Went down to look at the bike this morning and to fill the expansion tank again. And looked at the front calliper. And the front fork. And it looks like one of the front fork seals is leaking. Of course it is. I’m sure The Bitch is spending all her lonely hours waiting alone in scruffy yards just thinking of things to fuck with me. I actually suspect she’s self harming.
I need to find a tool shop. I need 6,7 and 24mm spanners to attend to the current woes. Nobody speaks English, and google thinks a shop selling demolition equipment is what I need. It might be right come to think about it.
So I grab a spanner and wander around at breakfast looking for help. I see a table with some blokes in branded working clothes. I wave my spanner and one bloke immediately whips out a receipt with an address.
Follow the satnav into an edge of town messy maze of places keeping prehistoric vehicles alive. I’m getting close when my 360 google head spots a spanner on a shop front. Among all the chaos, there is beauty.
I love spanners. I love their weight and balance and feel in your hand. So I buy an extra one just because I can.
It’s a long day of hours of nothing punctuated with towns where it feels like the end of the earth. Bodies and vehicles everywhere. The Turkish don’t care, so i don’t care either and go full on pushy bastard. I even sat my bike in front of a car, looked at the driver, tuned the engine off and crossed my arms because he wanted me to turn out of his way.
Getting close to Iran too now.
When I got to Van everything was fine until about a mile out. Then the traffic got so bad I had to abandon for a while. I was getting loads of people hooting me and when I stopped there was petrol pissing out the vent on my extra fuel tank all over the wheel. Of course there was. And the bike was having another meltdown and pissing itself in public. Of course it was. After about 30 minutes a bloke came out the shop I was parked out side. He’d used google translate. It said ‘roadside assistance?’ Oh yea. I’ll just call the AA. Nice of him though. The day was nicely finished by the hotel not being where booking.com said it was. Which was nice.
I’ve been fighting with myself all day today. Thinking about cutting back. Taking a different route home. Avoiding all the places I know I’m going to suffer. Maybe just parking the bitch in a lake and flying back. I know there is trouble ahead.
Thing is, my whole life and career I’ve not been very good at anything much. I’m just very very bad at giving up.
And another worry I’m having is the almost total lack of other travellers. I must have seen about 3 or 4 in the whole of Turkey, and none over this side at all.
Maybe I’m just here at the wrong time of year. Of perhaps I’m here at the wrong year of time.
I’ve been having a bad run of hotels with dysfunctional air conditioning, or in last night’s case, missing. It was roasting in room 101, yes really. There was a window but it stepped straight out onto an internal building aperture with a flat roof. My wife would have closed it. Bolted it. Put bars across it. She would be paranoid about being molested in the night. Me, I set the window wide open. I left a light on. I put out a sign. Nothing…
The Bitch was right where I left her. Leaning against the wall surrounded by people already hawking cheap plastic washing up bowls. I know I berate that bike but I do love it. It’s like a Moroccan donkey. It gets kicked, beaten and bashed but still it goes ever forward.. hopefully. I even feel guilty about it sometimes. Until it suddenly flashes ‘front brake switch failure’ before I’ve even got into 3rd gear..
Get out of Van ASAP. If ever you’re thinking of going. Stop right there. Don’t do it. Stay way way outside on the lake. Van is an absolute hole.
The satnav is going bonkers. Must be getting close to the Iranian border. It keeps loosing its mind. Unable to decide anything.
The mountain tops are dotted with all sorts of nefarious infrastructure. I’m probably right now riding through the equivalent of a microwave. I stop the bike, run up the hill to one of the Iranian outposts, grab a big red phone on a desk and shout WILL YOU LOT PLEASE KEEP THE FUCKING NOISE DOWN. You’re welcome.
I’m on the way to reason No 1 today. I want to see if I can get served coffee in the small town I got refused at couple of years ago. It’s all very quiet and empty. Walk in and it looks like it’s under new management. Womanagement. I’m surprised the wokarati haven’t got their tits in a tangle about that word yet. It’s sure to come. Anyway, these women manage to make me the best cup of coffee I’ve had in Turkey. And cake too. The cake has some ice cream in the middle. Ice cream of unknown provenance in places like this can often be a short cut to the shits but I’ve had so little to eat though I reckon that would just be like squeezing the very very last dregs out of the washing up liquid bottle.
I have a second cup, just to check I’m not dreaming, then I’m on my way. One down, three to go.
I come over the top of a mountain and see another familiar shape on the horizon. Mount Ararat sitting patiently with a nice white hairdo of clouds.
Doğubeyazıt is the town at its base. It may well have been the first place on earth. Right now it looks like the last place.
I’ve been through here a few times now and I’m on first name terms with Noah. He invites me in for a camel milk coffee and then spends the next 2 hours complaining about how since Covid his vets bills have gone right through the roof. I go to the gift shop on the way out to buy my wife something.
What does every wife want? Big rocks? Of course they do. But my wife is different. She wants them as they are now, not as they are after waiting a few million years with a few millions of tonnes pressing down on them. She wants random junk from special places. And who am I to argue.
Another couple of hours watching the massive world go by and I’m in Kars. Last stop in Turkey. Time for another shave.
