We sped away from the hell hounds and along the road to the border town of Dogubeyazit, our stopping place for the night. Off to the right was a perfect, snow covered volcanic cone, Mount Ararat. This is one of the alleged resting places of Noah's Ark and going by how it towers over the surrounding landscape it certainly is where you might get washed up in the event of a global flood. No-one's able to check though as the whole mountain is off-limits to everyone except the army. This part of Turkey was the setting for the Kurdish separatist movement of the 1980s and 90s and even though things have calmed down now there's still a strong military presence.

Given the sunny weather we'd been having for the last month I had agreed to camp when we reached Turkey so predictably the storm clouds started gathering as we rode through Dogubeyazit. It was interesting though to check out our first Turkish town. Lots of shops and Internet cafes as well as a supermarket which looked very tempting (our first since Australia). The town also had a strange traffic management system - coloured lights set up at main junctions. When the light turned to red, everyone stopped. An interesting idea - it would never catch on in Iran, but it seemed to work for the Turks. We stopped to get some money from the first ATM we'd seen for a while and discovered that if we'd felt flush in Iran, we were going to feel positively loaded in Turkey - 1.1 million lira to the dollar. We were multimillionaires!

We rode through and up into the hills on the other side of town to Murat Camping which had been recommended by various other travellers. As we arrived the drops of rain started falling so we were relieved when Mr Murat said he had some basic rooms which cost the same as a camping spot. They were indeed basic, none too clean, with a really nasty toilet block but there was hot water, and a restaurant and most importantly a BAR serving BEER so we unloaded the bikes and settled in, quickly retiring to the bar for our first drink since the Australian Club at Islamabad. As we were sitting there another biker turned up - Dietmar, a German on a huge TransAlp he had customised himself. He was heading for Iran so as we had our first drink for a while he joined us for his last one.

The view from Murat Camping

We stayed in the restaurant for dinner, not exactly kebabs although the similarity was striking. All the other diners were Turkish men, no women at all. We were having a great time swapping travellers' tales with Dietmar when the band started setting up. Never a good moment but, as we found out, in Turkey it really spells the end of your evening. The band was just dreadful, painful yowlings from a middle aged male singer with tuneless and rhythmless accompaniment from a young offsider on an electric organ. I've rarely heard a worse performance and assumed these blokes must be relatives of Murat who just couldn't politely be asked to stop. But it was obviously a matter of taste because the locals were loving it, cheering and clapping every shriek.

In the end we couldn't take any more and went up to our rooms to bed. Our door didn't lock but Murat had thoughtfully provided a long log of wood to wedge under the handle. Naively thinking the fun was over I went off to sleep and only found out in the morning that the show had only just started. Apparently, according to Dave (and Dietmar backed him up), a female singer had started shortly after we left. He says, although it defies belief, that she was even worse than the bloke. Even the musically challenged Turks seemed to agree and she was swiftly removed from the stage. She proceeded to get loudly drunk and have a fight with Mr Murat. Then they seemed to make up and celebrated this in time-honoured fashion, equally loudly, in the room just through the wall from us. The storm started in earnest and the wind battered on the walls, various people tried to get in the door, and the band itself didn't stop playing until 2.30 am. And I slept through the whole thing!

Our deluxe suite at Murat Camping

In the morning Dave and Dietmar were furious and confronted Mr Murat who apologised a little shamefacedly. He said the band were contracted to play every night (dear God, say it ain't so) but that he would try to keep the other elements of the night's entertainment to a minimum in future. It was cold, our first real cold since the Karakoram, but the weather was gradually clearing so we set off, on foot, to check out the pleasures of town. It was the first exercise we'd done for weeks and it felt great to stride off down the hill. Dogubeyazit doesn't have a great reputation amongst travellers but we liked it. The people all seemed friendly, the stout Kurdish men wearing tweed suits with waistcoats buttoned up, the women in white headscarves edged with lace. Little boys ran around us trying to polish our shoes or sell us matches. Older boys pushed huge barrows piled high with fruit and vegetables.

The face of Attaturk, the founder of modern Turkey, was as common here as those of the Ayatollahs had been in Iran. Every school playground had a bust or statue, every shop and hotel had a portrait, and a strangely unfortunate rendering featured on the bank notes in which he grinned with a sinister vampire leer. From what we've read Attaturk was certainly a remarkable man, single-handedly installing Turkey firmly in the twentieth century, and firmly in the west, insisting that the country convert to the Roman alphabet from the Arabic one. But the nationalism that Attaturk inspired in modern Turks also had some negative side effects, mainly the wholesale ethnic cleansing of non-Turks and non-Muslims from the country. (Later, in Syria, we talked to Mart, a Dutch traveller who had just returned to Turkey having worked there several years ago. He went to visit a Turkish ex-colleague and noted that many of the houses in the village were now empty. Mart asked "Where have the people gone?" A pause. "Oh, they were Albanians. They left." "Why did they leave?" Very long pause. "Well, they were killed." "Why?" "They were Albanians." Mart was shocked. "Where were you when this happened?" Very very long pause and then he admitted that he had been involved in the killings. "And this was a good man. A nice man. My friend.")

We met Dietmar and went to check out the supermarket. We really hadn't been in any big shops since leaving Australia. In Bangaldesh and India it was hard to imagine or remember the sort of things you have access to in the developed world, and we had both concluded that Western consumer culture is a ridiculous, not to say obscene, luxury. These high minded ideals lasted right up until we stepped into the supermarket and clapped eyes on all the great stuff you could buy. Breakfast cereal and chocolate and crisps and twenty different kinds of jam - it was just amazing and we ran around chucking stuff into our trolley. Next was lunch and the wonders continued - a non kebab meal. We had some sort of delicious baked aubergine thing with as much bread as you can eat, proper crusty bread at that. I very nearly kissed the cook, quite seriously. When we left they liberally sprinkled eau de cologne on our hands, a weird custom peculiar to Turkey.

The three bikers and their bikes

We headed back up to the campsite to work on the bikes and ended up, reluctantly, having dinner there. The same crowd of Turkish men were drinking Arak until two women turned up and began drinking with Murat. Scarey women. To give them the benefit of the doubt they may have been health and safety inspectors, and they needed those high heels and tight skirts to inspect especially high, narrow air conditioning ducts. However we feared otherwise and when the band started we headed for bed and braced ourselves for another noisy night.

As it turned out we all slept fine and so were unaware of whether Murat Camping passed its health and safety inspection or not. Whatever, we were glad to be leaving and the weather had completely cleared so we said goodbye to Dietmar and set off under beautiful blue skies, Mount Ararat looking like some beautiful Japanese painting behind us.

Mount Ararat (Ark not visible)

Since our experiences at customs I had got a bit obsessed with the dangers of the evil Turkish hell hounds and Dietmar had confirmed that he had been chased several times although never actually caught. I had dreamt about the dogs both nights at the campsite and although in my dreams I had been riding along fighting them off very adeptly with a huge stick, I was genuinely scared of a real life attack. We discussed whether a couple of sticks might be a good addition to the bikes and it was a good image, us riding along seeing off hounds on both sides like jousting knights, but even I wasn't sure that I could pull it off in practice. So we decided just to keep a careful watch and ram the throttles on at the first glimpse of a dog. We still had our sacred Buddhist umbrella strapped on the back of Dave's bike so he could always use that if it came to whites of their eyes stuff.

We were planning to ride south west, past Lake Van, and stay in a little town Dietmar had recommended so we headed out of town and then turned off the highway to the west. We were stopped several times by checkpoints, manned almost entirely by teenagers doing their national service. Most of them were from Istanbul, were bored to tears and just stopped us to have a closer look at Dave's bike. (No-one wants to have a closer look at my bike.) They were all pretty friendly, the usual 'You from?' Scotland. Scotlandia. Nothing until one lad worked out what we were saying, "Ah, Escotia! Glasgow Rangers!" and we realised that the lingua franca in Turkey is football.

Up through some hills and on the other side the countryside became green and beautiful with lots of wild flowers, sweeps of purple on the hills, and sprays of colour at the roadside. Each clump was like a bouquet, perfectly manicured to look casually natural - sprays of white and yellow, taller spikes of blue and violet, and dark blobs of poppy red. The increase in flora was matched by one in fauna and after an hour we were peering through a network of flies squashed on our visors. In the distance in all directions were snow capped mountains and nearer, on our right, a huge jagged ridge of black stone with fingers reaching out towards the road. It was definitely volcanic, some sort of run off from Mount Ararat or one of the other volcanoes in the area. In the surrounding fields people had made little piles of this jagged black stone, little towers six or seven rocks high. These were all over the fields and along the side of the road and had a really sinister effect, like some sort of creepy graveyard.

We came to Lake Van, beautiful bright blue water, and stopped for lunch at a lakeside restaurant. Kebab. Of course. We went into the kitchen and had a rummage around to see if there was anything else we could possibly have. But no. On again through towns and villages until, late in the afternoon, we reached Dietmar's recommended stopping place, Kozlik. We were a little surprised that this town had stuck in Dietmar's mind as a good place to stop - with all due respect to the good people of Kozlik, it was another fly blown hole. We asked directions to a hotel and started a minor argument amongst the locals. Yes there was a hotel, no there wasn't, yes there was. In the end we followed the yes men and pulled up outside what looked very much like a hotel. A small crowd emerged. "Is this a hotel?" "Yes." "Do you have a double room for tonight?" "Ah, there is very good hotel in Dirbakir. Only 150 kilometres." "But is this a hotel?" "Yes, yes." "Well, it's late, we'd really rather stay here." "Hotel in Dirbakir very nice." No great salesman, this chap, but we did his job for him and insisted that we'd like to stay. We unloaded the bikes and followed the manager up the stairs at the back. And everything became clear. Yes it was a hotel, but not really for the likes of us and certainly not for the likes of me. It was really a rest stop for truckers. Several rooms of dorm beds, a shared toilet and shower, the whole place stank of cigarette smoke and sweat.

The manager bustled along to one of the rooms, hammered on the door and summarily evicted the occupant who had been dozing inside. He emerged, bleary-eyed and tousled, scratching his belly, and good-naturedly staggered off through another door. We were shown into a small room with three single beds, some rickety furniture and a stained sheet nailed over the window. It was pretty filthy. The three of us stood and looked in, all clearly appalled. The manager looked mortified but it wasn't his fault - he had tried to put us off. "It's fine" I said bravely, "It has its own charm." And anyway, the thought of packing up the bikes and setting off again was just beyond endurance. So we took it, picking our way between the beds gingerly, trying not to touch anything with our bare skin. The manager showed us the lock on the door and ran off to get us another padlock just to make sure I felt secure. He needn't have worried as all the truckies seemed pretty concerned with my welfare themselves and managed to convey this so clearly that I ended up feeling totally safe amongst them all.

We went downstairs for dinner - found stuff other than kebabs which was served with a dramatic comic flourish by the cook, we were getting to like Kozlik - and the locals and drivers chatted to us. "You from?" "Glasgow Rangers." "Ah, Escotia!" Lots of miming ensued, pointing to their chests then stroking imaginary long hair. "I have a good looking girlfriend who's a big 'Gers fan?" We found out later that there is a Turk playing for Rangers who has long hair so this may have been what they were getting at. We headed up to bed, got out our sheet sleeping bags and lay down carefully, trying not to put all our weight on the grubby beds.

Dave woke at dawn the next morning and had a bout of some sort of dirtophobia so we got up and set off for Urfa, birthplace of the Patriarch Abraham and our final stop in Turkey. We rode through little towns and villages, the people all very poor looking. The men started appearing in baggy shalwar trousers - narrow around the calves and ankles with a huge baggy top part hanging right down to their knees. A little touch of MC Hammer, they looked cool.

After our early start we got to Urfa before lunchtime. We picked our way through the traffic noticing another feature of Turkish traffic management. The traffic lights had an extra light at the top with a digital countdown showing how long before the light would go green again. Odd, but very useful for me when I stalled the bike and knew that I had exactly two seconds to start it again.

We found the hotel, the Ipek Palas - clean sheets, private bathroom, it was lovely. Unpacked and showered and we went off to explore the town. Lots of clothes shops, even more shoe shops, and barrows selling apricots and strawberries. A man had a donkey with huge sheaves of parsley on its back - he was sprinkling the parsley with water to keep it fresh while the donkey stood patiently. Other barrows had stalks of greenery with fat green pods on the end. One man gave us some to try - inside the pod was a pale bean, like a chickpea but softer and sweeter, quite nice. Other shops were selling olives and cheese and huge chunks of honeycomb with clear honey running off it in thick pools. Others had trays of Turkish sweets, flaky and syrupy with pistachios on top. And others were selling Turkish Delight - not the proper stuff coated with chocolate and wrapped in purple foil but some powdery, inferior local imitation.

We wandered down to the town's main draw card - the cave where Abraham was born. We were expecting, well, a cave, so were surprised to find that the place had been developed into a huge tourist park with cafes, markets and gardens. There were also ponds full of massive carp which thrashed the water into a froth whenever anyone dropped food to them. I'm not sure of the details but the ancestors of these fish had some sort of hand (fin?) in saving the infant Abraham from an attack by an evil king, Nimrod, and they have been protected ever since. They are so sacred that allegedly anyone who eats one will go blind (I can think of more fun ways to go blind than eating a carp). We eventually found the cave itself and, after being given a headscarf to wear by a smiley old man outside, went in. It was a cave alright. Nothing much else to say about that.

We walked back to the hotel through the old bazaar. There were shops selling fabric, carpets (with pictures of Attaturk on them), ornate silverware and plastic flowers (these for the back parcel shelf of your car we had noticed). There were also hundreds of small shoe factories with lines of little foot moulds outside, leather stapled onto them drying in the sun. The men beckoned us in to have tea but we strolled on.

There was a power cut later so we gave up on our plan to check our email and had a beer in a dark outdoor bar. There were lots of men but no women, as usual. The lights came on and we headed off to find dinner. There was nothing much available so we ended up having a... well, you know the rest.

We were up and packed to set off for Syria before we realised that we should organise some money in Urfa as Syria doesn't have any ATMs. We ended up wandering around various banks and stopping for breakfast - absolutely without doubt the best breakfast we've had on the trip. Bread, chunks of salty white cheese, black olives, and a plate of soft white butter with honey dribbled over it. Just delicious.

We set off south, across a baking plain. Women were working in ploughed fields, hacking at the dry earth with little pick-axes. It wasn't far to the border town, Arcakale, and on the far side of it the usual admin started at the border posts. More bored Istanbul kids checked our documents and we headed for customs and immigration. They all seemed pretty bored too but were friendly to us, sitting us down under a vine covered trellis and bringing us tea. All the formalities were completed easily and we rode through a huge metal gate into Syria.