Today, 40 days after our arrival in Istanbul, I finally find some time to update our blog and to tell you all about our incredible arrival in Istanbul.  Today, all this incredible trip seems like a dream to me and if it wasn’t for the pictures on our website which remind me of what we did, I’d really think I dreamt it all. However, on that very morning of July 24th, eveything was more than real…

We woke up reasonably early, although we had only about 100km to go till Istanbul. My fall of the day before reminded us that we’d better ride slowlier… and Istanbul is not exactly an easy place to find its way. So we left at 8:30am planning to arrive around 12pm and have a rest before our arrival cocktail. My hip still felt very sore from my fall, but it bothered me only when walking. After I made it on my bike, sitting on it felt quite comfortable. We rode very slowly, 50km/h, and reached the suburbs of Istanbul around 10:30… too early we thought, but our average speed quickly decreased as we entered into the city and tried to figure out where to go.  And then suddenly, we saw it: Europe. There it was, the bridge leading us from Asia to Europe. A few more meters to go. As we crossed the bridge, we couldn’t believe that these were the last moments of our trip. A wind of nostalgy blew accross the bridge, as I tried to look back asking myself, is it really finished ? But the impatience of making it to the finish line kept us going. We reached the Kempinksi at 11h30, but couldn’t drive in straight away. We stopped a few hundred meters further in order to take a deep breath, look into each others eyes and realize that we JUST MADE IT.  That was it, Mark and I just rode during 82 days, over 16,000 km, crossed 8 countries, and arrived with nothing more than a couple of nails missing and a sore hip. Could it really have been so easy ? or did I already forget about the hard times… I felt almost as nervous as the day of our Kick Off Event thinking of all the obstacles laying ahead of us. After a few minutes spent chasing this nervosity out of our bodies and ming, we gathered the courage to ride these last few meters into the Kempinski’s entrance, where our families were waiting for us and the Kempinski staff welcomed us with a refreshing non-alcoholic mojito. After spending the afternoon, Mark with his family, me with my fiance Arnaud, who I missed tremendously… Mark and me met again at 5:30pm ready for our (almost) last ride to the BMW Rider Academy, where BMW Motorrad welcomed us with a great cocktail reception (check out the pictures) and where we met all our friends and family members who had come to celebrate our safe arrival and birthdays. The cocktail reception was followed by a late night out for most of us, and  the next day by our Gala Dinner:

After 3 months on a bike, we switched to an evening gown and high heals for me and a white tuxedo for Mark (who also got a haircut and trimmed his beard…)… what a change! We spent a magnificent evening eating, drinking, dancing with all our friends, families and sponsors (check out the pictures).

Thanks to the support of our sponsors and our friends and loyal blog readers, we were able to donate to the Sindicatum Climate Change Foundation, represented by Lord Andrew Stone, a total of USD 23,400, which will help finance training programs for engineers in Asia (and in particular in China) focusing on the development of technologies allowing to reduce CO2 faster.

We made it, safe and sound, and were celebrating this achievement with all the people we loved. We could not have dreamt of a nicer arrival in Istanbul.

Thank you, to all of you, sponsors, family, friends, bloggers, and thanks also to all these people we met during our trip and who shared with us a meal, a roof, a bit of their culture, a moment of their lives, or helped us overcome whatever obstacle was in front of us. This trip was a success and will stay for ever in our memories thanks to all the help and support we received.  Thank you!

Now all of you are wondering why the post is entitled “The Arrival (Not the End)”… well this is linked to the fact that after our arrival in Istanbul, we had to ship our bikes back to China… They are now on a container somewhere between Istanbul and Tianjin. While shipping them was relatively easy, we are now waiting for the bikes to arrive in Tianjin and the paperwork war has already started. You’ve read all about ‘getting our bikes out of China’ (see blog posts Day 21 fol.), now stay tuned for the – hopefully – final chapter of our trip: “Getting our bikes back into China”. Ciao!

Just a line to tell you all that we made it safely to Istanbul. We are now resting and enjoying the turkish sun. We will tell you all about our arrival in a few days. Thanks to all of you for following our blog, stay tuned for the last update coming up soon.

Posted by Wordmobi

Today started as yesterday: Picking up our bikes we discovered a small cat sleeping on my Air Hawk… Turkish cats seem to like our inflatable seats!!! (This would be a great business idea: transform Air Hawks into Air Cats for cats…). So after letting the cat play with my Air Hawk and my tank bag for a little while, we left the lovely city of Safranbolu heading towards the Black Sea again. The ride out of Safranbolu was as pleasant the ride in the day before (see Mark’s post), but it did not last long. Soon enough we were riding along the highway, where the most common scenery were gaz stations… one every 2km in average… Thus, the only attraction of the morning was Mike, an Irish guy living in New York currently on his way back to Ireland with his BMW 1200 after a 1.5 year ride through all of Africa… After following us for a while, he stopped with us at the gaz station and we had a nice chat exchanging our experiences and administrative nightmares… Before parting again, and as an experienced rider, he warned us of the dangers of the “last days” of such a motorbike trip, and told us to be twice as prudent as usual. Not that I ever doubted the wisdom of his advice (actually what he said made total sense to me then already), but I then did not yet know how right he was…

So, after the break, Mark and me were pretty bored of the gaz station scenery, and decided to take the next road leading us back to the sea, along which we would then ride heading west to Agva. We were back at the sea side within 1 hour. By then, it was around 1pm, we weren’t hungry and had only 100km left, so we decided to go on for a while waiting for our stomacs to manifest.  The roads were as described by Mark in his previous post, a paradise: Beautiful wheather, smooth tarmac, minimal traffic, etc… All the elements to hypnothize you and make you become slightly negligent of the dangers… So it was. We were riding at a decent speed enjoying the scenery, the good road conditions and the many curves when it happened. In a curve – which was by the way not different from the previous 100 curves we already passed - I leant into the curve and as I tried to right my bike again, I lost control of it, and within a quarter of a second I felt myself sliding on the tarmac. My body came to a halt after a few meters, and there I was, sitting up on the side of the street and looking at myself and my bike which had also come off the road and was lying there on the dust ground. I asked myself: How do I feel? I felt fine. No injury, nothing broken, and my clothes barely showed traces of my sliding on the tarmac. Man was I glad to have worn my complete rider gear… I had nothing!! If you were looking for a reason to buy expensive rider gear, well here’s your reason!

After inspecting myself, it was time to look at my bike. It seemed a little shaken, the left front blinker was gone, the left mirror cracked but still in there, the clutch handle broken, and the front part of my bike seemed to have slightly slipped downwards. Hhmmm… Luckily, I don’t really need the left front blinker, I can see with a broken mirror, and I have a spare clutch handle… So the only real problem was more the front part of my bike… Luckily, the hord of men who gathered to offer their help (we cannot stress enough how friendly and helpful the Turks are!) helped us to change the clutch handle and to redress the front part of my bike so that within an hour from my fall, me and my bike were functional again. We got back on the road and made it safely, and slowly (!) to Agva where we spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach.

As I was falling I heard Mike’s advice and I thought how right he was. We should have driven twice as slowly as usual, and my fall clearly showed that I was driving a little too fast for the kind of curves we were looking at. Don’t worry, I am a quick learner, and we’ll drive extra slowly tomorrow. We will arrive safe and sound in Istanbul tomorrow. Promise. Ciao!

I can’t claim to be a tremendously experienced motorcyclist, but, having endured a plethora of climatic phenomena and road conditions while riding past scenery ranging from the ugly industrial to heavenly snow caps for the past 80 days, I guess I just might be able to put my finger on what a motorcyclist’s travel paradise may look and feel like. The reciepe:

• Weather
  • Temperature: warm but not hot enough to sweat under the heavy gear
  • Wind: A sweet, mild breeze that doesn’t need fighting against
  • Cloud Cover: white puffy clouds peppering a cobalt sky
• Road
  • Surface: smooth tarmac
  • Shape: curves in all the right places
  • Traffic: as light as possible
• Scenery
  • Beauty: unbridled, with strong visibility

Today was just such a day. We were blessed with the most glorious weather as we powered up the steep rises and coasted down the tight bends. The breeze was just perfect and the mercury followed suit. As for the road, if there is such a thing in the motorcycling community as the “1000 rides to go on before you die”, the South-Western coast of the Black Sea between Sinop and Amasra is sure to be on it. The 2 lane road cuts its way along the steep wooded walls of the coastal range, plunging through a series of hairpin switchbacks to the cluster of red-tiled roofs that make up a village in a tiny cove, only to climb steeply abruptly out of the small bay, to the rocky top of the following promontary, whence passers-by can marvel at the unparalelled views of the coastline. 

In addition to its pure beauty, today’s ride had its challenges: roadworks peppered the way, with 2 major lengths of gravel track along our path. I can’t say I was happy, but the test helped lift the rest of the day to soaring heights. At 443km, the day was long (the longest in fact since our race to the Caspian in Turkmenistan); we were happy to pull in to Safranbolu, a charmingly ancient litte town (UNESCO protected) after 9 hours of riding, tired, but exhilerated. On the antepenultimate day of our fabulous trek from Beijing, we have been granted a glimpse of the “motorcyclist’s paradise”.

Today felt like old times again. Not only were we rejoining our original itineray again, but we had almost 300km on our riding menu, and the sun and the heat were present too.

We left the lovely city (but not that lovely hostel…) of Amasya around 9:30am. The first part of the journey, ie the morning, was nothing spectacular. The roads were ok, the scenery pretty dull, the sun was hitting hard already. After a little more than 3 hours of riding, and about 180 km, we stopped for lunch along the road. I was starving and so the Pide and the Koefte we had tasted really good and the portions were more than enough to motivate us for the ride left, approx. 100km.

The scenery changed not long after our lunch break. Suddenly it was there again, on our right hand side, the Black Sea. Whereas when entering Turkey at Batumi the coastal road was at sea level, the road to Sinop was around 100 to 200 meters above sea level, up on top of impressive cliffs with mediterranean like forests of pines and the like. There is nothing like smelling the salty sea in the air, and all these other smells that go with it, the pines, the fruits, the holidays… The roads were nice, but not without challenge. Although the tarmak was quite ok, the many curves along the hills and cliffs required serious concentration, all the more that the roads were not really broad and needless to say that there is no barrier on the cliff side of the road. So, watch your “step”, and the traffic ahead! Luckily, the roads were not too crowded, and the few trucks on our way were nice enough to let us take over whenever safe. At some point, we were following a truck full of melons… Although I was about 100m behind the truck, I could still smell the melon scent in the air. Maybe, that was just a placebo smell deriving from the mere view of the melons, but whatever it was, it was so much nicer than the usual black making-you-cough cloud emitted by most heavy vehicles. Finally, after a few days of dull distance riding, we were back on our discovery track… After a couple of hours of such a lovely road, accompanied by a persistent, yet not too strong side wind which had the nice effect of cooling down the air a bit (sometimes, in my black Night Rider Gear, I have the impression to melt in the sun…) we reached our daily destination, Sinop.

From the top of the hill, the road led us slowly down to the sea level, where we discovered a lovely harbour with terrasses and restaurants. The second hotel we randomly picked had not only a very decent big room with view on the harbour, ie the SEA, but it was also affordable ! and the manager was friendly and basic English speaking. What to want more ? We checked in. I went to the internet cafe, while Mark sat on a terrasse reading. After a long walk along the sea shore, I picked Mark up for a …. sea food dinner. YES! For the second time in 79 days we had fish for dinner, and even some local white wine. While the fish (scorpion fish they call it) resembled strongly (though not as tender as) our Swiss ”filets de perche” and was a real treat, the wine was not breathtaking (however, it should be mentioned that it was already an achievement to find some wine, since many restaurants in the region do not serve alcohol). As a desert, we treated ourselves with a local icecream. The day seemed perfect, and so I went to bed with a full belly and a smile on my face. Mark headed to the clinic and then aired through the lively streets of this cute holiday resort.  I would do so the next day, in the early morning, going for a run along the coast. Ciao!

The bandages on my fingers are shrinking as fast as the polar icecap: today, the quack only bandaged the last 2 phalanges. The index and 4th fingers are looking in really good shape, as is the wrist wound. The middle finger is coming along too, though more slowly. Pretty soon it will be my only bandaged limb. (That way it will be very obvious if I give someone the finger!).

As we near our destination and the days till our big party finale can be counted on one hand, the amount of logistics is slowly picking up again. After almost 3 months  of not having to think or plan anything beyond the next day’s kilometers, we’re having to put our brains back into gear. Thank god for Leon, our friend and organizer extraordinaire who is helping us put everything into place; without him it would be impossible. His huge efforts notwithstanding, I had to spend an hour this morning typing out emails. The really frustrating thing is that I could be done in 20 minutes if if my hand wasn’t injured: despite positively minute bandages, I still am left punching the keyboard with my left index only! Aaaah the wonders of touch-typing… never will I take them for granted again!

Eventually we were on the way (a leisurly 10:15). The good quality highway made the miles melt away and soon enough, after crossing 2 ranges of small mountains (or large hills, as you may prefer), we glided into Amasya in time for a late lunch. Our stomachs happy, we set out to climb up to the tombs carved high into the cliffs overlooking the town

The climb looked harder than it actually was, although sweat flowed more than we thought: someone had simply turned the heat up. We didn’t linger long. Back on the main street, spotting a movie theatre that showed original versions, we treated ourselves to a couple hours at the pictures. The movie was a cross between a thriller and a horror film, neither our cups of tea, but still, it provided an adequate activity while the sun was blazing. With the temperatures more clement, we strolled the cozy streets for a little longer, before settling down to do wind up the day with what else but a little admin, albeit while looking out on the prettily lit up cliffs and caves.

Given that we cut down the number of km on our daily riding menu, and given that the roads we chose appear to be of decent quality and with minor traffic, the riding only takes a small part of our day. Consequently, Mark’s motivation (which I did at some point manage to induce into him) to leave ‘early morning’  is gone for good and our day therefore starts a ‘little’ later and the rythm substantially slowed down…  So we leave now between 9 and 10am, ride for 2-3 hours and arrive early afternoon at our daily destination. While in the past, especially in China, we would arrive exhausted late afternoon in places with million things to see, we now have plenty of time to spend in places with few things to see… So, after picking a hotel, grabing a lunch, we take a walk around the city/village checking out the few architectural/historical sites of interest. However, after all we’ve seen so far, it seems that neither Mark nor I seem to really get as enthusiastic as before. Could it be that we are already “blasés”, after the diversity of China, the pristine sceneries of Khirgizstan, the cultural relics of Uzbekistan, the administrative challenges of Turkmenistan and Azerbaidjan, the churches and canyons of Georgia and Armenia, the hospitality of Turkey, etc. ? How can it be that before the trip has even ended, our eyes and minds seem to have somewhat shut to the beauties that used to give us so much excitement and enthusiasm at the beginning of our trip ?

We built this trip from its very bottom starting with getting a valid motorbike driving license… It is not yet time to recount the numerous steps and hurdles we had to go through, but there were many! And when it all started, we were so nervous about how we would manage that for the first few days we couldn’t really appreciate the places we were driving through. Then came the time of confidence, when we acknowledged that everything was going by plan and started to really live the trip out to its full extent. And after surmounting the administrative hurdles linked to our passage through Azerbaidjan, we really felt unstoppable and untouchable. However, this latter phase seems to have lately converted into a  phase of ‘overconfidence’, in which everything seemed to give us a feeling of “been there, done that”. The little incident in Kars should be a reminder to us that the trip has not yet ended, nor have the traps and challenges… and although we may be unstoppable, we are not untouchable.   

What is it in the human nature that makes perfect moments ending feeling dull (as Baudelaire used to say: “le bonheur est un désert d’ennui avec des oasis de désespoir”) ? Why is it, that we just can’t appreciate beauty and peace without getting used to it and thereby diminish its value ?

I have no answer to these questions. But I have a remedy that works for me: GRATEFULNESS. By consciously being grateful for everything you have and manage to do, these things keep their value, and more importantly, they make you strive for more of them…

So, in an elan of gratefulness for having gotten so far and through so many wonderful places and experiences, let’s see what other surprises Turkey has left for us before our arrival in 4 days (!) in İstanbul. 

Ciao!

I wish I had something exciting to write about today… Oh Wait! We’re on the road again! Isn’t that exciting enough? . Having had to cut all the exciting sites we were going to see, yesterday, today and the next 2 days are nothing more than transit days: no interesting sites, no exceptional roads, scenery or countryside planned, and as such the posts will be short.

Today we were able to made steady progress again, riding a further 200 km to Erzincan. The 3 hour journey first passed through what remained of the high green plateau surrounding Erzurum before easing into a small river valley, petering out shortly before Erzincan. The weather was clement, despite a few drops of rain. By the time 1PM rolled around, we were checked into the comfortable Grand Hotel Burucu. There is nothing truly “grand” about it, but private bathroom with western toilet is definitely a couple steps up from yesterday’sshared “turkish” style loo.

Our guidebook blatantly dismisses Erzincan as a place fit only to change busses. Perhaps is it a reflection on the lack of tourist attractions only, for we are finding the little town of 18,000 rather pleasant. Far more at any rate than Erzurum. After lunching on manti (dumplings similar to chinese Jiaozi), a very welcome change from kebab and pide, we discovered, wonder of wonders that there was tv channel showing an episode of PRİSON BREAK in english! We had found our afternoon activity.

All in all a nice but uneventful day. Perhaps the best thing today happened just before heading out from Erzurum. We were packed up, sat astride the bikes ready to go when a guy came by with an entire platter of fresh baklava. Despite our protests, he insisted on stuffing a few down our throats; that our helmets made eating these treats nigh impossible didn’t seem to make much of a difference to him (see photo above)… so we ate! There is really nothing like Turkish hospitality!

After a last day of forced rest in Kars, following our rituals of napping, reading and internet-cafeing, the evening lifted our spirits as we could finally start perparing our departure. I did some laundry, brought my shoes to the polisher, started packing. What a nice feeling… I could already smell the road…

So, this morning the alarm clock rang relatively early, 7am. Mark went off to the hospital to change his bandage, once again. He came back around 8:15, but we had to wait another hour until the ointment would dry… But, what is one hour against already 6 days ? So, I took my Ipod and this last hour eventually passed.

Around 9:30am we were downstairs putting on our helmets, our gloves and our smiles… Broum, broum, off we were.

Since we had only 8 days left to get to Istanbul, we had to reformat our route. We had to cut all the south of Turkey as well as Capadoccia, eventually rejoining our original route in Sinop, along the black sea. 5 days to cross the heart of Turkey. We cut the distance in 5 little pieces, ie days, choosing big and good roads, in order to avoid long and difficult riding hours so that Mark´s hand could slowly get used to driving again.

Today’s target was Ezurum, 200km from Kars, a target which we reached within 3 hours, on a beautiful and straightforward road. Erzurum is situated just under 2,000 m altitude and is apparently Turkey’s highest city. It has even some mosques, medreses and citadels to visit. What a treat after 6 days in Kars. So, that’s it, we’re back on the road!

Stay tuned.

As we have embarked on week 11, our last full week “on the road”, we’re sorry to have to break a tradition we have forced ourselves to upkeep over the past 2 and some months: the daily postings. As you can astutely derive from the title, I am grouping 3 days in today’s post. Now before you unleash all that hatemail on us, let me try to explain:

As much as I resisted this move, I was finally convinced by Clarisse’s argument: WHY SHOULD YOU BE AS BORED BY THESE DAYS ADVENTURES AS WE ARE? Indeed, since my unfortunate little mishap on saturday, we have been confined to Kars, waiting for my hand to heal enough to hit the road again.

We’ve been confined to a couple places along the way for a bit - Kashgar, Ashkabad, Tbilisi – but each of those places held some interest or had multiple sites to visit. Not so Kars! Despite it being a very pleasant little town, there is but one thing to see here: the ruins of Ani which we dutifully roamed around on monday afternoon (day 71). Monday morning as well as tuesday and today, our main activity has been to dutiefully watch the grass grow. This all-important activity has been punctuated by several daily rituals, which, to satisfy your curiosity, I shall list, chronologically if you please!

• 10 AM: I head to the clinic to change the dressing on my hand while Clarisse reads or naps
• 11 AM: we lie on our beds reading
• 1 PM: we emerge from the hotel room and debate whether to have another doener or another pide/lagmacun (turkish pizza – we’re still unsure of the difference between the 2 types)
• 2 PM: back in the room reading
• 3 PM: internet cafe
• 10 PM: I head back to the clinic for another change of dressing
• 11 PM: sleep

Frankly, it’s very unexciting. I must commend Clarisse on her goodnatured patience, as she seems to be taking this forced rest very well. I on the other hand am tired of being here and can,t wait to leave. Perhaps it is because I blame myself for falling and putting us off schedule… or maybe I am impatient for my hand to recover and our departure will mean just that… either way, the doctors seem to think that the wounds look much better. My mood was bolstered when Murat, the very friendly EMT who received me on Saturday said I sdhould be able to leave on Friday! Finally… still, It will have been 6 whole uneventful days days in Kars, lived according to the schedule I laid out above. So yes, we decided to spare you our daily ordeals of nothingness. Still thinking about hatemail? No? I didn’t think so.

As I mentionnrd above, in this sea of uneventfulness, one excursion is a must: the only reason to come to Kars -why we came in the first place- is to visit Ani, the ruıned capital of western Armenia, a kingdom long extinct. Ani was an important political and commercial capital around the year 1,000 when many of its buildings went up. Located on a triangular plateau, it is rendered impregnable by deep river gorges on all sides (today these gorges are lined with tall barbed wire fences and watchtowers separating Armenia and Turkey, an indication of the inimity reigning between both nations):

Only few of the distinctly armenian looking buildings remain, but what is standing, along with the sheer extent of the plateau is testimony to the importance this ancient city once had.

To me, perhaps the most gripping feature of the site are the 1,000 year old paths (see above) that visitors still follow around the site. All in all a very worthwhile visit: well worth a detour through Kars when in this part of the world. However, take care to avoid accidents: although the clinic is decent and the people friendly, you don,t want to be stranded here for longer than it takes you to visit Ani.

With that I leave you be and hope we write on friday with the exciting news that we are someplace else!