young ladies plying their trade with the truck drivers of eastern europe and one of them had realised this was Richie’s lucky day. She was surprised but not upset when I arrived with camera in hand and even gave us a friendly wave when we rode off eastwards without having parted with any money.

Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria all have visible remnants of their communist past with perhaps Romania feeling the most impoverished, having the biggest number of large scale industrial projects lying empty and/or still polluting the country and knowing least how to clean their toilets. Romania and Hungary had some beautiful architecture, mostly sadly fading in its glory and we felt the rush of early capitalism that many of the people are embracing and some taking advantage of. We avoided the cities as much as we could, preferring the traditional villages with their simpler ways that gave us insights into what their culture had been like. Many families are still living without running water in their homes, using animals and manual labour to give them food from their fields and using the labour of their children to boost their family income. For us, the Romanian sights at Sighiosoara, Premjer, Peles Castle at Sinaia (built by Romania’s first king) and the trans fargasian Highway really impressed us.

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Lisa has finally found her dream home

We would have liked to have visited the Black Sea coast and the east of these countries but our programme has allowed us one month to get to Turkey and an Iranian visa deadline of 4 October so we’ve pushed on averaging 123 miles/day (this includes days when we are not riding). Surprisingly we get on the road at about 8.30 – 9am most days but don’t get to camp until about 5 in the evening. By the time we’ve had a couple of breaks, contended with the roads, eaten, taken photos and had 2 or 3 petrol fill-ups the day is almost over and we are too tired from the ride and heat to do much else. Once we reach Turkey we’ve allowed ourselves time to take things slower so the pace and what we do and see will change a lot.

We crossed the Danube between Romania and Bulgaria by ferry arriving at Vidin ($US12 for the 3 of us and a 15 minute crossing). BOB’s green card insurance had expired before we left London and Rich hadn’t wanted to pay £200 for one month insurance. So we risked it and although the attentive border guard leaving Romania requested our papers, we managed to stall him for so long searching for it that he let us depart without viewing it as the ferry was by then running late. On the Bulgarian side we admitted defeat and paid 15 Euros for 5 days 3rd party insurance.

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Harvest time in Bulgaria

On 25 August we headed south towards Rila Monastery to spend a day or two hiking and cooling ourselves in the mountains. Just short of the turnoff from the main road we had a mishap with the bike not going into gear and graunching horribly when the clutch was released. We had stopped in the midday sun outside a car wrecker come dodgy mechanics and pushed the bike off the road into their driveway so Rich could have a look. He thought the clutch had broken so proceeded to remove the clutch hub but had to contend with one of the non English speaking mechanics also trying to help. To cut a long story short, we ended up with one of the 6 clutch spring castings breaking off due to mechanical incompetence on behalf of the Bulgarian butcher.

We only saw about 4 bikes in Bulgaria and most of them looked liked overlanders so were not surprised when we were told that we had to take the bike to Greece to get it fixed as there we no suitable bike mechanics in the country. We left Bulgaria at 4am, the bike strapped down on the back of a truck owned and driven by two big, deep fried pastry, coffee addicted Bulgarian brothers who had had 3 hours sleep between them and with me having to sit on Richards knee for 5 hours in the cab. Amazingly, we arrived safely in Greece, also on a caffeine high around 9am and delivered the bike safely into the hands of one of the 2 Yamaha dealers in Thessaloniki.

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A possible trade-in for the TDM

Thessaloniki has proved to be a god send for us as it is ‘practical city’. A huge suburb for the boys with auto accessories, bike shops, mechanics, spare parts etc. Not amazingly attractive but practical, it has loads of cafes and we’ve managed to get our clothes into a washing machine for the first time in a month and have also had the luxury of being in hotel rooms rather than the tent as we have been every night so far.

So we are chilling, relaxing and are happy with the service on the bike. The problem has turned out to be worn teeth on the gearbox output shaft (yes, I had to be told that) so the chain wasn’t turning properly and this explains all the problems we’ve had so far – not carburator probs etc as had been previously diagnosed. The guys at the shop are fantastic, they’ve taken the engine out of the bike and are giving it a complete overhaul and understand what we are trying to do. Rich was going to get this done in London but the price was prohibitive so its fortunate that this has happened now as Greece or Istanbul are probably the last places where we could find mechanics who know ‘big bikes’ before we hit Asia. The price of parts and labour are probably 50% of what London would have cost and Rich now realises the 15-20,000 miles he put on the bike for work since March when we were going to depart have taken their toll detrimentally.

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Hot to Trot

We plan to leave here tomorrow for a few days of sun and exploration along the Greek coast before we hit Turkey and a new experience.

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With much love to you all,
Lisa and Rich.