Transport Ýssues
Trip Start
Apr 08, 2006
1
23
41
Trip End
Oct 07, 2006
Ýstanbul,
Turkey
Thursday, July 27, 2006
It is now Thursday the 27 of July, still in Istanbul but making progress with our search for an agent to ship the bike and also trying to get a flight back for myself to Brisbane via Singapore.
On the advice of Mr Cenk Barutcu, the Yamaha Manager, we contacted the shipping agent Mrs Sirin Ozgur from Expeditors International. She spoke very good English, understood our situation and immediately arranged for someone to manufacture a crate for my bike.
On Monday the 24th. Mark and I went on my bike to meet our Agent at a pre arranged location some 30 km from our Hotel. From there we followed her to the carpenters place who was going to manufacture the crate for my bike
01 Erýc
. We left the bike there and got a lift back to the nearest tramway station to return to Istambul.In the meantime Marks bike was giving us trouble. After starting the engine one morning, the knocking (like a sticking valve) was so loud that we had to seriously look at the problem. We knew that the noise came from the right cylinder but not having the necessary tools to remove the cylinder, we decided to take the bike to the BMW workshop to diagnose the problem.
After listening to the engine noise, the mechanics thought that it could be a warn out conrod or even main bearing. Unconvinced, we asked them to remove the RH cylinder which they did in 40 minutes.
Upon checking the valve rockers, we found that they were hard to move. Further dismantling revealed the problem. The rockers did not have sufficient side clearance and tended to jam.
Mark picked up the repaired bike the next day (initial bill 850AUD but after some haggling he got it down to 350AUD!) and it is now running like a Swiss clock.
02 Sunset in Ýstanbul
One problem out of the way!
In the meantime, our Agent Sirin was busy organizing the paper work and arranging a meeting with Customs on the Asia side of Istanbul.
The paper work with Customs should have been straight forward but... it was not!
You might recall our story when we crossed the border between Greece and Turkey. We tried for 2.5 hours to get our Carnets stamped by the Custom Officers, went to see the man in charge only to be told that it is no longer necessary to stamp the Carnet.
Wrong! The Carnet is a passport for the motorbike and is subject to much the same requirements as for a persons passport.
The Custom Officer was very nice but could not speak English. However by phoning our Agent, she was able to translate what I said about the border crossing.
03 Loading the býke for the final rýde home!
Somehow the situation was resolved. Another win!
The next step was to try to get a flight for myself back to Australia. Seats availability were nil the other day but as I tried again today... Bingo! Suddenly I can get a seat with Singapore Airline in 7 days time from Istanbul via Dubai and a connecting flight at Singapore for Brisbane.
Mark and Mel are eager to hit the road again and will be going shortly. They must cross the border to Iran before the 8 August.
Mark will continue to write stories on our web site and we are looking forward to follow their adventure. I wish Mark and Mel well in the continuation of this fantastic journey.
As for myself, I rode 10000 km. in great company, beautiful weather, enjoyed Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Turkey, met the nicest people you could wish for (especially in Turkey and to my surprise, some could even speak French) tasted all sorts of food from spaghetti napolitaine to Turkish delights, managed to survive the craziest traffic you could imagine, dropped my bike a couple of times, once getting it off the stand with all luggage on (300kg is a bit too heavy for Grand Pa) and the other time trying to make a U turn but managed to shut the engine down with the kill switch before I hit the ground with no forward speed.
Damage? ...only my pride! The only other damage was a broken headlight caused by this crazy Mercedez driver who showered me with gravel while overtaking a car who was overtaking me, and the front blinkers sadly hanging down like tear drops caused by the constant beating over bad roads and pot holes.
Someone asked me a while ago if I like flying better then riding a motorbike? Well, to tell you the truth, I still like flying best, but riding my BMW gives me plenty of kicks and is almost as good.
Talking about flying, it is a coincidence that a pylon air race will take place on Saturday the 29th. between the 2 main suspended bridges over water across the bay here in Istanbul.
The 11 pilots and aircraft (looks like Sukois on the brochure) are mainly from Europe.
This should be an exciting event which I will record on my video camera.
... but for now it is Good Bye from me.
