Turkiye and beyond.

 After ensuring all my documents were to hand I set off for the hour or so's run along to the border, stopping on the way to fill up with diesel. Although it is considerably cheaper over in Turkey I was conscious of the problem I had had in Mauritania last year when having no local currency and a card that wasn't  accepted I was unable to fill up. A long line of HGVS parked up soon appeared but fortunately non freight traffic was directed past them to the Greek passport control and there were only three cars and two expedition trucks, one a converted German fire engine, in the line. Within minutes I was stamped out of Europe and crossing the river bridge which had rather bored looking soldiers on either side. 

On the Turkish side I first had a security and customs check with two friendly guys : the van being unusually for them RHD is always a good ice breaker and I was soon waved on to passport control where my photo was recorded and the book duly stamped. The next kiosk was for vehicle importation and as post Brexit UK drivers no longer get a Green Card valid in Turkey I was directed to park up and buy local insurance (sigorta) from inside an adjacent building. I was speedily dealt with and got 3 months cover for £175 paid by card which worked : hurrah. I could have paid cash in Euros but wanted to keep my stash for back up later in the trip. I returned to the vehicle import kiosk with the document and was soon on my way : remarkably despite various horror stories the entire process had taken only half an hour, something I discussed with the German truck driver.

Ipsala was just a few minutes drive away and I had planned to stay the night there if the crossing had taken longer but decided to stop anyway to attend to a few tasks. First up was to inspect one of a line of cash machines and take out a test amount. Thus 1000 Turkish lire appeared, and more importantly perhaps, so did my card. This amounted to only £20 so I used my other card to try for £200 and received a huge stash of 200 lire notes. Selecting as always the local rates ( ie without conversion) I also noticed a rather steep 10% admin fee.

I then went in to a Turkcell phone shop as they are the cheaper provider but the guy sent me over to the Vodafone shop saying his company could only sell to Turkish passport holders. Again everyone was polite, friendly and helpful and the assistant soon had a new SIM installed in my 'spare' phone and I was able to ensure that my main phone, switched to airplane mode, was picking up the hotspot and making a connection. 25 GB was included but I topped up another 30 GB as I am here for a fair while with a total outlay of £50. I then took a walk through the small town and as I was hungry a small caff provided, yes you've guessed it, a delicious kebab and a coke for about £2 giving me the chance to break a 200 TL note (about £4) in to smaller ones, the lowest denomination note being 5TL so about 10p.....

Back at the van as I spoke to Mandy various excited kids appeared at the window but were well behaved and didn't overstay their welcome and I was soon on my way. On the edge of town I saw a shop with various gas bottles outside so pulled over to make enquiries. A cylinder similar in size and capacity to the 907s was available so I decided to get one - it was only £4 and the guy showed me on Google translate the question 'do you have any vacancies?' pointing across at the van so I said no at which point the price went up to £8 - of course he meant did I have an empty to exchange!!

Anyway with those tasks completed I set off for my planned overnight an hour or so away on the coast north of the Gallipoli peninsula where a tiny fishing harbour had loads of space on a gravelled area complete with the ubiquitous and mostly friendly stray dogs. I spent the rest of the afternoon reviewing the day's progress, putting all documentation away and trying to familiarise myself with the sums involved in currency conversion. I also started plotting my route east marking up on the map all the places of interest from my two guide books, now some 15 years old, which helped narrow down my route. There was a Turkish camper already parked up well away and later a Dutch van and then a huge German 4x4 MAN expedition truck rolled in, as noisy and ostentatious as they always are.

After a quiet night with the dogs barking occasionally I was up and away, filling up with water from a good supply and taking the road down the Gallipoli peninsula to the numerous military cemeteries that covered the area which had seen fierce fighting in WW1. I had first heard of the area whilst in NZ as it holds a significant place in ANZAC history and had always wanted to come to pay my respects. The new Canakkale suspension bridge is the longest in the world at present and gracefully crosses the strategically important Dardanelles Strait high above the constant flow of shipping.

After passing through some long tunnels I reached Kabatepe with a plan to cross to Gokceade, an island that retains much of its former Greek history but decided as the ferry was not due to depart for four hours and was quite pricey for only one in a vehicle I would do it on another trip. Down at the southernmost tip the huge Helles memorial to British troops also acknowledged the vital role of other Commonwealth countries including India, Nepal and Canada. A few miles away the huge Turkish memorial stood proudly over the landscape and when I arrived preparations were under way for the big March 18th memorial day with numerous soldiers practising their parading skills.

Further north on the west coast lay the very moving ANZAC Cove where the allied troops on landing had to scale 300m high slopes under heavy fire. A curious rock feature was nicknamed The Sphynx as it resembled the one seen by the troops as they passed through Egypt. Lone Pine cemetery was particularly moving and a team from the Commonwealth War Graves Committee were at work tending to the lawns and graves.

Moving on to Eceabat I had a short wait for the regular ferry over to Canakkale which was £14 for the half hour journey giving good views across to the town, up to the bridge and of the huge ships heading north in a long convoy. As they were all heading north and the passage is relatively narrow it occurred to me that an alternating one way system might be in operation. Canakkale is a busy university town but had a large parking area near the covered market where I left the van for a walk round. I followed the river out to the coast passing a very rundown area full of rubbish, car wrecks and dilapidated housing before reaching the promenade where things changed dramatically. Being in the 'European' part of Turkey the dress code was very (in some cases very) relaxed and couples and families were parading up and down, the restaurants were buzzing and the atmosphere warm and friendly. A huge replica wooden horse dominates a point just beyond where the ferries land as Troy is a few miles down the coast and a majestic mosque sits at the northern end of the bay.

Back at the van all was quiet until the calls from another mosque filled the air and I slept well waking to find an open air  market had sprung up just a few yards from where I had parked : this has happened before! I wasn't in the way though and took a walk round the various piles of mostly secondhand electronics, cheap tools, piles of clothing and some domestic equipment, all very reminiscent of similar events in Morocco.

The morning's task was focussed on getting an HGS sticker that enables drive through toll fee collections and was apparently available from post offices and banks.  A PTT branch ten minutes walk away would I hope be able to help but the guy said  (via Google translate of course) that he had just sold his last one but told me 3 nearby banks would be able to help. In the event none of them could and referred me back to the PTT so I decided to head for the main branch back in town where the friendly security guy gave me the appropriate form to fill in. I then took a numbered ticket and soon had a helpful woman crossing out most of the entries on my form as I had taken a guess at some of the details required. We had to ensure that the 0 and O (look closely) were entered correctly in to the system after which she gave me the small sticker that apparently contains an RFID tag. She asked me how much I wanted to preload and again being not completely familiar with the exchange rate I suggested 100 lire. She countered with a 1000 and I handed over the equivalent of £20 realising that the tag cost 110 lire (£2) to get started!! Outside I used the ATM and was pleased to discover as is often the case that postal service ATMs do not charge the 10% fee and still offer a decent rate as long as you choose the 'without conversion' option.

Back at the van a guy came over for a look and was fascinated by the conversion but I was soon on my way heading via Biga to Bandirma where ferries across the Sea of Marmara head to Istanbul. My destination was a small cove courtesy of P4N that lay on the north coast of the small Kapi Dagi peninsula and reached by a twisting coastal road that passed by some decent beaches and through some impoverished and litter strewn fishing villages. From high points on the road I looked down in to a couple of small coves where large steel ships were being built in very confined spaces and eventually dropped down to pick up a dirt track that led to a beautiful curve of sand with plenty of flat parking in the grass. Sadly there was litter everywhere and plastic bottles all washed up on the shore but it had a very pleasant feeling otherwise and remarkably 4G coverage so I decided to stay two nights and saw no one other than a family dropping down in the afternoon. During my day there the odd fishing boat chugged by, some container ships passed by on the horizon and a few clusters of jets flew over in formation presumably for the Gallipoli event.

As I moved on the reason for much of all the litter became apparent as above one cove the communal rubbish was just being tipped straight in to the sea - horrendous.

The large city of Bursa saw the first congestion as it was a holiday weekend but a few miles north in a more rural village sat the Bursa Karavan Park reached through narrow streets and a final very steep descent to a level terrace with a few caravans permanently set up and free space for visitors. The lovely owner Bunjamin welcomed me warmly and soon had me parked up and with a cold beer in my hand. He was having a party for his mountaineering club and the other campers that night and asked me to come along later giving me time to walk back up to the village.

I wasn't sure what time things would start but people were arriving in the late afternoon and then after a blast from the mosque at sunset huge amounts of food appeared and I was soon tucking in to spicy chicken, rice and salad. A young paramedic was great company and keen to practice his already quite good English, he wants to get a job as a health care worker in the UK and whilst I admired his ambition I felt it also only fair to explain gently that whilst the pay might seem good compared to the average monthly Turkish pay packet of £400 the costs of living are so much higher. Anyway the next couple of hours passed very enjoyably before I took off for bed, leaving the group to sing and chat late in to the night.

On Sunday morning Bunjamin and another van owner wanted a full tour of the van before I left but I was away eventually to stop at lakeside Iznik which was a centre for ceramics and had an impressive surrounding wall with many fortifications and some imposing gates. Within the walls lay two beautiful mosques and other buildings and I enjoyed exploring them for a couple of hours before a final run through the mountains to Goynuk where I planned to stay the night. The larger car park was out of bounds due to a market next day so I tucked in to the smaller one nearby and took a walk through the small town that sits in a deep valley. Again two friendly guys were fascinated by the van, the older one, despute being a car mechanic had never seen a RHD vehicle.

As I walked round in the early evening there was a lot of activity but a gunshot just after dusk and a call from the mosque saw the streets empty like magic as everyone rushed off to eat...

As I dozed off there was some banging about and, yes you've guessed it, I woke at 7 to see numerous stalls being set out....Thus I dressed quickly and moved off to a nearby street before walking up to the predominant watch tower with it's lofty view across the town. Sure enough back in the centre my space was now occupied by a stall selling huge quantities of olives, many in lurid dressings. After a good look round I was away again north to leave the mountains as snow was forecast, remarkable as it had been 31 degrees earlier in the day and 22 at 19.00.

Dropping out of the hills a routine police (Jandarma) traffic stop was interesting. The first guy asked for my passport and driving licence whilst his colleague stood at the front with an IPad. He then asked the first guy to confirm my full name which of course all tallied but I was impressed that the system was up and running in less than a week since my entry and I was glad I'd got all my paperwork in order.

Near Bolu I stopped at a fascinating place where a natural spring saturated with soda had created an enormous bright white cliff that at first I thought was limestone. A huge but grubby looking pool enabled visitors to take the waters and is probably cleaned up for the summer but I was content just to follow the path  beneath the cliff and back round through the woods.

A full tank of BP Ultimate for £70 was good news as I headed past the enormous steel works at Karabuk, Turkey's largest, where acres of finished steel presented as RSJS, steel plate, rebar and cable surrounded a place that looked like hell on earth and filled the air with a colour and smell far worse than the bad old days of Port Talbot near my old place in South Wales.

A few miles further on Safranbolu was many miles away in character and has been a UNESCO WHS since 1994 as it is a largely unspoilt town of traditional tall Ottoman style wooden houses. I decided to stay at the Karavan Park and the friendly owner gave me a choice to park up anywhere as there was only one other guest. A top pitch near power and water was also the flattest so I set up and walked down to the old centre which was a maze of streets with numerous small shops catering to the tourists who congregate here in the summer. For now though apart from a coachload of Chinese visitors it was very quiet and I enjoyed a good look round stopping at one point for tea with Karam in his workshop surrounded by hundreds of copper mugs, pots, plates, lamps and other ornaments that he had produced. There was no sales pressure at all as again he just wanted to practice his English but as the sun set everyone was closing up and once more the call of the mosque emptied the streets.

So overnight we had a thunderstorm and some heavy rain and I heard a noise outside which turned out to be large black cat on the roof peering in to the bathroom where my empty tuna tin had sat in the bin but this morning it is bright and sunny and I am heading out to the coast once more. I need to source a different gas bottle as the thread is too small for my CG regulator but otherwise we are all set for the 600 or so miles slowly east to Georgia....

Extras,