Wednesday, 5 June 2002 - Greece/Turkey

We have finally made it to Asia after spending nearly a month in Europe. We have been on the road 29 days and covered 3815 miles (5629 kms) and are currently camping close to Izmir on the west coast of Turkey.

Our last few days in Greece were really great and we met some interesting people and visited some great places.

We spent another day in Cavalla and then took a ferry to the Island of Thassos, just off the coast from Cavalla. In Cavalla we met a friendly Greek guy, Giotis, who recommended spending some time on the island of Thassos because, being an offroader himself (he has a Honda 600R), it's paradise for it's off roads. Thassos is beautiful and popular with tourists who enjoy the crystal clear waters and white sandy beaches. We camped close to the beach and spent a half-day swimming in the crisp Aegean Sea. The other half was spent doing some fantastic off road inland on Thassos Island. Here we found miles and miles of unspoiled rocky roads and we loved every minute of it. It had its thrills and spills but nobody actually crashed though there were some close calls!

After Thassos we moved further eastward, catching the ferry from Thassos to Kermati and rode to Alexandrapoulis. Here we camped quite close to the town but met a local biker, Telis, who invited us to have a few beers with them at their motorbike clubhouse that evening. They provided us with some great information regards travelling to Turkey and some maintenance for our Africa Twins.
Telis seems to have specialised in this and you can check out more on his site: http://www.telis-xrv750.cityslide.com

Turkey

We then travelled to Istanbul on the new motorway, which has been built to accommodate the Athens 2004 Olympics. It's a great road and compared to some of the others we encountered in Greece, probably the best we've seen.

Our first real border crossing was a breeze and we had to provide our carnets for the first stamp. After about 45 minutes we were in Turkey without any hassle.

On our way through Turkey, we had our fair share of corrupt policeman. The first "offense" was for speeding (we were travelling the same speed as the locals but only we were pulled over!) about an hour outside Istanbul. Here, 2 well-equipped policemen with brand new BMW bikes pulled us over and told us we had been speeding and the fine was 80 million Turkish Lira each (GBP£1 = TL1, 000,000). On opening our wallets this was immediately reduced to 20 million. No tickets were issued and the money simply went into the officer's pockets. They then proceeded to drive off, obviously to go and do a similar thing somewhere down the road to some other poor unsuspecting tourists like us!

Once we arrived in Istanbul, we realised the change from 1st world Europe to 3rd world Asia. Every corner was met with some local trying to sell you something! Istanbul was quite a nightmare to find accommodation by motorbike. After asking several locals, who included a siren driver escort by a policeman who got lost, we were eventually rescued by a local friendly Africa Twin rider, Alisan Yargici. He led us to a friendly hotel in the heart of Sultana met, the touristy part where our friends Clive and Mandy were also staying.

The Best Hippodrome hotel we stayed at is very reasonably priced; biker friendly and we certainly recommend it to anyone visiting Istanbul. They insisted we park our bikes right in front of the hotel and they were well cared for and guarded 24 hours.

After settling into our spacious 3-bed room including bathroom, the best accommodation we've had in weeks, we met up with Clive and Mandy for dinner.

The next day was spent site seeing around Istanbul where we visited the Hagia Sofia mosque, one of the largest of it's kind. We also saw the ancient underground Roman Basilica cistern, which was a secret water storage system many centuries ago.

Istanbul is not Mediterranean; most people go out and eat early. By midnight things are very quiet but for a few tourists about. After dinner it's custom to smoke a shish (hubbly bubbly) in Turkey. As some of us had not done this before it was quite a funny experience to watch! Check out the photos of the "novice" shish smokers.

We visited the Bosphorus, which separates Europe from Asia and crossed the bridge the following day on our bikes. In the evening we did a boat trip up along the Bosphorus up to the bridge and back.

After leaving Istanbul behind, we spent 3 days there; we caught the ferry to Bandirma. The 2-hour crossing was in a large, high-speed ferry that would usually take 5 hours. It is relatively cheap at TL 24 million (US$ 24) and almost like an aircraft with business class and economy class seats.
We drove down to Canakkale and caught another small ferry to Eceabat across the Dardanelles, where the ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand army core) troops were deployed in the 1st world war.
We visited ANZAC cove, where they had landed all those years ago and where so many died trying to take control of the Gallipolis peninsula. There are numerous cemeteries for both the ANZAC and Turkish troops paying tribute to all who gave their lives for their countries.
We found many Australian, New Zealand and South African tourists in the area and stayed at the backpacker lodge they were at in Eceabat. It was great to socialise among them with no language barrier for a change!

We continued south yesterday, down towards Izmir, where we'll meet Karen, Damian's wife, on Saturday.

Today we are going to visit the ancient Acropolis about 50km from our campsite as part of a days sightseeing in this area.

Tomorrow we will continue south closer to Izmir and hopefully find a cheap hotel in which to spend a few days at the beach. We also have one days maintenance to do on the bikes before Karen arrives on Saturday.

We will be spending a week close to Izmir while Karen is here with us and perhaps visiting another Greek Island (perhaps Kos or Rhodes) if our visas permit!

Itinerary of the last few days:

Tuesday 28 May
Day spent at Cavalla, no travel.

Wednesday 29 May
Ferry to Island of Thassos, off Cavalla. Distance 96 miles, mostly off road.

Thursday 30 May
Ferry back to mainland at Kermati. Rode Kermati to Alexandrapoulis, distance 104 miles.

Friday 31 May
Alexandrapoulis to Istanbul, distance 208 miles.

Saturday 1 June
Tourists in Istanbul, no riding.

Sunday 2 June
Short day trip to Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, distance 30 miles.

Monday 3 June
Ferry from Istanbul to Bandirma. Rode to Canakkale and then ferry to Ecebat. Distance 175 miles.

Tuesday 4 June
Eceabat (ferry) Canakkale to Ayadak. Distance 122 miles.

Monday 27 May 2002 - Greece

We are currently in Cavalla, 200km east of Thessalonica in Greece. We have been on the road for 21 days and covered 3041 miles (4866 km).

After leaving lovely Sorrento below Naples we headed around the peninsula via Amalfi. This area is truly a gem in Italy's geography. It was only some 50 miles but took us almost 2 hours to get around the narrow coastal roads. It reminded us of the Cape coastline in South Africa, similar to navigating your way around Chapman's peak.

After leaving the West coast, we headed east toward the ferry port of Brindisi. We stopped briefly in Matera to see the Roman village of Sassi before making camp just outside in a rye grass field due to the lack of campsites close to the ferry.

It was an early start (6am) to get to Brindisi and we managed to get onto the daily 10:30 sailing without any hiccups.
We didn't realise this would take up most of the day but found it a good time to enjoy some relaxation. The ferry arrived at Corfu at 6:30 pm and then finally at Igoumenitsa at 8:30pm.

We found a campsite on the beachfront and spent the night in Igoumenitsa as we had run out of daylight by the time the ferry made it to land.

Friday was spent mostly on the bike as we headed east, closer to Turkey. Most people do the Igoumenitsa to Thessalonica ride over 2 days but we found it possible to do it in one. The road crossed over the Voria Pindos Mountains to Grevena so there were some lovely scenic passes. After Kozani toward Veria, the road had some lovely 50mph sweeping corners.
Once we had navigated our way through Thessalonica with the kind help of a few locals, we found a campsite on the beachfront 30km south at Epanomi.

We chose to have a day at the beach for Damian's birthday and chill out to enjoy the sunshine. We managed to wash the bikes, do a little maintenance and catch up on some other necessary chores (washing clothes, communication).

On Sunday we continued our journey eastward and arrived at Cavalla, some 200km east of Thessalonica, at around 5pm. We are camping right on the beachfront away from the town centre. We caught a taxi into town last night for dinner and did a bit of sightseeing. This town is used as a port to ferry people to and from the popular Greek islands, of which some are visible from the shore.
Today we plan to visit the Internet café for a few hours and enjoy our time on the beach, though it's not the 30 degrees we were expecting!

We hope to be in Istanbul by Saturday the 1st to meet up with Clive and Mandy, who will kindly be bringing out some spares for us.

Itinery of the last few days:

Wednesday 22 May
Sorrento, around the peninsula, to Matera. Distance 223 miles.

Thursday 23 May
6am Matera to Brindisi and the day spent on the ferry to Igoumenitsa. Distance 95 miles.

Friday 24 May
Igoumenitsa to Epanomi (south of Thessalonica) Distance 280 miles.

Saturday 25 May
Spent the day at Epanomi. Damian's birthday spent at the beach, no travelling.

Sunday 26 May
Epanomi to Cavalla Distance 122 miles.

Monday 27 May
Spent the day at Cavalla, no travelling.

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