Decision Time
Trip Start
Apr 08, 2006
1
21
41
Trip End
Oct 07, 2006
Ýstanbul,
Turkey
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Due to a change of circumstances back home, I decided to return to Australia as soon as possible. At our last camping place at Mt Nemrut, we were not that far from the Iranian border which left us with a couple of choices.
a) Continue on to Teheran in Iran, airfreight the bike to Kuala Lumpur, then ride the bike to Singapore and ship it from there to Australia. (I already have a return ticket from Singapore to Brisbane.)
b) Return to Istambul, ship the bike from there to Brisbane. Then try to get a flight to Brisbane via Singapore.
After considering dozen of replies from our enquiries on the internet and further discussions with Mark and Mel, we decided that the best option was to return to Istambul.
01 Leavýng Nemrut - On the way to Ýstanbul
19 July- We left Mt Nemrut early and rode 500 km via Siverek, Ergani, Elazig, Malatya to Dorende, a small town on road No300.20 July- Big day! We left Dorende at 7.20 am and rode 734 km. to Nallihan. As usual the weather was blue sky and the temperature a pleasant 26 degrees until... we started to climb continuously and reach a plateau at around 2000m. By then the blue sky had changed to overcast and temperature way down coupled with a stiff wind.
I was freezing, had to stop and put some warm clothes on plus my rain gear on top. My heated grips (yes, BMW have central heating of the hand grips) were just sufficient to keep my hands warm.
After passing this chain of mountains, the weather cleared up again and it was back to blue sky and warmer temperature. We arrived in the Capital City of Ankara, were supposed to pick up the ring road, missed it and ended in the middle of the City with the usual 6 pm.chaotic traffic.
We eventually arrived in Nallihan at 9 pm (some 12 hours on the saddle excluding stops) found a Hotel, had a quick meal and hit the sack!
21 July- Quickie! Just 320 km to go to Istambul. The road is scenic at first with bad to average surface with gravel thrown in on molten bitumen ( more so half way through a turn to make the challenge a bit more interesting)
Then onto the motorways which are generally good and where you can maintain 110/120km/h.
Once we got into Istambul suburbs it was back into the traffic snarl for 10th.of Kms. We beat it by riding on the right safety line just wide enough for a motorbike to pass through.
By the way, the official population of Istambul is 16 M., unofficial 18M and not 10M as I wrote in my previous entry.
Arriving into the City centre, we crossed the suspended bridge (which is twice as long as the Sydney Harbour bridge) and passed from the Asia side to Euro side of the City.
Then we headed straight for the BMW dealer to try to obtain a crate for the bike.
The staff were quite helpful but they did not have any crate for us. They offered us a free lunch situated on the 4th floor of their huge building.
The BMW dealer in Istambul is the largest in Europe, sells and service cars, trucks and motorbikes and is ultra modern.
Undeterred by this set back, we tried the Yamaha dealer down the road who again did have some crates but not large enough to fit my bike in.
The Manager, Mr. Cenk Barutcu spoke well English and was incredibly helpful. He went out of his way to make numerous phone calls trying to locate a crate and also a shipping agent for us. The search for the crate was unsuccessful but we did get an address for a reliable shipping agent.
As it was getting late in the afternoon, we went to Town (see my next story: Drama in Istambul) to look for a hotel, a meal break and a well deserved rest.
