Category: Oriental Express

Day 4, part 2: Mahmet

“Yarın, yarın!!”
—Mahmet

As I was talking on the phone with Honda Road Assist, some man in his 50ies was attentively listening me speak. After I hung up, he inquired what the problem was. I explained that I could not afford to pay 1600 dollars to repair my motorcycle in Istanbul, and that I had no idea what I was gonna do after getting there. “I have friends who operate a Honda-authorized repair store,” he said. “In the same quarter as my house in Istanbul. They will do it for cheap. Very cheap. Economic!”

He called his friends and asked them to call me to arrange our meeting once I arrive in Istanbul. I received a call after a minute. Luckily the guy spoke English.

“Hello, is this Areg bey?”

“Yes, I am the guy with the motorcycle problem”

“When will you be in Istanbul?”

“Tomorrow in the morning”

“Tamam! Please record my number. Call me when you arrive in the bus station. We are in Harem. In Istanbul there is an Asian part and a European part. We are in the Asian part. Do not cross the bridge to the European part, or it will be very expensive to bring you back.”

“Great, thanks a lot sir!”

“Not at all!”

That sounded hopeful. “Saying “not at all” to a “thank you” is so old-school”, crossed my mind, but overall I was certainly very happy. I had a number I could call in Istanbul! I thanked the man who arranged the contact for me and asked who he was.

“My name is Hakan.” He passed me his business card

“Pleasure to meet you, sir. Are you the manager here?”

“I am the owner.”

I looked at his business card. “KRAL Otel. Hakan Kral Yilmaz. Kral Turizm.”

“Call me if you have problems in Istanbul!”

I left the otel and figured I wanna do some sightseeing before leaving to Istanbul. This later turned to be the most stupid decision, and helped me adopt a new general rule when traveling on a motorcycle — if you have any problems with the motorcycle, do not do anything else before making sure everything is OK.

So I went to take pictures of the mosque in the center. In the outside it looked pretty Armenian. I am not an architecture whiz, so I took some photos to check later with more competent folks.

After the mosque I bought some cherry ice-cream from a store and started eating it right there in the street. I guess my behavior was very wrong for Ramazan, because I felt very much like a lady in Yerevan who smokes while walking in the street. My Armenian readers will know exactly what that means.

Then I took some more pictures to give a general idea of what life in Erzurum is like.

When I went back to the “otopark” to take my motorcycle to the bus-station, a surprise awaited me. Outside Cengiz’s booth there was a police motorcycle, a Honda CBF600!

Turned out Cengiz had seeked out some policeman who was riding a CBF and was eager to help a fellow motorcyclist in trouble. His name was Mehmet. An extraordinarily positive person who looked and acted much like a superhero from a cartoon, Mehmet was excited for the chance to help me. He checked the motorcycle’s damage and threw his hand. “You only need to repair the throttle grip, then you can continue your journey.”

He called someone in Istanbul. “Will cost you 90 liras. About 60 dollars. When you go to Istanbul, call this guy,” he passed me a business card. “Mototal. Aslan bey. He always repairs my Hondas. Good usta! Very economic!” Then he checked the damages again. “Maybe you can even repair your grip here in Erzurum! Come!”

We took Cenghiz’s Peugeot and they drove me to some places. The “usta”s said they could repair the motorcycle, but only if they had the part.

“No original Honda parts in Erzurum,” Mahmet said.

“How does the Police repair their CBFs then?”

“Ankara! We put them on a truck and send them to Ankara or Istanbul! It is best for you to go to Istanbul!”

“I have to be at the bus station at 4:00 then, I only have 10 minutes left!”

“Yavash!!”

Mahmet sat me in a car, started my motorcycle and rode it fast with the broken grip to the bus station. I came in the car. By the time I arrived, Mahmet was already there, looking disappointed. “Yarın, Yarın!” he yelled before I even managed to get out of the car. “Yarın! The bus left! And we can’t take the bike back to otopark because we had to empty the tank. You will leave tomorrow!”

He approached a police station near the bus terminal and exchanged some words with the policemen there. “Lets leave your bike here in this station,” he suggested. “You can do that. Then tomorrow you just come here, take your motorcycle and go to Istanbul.”

They drove me back to KRAL Otel and I checked in again. “Like yesterday?” I asked about the price. “Yes, 70 liras” nodded the receptionist. I wanted to say “OK”, but remembered Uğur.

“Mmhm!”, I said.

Day 4 part 1: Little Italy

“Che cazzo!”
—David

I woke up early again, to go to the police station as requested yesterday. Walked down to the hotel reception to let them know I wanted to check out. The receptionist told me I should be checking out before noon. I had some time before my 9:00 appointment with the police, so I went to the “otopark” again. The booth was locked. I called Cenghiz. He said some things in Turkish and hung up. After 5 minutes he arrived on his Peugeot and shown me that he was sleeping using gestures. I used Google Translate to tell him that I had managed to get a bus to Istanbul at 4 o’clock. He said he also found some friends who could help me. I then told him I needed to get to the police station by 9:00, and left.

Now, yesterday, when I was arranging my bus trip for 4:00, I was a little worried. I was not sure I would make it, because of the police appointment. My experience with the Armenian police had taught me a bitter lesson of how much time one can spend at police stations over really small things. Uğur told me it wouldn’t take more than an hour, but I was still worried. I arrived at the station a little early — at 8:45, walked in and approached the first policeman.

“Hello sir. English?”

“Yes?”

“I had an accident yesterday on a motorcycle, and the police asked me to be here today at 9:00?”

“Yes. Please wait for about 5 minutes”

“I was on a black Honda, if that helps you?”

“Yes, I know your accident. Sorry it happened in Erzurum.”

After a few minutes someone brought a copied A4 paper and gave it to me. It had the scheme of my accident and some notes in Turkish.

“It says here that you were going slightly above the speed limit and that you have lost control of the vehicle. This is what our experts believe. When you go to a repair shop anywhere in Turkey, show this to them. Don’t worry about anything else”

“Is that all? Am I done?”

“Yes”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes sir, you can go now. Thank you for coming”

I thanked him, walked out and checked my watch. It was 8:55. I had finished 5 minutes earlier than my actual appointment time.

So I walked back to the hotel, and on my way back came across another parked BMW R1200GS Adventure (so many R1200GS’s out there, eh?), with two riders trying to exchange money in the bank nearby. I walked in. The riders were a man and a woman, both mid-aged with attractively gray hair, dressed in really classy full motorcycle apparel, looking like a couple. They were busy having a loud argument with the bank representative in lousy English. “Che cazzo!” the man yelled. “Wat you meen I cennot exchange Euro coins in ATM?! Cazzo! Ma perche no? Why not! Big problem!”

Italians!

They obviously came to no solution, because there was no way the machine could exchange the coins for them. They came out of their booth, pissed, and I approached them.

“Buongiorno!”

“Ooo ciao amico! Sei Italiano?”

“No sir I am actually an Armenian traveling here on a motorcycle like you, except I am alone and my bike is not as great as yours”

“Thank you!” his anger disappeared and he gave a really wide smile. “It is a wonderful motorcycle, isn’t it? The best for traveling!”

“I wish I could have it someday. But currently I have a bigger problem — I had an accident yesterday, and my motorcycle is broken now. I am taking it to Istanbul in a few hours. Do you know any people there who could help me?”

The lady jumped in at that point with an “aww!”, being all lady-sweet. They asked about the details of my crash and of course whether or not I was OK.

“Oh yeah, the fucking roads here! Slippery! Two french motorcyclists lost control and jumped off the bridge yesterday, one of them died, the other went back to fucking France! Roads very slippery! Because there is so many bad cars, and it is the gas…”

“Exhaust?”

“E giusto! Correct word! Exhaust on strada! It is as if when the rain just starts!! On dry asphalt! Che Cazzo, and we also meet noone that speaks English here!”

“So then, do you know anyone who could help?”

“Hmm yes, we know someone in Ankara who helps all motorcyclists, he might have friends in Istanbul. Call Ersin! Tell him you are a friend of David and Marcella. He met us in Ankara, he will help you!”

I called Ersin right away.

“Hi, I am a traveling motorcyclist who had an accident. David and Marcella gave me your number and said that you speak English and could help me out”

“Aaaa, the italians, David, Marcella, say hi to them, let me call you back, you need your phone credits.” He hung up and called me. After listening to my story in details, he said.

“I will try to find someone in Istanbul. Please wait for 10 minutes. Someone will call you from there.”

“OK!”

The italians wished me a safe trip and left. After 10 minutes I got a phone call.

“Hello, this is Honda Road Assist in Istanbul. How may I help you?” the guy sounded extremely American

“Hi, thanks for calling me. I had an accident and I need to repair my bike.”

“What is your model?”

“2006 Honda CBF500”

“Are you on the road now? Do you require immediate assistance?”

“No, I crashed yesterday”

“Where are you now?”

“Will be in Istanbul tomorrow”

“Which parts need to be repaired?”

“Throttle grip and its cables, turn signal, tachometer gauge, clutch lever. I would also like to check my front brake.”

“Please hold on a second… Yes sir, we have all those parts except for the tachometer gauge. It could take some time to ship it to Istanbul. Everything else is fine.”

“How long would a repair take?”

“A repair without the gauge would take less than a day”

“And how much would it cost me, approximately?”

“Your estimate would be about 1000 euros, or 1600 dollars.”

“??!”

“We understand it is very expensive. Parts in Turkey are expensive because of very high import taxes. If you have full insurance, your insurance will cover everything”

“I only have the minimal one!”

“That is a problem. Perhaps you could contact Honda headquarters and explain your situation and they could give you a discount! Do you want their contacts?”

“Yes please!”

I called the number they gave. Nobody answered. Tried again. Then again. Then again, after 20 minutes. No answer.

I felt bitter. There was absolutely no way I could afford paying 1600 dollars for repairing my bike and be able to continue the trip.

Day 3 part 2: Cengiz and Uğur

“You don’t go to a turk, ask for the price and say “OK.”
You go to a turk, ask for the price, and then you say — “But why??””
—Uğur Salman

The watcher of the “autopark” was a man in his 60ies named Cengiz. With barely 3 visible teeth in his mouth, he could not speak a single word in English and could not even comprehend simple words like “OK”. So I was sitting there, a lone “Ermeni” who had just crashed his motorbike, in this booth somewhere in Erzurum with this Turkish man who I could not speak a word with, my Mastercard being declined and my right knee hurting because of the impact. A pretty fucked up situation, or so I felt. I went to check my motorcycle for the damage. The throttle grip was broken, the left mirror smashed, the clutch lever and the headlight metal twisted, the front left turn signal broken. There was, however, good news — the engine started fine, and there was no leakage. I just could not ride it because of the broken throttle grip. We walked back to the booth. “Su?” asked Cengiz. Not knowing what that meant, I suddenly realized I was extremely thirsty. “Water”, I said. “I’m thirsty!”. “Su, su!” Cengiz opened the fridge and handed me two bottles of cold water. “Su” meant “water”. I will never forget.

He then turned on his old PC, fired up Internet Explorer with a bunch of stupid toolbars and yelled — “Internet!”

That sounded so right!

Google Translate took over from that point. Cengiz asked my name, asked me about my job in Armenia, gave me a thumbs up about being a programmer, then started calling to places and looking for Honda Repair shops in Ankara and Istanbul. After 2 hours of searching and calling, we could not find anything. I started getting hopeless again. “Yemek?”. Yemek means to eat. Cengiz suggested that I check into a hotel, eat something and call him tomorrow morning: “yarın!” He then walked me into a hotel called “Kral Hotel”, bargained a price for me at the counter from 100 dollars a night down to 50, carried my luggage all the way to the room, refilled my phone credits for 25TL, gave me his number and disappeared.

I took a shower, changed my clothes, and walked out to try and find something on my own. Now here is a useful traveling tip: nobody, I mean NOBODY speaks English in Erzurum. Although a pretty vibrant town, the society itself is very “traditional”. People do not speak anything but Turkish, and because of Ramazan all restaurants and eating places are either closed, or completely empty before 7:30. Nobody eats anything. So I tried my luck with “I’m sorry”ies and “Excuse me”ies and even “Hi”s, but nobody would even respond. And then, through trial and error, I met Uğur, fitting a carpet with a friend into a small red Opel. He had a backpack, and it somehow looked as though he could speak English.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes?”

“Do you speak English?”

“A little!”

Yay! 5 minutes later Uğur and his friend Ibrahim were driving me in Ibrahim’s car to the motorcycle repair places in Erzurum. Ibrahim couldn’t speak English but he could understand the word “OK” and nod. After seeing some shops I started worrying about troubling the fellows too much.

“Aren’t you busy? I don’t want to take your time!”

“No problem my friend, we help you and then we go!”

Uğur and Ibrahim were in the Turkish Air Force. Ibrahim was a pilot, Uğur was an air traffic controller.

“Are you Ermeni?”

“Yes, how did you guess?”

“You look like a turk, but you are not a turk!” he laughed. “That means you are Ermeni! Similar face like brothers! Kurds more different face!”

“…”

“If you no have problem with me, I no have problem with you. Like brothers.”

After talking to many different mechanics about my motorcycle’s broken parts, Uğur and Ibrahim decided that it was best for me to go to Istanbul.

“Take a bus, bus cheap!”

“But I need to take my motorcycle with me! How will I fit it into a bus?”

“Motorcycle yes, bus yes, OK!”

“Dude, my motorcycle weighs 200 kilos and is pretty wide, it is no bicycle!”

“Kawasaki 1200cc in bus OK? Your motorcycle bigger than Kawasaki??”

I shut up.

“We take you bus station now.”

The bus station was somewhere in the outskirts. The two friends walked to one of the company representatives, and started explaining my situation in Turkish. The driver didn’t even want to hear about taking a motorcycle on a bus. Uğur and Ibrahim were, however, persistent. Along the conversation I heard the word “Kawasaki”. The bullet argument. The bus driver gave up, opened the luggage compartment and asked me if the bike would fit.

“Evet!” I nodded.

“Tamam!”

“How much?” I made a money gesture to the driver

He took a paper out of his shirt pocket and wrote on it — “350 dolar”

“OK,” I told the driver and gave him a thumbs up. “Do we leave now?” I asked Uğur. He looked annoyed.

“You don’t go to a turk, ask for the price and say “OK.”! You go to a turk, ask for the price, and then you say — “But why??””

I shut up.

“We now bargain the price. Give us time my friend.”

After about 10 minutes of talking really loud, Uğur turned to me.

“200 liras, or 130 dollar. Is OK?”

I was stunned. “OK!”

“You never say OK to price!” he smiled. “No forget! We take you to otel now? What you wanna do?”

“I have taken so much of your time! I insist that I take you guys out on dinner! What do you say? You can’t say no!”

“Yes, OK”

“Only one condition — I pay!”

“OK! Can we take Ibrahim’s carpet to his home first?”

“Sure, where does he live?”

“It is near, military base!”

I shut the fuck up.

Something has to be said about the Turkish military. There is a huge lot of military bases all over the place — inside cities, towns, and along the highways. They are easy to recognize because the walls are painted a specific orange red. There is always an armed soldier guarding the entrance. Sometimes the soldier runs out and raises a flag, if the base is on a busy street. That stops all traffic and you can see tanks or Land Rover vehicles with NATO marking driving in and out. The military have a lot of respect in the public, and they look kinda different: always in good shape, hair done, the “charismatic alpha” kind. Uğur told me the military have more respect than the police. “First soldiers, then jandarms, then police.” I figured that with so many bases and so much respect in the society, whoever controlled the military would have an immense control over Turkey’s internal politics. I insist that it must be so, even if it is not.

Nobody stopped our car. Ibrahim and Uğur took the carpet up, and came back with Ibrahim’s mom.

“OK, we go, wait one hour, then 7:30 we eat. Ramazan!”

We went to a restaurant somewhere downtown, and talked about almost everything for an hour, from sex to PKK. Uğur was asking a lot of questions.

“You have a girlfriend?” he asked

“What do you mean by a girlfriend?” I wondered

“Someone you want to marry all your life but you have to wait because you can’t marry now!”

“No, I guess I never had a girlfriend on those terms!” I laughed

“Oh, Why no girlfriend? I have a girlfriend! We marry next week!”

“…”

“Do you know dolma?”

“Yeah I know Dolma!”

“Ibrahim’s mother makes great Dolma! You know what Dolma means in Turkish?”

“No idea?”

“Something inside!”

“Like, stuffed?”

“Yes, stuff! Something inside, stuff!”

At exactly 7:30 the food started coming. We had excellent meals: roast lamb meat, borek with cheese, cutlets and kebabs followed by dessert. I asked for the bill. The waiter got ridiculed.

“It is free!” laughed Uğur. “Ramazan!”

“But I insisted that I pay!”

“It is free. Food is free. It is Ramazan! Everything you eat free!”

We then walked around the town, they helped me exchange my dollars for liras and that is when I realized I had not spent a single dollar whole day except for the accommodation.

Day 3 part 1: Accident

“Like a good muslim!”
—Turkish traffic police officer

I took off from Ardahan early in the morning, hoping to arrive early in Erzurum. The weather was amazing, and the road was perfect. There was a road section on the way that was being renovated, and the workers were doing such a thorough job that I thought I should get off the bike and take a picture of the thickness of an asphalt layer that real roads are supposed to have.

After about 3 hours, I entered Erzurum. A pretty large city with visually decent economy. Once you enter the city, on a span of 300 meters you come across a car dealership office for every single brand that you can recall, from Dodge all the way to Mercedes. No motorcycles though. How come? Another thing you notice is that the tarmac is extremely slippery, just the way it usually is when rain just starts pouring and the car exhaust chemicals are not washed off the ground yet. What’s wrong? How can tarmac be so slippery when it’s dry?

I rode into some petrol station, refueled, and asked to pay with a Mastercard at the counter. My card was rejected. That gave me a sick feeling — I knew for a fact that my HSBC Mastercard was OK, and I didn’t have a lot of cash with me!

Riding out of the station, I dropped my speed to about 50 km/h, entered some tunnel that was curved inside, realized I was going too fast, pushed my brakes, locked the wheels, skid, hit the tunnel wall on the curve, fell down, the end.

Not really. I then hit the engine killer switch, got up, checked to make sure that I was alright and put my helmet in front of the tunnel so that the cars could know something was wrong inside. Some car stopped. The driver helped me lift the motorcycle, asked if I needed ambulance, called the police, told them a “motosiklet turist” has an accident, and left wondering how could I survive that crash — I hadn’t even scratched a finger. I was actually surprised myself. Surprised and grateful for every single dollar I had not saved when purchasing my protection gear. Kudos to AGV, Dainese and Spidi!

Two police cars arrived in less than two minutes. One of them blocked the tunnel entrance, the other one drove in and 3 policemen started asking me questions and registering my accident. Their behavior was, again, extremely professional. All of them were very polite, helpful and sorry for my problem. Only one of them spoke English.

“Ambulance?”

“No, I’m OK”

“Move your hands and touch your legs please?”

(I move my arms and touch my legs)

“Move hands in other direction?”

(done)

“No pain?”

“No”

“Can you stand straight?”

“Yes”

“Tamam. License plate? What country?”

“Armenia”

“Nationality?”

“Armenian”

“Tamam. Insurance papers?”

“Here.”

“Tamam. I will ask the central station where the closest authorized Honda Repair shop is, and we can take your motorcycle there.”

“Thanks!”

“What was your speed?”

“50km/h”

“The law requires that you do 30km/h inside tunnels. You were riding too fast.”

“50 is too fast? I didn’t see a speed sign before entering the tunnel! Was there one?”

“No sign, the speed limit in tunnels is a general law.”

“OK, well I didn’t know that”

“We need to do an alcohol test. Did you drink before driving?”

“No!”

“Can you please blow into the tube?”

I blew into the tube. He looked at the readings, dazzled. The sensor said “0.00”. He resetted it.

“Can you blow again?”

I blew again. “0.00”

“Like a good muslim eh? If you died here, you’d go to paradise my friend!” He laughed. Then pointed his finger up. “Ramazan!”

At that point the “central station” contacted him on the radio and told him that there is no Honda in Erzurum.

“The closest official Honda repair store is in Ankara. We will have to tow your motorcycle to the autopark, and you can decide what you wanna do later on. Towing service will cost you 30 dollars. Parking lot will cost you 3 dollars per night.”

“OK.”

“You sure you don’t need ambulance?”

“I’m sure”

“OK, please call 112 if you feel wrong later on”

The towing vehicle arrived in about 5 minutes, and took my motorcycle and myself to some open-air car parking area with a bunch of smashed cars and motorcycles. The police drove away, asking me to go see them at the central station tomorrow at 9am, to get a copy of my accident report. “You need that copy, because your insurance will have to pay for the damage you did to the tunnel wall.”

Day 2: Brave

Had an extremely rich day. Crossed two borders, arrived in Ardahan and solved some important logistics issues today. Satisfied and excited about riding to Erzurum tomorrow.

In the morning in Gyumri I did meet the BMW riders during breakfast. Despite the license plate being Italian, the riders themselves were Greek and their destination was Yerevan. Our talk was short but useful, as they gave me valuable information about road conditions in Georgia and Turkey as well as an excellent tip on the relationship between speeding foreign motorcyclists and Turkish policemen. As we were parting, they asked:

“Are you riding the trip on that Honda by yourself?”

“Yup!”

“You are brave!”

I grinned. “Your machine is such an overkill for the trip you’re taking” crossed my mind, but I kept it to myself. We checked out of the terrific hotel, purchased a USB cable and some medicine and headed out to the border.

Now if you are a motorcyclist who happened to arrive here doing a search on border crossing between Georgia, Turkey and Armenia then here’s a tip for you — border crossing is quick! You will hardly spend more that 20 minutes on the checkpoints. I rode into Georgia, refueled at Chevron (why don’t we have Chevron fuel in Armenia?), and rode to find someone on the road who could help me find directions to Akhalkalaki and Akhaltshkhe. Shortly I came across a police car that had pulled someone over. I stopped by their car and one of them approached me, realizing I wanna ask something.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes please, I need to find the border crossing with Turkey at Posof.”

“You’re going to Turkey? You’ll need to turn left at the next intersection then keep going straight all the way to Akhaltskhe. About 70 kilometers, then you will see the signs.”

“Great, thanks!”

“Are you from Armenia?”

“Yeah”

“And you’re going to Turkey?”

“Yes, to Istanbul!”

“You are brave! Good luck, brother!”

I grinned again and rode off. By the way, I would be an asshole if I didn’t mention that both policemen were extremely nice, polite, helpful, eager to help and charismatic. Our own policemen have a long way to go to get there.

After a some riding across Georgian towns with a lot of Armenian markings, captions and labels, I arrived at Posof border crossing. Huge Turkish flags, everyone acted extremely professional and there was this feeling after Georgia of somehow entering Europe. I approached the security official stamping the passports and used the only Turkish word that I know:

“Mehraba!” (Turkish: Hello!)

“…Hay es?” (Armenian: Are you Armenian?)

“Ayo!” (Armenian: Yes!)

“Bari galust Turqia, sireli yeghbayr!” (Armenian: Welcome to Turkey, dear brother!)

That kinda stunned me for a second. He then asked me if I have international insurance. Finding out that I do not, he called someone and asked me to sign some papers, printing out an insurance form for me. Cost me 15 liras and I was happy I didn’t get one back in Yerevan — would probably cost me an arm and a leg. And so I drove off — Turkey!

The roads are totally Europe. There is generally always a flag in a visible range. The cars obey the speed limits most of the time. Towns are really underdeveloped, however, strangely enough, mechanization level is fairly high.

Road signs and license plates are almost identical to those in Europe. Direction signs are everywhere and navigating is easy. A bewildering experience were the truck drivers — if they see a motorcyclist in the mirror, they give you a hand sign of when to hold behind them for an incoming car and when it is actually safe to pass. Very nice for any motorcyclist, as we know the pain passing over a truck can be on a curvy road.

After about 80 kilometers, I arrived in Ardahan.

A very oriental city, kinda underdeveloped. Does not really compare to any city in Armenia. Mugham in the streets, streets are kinda dirty, almost all women wear hijabs, town center looks like some 3rd rank square in Bangladesh, Yerevan. Obviously not big on tourism. All roads are strangely made of cobblestone.

I checked into some really crappy hotel for 50 liras per night (I think it was the best in town) and went to eat something. What do you eat in Turkey? That’s right, kebab!! All sorts of them!

The way these people prepare meat here is absolutely stunning. I have realized that this journey is gonna be journey about food.

Not only is meat delicious, they also serve you unlimited amount of wonderfully baked white bread. At 10 liras (about $6,00) you have absolutely no way of staying hungry.

Besides the food, Ardahan is pretty boring and underdeveloped. The hotel is junk: they have WiFi but they do not have hot water until after 9:30. Absolutely nobody speaks English, or anything other than Turkish for that matter. While buying my Turkcell SIM card and configuring my 3G, had to use Google Translate to communicate.

One of the ladies at Turkcell asked a lot of questions about the trip using Google Translate. Finding out that I was heading to Istanbul, she inputted something in Turkish that translated into: “Will you have me?” I presumed it was a Google algorithm error, smiled and walked out.

She’s the second from the left. The guy’s name was Murad, he helped configure my 3G while I was talking with the lady.

Make no mistake with the girls asking you to have them on Google Translate though. Ardahan is extremely boring, no couples and no fun going on. A very typical oriental town. You don’t wanna live there.

There is a some architecture and details that remind of Armenia.

Erzurum tomorrow, that is 239km. Hopefully Erzurum will be more exciting than Ardahan. For now, park yapılmaz!

Day 1: Gyumri

I am in Gyumri and everything seems to be going OK so far.

Tomorrow early in the morning I will be heading out to the Armenia-Georgia border, which is about 60kms from Gyumri. I will then be taking the Akhalkalaki road to the Posof border crossing with Turkey. Ardahan then will be my final destination for the day, about 270 kilometers from where I am now.

The hotel we checked in here in Gyumri is called Berlin Art Hotel. Let me tell you — this is one of the best hotels in Armenia I have ever been to, on par with Tufenkian and leaving Multi Rest fucking House in Tsakhkadzor far behind. The initial price we were offered for a 2-person room was AMD 32,000. After 2 minutes of bargaining we managed to get the price down to AMD 25,000. How neat for a hotel that makes you constantly feel like you are in Germany. They have working ethernet interface (!!!) here for access to the internet, and I have just modified the map on the website to actually display my location live. I will be the glowing big dot at the center.

There was another traveling motorcycle in the hotel’s garage — the wonderful BMW R1200GS Adventure, fully equipped and packed, with an Italian license plate. Unfortunately my tomorrow’s schedule means I won’t be able to meet the riders, but my motorcycle looked like a baby next to the tall 1200cc enduro.

Oh, the new engine oil recommended by Dave works wonders. The engine sounds amazing. Thanks dude!

Crossing two borders in one day in a vehicle is generally considered stressful. Guess we’ll see. I am a little nervous about that.

Rubik, Mineh and Lucy are extraordinarily amazing coming to see me off all the way to the border crossing. No wonder our evening time in Gyumri is so cozy.