and the road goes on

Central Asia. I have been looking forward to crossing the Caspian Sea for a long time. Although we already put more than 6000 km behind us, for some reason Turkey, Georgia and even Azerbaijan still felt a bit like Europe, especially Baku. You could already see the Persian influences in the faces, but here, on the right side of the Caspian Sea it is really different. The landscape, the faces, the languages and typography, the roads and the temperature.

We arrived in Aktau, and after our adventures dealing with Kazach customs we did not have high hopes for the rest. But I was wrong, the Kazach people are very friendly, as are all people we have met so far. One thing I have noticed travelling east – people get friendlier and friendlier, everybody waves, they smile, come up to you, talk to you, shake your hand, want to know where you are from. And people look you in the eye, and do not avert their gaze, something we are not used to anymore. It almost makes me feel uncomfortable.

So we picked a hotel in Aktau, and sat down in the garden terrace for some food and drinks. After the long day of being in a Kafka play we wanted to prepare for the days coming up, which we were both looking forward to but also made us a bit nervous. The worst piece of road that we would get (aside for the unpaved roads on the Pamir Highway and in Mongolia) is between Beyneu, Kazachstan and the Uzbekistan border, and after that there is about 500km of absolutely nothing. No towns, no water, no fuel, just desert and road and sun. Aktau to Beyneu was fine, just a full day of regular desert road. With camels. That is very strange, just seeing camels everywhere, strolling through the heat and the empty landscape. There are also wild horses. How these animals survive is beyond me, since there is hardly any green, let alone water.

On the way from Aktau to Beyneu we made a brief excursion off the main road, just to test our off-road skills and to see a rock formation we read about. We found the road more exciting than the rock formation.

We also met up again with Alissa and Andy, a lovely couple from the UK with whom we made the ferry crossing. In Beyneu we also met Jin, a gentleman from Japan who was riding from Japan to Portugal, and we had a great evening exchanging stories and experiences.

The next morning we left early for the Uzbekistan border, and as soon as we left Beyneu, the road turned into something from a nuclear disaster movie. The road used to be paved with asphalt but probably has not been maintained ever since Breznev was Secretary General of the USSR.

We do have video footage but it does not do the road conditions true justice. It started with reinforced concrete slabs of which the top layer was gone, and the iron bars were visible and sticking out at places. After a few kilometers of that it was 50 km of potholes, bumps, dust, sand, and gravel in all combinations. There is other traffic on that road, from cars to huge trucks, everyone crawls slowly forward. At times we had to stop because we could not see anything in the huge dust clouds and we did not want to drive into holes or bump into oncoming traffic. Because sometimes they also use your side of the road, if the road is slightly better. At times it was actually better to drive in the track next to the road.

One of the better stretches of road:

The Uzbek border entry was absolutely painless – the friendliest so far. I had read stories about them checking your laptop and phone for nudity, going through medication etc, and especially since I brought a drone (which is forbidden in Uzbekistan) I prepared to hand it in.

But they were very friendly, they asked Paul to open a bag, went through it a bit and all was fine. I did not even have to open my bags or put it through the X-ray scanner. We were in Uzbekistan in 45 minutes,

We exchanged some money at the border and purchased insurance for our motorcycles (not sure if we need it but that’s the thing with insurance) and drove off. The road was better, but not a lot. Still a tremendous amount of bad asphalt with random surprise potholes, which can be even more dangerous. You think you can get your speed up and suddenly there is this big hole, which can damage your rim and tires if you cannot avoid the hole. So it was a very long day, but in an amazing landscape. Just empty desert, as far as the eye can see.

We felt it was time to bring out the drone. What better place than the one country where drones are illegal.

After another day of hot and bad desert road we arrived in Khiva, one of the first three legendary cities on the Silk Road in Uzbekistan that we would visit. The other ones are Bukhara and Samarkand.

Khiva is fairly small, but exceptionally well preserved. It does not take a lot of imagination to see the bustling, busy place it must have been in the 16th and 17th century, when it was a famous trading place on the Silk Road. It was especially well known for its slave market. Now it is quite deserted, there are people living in the old part but there is not a lot of life. It does feel like a museum. There are a few tourists, and some souvenir stalls.

There are a few large buildings that dominate the old city, each with a large portal, and sometimes a minaret. We would see this type of Islamic architecture also in Bukhara and Samarkand. In Khiva we again met up with Andy and Alissa again, and had a great evening on the roof terrace having dinner and playing cards.

After Khiva we went to Bukhara, where we also stayed a day and explored the city. Bukhara is larger than Khiva, and has much more life in it than Khiva. It has also large Madrassa’s (Islamic schools) and a large fortress called the Ark. Instead of a lot of text, I will just show you pictures.

Bukhara:

Next up: Samarkand. The largest of the three Silk Road cities, and we did a nice buildup from small to large. The sites in Samarkand are further apart, and larger than the ones in Bukhara and Khiva. We stayed at a lovely hostel with a great garden, so we spent some time relaxing and reading under the cherry and apricot trees. We were lucky with the temperature, the week before it had been 45 degrees, now it was a pleasant 33.

Amongst other sites, we visited the Ulugh Bek Observatory. Ulugh Bek was one of the greatest astronomers of all time, and he lived in Samarkand in the 12 and 13th century.  He built the largest quadrant of the world in his time, used to measure the position of celestial bodies.

Klick the photo to see a 360 view from the inside:

Uzbekistan was very nice, the people are incredibly friendly, beautiful architecture – true Central Asia. But by this time, we felt we had enough Islamic architecture so after visiting the highlights of Samarkand it was time to leave for the mountains.

And again Paul has delivered – please enjoy a new video with some highlights of Turkey. Such as the beautiful road from Amasra to Sinop, the Sumela Monastery and a not so fun way to spend your afternoon.

 

We have finally arrived in Kazakhstan!!

It took us 54 hours after we arrived in the harbour of Alat, near Baku, including the 22 hours of sailing and no less than 32 hours of waiting.

When we got to the harbour near Baku, we met 3 Bulgarian motor bikers, Niko, Svet and Rumen. They had been there 3 days earlier, were told that the boat would not leave before the evening of the next day, and so they had left for the night. The next morning, they came back, well before the announced departure time, but the boat had left already left and they had missed it. We decided to sit it out and not leave to make the same mistake.

The port in Alat (near Baku) with the Bulgarian bikers:

Imagine a large parking lot with in the corner 7 containers. One container is a small shop, another a waiting room, then there is a bank container, a toilet container, and some containers with offices. The first container we had to visit was a bit hidden and the entrance was at the back. No signs to indicate it.

So, the Bulgarians helped us. Inside the container we found Vladimir, who told us to wait outside. People walked in and out and after a while we just went in again. Vladimir was a nice guy who spoke English and offered us coffee and cookies, while we waited for him to prepare the tickets. With the tickets we had to go to the bank container to pay, and then back to Vladimir to show the receipt. we got our tickets! This went rather smoothly. However, he could not tell us whether the boat would leave this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Later we heard that they were waiting for 3 or 4 more trucks to fill up the boat before it could leave. The waiting had begun.

Vladimir’s office:

In the little shop we bought some things to eat and drink, got out our chairs and sat in the shade. We talked to the Bulgarians, very nice and helpful guys. Then arrived an English couple on one Yamaha XT. Andy and Alissa, who started this year their 5 to 10 years ride around the world! Then came Dave, a 54-year-old British marine on his bicycle and then 2 more German cyclists, who met each other on the road in Turkey. It is very nice to meet these people and listen to their stories and share some time together.

In the evening we bought some vegetables, eggs and sausage and the guys in the waiting room cooked for us and transformed it into a nice meal for only 50 euro cents per person.

Every now and then we would get some information on the departure: maybe this evening, we need 3 more trucks, probably tomorrow, at 10 am we will know more. Dave put up his tent to sleep, and when Alissa started to install her tent at 9 pm, she was told not to bother: at midnight we would be in our cabins! At midnight they announced 30 more minutes and finally at 3am we were told to go to customs. This involved a bit of waiting, inevitably, and at 4.30 we got onto the boat and an hour later we had our cabin and could sleep, after nearly 18 hours of waiting.

Dave setting up his tent:

Last passport control at the Azerbaijan border:

The cabin was a furnace; no window, no ventilation. We fell asleep anyways, just to be woken up 90 minutes later by a lady of the ferry who just burst into our cabin unannounced to tell us in Russian it was time to eat. So up we got and into the line with the truck drivers and overlanders to get our breakfast. It was hard to sleep after that, too tired, too hot. The rest of the day we read, we talked with the Bulgarians and the other overlanders, we visited the bridge, talked to the captain, we looked out over the sea, saw the world’s biggest oil city, an amazing sunset and we played card games with Alissa and Dave.

Reading and editing:

The bridge:

World’s biggest Oil City (according to the captain):

After the second night we arrived at port, just before 8 am. We had been sailing for 22 hours. We had heard stories that it would take hours to get through customs, so we were prepared.

First all passengers had to line up with their luggage in front of them for a drugs dog to sniff everything. Then we were put into mini vans who took us to an office where our passports were checked and where we got a form. This was quick and easy, and I started to think that it wasn’t going to be that bad after all. Little did I know…. We had to walk back to the boat and wait on the ramp. We waited for nearly 4 hours, because the Azeri had not yet sent over the forms for the vehicles because of an internet problem.

Waiting to disembark with our English friends Alissa and Andy (Mad or Nomad):

Waiting for the vehicle papers:

At 1.30 pm the papers arrived and were distributed. Then we mounted our bikes and rode for 100 meters to stop for a second passport control. All luggage had to get out of our paniers and were sniffed again by the same dog. Then came another passport control and we had to buy insurance. Then we had to go to a different window, but their system was down, and they had to reboot. This took nearly 2 hours, during which we had lunch. Then 3 more lines at 3 more windows. It was amazing. I had never seen anything like it. It was the perfect example of desorganisation, being sent backwards and forwards from window to desk and back again. Nobody explained what to do and where to go. Nothing was clear. Luckily Niko speaks Russian, asked questions and explained us each next step. At every desk somebody added a form, put a stamp, made a copy and checked what his colleague had just entered in the system. It could have been funny, but it just took too long to laugh about it.

With Niko waiting for the system reboot:

Finally, finally we were on our bikes at 6.15 pm to ride to the last gate. Here it turned out that Erik missing one of the forms and we could not leave. This was the point that Erik was close to losing his patience and that I thought that the whole circus would have to start all over again. Erik traced back his steps and luckily, he found the missing form at one of the desks where one of the officials had taken it, when he shouldn’t have. We were set free, at last, 11 hours after we docked!

In one of the offices by the way, hung a poster on the wall, explaining in Kazakh and Russian that this whole procedure took no more than 20 minutes. Time must be relative after all …

Time is moving fast. Or we are moving fast. Or both. As I am writing this, we are on the ferry from Alat in Azerbaijan across the Caspian Sea to Aktau in Kazachstan. Which means, that since my last update, we have spent some more time in Georgia, spent a few days in Tbilisi, visited the Gergeti Trinity Church near Stepantsminda, traversed Azerbaijan via Shaki to Baku and managed to get onto the ferry. And we’ve only been gone for little over two weeks, but it already feels much longer. But let me tell you what we’ve been up to so far.

After Vardzia, headed towards Borjomi to end up in Gori. In the morning, as we visited the caves of Vardzia, the weather was still fair but it started pouring once we were on the road again. By the time we reached Gori we were both soaked to our underwear. Glad to get out of those wet clothes and into a warm shower.

Gori is the birthplace of Josef Stalin, and they have a proper museum dedicated to one of the most notorious dictators of the 20th century. When you walk up to the museum, you encounter the birthhouse of Stalin (Stalin was his nickname, his real name was Josef Jugashvili). This house has always been at that spot, and they built a marble structure over it, and a large marble building behind it.

We followed the tourguide who told in a very matter of fact way about the various artefacts that were on display. Such as foto’s of Stalin throughout his life, his coat, his desk, cigars, original cabinet furniture and his death mask. It was a bit one-sided, there was no mention of the millions of lives that were lost during the Stalin regime. It was mentioned again and again that Stalin had been proud to be Georgian, and it was weird to notice that such a large part of the history of Stalin was avoided.

A gift from the Netherlands to Stalin:

But it was an interesting visit and morning nonetheless.

Leaving Gori, we visited another cave city, the site of Uplistsikhe. This one was first inhabited in the early Iron Age, and has also been settled and expanded with a monastery by Christians starting from the 4th century, later conquered by Muslims in the 8th and 9th century. This was a huge site, and I must say, after visiting Capadocia and Vardzia, I have seen enough caves and cave dwellings by now. But still, impressive how they built the tunnels and  caves.

We then took the back roads to Tbilisi, avoiding the highway and touring through small villages instead. Only the last few kilometers were highway. We were close to the city, and both running low on fuel. But we have these handy range indicators on our motorcycles, and mine told me that I could drive another 60 km’s on the fuel in my tank. We figured we get into the city and then would fill up, in just 2 kms. And then my engine quit. It just stopped. So much for the range indicator.

I parked the bike on the shoulder of the highway, and Paul stopped as well. We dicussed briefly whay to do, and we decided that I would sprint across the highway (it was not very busy) to the petrol station on the other side. We had an empty waterbottle, and so I went. Paul waited with the bikes. I managed to get 3 liters of fuel (apparently this happens more often, because the attendant had enough empty bottles) and sprinted back. On the way back to the motorcycles I encountered a police car, and although it was pretty obvious what I was doing, they did not say or do anything. And Paul had his encounter with the police as well. As he was waiting, another policecar stopped, and asked him if there was a problem and where we were from. Paul said “From Holland, and out of fuel, we’re stupid!”. The police just laughed and said “Welcome to Georgia!”.

In Tbilisi we had booked an appartment in the city center, very close to the Opera building. It had a large bedroom and a good parking spot for the bikes. Time to do some laundry, some relaxing and some sightseeing.

Tbilisi is a nice city, lots of tourists and it has a real capital city feel. It is beautifully situated along the river, with a fortress and an old town overlooking the city. It also has all facilities. Paul had been quite unlucky with his devices in the last few days. First he dropped his iphone, cracking the screen. Secondly his Garmin navigation started acting up, then his Gopro mount broke and I watched his Gopro bounce down the street at 70 km/h. But the most serious issue was with our Cardo intercom sets. His unit would not turn on most of the time and if it did, it had very erratic behaviour. Having no intercom on such a trip is not only very boring, it is also very inconvinient and we were quite worried that we would have to do without communication for the rest of the trip.

So first order of business was to get Paul’s iPhone fixed, and then I was going to have a look at the rest. We found a good shop which fixed Paul’s phone in 40 minutes and replaced his screen. I managed to find a torque 6 miniature screwdriver (the only tool I did not bring) and opened up the Cardo unit. It turned out that the heavy rain we had a few days before had gotten into the unit, and the thing had started corroding already a bit due to moisture. I dried it out and with a toothbrush I removed the corrosion. That did the trick! We have a working intercom unit again. I was also able to fix the Garmin – a bit of sand had gotten into the edge of the touchscreen, and lastly the GoPro: what we thought was a cracked lens was just the cover. We removed it and the GoPro is working as well. So all is good again.

The rest of our time in Tbilisi was spent as real tourists, sightseeing, walking around and looking at the city. At our last night there was a huge demonstration on the main street, the Shota Rustaveli Bulevard. This was very close to our apartment. As we found out later, it was against corruption and nepotism related to a murder trail verdict.

In the evening we met up with Max from Germany, and Didier, a Frenchman living in Melbourne, both driving their motorcycles in the same direction as we do. Didier is an impressive character – he has been driving all over the world on his motorcycle, Africa, Congo, Nigeria, South America, Asia – just amazing. We would end up meeting Didier again in Baku.

After Tbilisi we drove on the Georgian Military Highway close to the Russian border, near Vladikavkaz. There, close to the village of Gergeti lies the Trinity Church, high in the Caucasus mountains. From the village, which is already at a height of 2000 meters, it is 400 meters more up to the little church. The road up leading up there is bad and muddy, but we tried it anyway. We mastered the hard part, only to find the road blocked by construction workers, who are working on paving the road. We had to leave our bikes and hike the rest of the path up a very steep hill. The church is surrounded by mountains of 5000 meters high, unfortunately they were covered in clouds so we did not see the snow-capped peaks. But the view was stunning nonetheless.

You can see the church high up.

The path up the hill:

After the hike:

Georgia is a very nice country – friendly people, beautiful landscapes, good food and wine, I would like to have spent some more time, maybe gone up to Svaneti national park, but this will have to wait for another time. Now it’s on to Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is a country that I have not thought a lot of. What did I know of Azerbaijan?

1. The capital is Baku and they have oil
2. There is a Formula 1 race in Baku
3. At some point they won the Eurovision Songcontest. And it’s not even Europe.

So you can’t say that I came well prepared. But that has changed. Some facts that I have learned in the past few days:

1. Azerbaijan was the first Muslim democracy in the world (already in 1918, 2 years before they were assimilated in the Soviet Union)
2. The capital Baku was designed and built by oil millionaires who engaged European architects to replicate buildings and styles from all over Europe
3. The language is close to Turkish, but next to the Ottoman influence they have Russian and Iranian influences as well. But the Azeri’s (as they call themselves) pride themselves on their independence.

Leaving Georgia and entering Azerbaijan was more or less straightforward – by now we have learned not to queue at the border but just drive up to the start of the queue. The local people find it very normal and even encourage us to skip the line. After the formalities of leaving Georgia and entering Azerbaijan, going through border control, customs and purchasing insurance for the motorcycle we drove on in the direction of Shaki.

The first impression I got from driving in Azerbaijan is that it reminds me of a park. The road that we drove on was lined with majestic trees, and well-kept grass that reminded me of a lawn. The bottom parts of the trees were all painted white, and it felt we were driving up a very long driveway up to a castle. Really strange, you could tell that the trees had been planted but why I don’t know. But it is pretty.

Shaki is a town that at first does not look like much. We let our GPS guide us to the city center, checked into the first decent hotel that we saw and settled down for the day. We went for dinner in a closeby restaurant, which had an interesting concept. Instead of just getting a table, this restaurant has lots of wooden cabins inside. So we got our own little cabin, and sampled the local food. Azeri food is very tasty – as everything heavy on the meat, but with enough vegetables.

The next morning we walked through town, looked at the typical Shaki architecture and visited the caravanserai and the Palace of the Shaki Khans. This was the summer residence of the Ottoman rulers and was built in the 16th century. it is famous for it’s stained glass windows.

Click on the next two photos to have 360 degree views of the caravanserai:

The Palace of the Shaki Khan::

After the palace we walked by a nice house and were invited in by a man, who turned out to be the master craftsman for the stained glass windows. He was the 4th generation of craftsmen in his family, and they had all worked on the Palace. The construction of these windows is very intricate, it consists of tiny pieces of carved wood that fit together like one of those wood puzzles. They don’t use glue and it is very sturdy while looking very delicate.

You can see his ancestors on the wall behind him:

After Shaki we went on to Baku.

Baku itself is a grand city. You can tell there is lots of money here – tall, well kept buildings from medieval times, the late 18th, 19th and early 20th century, as well as glass towers with LED lighting at night. Expensive cars, well-dressed men and women, lots of restaurants and bars. We rented another apartment and went on a city walking tour with a private guide, an Azeri English teacher who also gives tours in the city. She was about 35 years old and next to lots of information about the city and the country, she also gave a nice insight into Azeri culture and society. We had some good discussions as well.

We would have liked to spend some more time in Baku, but we did not want to miss the ferry departure,  of which we did not know when it would leave. We spent a morning figuring out if we could get information on the departure and tickets in Baku instead of driving to the sea port of Alat (about 70km south of Baku) but we turned up empty handed.

So we decided to pack up and leave for the port. I won’t go into details about the whole process. Let me summarize by saying that it is a weird process, nobody knows when the ship leaves until it suddenly leaves at 3 in the morning, and it involves a lot of waiting (we arrived at 13:00) on a parking lot and a lot of forms and stamps. But the good news is that we are underway to Kazachstan, the ship is OK, we have a cabin (our private steam box, it is 30C without windows) and three meals a day.

And plenty of time to write a very long post.

On to the Glorious Nation of Kazachstan!

Paul has been working really hard to capture our first few days in a short video. How do you tell a story about four days of highway? I think he did a great job, see for yourself.

 

So, like Erik wrote, the rest of Turkey was kind of boring. I had hoped that our few days there would ease us into the real trip, allowing us to land and relax, but it didn’t.

Georgia however is everything I hoped for so far, and more. And it started at the border by meeting the first other biker Rasti from Slovakia. But the first perfect day of this trip was 28 May: our journey from Batumi to Vardzia. It was our first really beautiful road, including our first stretch of about 70 km off-road (or actually unpaved road) with water crossings and muddy patches. We even saw some snow!

Here we used what we learned in our training sessions in Holland. We thought of you, Albert, Werner and Bert. Thank you, we used what we learned!

Adjusting our handle bars for the off-road stretch:

23 degrees Celsius and snow:

The road we traveled:

 

Repairing some minor damage:

Lunch with Elena and Jean:

After the second water crossing, right when we felt hungry and thirsty, we found this great little shed where an old guy served us some BBQ skewer, salad and lemonade. Here “overlanders” Elena and Jean, our 4×4 driving friends from Luxembourg, joined us for this well-deserved lunch. We would see Elena and Jean several times after that and probably will later on as well. Funny to share this adventure with other travelers.

To complete the perfect day, we also mixed in visits to some sites (waterfall, fortress, monastery) and finished sleeping in the open air, trying out our sleeping bag and air mattress. All in one day.

Makhuntseti waterfall

Rabati Castle:

Sapara Monastery:

My bed for tonight:

And the view from my bed:

I was hoping to get these experiences during this trip, and there they all were!

Of course, the next day couldn’t be perfect. That would be boring…

So, after my GPS broke down, now my intercom set stopped working and my iPhone fell, breaking the screen.

And it rained.

It came pouring down the whole day, soaking us through and through. Everything was wet. But I guess that is part of the deal too. We were happy to find a nice little hotel in Gori, Stalin’s birth town, where we could dry, having a warm shower and sleep.

Tomorrow Tbilisi.

We are in Georgia now. This country is a pleasant surprise – I did not have any clear expectations. I am not a “Wie is de Mol” watcher (for you non-Dutchies, this is a popular Dutch television show, the last season has been recorded in Georgia) but I caught a few glimpses and saw some beautiful landscapes on TV. But before I tell you more about Georgia, what about Turkey you say? Well, to be honest, there is not much to tell. This visit to Turkey won’t make a lasting impression like my one from 10 years ago. We went to Safranbolu, which was nice, and then to Amasra, which was also nice. Small fishing town, great weather, nice views. We picked a hotel, did some luggage rearranging, strolled around the town and harbour, had some dinner and read a bit. Slowly we are winding down. But the towns are quiet, because of Ramadan (or Ramazan as the Turks call it). Only after 8.15 there is a bit of life on the streets.
After Amasra we went on the D010 which we had been looking forward to, a great stretch of road along the Black Sea coast to Sinop. Curves, twists, hills, great views, no traffic, a perfect road. Until about 50k before Sinop, where we hit asphalt that was so fresh, it sprayed everywhere. We then spent 2 hours cleaning the tar of our bikes, it got in places that I did not even know existed. But it set the tone for the rest of the Black Sea coast. The D010 turned into a dull highway that stretches almost 700 km from Sinop all the way to the border. We wanted to see Sumela Monastery, close to Trabzon but that turned out to be closed. One year of renovation turned into three and the opening date keeps being pushed. So this is as close as we got:

But at least the road up to the monastery was very pretty. One fortunate decision we took was that we skipped the loop we planned to do from Bayburt to Of (the D915). It turned out there had been a landslide and the road was blocked. And I am not sure my off-road skills would be sufficient yet for this kind of road, or track. So what followed was another day of boring D010 until the Georgian border, which we reached at about 17:00.

There we met Rasti again, who we had seen on the highway in Bulgaria. Rasti (short for Rastislav) is a Slovak who is on a trip through Turkey, Georgia and Armenia. We went through the border together (another painless exercise), and I was struck by a completely different atmosphere than in Turkey. People look different, much more “European”, incredibly lively compared to the Ramadan-quietness of Turkey. As our insurance green cards are no longer valid, we need to buy liability (WA) insurance in the country itself. The nice lady at the border gave us a folder and pointed us to an office where we could buy insurance. But at that office they pointed us to another office (oh, it’s just 3 km, opposite the gas station). And there to another one (oh, it’s just 400m on the left). We spent the next hour looking for insurance, while darkness set in. Fortunately Rasti speaks a few words of Russian, which helps a lot. My vocabulary is limited to hi, hello and thank you. And while we were looking for insurance, we got a text message that the place we booked to sleep had no water, which meant we had nowhere to stay. So after we finally bought our insurance we followed Rasti to his hotel in Batumi, where we were able to stay the night. We ended up having some beers with Rasti and had a good time.

Batumi is the second-largest city in Georgia, a seaside resort, and has a nice atmosphere. It it called Las Vegas at the Black Sea – when Mikheil Saakashvili (the one with the Dutch wife) was president he attracted a lot of foreign investors, so there are huge glass and mirror towers of the Hilton, Sheraton, Wyndham, and lots of casino’s.

We spent a day not driving, relaxing, giving my leg some rest and walked through the park, along the beach, looked at the harbour, had a drink, read a book and wondered about the strange alphabet the Georgians have. It reminds me of Greek but I cannot make heads or tails from it. Cyrillic is easy compared to this.

The next morning we left for Vardzia. This is a huge cave monastery complex in the middle of Georgia, with caves created in the early 12th century by Christians and later. We had planned a nice route to there, just 240kms, over the Goderdzi pass, with a peak of 2000m. Well, I am happy to say that our off-road training paid off. After a few km’s the asphalt gave way to more potholes, and at some point it was just gravel and stones. But we actually had no problems, we encountered a bit of mud, sand and a few river crossings. We got though it without issues, and it’s actually fun. Just stand up and let the bike dance over the terrain, nothing to it. The landscape is stunning, it is so pretty here.
On that way met a nice couple from Luxembourg in their Landrover Defender, also on their way to Mongolia though the Pamirs. I’m sure we will bump into each other many times.
When we arrived in Vardzia, we looked at the available hotel selection and decided to test out our camping gear. So we spent the night at a camping at the river.

You see the Vardzia cave city in the background in the rocks.

A few more days left in Georgia, and some more interesting sights and roads to see. Tbilisi (the capital), the Georgian Military Road, and the Gergeti Trinity Church.

Before leaving Safranbolu we had another stroll through the ancient city center and had a great cup of Turkish coffee. I am sure that in high season the little square where we sat down would be a tourist trap, but for me, on this first relaxed morning in Turkey it was just perfect. The terrace looked like a postcard, very authentic (so for sure a tourist trap) and the coffee was made on an open fire. It was served with a glass of cherry juice and some mint water. Excellent.

We left for Amasra, another ancient city on the Silk Road. It was only a 90 minutes’ drive through the mountains before we arrived at the Black Sea. In Amasra we chose the nicest hotel we could find so that we could really relax and enjoy this first rest after 5 days of non-stop riding.

We had a nice light lunch at the sea side and in the evening some fish and salad in the same restaurant. Our hotel did not serve any beer because of Ramadan, but we found a beach bar which did.
The next day our plan was to have a nice and quiet ride along the coast to Sinop. We had read that the road would be beautiful and the trip would take us only 4 hours. Little did we know….
It all started out well, we were in no hurry and stopped after an hour or so in a small village to get a tea and talk to some locals who came out to see our bikes.

The route was beautiful and windy along the coast, passing cliffs and small villages

But then the roadworks started. They had just finished laying the asphalt, and it was still wet.
It took no more that 500 yards to get our bikes as black as the road itself.
The tar had spat everywhere. Our number plates had just become black squares, the panniers were full of black spots and the rest of the motorbike was covered in a thick layer of black dripping tar.
We wanted to clean this as quickly as possible before it all dried up and would be too hard to get rid of. It took us the next 2 hours to get the majority off. At the end we were sweating and hungry, and the petrol station where we were only sold ice cream.

After this cleaning session we did not feel like continuing to Sinop anymore. We found a small town with a cheap hotel, where the warm water did not work, as we noticed when we wanted to scrub off the tar from ourselves.
But they had beer, and we finished the day with a well-deserved Ramadan menu at a tiny restaurant where the whole family who owned the place served us while having their own Ramadan diner.

The next morning, we got up early, took a cold shower again and got on our bikes. This would be a boring and long trip to Trabzon. But the road was new and quick. Without delays we arrived in Trabzon where there was again no beer. And this time we couldn’t find any nearby either. So we worked a bit on our planning for the next days, our GPS and on our movies and turned in.

Today we will leave Turkey and get to Georgia. Looking forward to the wine….

So we’ve been on the road for a few days now. So far we’ve stuck to the plan; highways until past Istanbul and then slow down. I know the previous post said we’ll take it easy, for us this meant sticking to the highways and speed limit. Our plan is to leave Europe quickly and then slow down. We’ve probably established a new record though: Amsterdam – Safranbolu in 4.5 days. We both feel we have to make up for lost time because of our late start, and it’s hard to get it out of our heads. And we both know it’s nonsense, we’ve got plenty of time and it’s about the journey and not the destination. But still, I guess it’s how the mind works. We need some time to land and get used to the idea that we are going to take it day by day, meter by meter.

On the more practical side, things are ok. The leg is fine, it will be an ugly scar but it seems to heal just fine. The bikes are running like clockwork, and I’m getting used to the vibrations and peculiarities of the bike. What I thought were strange noises and weird behaviors feel normal to me now. I’m happy we have the same bike, even our fuel consumption is identical to the liter. So acceleration, range and cruising speed is the same. And the bike is heavy. I have a luggage pack on my buddy seat, which means that I cannot mount my bike normally. Even when the bike is on the jiffy (that’s the side stand for non riders) I have to get on the footpegs to get my foot over the luggage pack on the bike. I think Paul has a video where you can see me in full grace.

We’ve crossed Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and are now in Turkey. We’ve spent the nights in smaller places, and not the larger cities like Frankfurt, Budapest, Sofia or Istanbul. Instead, we slept in Idstein, Györ, Nis and Silivri. Look it up on the map if you want to know where these places are. On those long-distance days, all we need is a dinner, beer and a bed. The beer turns out to be a challenge at times, since it’s Ramadan in the Muslim world.

The border crossings were more or less painless, the Hungarian-Serbian one took the longest, about 2 hours. I had a scare when I pulled up my car registration instead of my motorcycle registration, apparently I forgot to leave the car registration at home. One second (well, maybe 15 minutes and 2 panic phone calls) long I thought I left the wrong registration at home, but I have both with me. Well, better than the other way around. The Turkish border crossing was very easy at Edirne, in an and out in about 30 minutes. We had the visa and papers prepared, and whizzed just through.

I’m glad I’m not a truck driver trying to get into or out of Turkey. The queue at the border is 20km!! long, it was said that the waiting time is about 2 weeks. We drove alongside the queue, and it is just incredible. All these trucks!

We’re in Safranbolu now, a UNESCO heritage site. Both Paul and I have a  strong deja vu – Berat in Albania looks just like Safranbolu. If you don’t believe it, just compare the pictures below.

This is Safranbolu:

And this is Berat.

Well, not quite but you get the idea.

It’s a pretty place.

Paul is working hard to edit the GoPro footage we made, to give you a visual impression of the past few days. I’m just using words for now.

Tomorrow we are going to look at some sights here, and have just a short drive to Amasra, our next stop.

And we’re off! The infection in my leg is almost gone, and the doctors in the hospital gave me the green light to take off. I need to take care of the wound obviously, keep it clean and protected but at least we can start driving. So the next few days we’ll take it easy, just German and Austrian highways with plenty of stops.