So. Turkey. Again. It was so hot I was nearly in tears so I sat in the shade pouring water over myself while Dave wrestled with the usual complicated Turkish customs procedures involving various different offices and departments, all apparently working completely independently of each other. One good thing, the police accepted our previous visa so we didn�t have to get another one. Not that it would have cost that much, but it was just a whole other process of trailing round different offices getting things signed in triplicate that we (ahem, Dave) didn�t have to do.

We were finally finished and headed off to see how far we could get. West along little roads, it was hot and windy. We passed farms and villages and cows being herded along the verge. We stopped for a while to sit and recover from the heat in the shade of some trees beside a little bridge. Some little boys were playing in the river and I seriously considered joining them, fully clothed, in the water. But we set off again, finally spotting the Med sparkling in the distance. We joined a huge, smooth motorway and sped alongside the coast and for the first time on the whole trip we were suddenly the slowest vehicles on the road. It was a strange feeling, watching the gleaming, expensive cars skim past us, and remembering how in India we were the ones who were gleaming and expensive (well, relatively) and shooting past everyone else.

We left the motorway eventually and followed the road along the coast. More amazing ruins, just sitting at the side of the road, untouched. Every little town seemed to have some semi-ruined castle and we realised we were going to miss a lot by just speeding through Turkey. But as it was a completely unscheduled visit, we would just have to save all the site seeing for another time. And to be honest, I�d seen enough ruined cities to keep me going for a good while, so it was probably just as well that we didn�t have time for any more.

We finally stopped in a little coastal town, Kizkalesi, at about 8pm. A mammoth day, 730 kilometres, but we�d made it from the far south of Jordan to the south coast of Turkey in two days, almost 1300 kilometres in total, and it felt like a real achievement. We looked for somewhere to stay but we were heading back to European prices and everything seemed very expensive. Finally one of the restaurant owners took pity on us and said he knew of a cheap place. He went and fetched the owner and she showed us the place - a whole flat but very basic and unbelievably filthy. Full ashtrays all over the place, dirty dishes in the sink. She said she would come back and clean the place and make the bed so, as we were exhausted and really couldn�t face searching around any more, we took it. We went and unpacked the bikes and saw the owner disappearing inside with clean sheets so we had high hopes for the state it would be in when we went back.

Well, she�d made the bed alright, but we�d obviously misunderstood what she�d meant about cleaning. We picked our way through the mess, piled up the ashtrays and gingerly flushed the loo. And it�s strange the things you don�t notice on a first look. It turned out there was no shower, so we had to get a basin from the kitchen and douse ourselves in the very cold water. Because there was no hot water. And it turned out the huge double bed was actually just a huge double matress balanced across a single bed. Oh well, we had a very refreshing shower and headed out for dinner.

We wandered around the village - a real tourist place, all Ambre Solaire and fake designer clothes. It was pleasant though, with lots of cafes and restaurants and a nice little beach. And a unique feature - 500 metres out from the beach was the most amazing castle. Very simple with high ramparts and slit windows it was all lit up in rosy light and looked so romantic across the water, like a Turkish Avalon. We strolled around looking for somewhere to eat when a group of Germans sitting at a side street restaurant called us over and said that this was the best place in town. The old woman who ran it didn�t speak English but, like lots of Turks, spoke German so they offered to translate for us. We were so tired we left it up to them to order for us and ended up with delicious plates of meatballs and vegetables.

It turned out that the Germans were all archaeology students and were in Turkey studying ancient Christian ruins. We were surprised, as we had heard that the Turkish government was destroying a lot of the evidence of Christian settlement and that it was unofficially forbidden to study Christian history. They all nodded glumly. "It is true", one of them said. "We do this study now, because soon many of the ruins will be gone. Many are already gone - some of the oldest Christian churches in the world. If we ask permission to study, the government says no, so we work in secret." They all started to look a bit uncomfortable. "Really I shouldn�t talk about it," and he changed the subject. One of the students had spent a year in Edinburgh doing, bizarrely, Celtic Studies so he had a perfect Scottish accent. "Och aye, we�ve been here for a wee while now..." and it was really hard to believe he wasn�t just making fun of us.

Back to our dingy little place and to add insult to injury we couldn�t even get into it as the lock had jammed. We had to climb over a fence at the side and force our way in the back door. Strangely, even though the bed looked very precarious, it was the most comfortable one we�d had for days, and we both crashed out instantly.

We slept late in the morning and then crossed the road to have breakfast at the restaurant where the bloke had taken pity on us the night before. There were no other customers so he sat down and joined us and we chatted about Turkey and the tourist industry. Most visitors seemed to be German and he had gone out with a German girl and ended up going back there with her. But he didn�t speak German (only very good English) and he said that people had looked down on him because he was Turkish - apparently lots of Turks go to Germany to do menial work, so they are considered second class citizens by a lot of people. This had really upset him. "In Turkey I am a good person. I am educated. I work hard. Have my own business. But in Germany, I am nothing. People do not even talk to me, just look away." So he had packed his bags, left his girlfriend and come back home.

We packed up and set off along the coast, hoping to reach Antalya about 400 kilometres away. The road was busy with buses so it was slow going but the view made up for it. Sparkling turquoise water, little bays with restaurants and seats on the beach, it was idyllic. We wound round the hillsides and then up through pine forests into the hills. Managing to leave the buses behind we sped off along one of the most beautiful, perfect bike roads we had had on the whole trip, all curves and dappled light and amazing views. But after the diesel incident in Jordan I was having some trouble leaning into the corners, I just didn�t seem to trust the road any more, and the road surface was a little rough which was making me nervous. I felt pretty stupid about it - leaning into corners is the whole point of having a motorbike - so when we stopped for tea in a little town I talked to Dave about it. He talked about getting into the right gear, and the right position, choosing your line and other bikey expressions, and when we set off again it was a miracle - I was cured! - and had the best time zooming along. (For anyone else who has experienced cornering anxiety, sort out your gears and everything else will fall into place). So maybe that is the answer to Dave�s ongoing and seemingly permanent career choice dilemma - he is a teacher after all. It must be genetic.

The long and winding road meant that we didn�t get nearly as far as we�d hoped to and finally stopped when we spotted a campsite just before Alanya. I�m not a great fan of camping (have I mentioned that before?) but this place was right beside the beach, had a bar and restaurant, showers, hot water and the toilets had been flushed, so even to me it seemed fairly deluxe. There were even two other bikers there, so it was perfect. We set up the tent and chatted to Mike and Berndt who were on a month�s tour from Germany, Mike on a brand new BMW F650 and Berndt on a 1983 Moto Guzzi Le Mans, the same as Dave�s brother�s (with the obvious exception that it seemed to have been well looked after by its owner and was still moderately roadworthy).

Over a beer and dinner we swapped life stories, with Mike�s the clear winner. He had been a hippie in the sixties and had left Germany to avoid national service. He�d ended up living in Goa for four years, funding himself by driving back to Europe occasionally with a van load of Indian jewellery. I said that we�d heard Goa had become very commercial now, with package tours from the UK. It has also become a destination for Indian male tourists, who go to watch the topless sunbathers on the beach. "Oh no, it was always like that," Mike said. "We were completely naked on the beach - we were hippies! - and the Indian men used to come and sit nearby. Then they would come up, carefully holding their hands behind their backs, and say, 'Excuse me, do you have the time?' We were naked hippies! And they had their watches on! They just wanted to have a closer look." After four years he decided to buy a place in Goa so went back to Germany to make some money. As soon as he got back he was picked up for failing to do his national service. "I still had long hair, and was very thin after living in India. So I didn�t wash for a few days, and smoked a lot that morning, and turned up for the medical. The doctor said 'You are not fit to join the German army. Ever.' So even if I wanted to join later, I was banned for life!" So he had worked and saved his money, then headed back to Goa, stopping in Thailand on the way. He decided Thailand was a much nicer place than India and ended up buying a place on Ko Samui, a quiet little undeveloped island... which gradually became one of the main centres of the huge Thai tourist industry, so when he sold his restaurant/hostel business a few years later he made a fortune. He seemed to think his life story was as funny as we did, so you couldn�t grudge him any of his success.

We got up early and went for a swim in the sea, which has to be the best way ever to start a day. Then packed up, had breakfast with the Germans, said our goodbyes and headed off west to Antalya. The road was nothing like the previous day. It was all busy highway and tourist development seemed to have taken off on a major scale. There were hotels everywhere (even right beside an oil refinery which presumably they don�t mention in the brochure) and more were being built on every scrap of unused land. Still, it meant that we made fairly good time and got to Antalya in the middle of the day. It seemed like another not very nice town as we picked our way through the traffic. Then we got to the front, looked down on the shining water, the perfect Roman-built harbour, the little cobbled streets of the old town, the tall, shuttered town houses and realised that it was actually rather nice after all.

We parked the bikes and looked around, getting a recommendation for a pension from a tourist information place. It was in the old town, and the bloke said there was no way he could give us directions but just to set off and we would find it eventually. So we did, wandering along winding narrow streets between high walls, looking into little garden restaurants and shops selling jewellery and pottery and carpets, until we did finally find it, the Pension Cleopatra, in a steep little lane with bougainvillea hanging over the walls. It was clean and light with a view over the harbour. Magic.

We showered and set off for lunch in one of the places we had passed on the way. Sitting on a little leafy terrace, eating salad and crusty bread, drinking cold beer, looking out over the sea with a cool breeze wafting over us, wearing a vest top and actually feeling the sun on my skin - it was a moment I will never, ever forget. It felt like we had arrived on a different planet from the rest of the trip, and we were actually on holiday for the first time.

So for the rest of the day we pretended that we really were on holiday and did holiday type things like strolling around, shopping and, um, getting bike insurance. Now that we were heading back into Europe we really had to have proper insurance. It is a legal requirement in most countries, including Turkey, so we assumed that we would be able to organise it quite easily. But the insurance office at the border wasn�t interested in bikes, and every office we found in Antalya was the same. In fact we drew a complete blank and couldn�t even get any information from anyone, so we had to leave it for another day.

Dinner of grilled fish (heaven, I'm in heaven...) and a stroll around the harbour finished off the day. If it hadn't been for the band of dark brown around our wrists (where we�ve been sunburned between our gloves and jacket sleeves as we ride along) and the way we flinched when we sat down, we would almost have passed for normal tourists.

Up in the morning for breakfast on the rooftop terrace of the pension. Stunning views across the harbour to the mountains on the other side of the bay. No breakfast has ever quite lived up to the 'butter drizzled with honey' one in Urfa, and the standard one in Turkey seems to be sliced up tomato and cucumber, a hard boiled egg, bread and butter and jam, and very black tea. In fact you could chip your tooth on the tea - very, very strong.

We hung around getting washing done and working on the bikes for most of the day. Up the road from the pension was a car and bike rental place so we went in and asked the owner, Mehmet, a huge bloke in a white vest with a cigarette permanently attached to his lips, about insurance. Mehmet was interested in our trip and decided to make it his personal mission to get us sorted out. A decision he probably regretted, as he spent the next hour phoning various friends and bike shops and insurance companies (most of which were closed, it being Sunday) until he found us the details for the Turkish Automobile Association who, he thought, would be able to help us in the morning.

Another lovely dinner and stroll around the harbour finished off that day, then another stunning breakfast on the roof started the next one, and Dave went off to call the AA. He explained our situation, they explained theirs... in Turkish, since no-one spoke a word of English. Nothing much we could do other than return to Mehmet. He called the AA and explained our situation, they explained theirs, which was that they had nothing to do with insurance. So poor old Mehmet got on the phone again and just kept at it until he found us an insurance company who would cover us for the whole of Europe. He gave us a map, marked the office on it, and with evident relief waved us off.

The insurance company's office was a mile around the coast from our pension and it was a beautiful walk, through parks looking down on the sea. We finally found the place and were shown in. No-one spoke any English but, after their long conversation with Mehmet, they had been expecting us and understood what we needed. Or so we thought, but our usual system - mime, combined with loud and simple English from us, combined with loud and simple Turkish from them - just wasn�t up to the job this time. God knows it is complicated enough organising an insurance policy when you all speak the same language, but this was just too hard. We looked at each other blankly until one of the women had an idea. She picked up the phone, dialled, chattered in Turkish and then handed the phone to Dave. Pause, then sheepishly "Oh, hello Mehmet, yes we're there now..." So with translation services provided over the phone by Mehmet ("...why did I ever...") we finally got a month�s insurance, which will neatly take us up to the very day we arrive in Argaty.

We strolled back, fighting off the constant harrassment from waiters trying to get us to go into their restaurants. In fact, that was really the only bad thing about Antalya. Every shop and restaurant and bar had someone stationed outside trying to drag you in. Presumably this becomes less of a problem in high season when everywhere is very busy anyway, but it was certainly exhausting for us. We finally stopped for lunch in a place, choosing it solely because the owner was sitting knitting and didn�t even look at us as we read the menu - now that�s what I call service.

In the afternoon I worked on the site (which explains the weird olde englishe letters in the Jordan section - sorry about that, I�ve fixed most of them now but Turkish keyboards are very odd) and Dave took the bikes to get new tyres. When he finished he came and picked me up on the DR and gave me a lift back - no helmet, t-shirt on, foot pegs taped up out of the way so legs dangling, I absolutely hated it. I think my days as a proper pillion girlfriend may be over. We had dinner that night at a little restaurant round the corner from our pension. Lovely food, bougainvillea hanging over our heads, Julio Iglesias on the stereo (OK, OK, I have apparently hit the age where, in certain contexts, Julio is acceptable...).

Up early the next morning in an effort to escape the heat - when is it going to get cool on this trip? no doubt Scotland will experience an uncharacteristic heat wave as soon as we arrive - and set off west along the coast, heading for Marmaris where we could get a ferry to Greece. We had been told that there was a long and slow coast road and a fast and straight inland road and we had agonised a little. But why would you go on a motorway when you could wind around beautiful little bays, so we stuck to the coast. And it was glorious. Again the road hugged the very edge of the sea, then looped up into the hills, then back down to be just feet away from the water. Indescribable really. Late morning we stopped for lunch at a tiny little bay where there was a cafe and seats on the beach. It turned out they didn�t serve food, and charged a million lira to sit on the beach. A million of anything sounds bad but it�s only a dollar really so we coughed up and headed down to the water. It was lovely, the water just cool enough to be refreshing, and we swam around for half an hour, putting off getting back into our sweaty bike gear.

We finally did manage to stop for lunch at a beautiful little fishing village further along the coast. We sat next to three elderly English women in sun hats and cotton dresses, dividing their bill in minute detail. "But you didn�t 'ave the chips, love..." "Well, I 'ad one..." "Well I don�t think we�ll be charging you for that. Now Rita, what kind of pide did you 'ave, love..."

Set off again and rode on and on to Marmaris. It was much further than we�d thought somehow but we were keen to get to Greece and have a proper break. We knew there was a ferry every day from Marmaris to Rhodes, so we pushed on. Maybe it would be an evening ferry and we would even get to Rhodes that night... We finally arrived in Marmaris, pretty exhausted, at 6pm. Straight to the tourist info to find out about ferries. Yes, there was a ferry to Rhodes every day. A passenger ferry. Bugger. There wasn�t a vehicle ferry until Friday. This was very bad news - we were very ready for Greece. It�s always hard to know who to blame in these situations so, maturely, we blamed each other and sat for a while, not speaking. Finally we decided to think laterally and see what our options were. Were there any ferries at all to Greece? Not from Marmaris, but after a few phone calls Dave established that there was a ferry from Bodrum only (only!) 150 kilometres further along the coast which went to Kos. At 8.30am the next morning. We were really tired, and it was really late, and we were barely talking to each other, but somehow we dragged ourselves back onto the bikes. Darkness fell, the road headed up into the hills so it got cold. Then the rain started.

We finally reached Bodrum at 9pm, spotted a hotel, staggered in and took the first room they showed us. We had read that Bodrum was an interesting town - historically it was where political prisoners and dissidents were sent, so it had developed a rather alternative, artistic reputation. Historically. In modern times it seemed to be working on a reputation for loud music, British style pubs and sunburnt tourists. It was just heaving with visitors from all over Europe, mostly young, mostly drunk. What a culture shock, after the sort of places we�d been over the last few month, and the doubts that various people along the way had expressed about life in the West seemed more than a little justified, if only by some of the outfits the women were wearing. Good Lord, you do see some sights in holiday resorts. Still, we had a nice dinner overlooking the harbour, and walked along to the ferry office and organised our trip for the next morning.

We got up in plenty of time for the ferry so ended up hanging about for an hour at the harbour. Holiday makers in Bodrum can go over to Kos on a day trip so lots of people turned up for the ferry and we joined them queueing at passport control. The American man next to us asked about the bikes and was very interested in our trip. He asked about our impressions of various countries and only after we�d blabbed on for a while mentioned that he was originally from Afghanistan, had fled as a refugee when he was 18 and managed to get to the States. Oh yes, blah blah, we are so fascinating riding about on our bikes, then you find out that someone�s real life has included genuine life and death situations. A bit sobering.

So, after the usual admin we were on board and a short and windy journey later arrived in Greece.