Auteur: Erik Dooper

Paul has been working really hard to capture our first few days in a short video. How do you tell a story about four days of highway? I think he did a great job, see for yourself.

 

We are in Georgia now. This country is a pleasant surprise – I did not have any clear expectations. I am not a “Wie is de Mol” watcher (for you non-Dutchies, this is a popular Dutch television show, the last season has been recorded in Georgia) but I caught a few glimpses and saw some beautiful landscapes on TV. But before I tell you more about Georgia, what about Turkey you say? Well, to be honest, there is not much to tell. This visit to Turkey won’t make a lasting impression like my one from 10 years ago. We went to Safranbolu, which was nice, and then to Amasra, which was also nice. Small fishing town, great weather, nice views. We picked a hotel, did some luggage rearranging, strolled around the town and harbour, had some dinner and read a bit. Slowly we are winding down. But the towns are quiet, because of Ramadan (or Ramazan as the Turks call it). Only after 8.15 there is a bit of life on the streets.
After Amasra we went on the D010 which we had been looking forward to, a great stretch of road along the Black Sea coast to Sinop. Curves, twists, hills, great views, no traffic, a perfect road. Until about 50k before Sinop, where we hit asphalt that was so fresh, it sprayed everywhere. We then spent 2 hours cleaning the tar of our bikes, it got in places that I did not even know existed. But it set the tone for the rest of the Black Sea coast. The D010 turned into a dull highway that stretches almost 700 km from Sinop all the way to the border. We wanted to see Sumela Monastery, close to Trabzon but that turned out to be closed. One year of renovation turned into three and the opening date keeps being pushed. So this is as close as we got:

But at least the road up to the monastery was very pretty. One fortunate decision we took was that we skipped the loop we planned to do from Bayburt to Of (the D915). It turned out there had been a landslide and the road was blocked. And I am not sure my off-road skills would be sufficient yet for this kind of road, or track. So what followed was another day of boring D010 until the Georgian border, which we reached at about 17:00.

There we met Rasti again, who we had seen on the highway in Bulgaria. Rasti (short for Rastislav) is a Slovak who is on a trip through Turkey, Georgia and Armenia. We went through the border together (another painless exercise), and I was struck by a completely different atmosphere than in Turkey. People look different, much more “European”, incredibly lively compared to the Ramadan-quietness of Turkey. As our insurance green cards are no longer valid, we need to buy liability (WA) insurance in the country itself. The nice lady at the border gave us a folder and pointed us to an office where we could buy insurance. But at that office they pointed us to another office (oh, it’s just 3 km, opposite the gas station). And there to another one (oh, it’s just 400m on the left). We spent the next hour looking for insurance, while darkness set in. Fortunately Rasti speaks a few words of Russian, which helps a lot. My vocabulary is limited to hi, hello and thank you. And while we were looking for insurance, we got a text message that the place we booked to sleep had no water, which meant we had nowhere to stay. So after we finally bought our insurance we followed Rasti to his hotel in Batumi, where we were able to stay the night. We ended up having some beers with Rasti and had a good time.

Batumi is the second-largest city in Georgia, a seaside resort, and has a nice atmosphere. It it called Las Vegas at the Black Sea – when Mikheil Saakashvili (the one with the Dutch wife) was president he attracted a lot of foreign investors, so there are huge glass and mirror towers of the Hilton, Sheraton, Wyndham, and lots of casino’s.

We spent a day not driving, relaxing, giving my leg some rest and walked through the park, along the beach, looked at the harbour, had a drink, read a book and wondered about the strange alphabet the Georgians have. It reminds me of Greek but I cannot make heads or tails from it. Cyrillic is easy compared to this.

The next morning we left for Vardzia. This is a huge cave monastery complex in the middle of Georgia, with caves created in the early 12th century by Christians and later. We had planned a nice route to there, just 240kms, over the Goderdzi pass, with a peak of 2000m. Well, I am happy to say that our off-road training paid off. After a few km’s the asphalt gave way to more potholes, and at some point it was just gravel and stones. But we actually had no problems, we encountered a bit of mud, sand and a few river crossings. We got though it without issues, and it’s actually fun. Just stand up and let the bike dance over the terrain, nothing to it. The landscape is stunning, it is so pretty here.
On that way met a nice couple from Luxembourg in their Landrover Defender, also on their way to Mongolia though the Pamirs. I’m sure we will bump into each other many times.
When we arrived in Vardzia, we looked at the available hotel selection and decided to test out our camping gear. So we spent the night at a camping at the river.

You see the Vardzia cave city in the background in the rocks.

A few more days left in Georgia, and some more interesting sights and roads to see. Tbilisi (the capital), the Georgian Military Road, and the Gergeti Trinity Church.

So we’ve been on the road for a few days now. So far we’ve stuck to the plan; highways until past Istanbul and then slow down. I know the previous post said we’ll take it easy, for us this meant sticking to the highways and speed limit. Our plan is to leave Europe quickly and then slow down. We’ve probably established a new record though: Amsterdam – Safranbolu in 4.5 days. We both feel we have to make up for lost time because of our late start, and it’s hard to get it out of our heads. And we both know it’s nonsense, we’ve got plenty of time and it’s about the journey and not the destination. But still, I guess it’s how the mind works. We need some time to land and get used to the idea that we are going to take it day by day, meter by meter.

On the more practical side, things are ok. The leg is fine, it will be an ugly scar but it seems to heal just fine. The bikes are running like clockwork, and I’m getting used to the vibrations and peculiarities of the bike. What I thought were strange noises and weird behaviors feel normal to me now. I’m happy we have the same bike, even our fuel consumption is identical to the liter. So acceleration, range and cruising speed is the same. And the bike is heavy. I have a luggage pack on my buddy seat, which means that I cannot mount my bike normally. Even when the bike is on the jiffy (that’s the side stand for non riders) I have to get on the footpegs to get my foot over the luggage pack on the bike. I think Paul has a video where you can see me in full grace.

We’ve crossed Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and are now in Turkey. We’ve spent the nights in smaller places, and not the larger cities like Frankfurt, Budapest, Sofia or Istanbul. Instead, we slept in Idstein, Györ, Nis and Silivri. Look it up on the map if you want to know where these places are. On those long-distance days, all we need is a dinner, beer and a bed. The beer turns out to be a challenge at times, since it’s Ramadan in the Muslim world.

The border crossings were more or less painless, the Hungarian-Serbian one took the longest, about 2 hours. I had a scare when I pulled up my car registration instead of my motorcycle registration, apparently I forgot to leave the car registration at home. One second (well, maybe 15 minutes and 2 panic phone calls) long I thought I left the wrong registration at home, but I have both with me. Well, better than the other way around. The Turkish border crossing was very easy at Edirne, in an and out in about 30 minutes. We had the visa and papers prepared, and whizzed just through.

I’m glad I’m not a truck driver trying to get into or out of Turkey. The queue at the border is 20km!! long, it was said that the waiting time is about 2 weeks. We drove alongside the queue, and it is just incredible. All these trucks!

We’re in Safranbolu now, a UNESCO heritage site. Both Paul and I have a  strong deja vu – Berat in Albania looks just like Safranbolu. If you don’t believe it, just compare the pictures below.

This is Safranbolu:

And this is Berat.

Well, not quite but you get the idea.

It’s a pretty place.

Paul is working hard to edit the GoPro footage we made, to give you a visual impression of the past few days. I’m just using words for now.

Tomorrow we are going to look at some sights here, and have just a short drive to Amasra, our next stop.

And we’re off! The infection in my leg is almost gone, and the doctors in the hospital gave me the green light to take off. I need to take care of the wound obviously, keep it clean and protected but at least we can start driving. So the next few days we’ll take it easy, just German and Austrian highways with plenty of stops.

 

 

I’m feeling like Elon Musk, but not in a good way. It’s like the launch of the Falcon Heavy that has to be postponed due to the weather. My leg, which I hurt 2 weeks ago and required stitches, has become infected during the off-road training. It was an active and useful day and I forgot all about the wound, and stuff has gotten in. Although I have been taking antibiotics and they are working well, the infection is not fully gone and the doctors won’t let me leave just yet.

We have been preparing to leave for a long time now, and it’s frustrating to sit and wait. But on the other hand, leaving now would be foolish and I don’t want to have to spend time in strange hospitals being treated by doctors I don’t understand. We had a look at our planning and there is no impact, we don’t really have dates anywhere that are in danger by leaving a few days later.

So I will keep you posted – at least we have time to work on our video editing skills 🙂

— Erik

Today is the last day at the office for me – I’m saying goodbye to my colleagues and I hope to see everyone back in September.

And it’s just little over two weeks to go before Paul and I head off east. We have already done a lot of preparations, from planning the route to preparing the bikes. To give an impression of some stuff we have done so far:

• Arranged visa’s for Russia, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Tadjikistan and Azerbeidjan. The rest is either visa-free or can be done at the border.
• Figuring out insurance and other formalities for the countries we will be visiting
• Got inoculations: Hepatitis A, B, Yellow fever, japanese encephalitis, rabies
• Got medication against malaria, height sickness etc
• Spoken to a host of people who have done similar trips about the do’s and don’ts – where to go , what route to take, what to prepare, what to bring and what to leave at home. Thanks Wolfgang, Marco, Peet!
• Countless hours of reading up on ride reports to prepare for local circumstances
• Countless hours of debating what tools to take and what to leave
• Together with Olivier from the Motorzaak prepared the bikes – Olivier let us do the work so we got quite familiar with the bikes
• Installed extra USB charging facilities on the bikes
• Prepared off-line and on-line maps, navigation, compass
• Arranged for tyres to be ordered in Russia so we can change them before going into Mongolia
• Training: Medical + first aid, more bike mechanics like plugging tires
• Training: Off-road driving with those heavy bikes
• Built this website
• Figure out how to make movies with a GoPro and a drone (stay tuned!)
• Arranged for transport of the bikes back from Vladivostok to Hamburg
• Prepared laptops with information, maps, e-books, navigation software
• Trying to learn some Russian

And many many things more…