A roundabout affair

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It was a genuinely sad goodbye to our hosts this morning. Kahleed seemed pretty bummed that we couldnt hang about and eat and have tea. And I reckon I would have obliged if we werent so keen to get to Turkey and onwards to Iran.

Rode towards the border. Stopped in a small town and had some fellaffells with our last Syrian pounds. Sure enough we were invited to have tea. Of course we obliged.

Got to the border. And here the fun started.

After some broken communication I was told that I couldnt cross the border to Turkey as my visa had expired and they didnt issue visas at this border post. Faaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkk!

Our goal was a mere 60kms away and we were thwarted by the lack of a little sticker in my passport.
FFFFFFFaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkk!!!!!
Told we had to cross into Turkey at a crossing north of Alleppo.

The rest of the day consisted of this...
bus back to Alleppo pretty much along the road we had just taken four days to ride accross. 250km.

Back in stink city.
Minibus accross the border with the most wily of creatures. Our driver was a total pro at doing this. He was lashing out sneeky bribes and got a stash of ciggies accross the border.
60km

Now in Gaziantep at about 7pm. Cold, tired and in need of a shower.
Minibus to Sanilurfa.
150km.

Total distance travelled to get to where we wanted to be-- about 400km or so. Should only have been 60km on the bike. Dang.

Got to Sanilurfa at about 10pm.

Checked into a hotel with no hot water.

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