Visitors
from U.K.
By chance, we met with Richard
and Christine on 23/10/1999 in Istanbul while they were lost and asking
road under the terrible rain !
We spend couple hours with
them in our Berke Moto Shop, they were on a World Trip by their elderly
bike of BMW R 75.
They promised that they will
inform us about their trip by e-mails and we will issue and up date their
trip records in this home page.
Their next stop was Iran. They
were planning to ride through the following route:
Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India,
Nepal, Thailand, Australia, U.S.A. and finally will be back to U.K.
on September 2001.
We wish good luck and nice
trip to them.
Hope to see you pals,
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CIRCULAR (Dedicated to friends in Turkey,
Feza, Tamer and Unal)
This is our second month in Nepal and is
the first time (apart from the odd
e-mail reply) that I’ve really sat down
to write for pleasure (having sent
no Xmas or Y2K cards whatsoever) rather
than for work! Anyway an apologetic
and belated Happy Y2K to all.
We left Oxford on October 12 on our elderly
(1973) BMW R75 then headed
briskly across Europe trying stay ahead
of winter with short (mainly one
night stops) in Arrat, Baden-Baden, Vienna
(meeting up with close friend and
trekking companion from the past, Eva),
Budapest and Cluj. At this point
winter caught up with us and we found
ourselves sliding around in a blizzard
in the Carpathians before descending to
slightly better weather in Brasov.
In Brasov, good friends and forestry colleagues
Prof. Norocel and Larissa
Nicolescu as well as their energetic son
Aurel politely ignored the
Carpathian mud we dripped around their
apartment and gave us a wonderful
welcome. It was also a pleasure to catch
up with another friend and forestry
colleague Dr. Ioan Abrudan before we continued
on our way, passing through a
foggy Bulgaria and on to Erdine in Turkey.
While lost in Istanbul by chance we pulled
up outside a BMW motorcyle dealer
(the first step in a remarkable series
of coincidences – see below). We were
greeted by shop owner, other bikers and
Goldwing rider Feza Haznedar (one of
three people who prevented our trip coming
to an abrupt end). After being
revived with spicy hamburgers and black
coffee Feza led us to the road for
the old Sultanahmet centre of Istanbul,
insisting that we should contact him
if we need anything at all! Remembering
from the previous bike trip to Asia
how cold eastern Turkey can be, we spent
only two days in Istanbul then set
off over the Bosphorous, passing the canvas
cities housing thousands of
people made homeless by the earthquake
centred near Golcuk, and headed
towards Ankara.
All appeared to be going well when travelling
at 100 kph on empty motorway,
and only 120 km from Ankara the bike went
into a violent weave. The front
wheel locked to one side and we were thrown
sliding down the road with the
bike (and pieces of-) bouncing behind
us. After skidding to a halt Christine
and I must have stood up immediately,
looked at each other for no more than
a few seconds to ensure that we both intact
(the bike was most certainly
not). Fortunately bike protective clothing
and crash helmets protected us
from impact with the road and abrasions.
All things considered we were
immensely lucky not to be badly hurt.
Truncating a longer story (including experiences
of traffic and military
police bureaucracy and despite these,
tremendous police hospitality), we
telephoned Feza in Istanbul who, as well
as translating between us and
police for the purposes of making accident
reports, mobilised his network of
Turkish biking friends. One of these,
Tamer Ute, later put himself
completely at our service again translating,
driving us between workshops
and motorcycle dealers, ordering replacement
parts and generally ensured
that despite circumstances our unavoidable
delay in Ankara was most
enjoyable.
As a result of his inquiries in Istanbul
Feza locates a BMW bike repair
centre in Ankara. The bike quite frankly
was a wreck and Christine and I,
thinking the bike and trip were not retrievable,
were ready to fly home.
Feza and friends however saw it as their
personal responsibility that our
journey should continue. Given the bike’s
unpredictable and self-destructive
behaviour we’re not entirely sure that
we even want it to!
Adam, our breakdown recovery driver, for
a very fair price takes us and the
bike to a remote industrial suburb in
Ankara. We arrive late at night and
are welcomed by the remarkable Unal Atasavun,
a BMW mechanic and skilled
restorer with many decades of experience.
The large workshop is like a
museum full of rooms with old BMWs and
sidecars stacked to the ceiling. We
can’t understand what is being said but
Unal seems confident that the bike
is repairable. Adam takes us to a nearby
comfortable and attractively priced
BP Garage/Hotel Gimat. This becomes home
for the next week and waiter Bulent
and receptionist Fatima adopt us.
The day after the accident we walk to Unal’s
workshop. In daylight we can
see that it is truly a museum. Apart from
floor to ceiling stocks of parts,
there are around a dozen of beautifully
restored pre 1970 R67s and R69s,
some with sidecars, as well as more recent
BMW boxer models. We later find
out that Unal exports many of his restoration
projects back to Germany as
well as supplying buyers in other parts
of Europe. There must be very few
BMW bike restorers of this calibre in
the world and we are amazingly
fortunate that Unal is here in Ankara.
With Tamer translating Unal tells us that
it will take one week to mend the
front end of the bike, that all parts
will be original and that it will be
fully “restored” including the holes in
panniers and minor dents to the
petrol tank. Whilst waiting for repairs
to be completed Tamer shows us
Ankara and helps us order replacement
luggage parts and a screen.
As promised the bike is repaired on time
and there is no visible evidence of
our spill. The standard of work is superb
with new front fork and
steering-head assembly, headlight casket,
handlebars, all damaged parts
replaced. The bike quite frankly looks
in better condition than when we
bought it. Unal apparently once did accident
inspections and explained that
he thought that the BMW went out of control
because the lower of a pair of
bearings in the steering head failed.
He also explained that the failure was
caused by improper repair after an earlier
accident (before we purchased the
bike). In his opinion a bent part of the
steering head had not been
replaced, which, by placing a load across
the tapered bearing, eventually
caused it to fail. We asked him how he
knew this had happened and he pointed
out tooling marks where someone had attempted
to straighten the head.
We then went for a long test drive and
to see the remarkable landscape
formations of Capadocia, before returning
to Ankara for Unal to inspect and
adjust the steering head. Leaving Ankara
it was a cold but on the whole
enjoyable four days travel to the border
with Iran. After a boisterous night
in Dogubayzit with local revellers we
passed through the border pleased to
feel only slightly hungover in alcohol-dry
Iran. In all we had only five
days in Iran. There was a very hard frost
in the mountains to the east of
Tabriz and temperatures must have been
well below freezing. So cold that
when we stopped at a roadside truckers
café the proprietor immediately stood
us by a blazing fire, then gave us tea
and a huge meal of bread, cheese and
honey. We weren’t allowed to leave until
the sun was high and the frost
thoroughly thawed. Again hospitality in
Iran was wonderful, particularly in
the countryside and from many of the soldiers
who escort travellers and
patrol southern Iran as a result of attempts
to stamp out the drug trade
across the Afghanistan border.
We have met up with other overland travellers,
mainly the large organised
tours (where you sit in truck on a hard
bench for many weeks!) but also vans
and motorcyclists and pedal cyclists so
far. On balance (or maybe “when
balanced”) the motorcyclists seem to enjoyable
a degree of freedom, being
able to avoid certain obstacles (slow
trucks, roads blocked by accidents and
some spectacular potholes) and traffic
jams in cities. People along the way
seem also to respond to the eccentricity
of travelling long distances on
motorcycles (pedal cyclists must get very
special treatment!), and are also
fascinated by the design and age of our
old R/75. In contrast to 4-wheel
travel, you are very exposed to the elements
and so far we have experienced
being frozen, “blizzarded”, baked, rained
on and on one occasion in southern
Iran thoroughly sand-blasted in violently
gusting cross-winds.
Crossing into Pakistan we had to travel
some nearly 700 km through
Baluchistan desert to get to Quetta. This
road has a dreadful reputation but
we found that most of it was well surfaced
and all but deserted most of the
way. We met up with overland companions
again in Quetta (one van driven by a
Danish family with two small boys was
damaged by a truck reversing into it),
visited the local forestry office, before
crossing the interior of Pakistan
along the apparently notorious “robbers-highway”
to Fort Munroe. On the way
here I dropped the bike twice trying to
overtake coal trucks crawling at
very low speeds up a steep and bad mountain
road. The only damage was to
part of our luggage rack.
The road from Multan to Lahore was the
most frightening experience so far.
Much of this is wonderfully surfaced motorway
with yellow and white road
markings, but the combination of some
vehicles travelling at speed (in both
directions in both lanes!) mixed with
the random motion of other traffic
(buffalo drawn carts, bicycles, animals,
beggars paddling planks of wood
with wheels) was treacherous.
We travelled from Multan to Amritsar in
India in one day arriving in India
on 18 November and stayed in Amritsar
for three days at Mrs Bandari’s Guest
House where we were remembered from our
previous overland trip. Here we also
met up with Ziggy travelling from Germany
on a BMW R80G/S (not paralever)
who had been up the Karakoram highway
and around Peshawar.
The next three weeks or so were spent touring
Rajasthan (highlights were the
desert and fortress cities of Bikaner,
Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Pushkar
[an excellent quiet pilgrimage centre
beautifully situated by a lake],
Jaipur) then on to Agra (Taj Mahal), Allahabad
and a long stop in Varanassi.
One of the most enjoyable parts of biking
India is stopping at roadside
“restaurants” where there are no tourists,
therefore no touts. Here the food
is excellent chapatis, rice, daal (spiced
lentils), sabji (veg’ curry) and
milk tea often served with free “bidis”
(small local cigars rolled with
herbs) and hospitality genuine. We tended
to set off early in the morning,
often cold and quite foggy at this time
of year, stop to eat about 10.00 and
2.00 then keep driving to find somewhere
before dark. In general it seems
that driving conditions are OK in the
early morning and get progressively
more insane throughout the day as the
concentration of buses, trucks,
camels, dogs, monkeys (even performing
bears) and pedestrians sharing roads
grows.
Varanasi was hellish when we arrived and
it wasn’t until we discovered “Assi
Ghat” at the southernmost part of the
city that we started to enjoy it. Here
we decided to stop on 11 December and
finally left on 4 January. We also
treated ourselves to renting a wonderful
flat that overlooked the Ganges
(about $6/night), either eating at the
excellent Vaatika Café on the ghats
or preparing our own food, often buying
delicious curd from an elderly lady
serving it in clay pots under a nearby
Pipal tree. We arranged to study
Hindi every day with the excellent and
entertaining Virendra Singh. Lessons
were in a beautiful courtyard and only
sometimes interrupted by monkeys in
the tree overhead. In the right parts
of the city Varanasi is a magical
place, especially during the winter with
the mist over the Ganges. Here at
2.00 am on New Year’s Day we also met
up with a friend from previous travels
in Southern India and Nepal, Peter Needham.
Between Hindi studies we spent
much time with Pete and friend Kashi,
enjoying being expertly rowed around
and across the Ganges by Kashi.
On 4 January we left for Nepal. This was
another eventful day. We first came
across a couple travelling from Nepal
on a Yamaha XJ900 with sidecar. Then
later the same day, on the outskirts Gorakhpur
city, a scooter pulled across
the road without looking and needless
to say we hit it! We went out of
control and crashed into a vegetable stall
and Christine badly sprained her
ankle as a result of catching her foot
under the bike. In India crowds are
instantaneous and we had at least 200
people around us in seconds. The bike
was buried in a mountain of potatoes and
tomatoes (I’m still finding tomato
pips all over the engine) and would have
been quite amusing had it not been
for Christine’s ankle. I was furious with
the crazy scooter driver and took
his keys to make sure he didn’t leave
– he ran off without his bike as soon
as the police arrived. Even in India Gorakhpur
is notorious for exceptional
corruption. After I had paid the stall
owner for his damaged vegetables a
policeman started to insist that I go
to the station. A common scam is to
confiscate documents (vehicle and passport)
then ask for a “fine” to be paid
for their return. Since the police weren’t
interested in the man who had
caused the accident, it seemed that we
were being set up for such a “fine”.
The crowd, however, was very friendly
towards us. They surrounded the
policeman in an impressive “pincer movement”,
while people at the back
suggested we leave quickly while they
restrained the policeman. Fortunately
the bike wasn’t damaged at all and we
drove on to Nepal.
We arrived in Kathmandu on 5 January. I
was expecting to have a few days off
but started my “photomap” work the next
day.
We had only been in Nepal a few days when
we heard the sad news that my
Grandmother died peacefully on January
7 at the age of 99.
Today is 20 February. Both Christine and
I have been working pretty much
full-time since arriving – I more on technical
aspects of photomaps for
community forestry and Christine on the
social side.
By way of brief explanation, we have been
involved in the development of
appropriate technologies for low cost
reproduction of map-corrected aerial
photographs, and in field testing these
as a non-literate means of
communication for users of community forests.
We have found that hill people
in Nepal are very adept at interpreting
“photomaps” (perhaps because they
spend most of their lives looking down
from the tops of hills/mountains).
The “photomaps” have proved very successful
as a base for all sorts of
community and resource applications to
do with the national policy of
handing over government forest to communities.
Anyway, we had only been in Nepal for a
few days when we were asked to
develop a programme to introduce photomaps
in Terhathum District in the east
of Nepal. Terhathum is very beautiful
but the hills can also be quite chilly
at this time of year. Many nights were
therefore spent keeping warm by
drinking hot millet beer (thomba), very
nice and quite strong…
The photomaps have been a huge success.
We expected to be in Nepal for 2
weeks only. It now looks as if we will
stay for 2 months as Danish, Swiss,
Australian and EU projects have asked
to discuss more contracts for
expanding photomaps to other districts,
as well as the UK project requesting
another publication on photomap experiences
in Nepal.
We should leave Nepal in early March. Because
it is politically impossible
to drive across Burma and bureaucratically
intimidating to take a vehicle
across China, we hope to fly the bike
from here to Bangkok (about $400 for
the bike and $200 each for us). We plan
to tour Thailand, possibly Laos,
Malaysia and Singapore then ship the bike
to Darwin in Australia, visit
friends in Australia, tour New Zealand
then fly to LA, USA. Plans can change
but we have a vague idea that we may ride
to Seattle, catch a boat to
Anchorage in Alaska, go up to the Arctic
circle then travel south stopping
in Oaxaca, Mexico to learn Spanish before
touring South America. One
possibility would then be to fly Buenos
Aires to Johannesburg, then travel
back to Europe via East Africa, Ethiopia,
Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and
Turkey – but there are many other “possibilities”,
as well as circumstances
beyond our control; a saying about “counting
chickens…” comes to mind…
Altogether we have done about 15,000 km
since leaving UK and about 10500 km
since Unal repaired the bike. It has been
down some rough roads but the
steering head is still solid. Other repairs
so far are welded luggage rack
(twice) and welded holes in one exhaust.
This is a brief description of a very full
four months. Reading through the
above I’m aware that I have not really
done justice to the culture,
landscape and most of all the many people
we have met along the way who have
been genuinely hospitable, interested
and quick to help when we’ve been in
difficulties. We have found while travelling
we are content with very little
(just as well when all your belongings
must fit in 3 small boxes), so long
as Richard can find real oat porridge
to cook on the small camping stove and
Christine can enjoy an occasional piece
of apple pie.
“Namaskaar” and very best wishes to all
Richard and Christine
Dear Feza and Tamer
How are you both?
We have had a splendid trip through SE
Asia, Australia, New Zealand then on
to Alaska traveling through Canada (Yukon
and British Columbia), then south
throough Washington, Oregon, California,
Nevada and back north to stay in
Silicon Valley with friends while we sort
out documents for the next year.
Alaska has been an absolute highlight.
We took the 3 day ferry up the Inside
Passage along the west coast of Canada
then went on to the Arctic Circle - a
very long way up a muddy and very slippery
gravel road. Although we were in
Alaska in time to see the best of the
amazing autumn colours, winter was
fast approaching and we were caught in
two quite heavy snowfalls leaving.
Wildlife was superb with whales and dolphins
along the coast, moose, bears,
caribou etc along or on the roads.
Plans are to continue on to Mexico and
learn a little ’survival’ Spanish.
If we all remain fit (bike included) we
will attempt S America and possibly
a return through Africa and Turkey - where
we may have the opportunity to
bore you with travel tales and photos.
Hope you’re both well.
Richard and Christine
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After
passing through all Central & S. America and Africa, finally,
they arrived to Turkey on 26/07/2001 and we met them on 27/07/2001 Friday
night. We went out dinner together and talked too much about their trip
and watched the photographs which they have took during they trip.
They
departed from Turkey on 28/07/2001 headed to Greece, Italy. They will be
arriving to England during mid August.
Believe
me, they are still thinking to have another round trip !...
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