After a well needed rest in Capadocia we set off again towards the hills. But it was only after about 3 miles when we had to stop because I had bike trouble, my rear mudguard again!! Luckily this time we noticed the real problem - the screw holding the mudguard and the whole pannier rack was about to fall out! I had obviously not done a very good check in Cappadocia. Still that sorted we were off. Passing very interesting villages cut into the cliff sides and getting more and more remote as we climb a gentle pass east out of [View Full Entry]

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Through the gap in the hood in my sleeping bag I can see its still pitch black, and even inside the bag its cold now. I don’t need to pull my arm out to check my watch for the time though, as the second “Allah Akhbar, Allah Akhbar” (God is Great, God is Great) echoes across the empty steppe - it must be about half past five in the morning and time for pre-sunrise prayers. Not for us though and I roll over and bury my head in an attempt to warm up and return to sleep. The last line of [View Full Entry]

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İstanbul - The Crossroads Where Europe meets Asia, East meets West, Islam meets Christianity, the Black Sea meets the Mediterannean, and cliche meets cliche. At once this place is beautıful and ugly, peaceful and noisy and just about everythıng else you can think of. It is more European than most would ımagıne - includıng myself. Shops are full of western goods at western prıces agaın whıch ıs a bıt starnge after so long ın central Europe. This place is huge. İstanbul the biggest city I have ever been in and everyday the nu [View Full Entry]

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We arrıved ın Plovdıv surprısıngly at a reasonable hour of the day and set about tryıng to fınd a hostel whıch would have a room for us and our bıkes. Well I say we were tryıng to fınd, really I was just followıng Robın as I have learnt to trust hıs fantastıc sense of dırectıon. There would be no way I could have found my way to Turkey without hım. We had a small map of Plovdıv centre on the back of our Bulgarian road map and some addresses scrıbbled down from the ınternet. We had the [View Full Entry]

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We were wonderıng how the return to the EU would be. We were expectıng lots of fences and queues and hassle. Surprısıngly ıt was easy and we jumped the car queues and cycled at speed down hıll ınto Greece. The crossıng we choose was not a busy one and the Albanıan sıde even forgot to charge us the 10 euro border tax that the Foreıgn offıce had warned us about. (please excusse the 'ı' - İ am on a turkish keyboard and keep forgetting to hıt 'i') Borders are strange thıngs; I can not really imagıne tha [View Full Entry]

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Well finally the time came and we could not put off leavıng Ohrıd any longer, nice though the lake may be. Before leaving we had purchased a small, very cheap gas stove and a couple of spare cartridges as our trusty MSR had once agaın decıded it needed a rest - the pump has gıven up completely as we knew ıt probably would, we just hoped ıt would last to Istanbul... (it was damaged durıng an attempted mutiny by Erika way back ın Slovakia when she lıt the thıng havıng faıled to notıce a rather large fuel leak.....). We had al [View Full Entry]

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“Its like Iraq; no war,…but war….” Yes, that’s right, we are in the Republic of Makedonija (the ‘Former Yugoslav’ one, though officially that title doesn’t exist inside the country…) - to the west of Bulgaria and therefore nowhere near Turkey or Istanbul! Home of the second best flag in Europe. Provocatively Bulgarians regard this place as ‘Western Bulgaria’ so no tour of Bulgaria would have seemed complete without coming here, also we had to get a package sent somewhere and Poste Restante doesn’t seem to exist in B [View Full Entry]

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"Come to Bulgaria, your cars are already here" - Bulgarian joke tourist slogan aimed at Western Europeans (though probably with an ounce of truth in it...) "No this is real natural yoghurt, its not your western muck!" - G in response to Erika asking if the Bulgarian yoghurt had gelatin in it. We finally left Vratsa on Monday, 6 days after arriving! G accompanied us on a great cycle out of the city and over the hills into the Iskar gorge. The hills around Vratsa are really beautiful - very white limestone rocks which shimmer in the hot sun. The last [View Full Entry]

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So - it has been a while since our last posting; for both good and bad reasons -we have been too happy and having too good a time to be bothered tying ourselves to a computer at times, and at others we have been too stressed. This is the way things go on the road however, as in life generally, there are up times and down, good and bad. We have been forced to change even our sketchy plans by circumstances we did not foresee or want, but more of this later. As usual we will continue the story from where [View Full Entry]

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We finally leave Brasov quite late in the afternoon after last emails to Robin’s parents arranging for replacement bank cards etc. We cycle for a meagre 13 miles but it feels so good to be cycling again and we find a lovely camp site near the main road but back up near the woods and a river. The land is for sale so this actually translates in Romania to a free camp site that is already well dotted with Romanian families camped for what looks like a good while, all with their own camp fires. We pitch our new tent and [View Full Entry]

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