Turkey - Fleeces in July - Day 358 (25,894 Miles)

Our last stop in Eastern Anatolia before heading NE was to see the statues on Mount Nemrut. We stayed in Malatya a town to the north and looking at the map it appeared we could do an easy day trip on smallish roads. Malatya sits at just under 1000 metres above sea level and the statues were a further 1000 metres up so we expected a fairly scenic ride. The staff at our hotel were really helpful so we thought we'd just check on the condition of the roads we planned to take. After some deliberating the lady that spoke the best English delivered the verdict. "The roads are bad, very steep, big drops, oh my God you should not go that way!" The only alternative was a 4 hour trip each way that stuck to large roads but was several hundred Km more than we wanted to cover. As it turned out a guy with a Harley in the shop next door to the hotel said we'd be fine on the shorter direct route. The hotel receptionist had most definitely never travelled in Nepal!




It was a pretty ride, we took some film footage to show our hotel receptionist, she rolled her eyes and said "You are mad!"

These statues are thought to date back to 1st century BC.

We arrived around noon so bad timing in regard to the sun, it was well up in the 30 c's but a good time as most tourists go for sunrise or sunset so we had the place to ourselves.



The next day we road north east through some lovely scenery, Zeki from the Istanbul bike club had told us about an ancient stone road in the mountains. He had marked it on our map but we really should have asked more questions like "What will it be called in Turkish?"we rode around getting very hot and having no real idea what we were looking for. Oh well, if we get back here some other time we'll try again.


Hot and a bit lost, with not much in the way of shade! We left the bike here and ate some fruit under some very spindly poplar trees on the other side of the road. Like most people we have met on our travels in rural areas the Turkish drivers will always stop to check you are OK and as we were hidden in a bit of a ditch it looked like the bike had been abandoned. Everytime we heard an engine stop or slow we had to pop up out of the ditch and give them a smile and thumbs up, it must have looked like we were using the ditch for a bit of a 'comfort break'.

People we had met when travelling through Anatolia had warned us that as soon as you cross the mountain range between Anatolia and the Black Sea region it would be grey, wet and cold. It had been so hot and dry that we found it hard to believe, well, unsurprisingly they were right and we were wrong!

In addition to the change in the weather we were also shocked by the difference in accommodation and food prices in this region. We had underestimated the cost of fuel when anticipating what we'd spend in Turkey as a whole and if our first pension and meal experience here where anything to go by we'd be joining Greece, Spain,Portugal, Ireland and apparently Italy in economic deficit land.



Above is the Sumela monastery built at around 1200 metres altitude, as you could drive virtually all the way up we enjoyed seeing it. Had there been a need to tramp up a big hill we may have given it a miss as we are both feeling a bit travel weary at the moment.

Our most easterly stop was a small alpine village called Ayder a pretty resort on the edge of the Kacker mountains around 100km from the border with Georgia. It was just what we needed, a really chilled out place (in more ways than one, we did actually need to put our fleeces on).

It may have been chilly and damp but the Turkish holidaymakers always seem keen to get outdoors to picnic and play games.

The local ladies still wear very traditional clothing and alot of knitting goes on (not surprising considering the temperatures, they need those woolly socks).

We stopped at this mobile cay (tea) cafe and chatted to the owner who was very knowledgeable about the architecture in the local area. It wasn't too long before a family had arrived and set out a picnic close by. Well actually the women set out the picnic while the men came over to drink cay and play backgammon! They were lovely people and we left having been well fed by the ladies on lovely Turkish cheese and chilli scones (not sure what they were actually called).

Our first stop on the Black Sea coast was the town of Trabzon, it's pretty big (pop. around 230,000) and consequently we spent a tense 30 mins finding our hotel of choice. John always tells me he hates towns and why are we here and I always say we should stop and ask directions sooner than we do! Chances are we'll still be following this routine another 20 years into our relationship.

This is Ataturk Kosku, a villa built for a Greek merchant in 1890 and given to Ataturk (1st President of the Republic of Turkey). Nice little place, we both wouldn't mind living here.

This is Damien from France who left Paris in April and is on schedule to arrive at Vladivostok in October, this rather unusual bicycle being his main form of transport.


We stopped at a small town called Espiye to meet Yusuf a member of the Istanbul motorcycle club and enjoyed a couple of hours chatting with him and his nephew Ederm. The guys showed us around their town and took us up to a viewpoint that looked over the town and the Black Sea.



The Turkish government are keen to increase the number of professors within their higher education system so are currently funding 1000 post graduate students per year to study at Masters and PhD level in the UK, US, Germany and some other countries. The payback is that the students have to return to Turkey and work for twice the number of years they spent studying abroad to clear their debt to the government. Ederm is about to leave Turkey and will be studying in the US for the next few years as part of this scheme.