Steven Raucher's World Tour

2000-11-16 in Dogubayazit, Turkey
Fastrack through Turkey, Istanbul - Dogubazit

flea hotels, cycling kiwis,kebabs, cold weather, more beautiful roads

From Istanbul we rode to a one-horse town just outside Ankara , called Krikale. We were originally going to spend the night in Ankara, but our greeting was the smell of pollution and squalor, so we decided it best to keep riding.

We rode for about 500km from Istanbul to Krikale as we were both really tired from a big night drinking in Istanbul. Steven decided to fall asleep on the grass at an autoroute petrol station! Anyway we finally made it to Krikale just after night fall. Robert asked a local to direct us to a nearby hotel and although we did not speak English, he was really helpful and took the initiative by jumping on the back of Robert's bike and directing us to the local Four Seasons NOT! The hotel was a dump but it was a better than being cold.

Day 4 Turkey - we left Krikale at 7am, for our longest ride yet 800km (500miles) to Ezerum. It was really cold riding in the morning and we had about 7 layers on including electric vests. Unfortunately sunset just 50km before ezerum.

In Ezerum, we checked into the Hotel Kral which was really nice. The manager told that we should ride our bikes into the reception for security, which made a great photo (unforunately Robert deleted this!) Day 5 - Turkey, Ezerum to Dogubazit. We left Ezerum fairly late around 11am and were making up for lost time when we had our second encounter with Turkish police, opr as we like to see our second Turkish B road toll both. Apparently were caught at 165km/h in a 90km/h zone. Which by the way was the fastest recorded speed the police had on radar! The policeman was very friendly and told us that he too, used to ride BMW's when he worked for Istanbul police, a R80GS.

After lunch we met an extraordinary kiwi couple, who were cycling from london to new zealand.

Malcolm and Christine were really helpful and are very experienced travellers, they have cycled across africa and alaska! I thought that the cold weather was giving us a beating until we saw them! Their website is www.kiwisonbikes.net

The turkish roads were really scenic and great to ride on . We arrived in Dogubazit around 4pm, in time to relax and prepare us for the iranian border crossing the following morning