Still alive

I appear to have forgotten about the blog. I am still alive, and at the moment I am safely back in Australia. Not exactly home, but Frankenbici is parked up in my parents shed, and I’m several thousand kilometres west of there. I’ll try to write something about Pakistan (a great place) and India (a less great place) before I forget about it, or get overwhelmed by the day to day. The latter may have already happened…

Asian Internet

Iran filters it’s internet. In country, it has been dubbed the filter-net.

China does the same thing. It seems that Iran uses the Chinese technology to filter the internet. The China version is aka The Great Firewall of China.

Pakistan uses a slightly different approach. When you get online, nothing appears to be blocked. Or perhaps that should be “If you get online…”. Especially in the north, where I have just been.

I haven’t worked out just why, but Pakistan is having all sorts of problems with keeping the electricity on. I thought this was just in the north, way up in the mountains, but it is all over the country. I’m in Islamabad (the capital) now, and just now the power has gone off (Laptop + battery = power independence + I didn’t lose what I just wrote). The fan stops, and instantly it feels 10 degrees hotter. the locals tell me they are rolling blackouts, which implies it is due to a lack of generation capacity. This from a country that is proud to have nuclear weapons. Priorities?

So, when the power is on, there should be internet. Well, I found one satellite connection in Hunza… except the power was never on. And a few days later, a connection in Gilgit, and when the power was on, the internet didn’t work. At one point the stars did line up, and we had both, but it was so slow that it made dial-up look blazingly fast.

And so with no trickery at all Pakistan joins the last two countries I’ve visited as internet black spots. The problem is I could geek out and find ways to get around the filtering in Iran and China, but having the power pulled really makes things difficult…

Loss of a friend

As I wrote a little while ago (yesterday if you believe the posting date), I decided to ride back up the road to the pass to the Pakistan / China border to see the road, mountains, etc. After all, that is what I came here for.

Everything was going well, the construction crews were friendly and the scenery jaw-dropping. On the second day, at almost exactly 4000m I came to a slight problem on the ‘highway’. Right where the Chinese were constructing a bridge to go over a glacial stream, the same stream had washed out the road dirt track that passes for the KKH.

So I did what cyclist do in these situations. I jumped off, took all the luggage off the bike and carried it all over. In several trips. Simple. Not so simple for the trucks and cars that were lined up the next morning.

It seems I may have not put it all back on perfectly, because when I stopped to say hello to yet another construction crew only a few kilometres later I noticed that Ojo, my little purple misnamed bear, who had been with me since day one of the trip in Spain had jumped off.

Where’s he got to now?

I’d recently lost my ‘Oia Cycling Club Angel’ to a thief in Yazd, and was fairly cut-up about that. But at the same time, Ojo had been gathering charms – prayer beads in Esfahan, a hair tie in Yazd, and most recently a bracelet in Tehran. I wish I had a photo of him all blinged up…

I knew roughly where he’d jumped ship, so I went back to look for him. Roaming around looking for something isn’t a trivial task at over 4000m. I rode back and forth on the road where I knew he must have jumped off. I enlisted the help of the Pakistani road construction crew. They thought I was a little crazy, but searched anyway. I asked everyone who came along if they’d seen him, but no-one had (or would admit it). I stayed the night in the area, looking until dark but to no avail. Only the Chinese crew didn’t help (because we couldn’t speak to each other).

It appears that Ojo (eye) – who should have been named Osso (bear) if only I knew more Spanish – has decided to stay and help out with the construction of the KKH at 4000m altitude. 11 months and 19,000km of being together and he leaves without saying good-bye. I hope he enjoys it up there.

Later on, I saw some Yak, a family of Ibex and a tribe (?) of Golden Marmots at around 4700m. And the odd mountain. All is not lost.

Pakistan, Day 1

About 3 hours into Pakistan, I was ready to turn around and go home. I haven’t had such a disappointing entry into a country.

I had climbed out of China the last few days, with the Belgians I met in Kashgar. They finally decided to avoid any visa / monsoon hassles and stay in China and so we split at lake Karakol (which was a bit of a disappointment after 2 days cycling uphill). I know I wasn’t much company for them – day one I had some digestive problems, and day two I had had altitude problems. At around 3000m – I’m getting worse at this.

The high pass in China is only 4072m. I survived that, without even a headache, and rode hard to get into Tashkurgan in the mistaken belief that I might learn something there. I didn’t, but I did spend the last of my Chinese Yuan on an expensive (for my standards) hotel – and arrived too late to buy something to eat.

What I failed to learn, until the next morning, is the Chinese Police wont let you cycle out of China. You must take the bus. I had been expecting this, so everything went well (except I didn’t have any Chinese currency left to pay for the bus). I had also been led to believe that I could get out of the bus as soon as we hit Pakistan. The Chinese Immigration people agreed, and even helped me by asking the bus driver to let me out as soon as we’d left China (since I couldn’t talk to the driver myself).

KKH on the China side is a little dull, so driving along it didn’t stress me out too much (although I would have liked the challenge of going to almost 5000m again). What did get me stressed was just across the border the Pakistani police wouldn’t let me off the bus as I’d planned. Despite my pleading, and then begging. And the road goes from tarmac to horrendous dirt track literally on the border, so not only was I sealed in the bus, but it was bumpy as hell. Then the bus broke down (which I had to help jerry rig a fix). Then the scenery got amazing, and I was flying past in a bus. And the scenery got better, and I couldn’t even take a decent photo, we were bouncing around so much. The final insult was a check point where they demanded we pay a park entry fee. I might have lost my cool for a while there. I was seriously entertaining the idea of just bussing straight to Islamabad to get the hell out of this country.

Then we arrived in Sost. I was still fuming at the waste of coming all this way to just see the road from a bus. Immigration turned out to be fairly simple – I got a visa on arrival as I’d hoped. And it was cheaper then I’d expected. Although the Immigration guy must have caught wind of my bad mood, because he did offer to deport me. More than once. Perhaps it was something I said. But then the police / customs / immigration people allowed me to ride back up the ‘highway’ to the pass. And the Chinese bus driver offered to even take me back there and drop me off (tomorrow). And I found some good, cheap bread (a rarity in China). Suddenly I was riding around in the mountains, and everything was right with the world.

Could I be so superficial, that just forcing me to sit on a bus could turn my mood south? And it can all be repaired by letting me ride my overloaded bike up a dirt track? What is wrong here?

The people I met on the road are super friendly. Many of the Taliban-bearded, dark looking evil Pakistanis (which we could all recognise thanks to the propaganda we get fed in the West) broke into some of the biggest smiles I’ve seen when I rode past and gave them a grin.

Maybe I’ll give this place a second chance. Hopefully I get to the pass tomorrow – otherwise the immigration people might start to worry about where I’ve got to.

Hair loss

I’m still in Kashgar. Mentally preparing for what’s coming. Well, no, I’m waiting for a Belgian guy to turn up so I can ride with his mate. I think a small group for the next bit is a good idea. (See? I am sensible, after all).

This seems to be a hub for travellers. Yesterday there were 9 cyclists in the youth hostel – and I know of others. And a few ‘traditional’ back packers. And they are all French. Something strange is going on here. Maybe Sarcosey has sent them all away for the elections.

So I went out to eat with some of the French. For a lot of the time, they were speaking English, just for me. In amongst all the other traveller conversation, for some reason the girls started talking about how their hair is falling out. They came to the conclusion that it was the diet and altitude that was causing it.

Eureka! I’m sure it’s not true, but I think I might have to recycle that excuse.

Massive Cheat

When I started this little ridie thing, I had a crazy idea that I might be able to cycle all the way home. Except for the obvious bit that was frequently pointed out to me in Europe – the last part between about Singapore and Darwin.

I was doing pretty well until Greece. Every kilometre had been peddled. Then someone turned on winter and the plan started to get a bit wobbly. I tried pretty hard to work out a way to get out of winter without flying, but it turned out to be damn near impossible (without making some rather absurd travel arrangements, such as going all the way back to Venice to take a boat via Syria to Egypt – with accompanying visa dramas). As you probably noticed, I had to cheat to get to Egypt and start the ‘Revolution Route’ side trip. Riding though Egypt during a revolution, which, it has been pointed out to me, it took me a week to notice.

And then the problem of what to do post Iran became a reality. I like the idea of riding through Central Asia, and probably will do it one day. But I couldn’t stand the idea of making a plan, and then arranging all the visas around this. It just didn’t fit (and another reason has surfaced that will become evident in September). So I looked at going through the other options, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some crazy people are travelling in Afghanistan, but I’m not that crazy. I couldn’t get a Pakistan visa (without flying back to Australia to organise one – and that seems rather silly to me).

So I stressed and bit my nails, read lots of things on the internet and finally decided that one part of Pakistan didn’t sound too dangerous, at least relatively. And it sounds like it is possible to get a Pakistani visa at the border with China. So I crossed my fingers for the Pakistan visa, got my Chinese visa in Tehran, and tried to work out how to get to the far west of China. I failed to find any decent option on the internet, but through blind chance (while at a diplomatic function at the Norwegian Embassy) I was told about a direct flight to Urumqi on a Chinese airline (by an Italian Architect).

Long, long, long story short I got a plane ticket and enjoyed my last few days in Iran. Louis and Lysanne, a couple of Quebecois cyclists doing something similar to me, helped me out no end by arranging a (very small) bike box and a place to crash in Tehran – while I watched lunar eclipses and ate watermelon and ice cream, although not at the same time, in Yazd.

L, L & I spend the better part of a day and a half solving the puzzle that is packing three bikes into boxes that are far too small for them. Some cursing, much gnashing of teeth and at least one stupid mistake on my part when removing the pedals and the bikes were packed away. Poor Frankenbici had all manner of bits pulled off him for the packing. It’s the first time I’ve had to remove the forks (and pretty much everything that can be removed) to put a bike in a box.

I tried to send some winter clothes home but at the post office I had a change of heart, when I decided I didn’t have any confidence in the post and besides they wanted to charge me an arm and a leg to post 3kg home. So L, L & I had a final kebab and I re-packed my bags one final time.

A taxi, which had been generously arranged for me by our host, Sasan, came to pick me up to take me to the airport. The driver took one look at the bike box and the big bag holding the panniers and decided he didn’t need the job. There followed a comical few minutes while the bike was loaded into the ute, unloaded, and we stood around while the Iranians, err, discussed the situation. The bike was again loaded into the ute and we drove around town for a few minutes. I was at  loss as to what was going on, but there was much shaking of heads and it appeared I wouldn’t be getting to the airport this way. Sasan had come with me, and somehow he arranged another taxi which did take me to the airport. I’d left plenty of time, so there was no stress – at least for me, but I did end up leaving Sasan somewhat stranded. Thankfully the last few minutes in Iran didn’t go smoothly, otherwise I might have taken away a different impression of the country. Although the check-in at the airport went far too smoothly, they took my bike and allowed me my 35kg of luggage (while I was almost bent double with my carry on bag).

And then the massive cheat began. I flew from Tehran to Urumqi in far North Western China, leapfrogging 4 countries, several serious mountain ranges, and a whole bunch of cyclists who are more hardy than myself. Somehow a 4 hour flight took from 11pm until 7am – that’s what you get when China is on a single timezone.

I got to Urumqi, a new country, a new language and a new currency without a Yaun in my pocket. I tried to get some at the airport, but the money changer was closed. I couldn’t take a bus or taxi, because I had no money (there’s a hole in my bucket…). So I took the obvious option – put the bike together. I had quite an audience of Chinese taxi drivers, but I managed to get it all back in one piece (despite it being 4am in my own personal timezone, and having  slept for about an hour).

I rode into Urumqi city, blearily looked around, had breakfast and then tried to find the train station. A gazzillion people had the same idea. One of the harrowed ticket agents managed to tell me that there was no train today, the cost of the train, and indicated by a surprised expression that the bike wouldn’t be welcome. So I went off to find the bus station. Found it, and despite only really being interested in the timetable, found myself on a sleeper bus about 15minutes later.

25 hours on the bus later and I’m in Kashgar. The end of the world – at least the end of the Chinese world. To the south is Pakistan (and then a left turn to India), and a border that all reports say is open and issuing visas on arrival. All non verified, unofficial reports. But I’m here now and I’ll go ride up the ‘hill’ and check it out in a day or so. I hope they let me in, there are some big mountains to see between here and Islamabad. Some really big mountains (I can’t wait!). Karakorum Highway, here I come!

The next case of visa stress will be India before another cheat – there doesn’t appear to be any way of getting out of India without flying…

Now, aren’t you glad I didn’t have time to write a blow by blow account of Iran?

Iran

Lets just forget about writing blogs about Iran, shall we? The censor-net didn’t help, and most of my censornet time was taken up trying to find an airline that would take the bike to China and then making the same airline take my credit card. It is not a trivial task when you’re trying to use a credit card in Iran. Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.

I did met some amazing people. A few will be extremely difficult to forget in a hurry.

And I don’t want to write anything that might really upset the authorities. Who knows, I might want to go back. So I guess I could just write:

Yazd break

ok I have been slack again….blame the heat. Yazd is one of the driest city in Iran. So I got stuck in a charming hotel, famous to operate as a vortex for foreign people crossing the Iranian desert, especially tired cyclists. You can find there Dutch, Canadian, French and many Australian people, lying on the couches in the pretty courtyard, chatting for hours, especially in mid-day, which here is from 10 am to 6 pm. My days are very busy, I swear. Among my main activities you can bet I am talking with people about Iranian newspapers –interesting opinions about the world-, having a watermelon, playing chess, helping other travellers with their computers, climbing on a mosque roof to watch the sunset or desperately going out for one or more ice creams. I have to taste every flavour before leaving the town. I know, my average speed has been dramatically reduced since I have been there.. and I am about to cheat, flying from Tehran to China. Bad boy, I am not a hero, I don’t have to be a hero, as a French girl told me. A few days more like this and I may decide to become a Zoroastrian worshipper and settle in Yazd forever. Fortunately the Pakistan mountains are too attractive, like a magnetic spiral, I cannot resist the temptation to go there and breathe their air, if I don’t fall in a black hole on the way…

Rooftop talking

This is  good way to pass the time in Yazd. Talking about Alexander the Great (since when have I been interested in ancient history?), waiting for sunset, overlooking the oldest city in the world. Somewhat confusingly, I have now been to the oldest continually inhabited city in the world three times: Damascus, Aleppo and now Yazd.

 

Mt Ararat

This ain’t no Mt Arapilies. It’s where Noah, allegedly, crashed his overloaded ark after 5 months of floating about. And it’s big.

Tic….

What? What do you mean I can’t tick a mountain unless I climb it? Ok, well, I’ll conceded this one, but we might have to talk about a change to the rules when I finally get to the Himalayas. Soon.

East gobble gobble gobble

This is a bit out of date, but to keep everyone back home up to date with what’s been going on…

I left Cappadocia and rode like crazy to meet Jurg and Rahel in Erzurum. That was where the hotel from the last post was located. I bummed about there for a few days, because I was too fast. J&R arrived, but the following day it rained and was utterly miserable, so we talked a lot and then did the only sensible thing – bought a big cake and celebrated Rahel’s birthday (which is in June). Why not? – we just needed to have an excuse to scoff a cake – and Jurg and I had already had birthday cakes in Santorini.

Jurg and Rahel had decided to go around Iran (via Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea), since they couldn’t get an Iranian visa, so they were heading north, while I should have been continuing east. But I couldn’t let them escape that easily, so I took their route for a few days. It was good to be riding with friends again, and this makes 3 continents that we’ve ridden on together (random fact of the day). The rain let off, and came back agian, the roads were not so busy, but somehow they picked some big hills to go over. It was very pleasant riding for a few days.

The day we parted I was sorry to see them go. So I put on an audiobook, and put some energy into going a fair way. Over a pass and through the biggest town in the area. I probably should have stopped there for the night, but I kept on and as I climbed over the next pass I was watching several storms raging all around me (lots of lightning). One of them came my way and drenched me just on sunset so I pulled in at the next small town (Dağpinar). I asked a soldier if there was a place to stay. There always seems to be a soldier around, the number of army seems to be increasing the further east I go. He didn’t speak any English, but indicated there was not. He pointed me to the bus station and townships council offices, which were closed for the day. This brought me to a very small shop, where I met the owner who spoke a few words of English. Somehow, with the help of Google Translate (which I’ve used a few times, with varying degrees of success, to have conversations), we established that there was a place I could put my tent out the back, with the cows, horses, mud, rain and cold. Or I could come to stay in his house.

Well… what could I do? I accepted and Hakan and I drank tea and chatted using the computer until 11pm (still raining). By then I was dead tired and didn’t have much energy to have a conversation with the rest of the family when I got to his (as it turned out) parents house. I was put up in the ‘spare’, ‘guest’ bedroom, which also happened to accommodate Hakan’s brother. We agreed to go back to the shop at about 7am (early for me with such a late night).

So at 6am I woke to Hakan pulling away my blankets, and about 60 seconds later we were walking back to the shop. I hung around the shop for a while, being a celebrity and (I’m sure) earning Hakan some kudos by being the one who put this strange foreigner and his bike up for the night. We ate some breakfast, had tea, took photos and the morning rush happened. It could be that most of the sales from this shop are sweets and chips for the children. The school was right next door. I talked and messed about with the kids until they cleared off for lessons. The day had finally warmed up and I was thinking about making tracks when a group of girls came out of the school, approached me and asked me to come in and teach them English. The teacher had asked them to come and get me.

But I can’t teach English! I was eventually convinced and was brought in to find the teacher. I realised that I haven’t been inside a school for many, many years – and this was a primary school – apparently the secondary school was down the hill in the city. I’m not sure if the teacher really did send for me, but she brought me in and I spent the next 2 hours being displayed to several of the classes of older, hyperactive, kids. I’m not sure I taught them any English, but it was fun to talk about what I’ve been up to and at least they now know where Australia is!

Finally a foto

I blame Windows 7 for the dearth of fotos. It started BSODing on me a week or so ago, and it took me a day with a good internet connection to work out what was going on. It turns out Win 7 isn’t entirely to blame, but that won’t stop me.

Anyway, I have rarely stayed in hotels on this trip. Hostels in the Middle East, and a few in Europe, but mostly camping or when I get an invite, in someone’s home. In fact, I had made it until Erzurum before staying in a hotel in Turkey. After such a long stay in Cappadocia, I was more than happy to spend a few nights in the tent.

So I was a little surprised when I looked up to find this on the ceiling.

A green arrow with something written on it.

I still know less than a dozen words in Turkish, so it could have been anything. Could it be “Emergency Exit”? I did entertain this idea for a few seconds, until I worked out that if it was, it could only be for cats. The arrow appeared to point to a storage area of blankets, on top of a wardrobe. Even I couldn’t crawl through there.

This sort of thing doesn’t happen to me in the tent.

I scratched my head for a further few seconds until the metaphoric light bulb came on. It’s roughly south… Which means it must be pointing to Mecca. Ah ha! another word to add to my vocabulary, although I suggest I won’t be using this one all that often.

New High Score

Well! After 5 days of hanging around in Cappadocia, I must have recharged or something. Yesterday everything seemed to work well, and I pulled off a new high score. 220km in a day. That beats my previous best in South America of 209km (which was the first day in Argentina, where you come down several thousand meters from the altiplano of Bolivia), or 190km in Egypt. I must admit I had a tail wind for some of the day, but I was climbing overall (1,500 high meters).

You don’t have to be impressed, but you should be. It took me almost 11 hours riding time, 7 chocolate bars, and 2 packets of muesli bars (that I was given by Abdullah when I left his place). I left in 6°C, it dropped to 4C and the high was about 15C. It rained twice, but by then I was on a mission and didn’t bother with the rain coat.

I listened to most of an audio book. The scenery is quite nice, but even though it’s almost 1500m altitude it’s surprisingly flat. Almost like the Bolivian altiplano (although it’s much easier to breathe at only 1500m). Needless to say I was quite tired after a day like that, and couldn’t find a great place to camp, so I stayed in a small clump of trees by the road. Too tired to cook, I ate a can of beans and passed out. And only woke up when it started to rain (always fun having a wet tent…), and then again quite late (09:30). I managed to get away by 10:00, but because of the late start, and more rain today I could only back up with 110km. But tonight I’ve found a great campsite. Right next to a rather large river, just outside a small farming village well off the main road. If only it would stop raining!

I have a bit of a target to achieve – Jurg and Rahel will be back in Erzurum in a few days and I’d like to meet them there. They are threatening to bring chocolate back from Norway. I’m sure I can help them eat it as a belated Easter.

Cappadocia

Some one in Damascus recommended I should go to Cappadocia. Jurg & Rahel  rode through a few weeks ago and also recommended a visit. I looked at the map, determined where I was, where Iran is and thought that going west a few hundred kilometers to see more rocks would be a silly idea. So I went.

I rode through the land of Petrol stations, which was handy as they gave me plenty of places to sleep. Then I turned north and rode up into the heartland of Turkey. Up. It was great to be back in the mountains, but it is cold up here, and apparently unseasonably, it’s raining quite a lot.

So, in the rain, I passed many towns, set on reaching the region of Cappadocia. I was so intent that I very nearly rode straight past one of the attractions, the underground city at Derinkuyu. But I was intrigued by all the tour buses, and pulled in to have a gander and discovered the caves. I went down, and was amazed by the amount of digging that had gone on down there. It is not an underground house, it really is an underground city. I followed the tourist trail down (8 levels, 45m or so) and then started looking around. I found a half closed ‘door’, the original inhabitants used to roll huge millstones across the passageways to seal them in case of invasion. Someone had pried one open just enough, so I crawled around in a part of the city not so many people see (lucky I always seem to have my head torch with me). I found a few other blocked tunnels that clearly went somewhere. All I needed was a shovel…

Eventually I dug myself out of the hole, and rode on (in the rain) to Cappadocia. I got there toward the end of the day and looked up Abdullah. Jurg and Rahel had met this Hotel owner in front of his hotel a few weeks previous and suggested I stop by to say hello. So I did, and although I didn’t expect it, he invited me to stay. Not in the hotel, but in his house! Great! So I left my bike in the hotel and I stayed at his place.

I then had a few day working holiday away from the bike. There is always something to do around a hotel, so I tried to help (although I may have got in the way more than helping) by doing some painting, went on a few trips into town with the hotel manager, Emel, and got in the way in the kitchen. I initially hung around the hotel (which I must say is a far classier place than I would normally be allowed to hang around) because that was where Abdullah brought me for breakfast and I was avoiding the bike (after having ridden 600km and 5000+ high meters in 5 days from Aleppo). The next few days I was avoiding the weather. Finally I was pried away from the place and had a look around Cappadocia.

Very interesting. Not piles of rock, but big rocks with holes in them. Holes that people lived in. Some phenomenon (which I understand but can’t be bothered explaining) caused these chimneys to form in the valleys all over the region, and people came and carved houses in them. Some of the caves have been turned into hotels (like the one Abdullah owns www.kalekonak.com) but many (most?) have been left abandoned as they’re a touch unstable. Strange, and well worth a few hundred kilometer detour.

I hung around as long as I was welcome (hopefully I didn’t push it too far and Abdullah takes in another cyclist – he’s done this before for some other travellers, notably Biciclown who he talked about a few times). I was going to make my exit on a day when it was forecast for rain, so I allowed myself to be convinced to stay another day. I took advantage of a nice, dry place to sit, and did all sorts of internet things (except update the blog or photos), and then went for a short ride in the arvo. Of course it started raining when I was as far away form the house as I had planned to go. All the photos I’ve seen of Cappadocia show lovely blue cloudless skies. Why can’t I see it like that?

Some things change

I’ve found myself eating eggs. And sometimes cheese. I started because that was the only option if I wanted breakfast in Damascus. I reasoned that since I’d paid for it, I should at least try it, and it turns out I can stomach eggs, a little cheese (although the texture of that stuff is still off-putting). I’ve now gone so far as to (once mind you) buy 4 eggs in the evening to hard boil – two for dinner and two for breakfast. And tea – I started to tentatively have the odd cup of chai in South America, because it was the only drink that I could be sure the water was boiled. Or at least slightly heated up, for what ever good it did. I seem to be swimming in the stuff here, and all of the Middle East. I don’t mind to stop and have a chat (when I can find someone who has a common language), but I’m still getting used to all this (sickly sweet) tea.
Yes, this is the same Stephen. (for anyone who doesn’t know me that well: my diet is a little strange. Low fat, and most complain that it’s low on taste.)
But I still won’t eat the olives that seem to be everywhere, or the Turkish coffee. I did bump into some Turkish Delight the other day – I think it’s best I steer clear of that stuff, or I might end up staying…

ANZAC

I’m in Turkey. ANZAC cove is in Turkey (albeit on the far west of Turkey, ie the other side). ANZAC day is in a few days, but I’m not going to be there. I have been surprised that many Turks know the word (ok, acronym) ANZAC. When we meet, most ask me where I’m from. When they work out it isn’t Austria (“ahh, Spreken zie Deutsch!”, “no, no, awrstr-AL-ia”), they often come back with “ANZAC!”. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, what took place is as much a part of their history as it is mine.

I think it’s great that we remember what took pace at Gallipoli and at the same time all soldiers that fought in wars. War is a terrible thing, but for the most part, the average soldier doesn’t have any say in what is happening or what stupid cause they may be dying for (without me passing judgement on the morality of any particular war). So I think it’s good that we remember the sacrifice by celebrating a slaughter of our own kin, rather than trying to promote the activity as a glorious event.

Having said that, I’m a bit concerned by the way we do it. Australians on tour have a bit of a reputation of a hard drinking, hard partying bunch, which is fine. It helps us keep our reputation in the world. But it does seem a bit out of place on a day of remembrance of a battle that was basically a massacre. Several Turks have also had this discussion with me. They say (to paraphrase) “Why come all the way here to drink all night, smoke weed and screw when you are commemorating a battle in the morning? We have more respect for your soldiers than you do”. Clearly not all who go to Gallipoli behave like this, but enough do that this is the reputation we get.

I’d like to be there. But I wont be. I’ll do my own thing, away from the tourist industry that has emerged to service the hordes of Aussies and New Zealanders who come to watch, blearily, the sun rise in a place that many have no direct connection to.

Lest we forget.

The land of Petrol

I’m not sure how the economics works out, but Turkey seems to be the land of petrol stations. They’re everywhere! Petrol is more than 4 Turkish Lira per liter (nearly 2 euro per liter!), but I can’t imagine all that much profit goes to the retailer. Anyway, they’re everywhere and the people are still friendly, and so I’ve camped out the back of two so far, and this one advertises it has WiFi. How could I pass that up? Pity it’s not dark, or I might be tempted to camp here also.

I’ve just turned away from the coast. Toward Capadocia. There are some scary big mountains in front of me. Covered in clouds. I’ve been told it’s raining in the mountains. Great.

Syria. West side

I think I’ve just about seen enough of Syria. But it’s quite pleasant here, so I’m a little reluctant to leave. Also the latest round of news reporting / troubles in Dar’a has scared away most of the tourists, so in peak season the tourist spots are all but deserted. It really appears that the Syrian government is being given a hard time by the Western press. I’m not normally all that interested in world politics, but it is inescapable here. And it’s getting more difficult for me to be impartial. Perhaps I should stop there.

I appear to have lived through my pneumonia, if pneumonia it was. I was a bit of a wreck for a few days, and then had a few more days coughing up some interesting colours. But it’s all gone away now, thank goodness. I might need my lungs for the climbing that’s coming up in Turkey.

I got the visa! The Iran visa that is. Hurrah! I visited the Iran Consulate every day for over a week. Somehow, someone (I’m pretty sure it was the travel agency that ‘helped’ me get the visa) messed up, and the approval for my visa got sent to the wrong consulate. After 7 visits to the consulate, someone felt sorry for me, talked to someone else and I’ve no idea how many rules were bent, but I left with the visa in my passport. A week to get a visa, that had already been approved, stamped in the passport may seem like a long time, but I was pretty happy with how helpful the consulate staff were – the Iranian New Year had just passed and from the sound of it, the whole of the Iranian government took a couple of weeks off. So I count myself lucky to get a positive result in the circumstances.

With or without the visa I was going to leave Damascus the day after it was finally approved. I had a complicated back-up plan to get the visa that I am very glad I don’t have to try out. But I had been in the hostel long enough to make a few friends, including some other long time travellers from Aus. I was somewhat torn between leaving them and staying for the company, but they sorted that out for me – they decided to move on anyway.

I hadn’t really recovered, but I was keen to get out of town. So I left, got a flat going up a hill and procrastinated by fixing a few minor things on the bike that I had been putting off for weeks. Yeah, I wasn’t really well enough to be cycling. But I persisted, and after 6.5 hours I found a monastery to sleep out the front of. I remember having enough energy to put up the tent, but not enough to eat. Lucky I’d been fattening up in Damascus on that ice cream. The next day I spent all morning in the monastery (procrastinating again), talking politics with whomever would listen. This was the first Friday after the Presidents long awaited speech, and the general consensus was if ‘something’ was going to happen, it would happen today. It didn’t.

I was heading back to Aleppo (for some more of those macaroons), but decided to take the less easy route. So I went out to the Syrian Mediterranean coast, over a small mountain range. This also means I got a full dose of crusader era castles. If I had a decent internet connection I could upload some photos. Think impregnable.

Between castles, I stopped at a bakery to buy some breakfast. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. The baker happened to be crazy about bikes. That surprised me. He offered to ride with me to Lattakia (60km away). How could I say no? So he rushed off to get changed and get his bike (the boss didn’t seem to mind him skipping work for the day). He came back on what turned out to be his training bike – the race bike was too good to just ride on the highway with a crazy foreigner. The police took a bit of an interest in this strange couple, but eventually we got away and rode nearly all the way to Lattakia. A thunderstorm came and chased us under a bridge for a while, but it was pleasant and slightly unusual to ride with a local for a while. It also coincidentally avoided a major disaster – the whole way was on the highway, and my MP3 player had died the day before. Highway riding with no podcasts or audio books? Boring! (It’s ok, I managed to find the loose wire and get it soldered back in place).

To be honest I wasn’t all that enamoured with the costal cities, perhaps partly because it rained most of the time I was in Lattakia (a city planner in Lattakia at some point decided that a great place for a port was right in front of the city, so the city now has a superb view of a large wall, containers, and ships instead of the Mediterranean). I won’t go on about the demonstrations that have recently happened in Lattakia, only to point out that when I was there, there was a very heavy army presence but a remarkable absence of guns. Some tourists I met got scared away by the army, but I couldn’t see any reason for concern. I was concerned by the traffic though, on my way out of town I had to take a breather to calm down at one point. There are many positive attributes one can talk about with the Syrians, but the standard of driving in the cities is not one of them.

The costal hills are quite pretty and very green, at least at this time of year. The wild flowers are out, mostly in the olive groves. I think I’m lucky to see the flowers – they must have a very limited life span, the olive farmers rush to plough the delicate plants back into the soil, using everything from hand tools, to ploughs pulled by oxen or tractors.

I must have been spending to long gazing at the flowers (or trusted the GPS just a little too much), because I managed to take a rather large detour in hilly terrain along the Turkish border. I had to make a strange shaped loop to see some abandoned cities. I’m still not sure why I went out of my way to see another pile of rocks, but perhaps that shows that I’m reluctant to leave the country. But eventually I got here; to Aleppo. Back in the city. I’m going to spend (err, waste) a few days here, then move on.

Turkey, and it’s mountains, is just around the corner, or rather, just past the castle.

Damascus

In most of the Middle East, but more often in Egypt, one of the first questions I might get asked is: “What book are you?”. I’ve tried explaining that religion is becoming less important in the West, and that being an Atheist is now an (almost) generally acceptable option. Along with my other answers to questions: “I’m older than thirty”; “I’m not married”; and “No, I have no children” and the quite obvious fact that I’m cycling when I, as a westerner, should be able to afford a car, or at the very least a bus, I’m sure I’m often summed up as simply insane. I’m learning to give answers that are expected and avoid the massive follow-up explanations in sign language.

Maybe I should start saying I’m Catholic. I seem to be feeling guilty.

Most of the guilt comes from wasting precious time: I’ve been in Damascus, on my second visit this trip, for four full days and I’ve barely left the hostel. The day I arrived I visited the Iran Embassy to find out that they couldn’t issue me a visa (come back Sunday), and then yesterday I went out and sedately watched some of the protests / pro-government celebrations (which are being very strangely reported in the world media compared with what I have seen). And that’s pretty much all. I guess it hasn’t helped that the “cold” I developed in Aleppo has migrated into my lungs and I’m gasping for breath after climbing a flight of stairs. I’ve met a few travellers who’ve developed pneumonia in Syria and Lebanon. I hope that’s not what I’ve got, or it eventually goes away by itself, and I’ll be right to ride off when I get this visa!

And I guess I aught to feel guilty about my dinner tonight. Chicken Shwarma followed by an ice cream from Bakdash, an ice cream shop somewhat famous in the region for it’s pistachio covered vanilla ice cream. The ice cream was good, so I wandered back to the hostel, gathered some support, and went back for another. I might even go again tomorrow (although I’m not quite as keen as my room mate who was serious about going for an ice cream breakfast until he found that they opened at 11am).

In Aleppo I was unstoppable. They have many, many different types of sweets,and for some reason I had a large sweet tooth when I was there. The best was a sugary, pistachio filled roll thingy (which was divine although you wouldn’t want to have too much of it, lest your teeth fall out on the spot). But the most consumed was some largish coconut flavoured soft biscuits, which I’ve been calling macaroons, incredibly sweet, reasonably cheap, available everywhere and stupidly addictive. If I go back, I know what I’ll be eating. Damascus: Ice cream. Aleppo: Macaroons. And there is much more of this to experiment with in the next few thousand kilometres…

 

Sorry, no photos. Internet too slow for that.

Aleppo Traffic

It had to happen. I was riding around Aleppo this evening, because I don’t have a room in the city tonight. I have decided to catch the train to Damascus to see if the Iran Embassy is open tomorrow (I suspect it will be closed for the New Year Holidays). Happy New Year Iran, 1390.

That’s not all that interesting, although cheating is always worthy of note.

When I rode into Aleppo, I was very nearly knocked off by a crazy minibus driver and black sedan working together to remove that gap I did have and turn it into a very small space. So I was cautious riding in the city. Of course.

As is quite common in the region, almost everyone suffers from Neckus Rubberius when something unusual is sharing the road with them. On the highway this is not usually an issue – they go flying past, and I can wave at them staring at me through the rear window. In the city, it can cause grief. Two pedestrians very nearly got cleaned up by cars today because they were watching me and not the traffic (which is chaotic, to say the least). And I noticed two close calls by drivers with the same ailment. And then it did happen, a pick-up cut off a taxi and smashed up the front quarter. No one was injured, but I feel slightly guilty. But if they want to watch me, and not the road, surely I can’t be held responsible for that? Can I? I’m spending nearly all my riding skills just to make sure they don’t clean me up!