Istanbul to Azerbaijan

June

So entering Turkey marked the real beginning of the 'Adventure' for me as it was the first time I'd ever left Europe before. I didn't really know what to expect from the country, but my plan was to ride across it at a gentle pace and try and find some nice scenic and quiet roads to drive on.

The black sea coast immediately impressed me

I set off towards the Black Sea coast, where small quiet roads crossed half the length of the country with only a few larger towns on route. There was no real tourism on this part of the coast, compared to built up Eastern part anyway.

 A nice quiet spot to camp, with mountains on oneside...

 And cliffs on the other.

The roads in Turkey are generally in good condition, but because it's not a densely populated place and because there are large areas with only a handful of towns or villages, there aren't a lot of roads compared to European countries. Also there are plenty of gravel and dirt roads though, some marked on main road maps and plenty more not. Cutting inland to keep in the mountains gave me the opportunity to explore a few of these minor roads - Having a detailed and accurrate map here would have been really useful as I would have liked to have travelled more distance this way.

Muddy section, and a frustrating unsigned fork in the road.

A beautiful view is all the more satisfying when you've had to explore off the beaten track to get to it.

Unfortunately my road map was not detailed, and the small unpaved roads it did show were not accurately represented. If I'd been prepared and brought a proper high quality map with me I could have had a really good dirt-road tour of the country, instead it was back to the main roads. This wasn't that frustrating though, as outside of the major cities there was minimal traffic and the routes went through fantastic scenic places.

Two thirds of the way across the country I bumped into Olaf, a BMW riding German. We were heading in the same direction so we agreed to ride together for a while. Olaf was on the big 1200 BMW, so I was a little worried that he would get frustrated by my slow riding speed, however almost straight away after setting off our route took us onto some smaller roads where high speeds became impossible anyway.

Quick fag break and photo-stop.

I wanted to camp with a fire and cook some Kebabs for dinner - It is a key part of Turkish cuisine after all. All the meat in Turkish supermarkets seems to be kept frozen, so this meant be organised and buying it in the morning so it would be defrosted by the evening. We stopped by what would be the only sizeable town of the day and stocked up, on food but also on some wine. Alcohol is not that popular in Turkey so it was prudent to buy it when passing larger towns incase village shops didn't stock it. We made the classic mistake of parking next to a school and got mobbed by kids. They were of course all friendly, though one of the little buggers did try pinching my sunglasses. I was glad I spotted him as I thought these sunglasses commanded a 'Top Gun' style look that would earn me cool points throughout Turkey and the Caucuses. I was also glad to be with Olaf as I would have felt very uncomfortable leaving the bike unattended with so many people and kids fussing over it.

Beginners mistake - Parking next to a school.

Later on in the day we got stopped at a routine Jandarma checkpoint. This is the kind of situation where common scarestories warn you of corruption etc, however in Turkey I never encountered anything of the sort. At this stop the commander only wanted to say hello and ask where we going. He spoke very limited English but was eager to practise it, so we accepted an offer to head back with him and his men to the Jandarma station and drink tea and eat fruit. All the Turkish people I encountered whilst travelling across the country were very friendly and eager speak to foreigners, even in poor villages there was always a very pleasant welcoming atmosphere. I think the Islamic culture and lack of alcohol consumption helped create a very warm society there.

Obligatory posed photo.

Back on the road we took a nice gravelly detour to steer round some roadworks, and eventually ended up in a beautiful canyon area. The road here was also subject to major roadworks as the whole canyon was to eventually be flooded with the construction of a new dam. We lost some time waiting over an hour whilst construction workers high above us blasted into the rock, with the road below shut off. By the time we were moving again it was getting late and we needed to find somewhere to camp soon. Unfortunately the road ran right alongside the river with and there were no side roads off the main road. I was starting to worry that we might end up riding in darkness when we found the first patch of campable land in about 50km. It was right next to the road but we would have to make do, however as soon as it got dark all the traffic ceased anyway leaving us with a fantastic camping spot. We hadn't found any kebab skewers so tent pegs had to make do for the evening cooking.

The next day we got caught in some rain on a mountain road and took a real soaking, but worse still it had turned cold after days of riding in baking heat. We were now approaching the border with Georgia, and after an hour or two stopped we were on our way, now in the former Soviet Union!

The roads in Georgia were even more sparse than in Turkey and we followed one great road for a couple of hours on great challenging rocky hardpac terrain. This road slowly made its way up to a 2500m pass where we could enjoy a great view of the descent down. Here we came accross some armed men without any obvious uniform markings and for a brief moment I was a little worried as to their purpose, but they were government militia operating a road checkpoint. These guys were a tad more serious than their Turkish counterparts, as you'd expect when it's only last year that Georgia actually fought a war with Russia, but they were still friendly enough and I got a photo with this guy. I noted they were all carrying automatic weapons and never put them down even whilst building a fire, making tea, etc.

Olaf spoke good Russian and it really was amazingly helpful there, all the locals spoke fluent Russian. I'd already known that speaking Russian was essential for anyone wanting to travel through this region, but having to stand by and feel stupid whilst Olaf had near fluent conversations with locals really hit this home. From this point on I was constantly being reminded throughout the trip how foolish I was to have not made an effort to at least learn the basics of the language. On the rough potholed roads the DR350 proved itself the dirtbike it is and ploughing along at decent speed on poor terraine was not a problem for the bike. I was surprised a how well the loaded up BMW 1200GS coped with the rough stuff as well, though I think this was mostly due to Olaf having a lot of skill and experience riding these massively heavy bikes off-road. These few days riding left me with a new respect for the BMWs (though you still couldn't have persuaded me to part with my DR350!).

I left Olaf in Tblisi and pushed on to Azerbaijan on my own. The border crossing was a slow and frustrating one, with immature and cliched border guards trying to belittle the people crossing. The customs officer wanted me to pay him for writing the customs document that allowed me to take the bike into the country. What was worse was that it was only permission for the bike to be there three days! I was eager to try and secure longer permission, and I definately wasn't going to pay a penny. After over an hour of arguing, with matey throwing a tantrum and throwing my passport round his tiny office, he gave in and took me to his boss who made it clear that three days was all they could grant the permission for. I may have wasted my own time, but I felt rather smug in not only depriving the guy of his bribe but wasting his time as well. I think some other border officer was meant to give me a grilling after this, but he must have thought better of it after seeing the pantomime with the customs officer.

The road to Baku was full of road works sections and police checkpoints, and was not an enjoyable one. I wasted no time and did a big mile-munching section to make it to the capital. I needed to make sure I didn't have a problem with the customs permission for the bike, and find out when I could take the ferry across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan. When I took the bike down to the port to see what the customs officers there said, I ran into a couple of other British bikers who I'd spoken to through the Horizons Unlimited community. They'd ran into a couple of local bikers who were helping them out, and it was perfect timing for me as well to benefit from their translation assistance.

At the port.

I'd unfortunately arrived the same day as a ferry was leaving, which meant I would have to wait the maximum length of time till the next sailing. I did however arrive in town just before another British biker moved on, so I enjoyed an interesting chat over lunch with the famous Tiffany Coates, a lady who's ridden her old BMW R80 to more countries than you've had hot dinners. I was also fortunate that Russ, another Brit biker who I'd met in Istanbul, turned up a day or two later giving me a partner in crime to investigate all the British style pubs that there are in Baku due to the oil industry.