Istanbul or Bust - A Long Way Home

We were about to leave Bosnia (new readers might want to begin here) and there was quite a queue to get to the border. Not because the process was arduous but because some idiot had tried to drive round a truck on the bridge over the river that divided the two countries, and nothing could go anywhere. As the traffic eventually started to move and we rode away, a Bosnian border guard walked over and tapped on the offending driver's window. I got the impression one of them had all day to kill, and the other was in a bit of a hurry. It was almost poetry.

Crossing the bridge, we arrived at the Croatian border post. When we'd started this trip Croatia was a candidate for EU membership. By the time we got there it was a full-fledged member which meant no hassle with customs, just a quick glance at my passport and the usual quizzical look at my vehicle paperwork.The woman in the booth demanded it, then clearly had no idea what she was looking at, and shooed me away.

This would be where the group first split. We'd all intended to ride to Bardonecchia, near the French border in Italy, and Steve couldn't quite bear the prospect of a 550 mile day riding across Croatia, Slovenia and Italy. He also wanted to pop in to San Marino, thereby adding another country to his tally and guaranteeing two 600 mile days instead. Sometimes I wonder about people. I needed to be home a day earlier than Mark and Simon, and the prospect of riding to Bardonecchia and then doing 700 miles the next day to get home filled me with dread, so I'd decided to skip Italy and split a direct route over two days. But we had another destination in mind first, so we shook hands with Steve, waved him off and made a move for our final stop in Yugoslavia.

Simon, through his job, had got to know a chap, Dalibor, who was his Croatian counterpart. We'd been invited to stay at his summer house near Bjelovar, just east of the capital, Zagreb. Our host for the night had arranged for friends from two local bike clubs to join us for a barbecue and general biker-lifestyle piss-up, and it seemed like a pretty good deal. The 80 mile ride from the border introduced us to the Croatian approach to speed limits, which seemed to involve putting up random signs at random intervals with random limits that everyone comprehensively ignores. With 50k limits through the countryside, followed by 80k limits through towns, I opted for the tried-and-tested approach of latching onto a local for a bit, before giving up and just riding at whatever speed felt appropriate.

Before long we arrived in Bjelovar where Dalibor was waiting to lead us into the town centre to grab a coffee and meet his friends. We all introduced ourselves, had a drink and got chatting, sometimes directly, sometimes with one of the English-speakers acting as interpreter. Once everyone had turned up we went back to the bikes and followed our host in his car to a nearby village where we were spending the night. It quickly became apparent that what I thought was blatant disregard for speed limits had been small-fry compared to that shown by the locals, and in no time we were parked up and the beer was flowing..

We were soon adopted by two patch-wearing bike clubs, and with the beer flowing we were able to overcome all language barriers. The same trick had worked well for us everywhere we'd been and this was no exception. To give an idea of the scale of our trip, I dug out my full set of Michelin maps for every country we'd been to and spread them out on some wooden decking.

Even Genghis Khan didn't sweep across a continent that fast

To be honest, with them spread out before us, even I was surprised at the scale of our venture. I know people do longer trips, but as a first time out east, with a tight timescale, it felt like we'd gone a bloody long way. By that point it was something like 5600km in twelve days' riding, fairly respectable considering we'd hardly seen a motorway or dual carriageway in Europe since we'd left Hungary ten days earlier. Our host explained, somewhat tongue in cheek, that for his club a typical ride would be more like 50km, followed by a six hour lunch, and another 50km home. Not so different to the UK really, and the kind of thing that some of our group had seemed like they'd prefer at times, but a world apart from what we'd been doing.

Wine followed beer and with the wine came a cracking meal. Our hosts did themselves proud, and I thoroughly enjoyed what I knew would be my last night of the trip as part of a group. All too soon it was time for people to head home, and once again we realised we'd been the only ones hitting the bottle. With yet another long day ahead we headed straight off get some sleep.

I looked at my satnav before hitting the sack, and told it to take me home. I looked again in the morning. It was Saturday, and I was somewhere east of Zagreb in Croatia. Home was 1124 miles away, a good 1800km on top of the 5600 I'd already done. And I had to be at work in London on Monday morning. This was going to be a tough gig.

Estimated arrival, 4pm. Tomorrow.

We'd planned to be moving around 8am, so we were up early and had just finished packing our luggage when Dalibor arrived to make us breakfast. I can never really manage food that early in the morning, but Simon and Steve happily tucked into ham and eggs while I mainlined coffee to try and get myself in a fit state to ride. Only a little later than planned, we hit the road, making a quick stop for fuel before heading for the motorway.

A hundred miles or so later we stopped for fuel and vignettes for Slovenia. Like Austria, Slovenia charges to use its motorways, and for small vehicles they do it the right way: you have to buy a sticker. I had a minor panic when the the alarm on my bike failed to disarm. I pressed the button on the fob, nothing happened. I pressed the button on the spare fob, still nothing happened. I was a long way from home, had no time to lose, and this was the last thing I needed. Mark suggested I try pushing the bike away from the building, which caused the alarm to go off several times, but eventually did the trick, and with another press of the button I was set to go. Panic over, time to hit the road.

Our next stop was the Slovenian border, which only a few days before had been the boundary between the EU and the outside world. Now it was just another border within the union, and there was a sense that a lot of bored people manning their posts suddenly had not a lot to do. Just outside Ljubljana I pulled off the motorway again. We were approaching the point where I'd split off and head north to Austria, while Mark and Simon would go straight on to Italy. After shaking hands and generally congratulating each other on a job well done, we rode to the next junction, and I peeled off.

I'm not ashamed to say that moment was quite emotional. I was still 1005 miles from home, and was now on my own, after spending quite possibly the best two weeks of my life with some good friends. But I was also now free to ride at a pace that the other bikes would have found challenging, keep my stops as short as possible, and bring that distance down to something less intimidating.

Travelling companions

Somewhere around Bled I stopped for fuel again, and while parked up a bike appeared beside me with a Belgrade plate. I got chatting to the rider, a Serbian on his way to Munich, and since I was going the same way he asked if I wanted to ride together. I was torn for a moment, because having just split off on my own this was likely to slow me down, and I had a long way to go, but I wondered how often I'd find myself in Slovenia with a random Serb asking me if I wanted to go for a ride. Besides, it'd be useful to have someone around if I ran into any problems, and he seemed like a nice enough chap, so we set off as a pair towards the Austrian border. We were back inside the Schengen area, so the only sign we'd entered a new country was the toll booths for a tunnel through the mountains that had clearly doubled as the border post in years gone by.

We stopped once for fuel in Austria, and the stops are the times when it's good to have company. I don't mind riding alone, but it can be a bit boring when there's nobody to talk to when off the bike. From Austria we crossed into Germany, and it struck me that if one new country a day over the previous week had felt excessive, one country an hour was just taking the piss.

Before too long we were nearing Munich, and I pulled off the motorway to say goodbye to my temporary travelling companion. It was time to get my head down, make the most of roads with no speed limit, and get miles done. I still had a long way to go, and I told myself that if I could at least get to Stuttgart then the next day would be a little less painful. We swapped email addresses, shook hands and I let rip with the KTM's throttle and shot off into the distance. The Autobahn was, as usual, infested with roadworks, but in the clear sections I held a steady 95-100mph. I also have a large sportsbike, a GSXR1000, which only really sees track use these days. On that bike, those speeds would have been a doddle, almost too slow. On a bouncy supermoto, loaded with luggage, it took commitment. It did the job though, and the miles started to tick down. I stopped only for fuel, and allowed myself a single coffee and a few squares of chocolate about a hundred miles short of Stuttgart. I tweeted at each stop, counting the distance, to reassure myself that I was making progress. 6096km, 6406km and, by early evening, 6640km. I'd made it across the Rhine and into the fifth country of the day, France.

To say I felt shattered would be the understatement of the century. By the time I parked up outside a Campanile in Hagenau, north of Strasbourg, I was ready to drop and the sheer sustained concentration had left my mind in a very strange place. After two weeks in places I'd only ever seen on on tv, France felt almost like home. I tweeted at the time:

France is my 15th country in 15 days and it feels overwhelmingly familiar. I think this trip might have been a little bit life-changing. 

Either that or I'm just so tired I'm going mental. Probably a bit of both.

A little later I posted a few more words:

Yesterday morning I was in Bosnia. Last night I was drinking with a bunch of patch-wearing bikers in Croatia. Today I rode just over 1000km from Croatia to France via Slovenia, Austria and Germany, about 200 miles of which were with a Serbian chap on a Z750 who I bumped into after splitting from my friends in Slovenia to come home.

Yesterday Bosnia, today Strasbourg. I'm having trouble digesting it all, to be honest. Got a bit emotional earlier when I split from the group, over a thousand miles from home, in a country I'd never seen before - not worried, just... this has been one hell of a trip.

Only 500 miles to do tomorrow. And then work on Monday morning. Adjusting to normal life is going to take some effort.

The restaurant at the hotel was closed but I'd spotted a place opposite which looked like it might be OK, Les Pins. One quick shower later I had a table to myself at a busy restaurant and when the waiter asked what I'd like I had only one answer: a very, very large beer. The food was fantastic and should I ever be around there again, it'll be top of my list of places to go back to.

As soon as I'd eaten, I went straight back to the hotel to go to bed. I was exhausted and dropped off to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. When I woke up in the morning, after a sound night's sleep, I was still almost 500 miles from home but only had one country left to cross. I was also now free to get moving straight away, so packed my things, checked out of the room, and hit the road.

The distance to home now tumbled, as I roared along the autoroute towards Calais, stopping every hundred miles as usual for fuel and a quick coffee. With a couple of hours left to go I used my phone to book a tunnel crossing and by 4pm I was standing next to my bike on the train chatting to another chap about our respective journeys. He'd only been riding a year and had just done a tour round Germany on his 650 V-Strom. When I told him where I'd been, and how long we'd been away, I got that look, the one I'd seen on people's faces every day. It'd been one hell of a journey.

By early evening I was home, the contents of my luggage strewn across the floor, and a cold beer in front of me as I contemplated what I'd just done. A little later, I reflected on the moment we reached our goal:

We only scratched the edge of Asia. There's a whole continent out there, and it's a lot bigger than Europe, but it'd take time I don't have, not unless I make drastic changes to my working life. Just getting to Asia was enough, something most people, the vast majority, will never do. And I can settle for that. For now, anyway.

Two weeks later, I still haven't quite taken it all in. It was simply too much to digest in such a short space of time, and writing this as a stream-of-consciousness has only brought the memories flooding back in glorious technicolor.

The final tweet sums up everything I felt about the trip, and it bears repeating here:

7415km, home. Thanks to Mark, Simon, Steve, and everyone we met along the way. You made it what it was: amazing.

Istanbul or Bust - Expectations Demolished

We were on our way home (new readers might want to begin here), but first we had another massive detour to take in. Rather than just taking a straight line back to Calais we wanted to see a bit more of what used to be Yugoslavia, and we were about to enter Montenegro.

Crna Gora, as the locals call it, is the smallest of the former Yugoslav states, at least until Kosovo gets its way. The country is almost entirely mountainous, to the point that it makes Switzerland look a bit flat in comparison. We were on our way to meet up with Balsa, another chap with an SMT who'd got in touch via the ktmsmt.com forum when I announced we were doing this trip a couple of days before we left.

As mentioned earlier, I'd got a bit bored of any detailed preparation for the return leg of the trip, and apart from deciding that we wanted to see more of Yugoslavia I hadn't delved much further, so we had no idea where we were going or where we could stay. I'd pretty much just picked the capital Podgorica as a waypoint and hoped for the best. Balsa suggested that we take a better route, meeting him in Bijelo Polje in the north of the country, from where he'd lead us to his house in the mountains. This sounded good to us, so we made it a date. I'd checked a map and told him we'd be entering the country at Granicni Prelaz, then felt like a right plum when he told me it just meant Border Crossing in the local lingo.

First we had to enter the country, which meant collecting another passport stamp and waving our documents at some confused border guards. Green cards are meant to be a standard document, but I've never seen two that look alike and mine certainly wasn't green. Combining that with a UK vehicle registration document - Mark's was half in Welsh, compounding the problem - meant every time we crossed a non-EU border we got a lot of baffled looks. Everything was in order though, and soon we were riding down from the border and into Montenegro.

They must get bored of views like this in Montenegro

We'd given up having any expectations about countries by this point, trying to leave our prejudices and preconceptions at the border and going in with our eyes wide open to see what it would be like. Montenegro is one of those small countries that most people have probably never even heard of, so we had no idea what was ahead of us, but we had heard from a few people that the roads were good for biking. They weren't wrong. Mile after mile of perfect, swooping, near-deserted tarmac, the road from the border was two-wheeled paradise.

5000km in, still loving every minute

It wasn't long before we arrived at the junction outside Bijelo Polje and we gave Balsa a call to let him know we'd arrived. He'd been planning to ride his bike up from Podgorica that morning, but the weather forecast had been a bit iffy so he'd driven up instead. After a few minutes he turned up with a friend who just wanted to come along and say hello. I often got the impression during the trip that people were just generally happy that anyone had made the effort to visit their area, even their country, and we'd ridden a long way to get there. Life in London is so cosmopolitan that it's easy to forget that not everyone gets to rub shoulders with people from thousands of miles away on a daily basis. Often literally, where London public transport is concerned.

Picturesque, and a perfect spot for suicide

After a quick coffee in the shade - the weather forecast had been monumentally wrong - we got on the bikes and followed Balsa to his house in Žabljak. There aren't many roads in Montenegro, the mountains rather getting in the way, and there aren't any fast roads at all. That just leaves yet more perfectly surfaced roads wiggling through valleys and over passes, where it's hard to focus on the road with huge panoramic vistas fighting for your attention. The route took us through the Tara River Gorge, where we stopped by the Đurđevića Tara Bridge to take a few photos and buy more fridge magnets. This is the deepest gorge in Europe, the second deepest in the world after the Grand Canyon, and the view was magnificent.

Time was getting on, so we headed on to Žabljak where the bikes were tucked up safely in the garage and we got on with the most important task of the day: drinking beer. Balsa had invited a few friends up to join us for the evening, one of whom was riding his bike up from Podgorica so Balsa could join us for a ride the next day. We had a fair distance to cover again, but had time for a detour and for the first time we had a local guide who knew the best roads in the area.

It sure beats camping

While our host popped into town to stock up on beer and meat, we hung around chatting to his mates. They'd done a fair bit of touring themselves, and we swapped tales of long days on bad surfaces until it was time to head down to the basement for a barbecue. They were a great bunch and we stuffed our faces with meat and bread, all washed down with beer and a bottle of Jim Beam that Steve had brought along for the journey. Eventually it was time for the others to leave, they all had to ride back to Podgorica, with the exception of the chap who'd ridden Balsa's SMT up - he had the joy of 70 miles of mountain roads in the dark, driving Balsa's car back for him. That's what friends are for. As they left, we realised we'd been the only ones drinking, and we'd put quite a lot away, so rather than stay up and get more battered, we headed for bed in preparation for another long day's ride.

The next morning we tried to get away early but the lure of breakfast in town was too strong, and we spent a good hour and a half loafing outside a cafe talking bollocks, scoffing pizza for breakfast and guzzling coffee, with a quick raid on a nearby supermarket for good measure. I'd done a fair bit of nagging during the trip, trying to get people moving - at times it felt like all they wanted to do was sit around and drink coffee in picturesque locations without the hassle of riding bikes between them, and Balsa knew exactly how I felt. He'd had to play the same role on his trips, though he'd gone one step further, getting into a shouting match that ended in a fist fight. Fortunately it didn't come to that and we eventually made a move.

Playtime for the KTM club

Having ridden 3000 miles with two big singles and a manky old Triumph, it made a lovely change to have someone on a decent bike to play with. Balsa knew the roads like the back of his hand and shot off up a single track road through the Durmitor National Park, and I was only too happy to follow. The road only went one way, so rather than stop and wait we shot off into the distance and I tried to focus on the road - the scenery was lovely but I wanted to avoid becoming part of it. Every so often we stopped for some photos, to give ourselves a chance to soak up the view. It was pretty spectacular, so here it is:

After a while we started to drop down out of the national park and arrived back at the main road near Plužine. This put us close to the Bosnian border, but the nearest crossing was quite a small one and it was unlikely I'd be able to buy the insurance I needed, so Balsa had planned a route that took us further south, via Nikšić. There was only one road to Nikšić so we set off, again with Balsa leading and me glued to his rear, while the others trundled on behind as fast as their bikes would allow. Once again the SMT proved to be the perfect tool for the job, equally at home on fast, immaculately surfaced, sweeping roads as it had been on abysmally surfaced wiggly ones in Bulgaria a few days before.

After a while, we pulled in at the side of the road to wait for the others to catch up. Steve and Simon quickly appeared, and then the wait began for Mark. We waited, and we waited, and we waited some more. Eventually it got to the point where we started to wonder if he'd crashed, and when Steve tried to call his phone it rang but there was no answer. We waited a little longer and then decided Steve would go back to look for smoking wreckage while we hung around to see if Mark got in touch. Eventually we tracked him down - he was heading in completely the wrong direction, with no real idea where he was. We managed to guide him back to Plužine, where we'd last been together, and eventually he and Steve reappeared. While we waited, two cops, who'd been running a speed trap a short distance up the road, pulled in to check what we were up to. I didn't understand a word Balsa said to them, but I'm hoping it went along the lines of "our friend is a fucking idiot who can't tell east from west, let alone south." Mark confessed that he'd been so far behind that he'd not seen anyone for a while, and suspected he was going the wrong way. He checked his satnav and that gave him directions to the nearest border crossing, the one we were avoiding. He assumed he'd missed a junction and turned round to follow the satnav's directions. Had the fool ridden round one more bend he'd  have found us melting in the sun by the side of the road, wondering where the fuck he'd got to. A candidate for a Shaky Knowledge of Geography Award if ever there was one.

Our host, Balsa, who clearly has impeccable taste in bikes

Having regrouped, we headed south to Nikšić where we stopped for fuel. This was where Balsa would split off to head home, while we went in the opposite direction towards the border. He'd been the perfect host and a great guide to some cracking roads we'd never have found on our own, and I can't thank him enough for his hospitality.

Modern transport

It was time to head for the country we'd perhaps been looking forward to the most: Bosnia-Herzegovina. I can't speak for the others, but I knew almost nothing about the place beyond what I'd seen on the news in the early 90s and what I'd heard from the few people I knew who'd been there at some point. And, to be fair, most of them were wearing blue berets at the time, so they'd really only seen the country at its worst.

The road from Nikšić to the border took us past some absolutely spectacular scenery. The bit that sticks in my mind was the view down to Slankso Jezero, a lake dotted with islands that looked phenomenal from my vantage point high above. It didn't take too long to reach the border post and with minimal fuss we'd left Montenegro and were riding towards the Bosnian frontier.

I would try and give a bit of context to the situation in Bosnia, but I'd only do it clumsily and there's a pretty reasonable account on Wikipedia for anyone curious enough to look. If I learnt one thing from my time in the area it's that everyone has their own idea of what went on twenty years ago and I'm not going to argue with any of them. What's important is that, during the war that ensued when Yugoslavia disintegrated, the country was the scene of some of the worst atrocities since the Nazis, with rape and genocide used as weapons of war. The state was torn in two, and that division remains as a boundary defined almost twenty years ago, splitting the country into two entities - Republika Srpska and the Bosnian Federation. One is, as the name suggests predominantly populated by ethnic Serbs, generally orthodox christians, and the other by ethnic Bosniaks, generally muslims. There's still a very uneasy stand-off between the two and old tensions bubble away, barely beneath the surface, as scars like that take a long, long time to heal.

Republika Srpska forms a crescent that covers most of the northern and eastern borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina, so this would be our point of entry. Approaching the border, I felt some trepidation as it was the only country we were visiting that wasn't covered by my UK insurance or green card, and information about how to buy cover at the border was scarce at best, unreliable or misleading at worst.  I pulled up at the border post and handed over my passport and bike documents, and the first words out of the guard's mouth were "green card", in several languages, including one approximating English. I tried to explain that I didn't have one, and needed to buy cover, but was getting nowhere. After a while another chap appeared and told me, in better English (and believe me, I'm glad people everywhere can speak it, because if I'd had to learn the language of every country we passed through on this trip I'd still be doing evening classes) that I could indeed buy it there for about €20.

The mythical Bosnian insurance document

Once my passport was stamped I was told to park up by the booth, then walk down to the second building on the right where I could buy insurance. Sure enough, when I got there I found a chap behind a desk who sold me a three-day policy for the princely sum of €21 in cash, and once I'd shown it to the chap at the border post I was free to go. Result!

We'd been expecting terrible roads in Bosnia, clearly having learned nothing from the rest of our time in the Balkans, but the road down from the border was perfectly surfaced and offered yet more stunning views over the valley below. It was immediately clear that a huge amount of money had been poured into the country to rebuild it after the war.

As I approached Trebinje I saw a café by the side of the road which looked like a decent place to stop for a break. We were hoping to find somewhere to exchange currency after the border - Montenegro gave up its own currency a couple of years ago and now uses the Euro, despite not being a member of the EU, let alone the Eurozone, whereas Bosnia still uses the Convertible Mark (KM), a currency originally pegged to the Deutschmark, now pegged to the Euro. In spite of its name, the KM is downright impossible to buy outside BiH itself, and in recognition of this the Euro is accepted pretty much everywhere in the country, though generally only in fairly exact quantities, and change is often given in KMs.

With slightly fewer Euros and a few KM coins in my pocket, we left the café and hit the road.  Before long we headed off the main road to experiment with another Garmin Special, a single track road that took us up the side of the hill with yet another astonishing view across the valley. Just as we'd started to make our way across the plateau at the top, a truck came the other way full of men gesticulating wildly in a way that we could only imagine meant there was some reason we should turn back. For all we knew we really were in bandit country, so we did exactly that and rejoined the main road. This was no hardship, as it flowed along the valley floor for fifty miles or so, an hour of sheer pleasure.

Taking a detour in Bosnia

In the distance we could see the skies growing darker, and as we pressed on it was clear we were heading into a storm. Suddenly it started to rain hard, and there was no sign of the others in my mirrors. I waited a while, then turned back to see where they were. And then the hail began. The smallest hailstones were the size of peas and riding through them was like being shot-blasted, even through my cordura suit. Soon I found the others parked up by an metal shack, an abandoned restaurant with a small porch where they were sheltering from the storm, the sound of the hail hitting the metal roof so loud that I left my earplugs in until it stopped. We stood around for at least half an hour waiting for the weather to improve, discussing what might have happened to the burned out buildings across the road.

Eventually the rain eased a little and as time was against us I suggested we press on to our destination for the night, Mostar, an old city in the Federation. As we arrived in Mostar, the light fading and the rain still pouring, we headed for the nearest motel. The boys' own adventurers had been keen on wild camping, not something really recommended in Bosnia where some areas are still dotted with landmines and derelict buildings are occasionally booby-trapped, and to my relief the weather had dampened their spirits. 100 Euros scored us two comfortable rooms at the Motel Hercegovina, a modern hotel at the edge of the city with a friendly, English-speaking receptionist who was both amazed by the amount of luggage we were carrying and distraught at the amount of water we were dripping onto the floor. After a quick shower to try and ease the aches of yet another day on the road, we called a taxi into town for a look around.

Looks nice since they rebuilt it

Mostar takes its name from the 16th century stone bridge at its centre - the Stari Most, or old bridge, a major attraction since it was built. The city was shelled by Bosnian-Croat forces while under siege during the war, as an act of cultural destruction, resulting in its near-total obliteration. Following the war, a project was set in motion to rebuild the bridge and the old town, using traditional methods and original stones salvaged from the river below, and now it stands as it did before. It really is a fantastic sight, though its history is never far away. I didn't notice at the time, but the photo above shows a prominent reference to one of the darkest chapters of the Bosnian war.

No further comment required

Tourist trinkets on sale in Mostar ranged from the usual fridge magnets, which of course Simon and I had to buy, to objects made from items found around the city. Mostly bullets. It reminded me of walking around Ypres, where every other shop sells memorabilia from the first world war, and I wasn't sure whether to see it as just retailers pandering to a market, a visual reminder of recent history, or just tacky tourist crap. It was an interesting place to visit though, and not somewhere I'd thought I ever would.

After a quiet dinner and a few more beers some locals ordered a taxi for us and we headed back to the hotel. We were facing another long day, as we'd be riding to Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska, and on to Croatia. It was a route recommended by Balsa and his friends the night before, and happened to be the route I already had in mind.

Mostar to Lug

The road north from Mostar began following the Neretva river, yet another flowing road along a valley floor. We avoided a speed trap by sheer luck, as the cop was facing the wrong way and only turned in time to hear our engines shedding revs as we dropped below the limit. We'd heard dire things about Bosnian police, though no worse than we'd heard about those in Bulgaria or Serbia before.

Lug to Vinac

At Jablanica we turned away from the Sarajevo road and eventually we began to climb. At Prozor I saw a couple of cops parked up just after a set of traffic lights, who watched me pass with a look of interest. As the road left town it started to climb quickly, twisting and turning up the side of a cliff, and I wound the throttle on and enjoyed the ride. Reaching the top, I pulled over and waited for the others to catch up. Simon arrived quickly, but we had to wait a while before Mark and Steve appeared behind us. This time Mark hadn't got lost, rather the cops had seen a chance and pulled them both over after the lights, claiming they'd gone through on red. This was clearly an attempt to shake them down, and we'd been told that offering 5 Euros or so should make any problem go away, but after producing their documents they stuck to playing dumb, telling the cops they didn't understand their questions, and eventually they were told in no uncertain terms to piss off. Brits abroad 1, bent cops nil.

Vinac to Banja Luka

At some point during the day I spotted a café and pulled over for a break, flagging the others down as they appeared. As we sat on the terrace relaxing, the muezzin call to prayer from a nearby mosque mingled with the sound of a local cover of the Beatles' Twist and Shout from the café's radio. Mosques in Serbia and Bosnia are something to behold - they look like nothing so much as alpine cottages with minarets, a curious blend of Germanic and Islamic architecture, the kind of building that could spark a war in Switzerland.

Bosnia makes everywhere else look expensive, with a coffee costing 1KM (around 30p) and fuel at just over £1 a litre. It has scenery to match anywhere else in the world, great roads, seemingly friendly people - at least they seemed OK to us, regardless of how they deal with  each other - and completely demolished any expectations or preconceptions we had left. The detour from the route home cost us a couple of days, and meant we had to hustle along in other places where we'd have liked to stop and look around, but was more than worth it and I'm itching to go back and see more.

The perfect ride

The rest of the road to Banja Luka continued in the same vein - occasionally over hills, generally following a wiggly river valley, with a surface that was, for the most part, perfect. A hundred miles of some of the best biking roads I've ever done in the last country I expected to find them. An absolute highlight of the trip.

Oddly, you never see signs like this for the the Bosnian Federation

As we approached Banja Luka we re-entered Republika Srpska, the boundary proudly marked by large signs as we'd seen when entering the country from Montenegro a day earlier. Looking behind us, we saw no such sign proclaiming arrival in the Bosnian Federation. It's clear which part of the country wants nothing to do with the other, and it left me wondering how long the union will hold before the former Yugoslavia fragments a little further. If it does, I hope it happens rather more peacefully than last time.

We stopped for fuel in Banja Luka, losing Simon briefly on the way, spent the last of our Bosnian currency on ice cream and snacks, and took the brand new motorway towards the border. It felt like we'd rushed through Bosnia. In fact since leaving Turkey we'd averaged one new country a day and it felt like we were barely scratching the surface. But time was our biggest enemy, and it forced us to say goodbye to what we'd thought would be the crazier countries on the trip.

It was time to return to the EU.

Read on here.

Istanbul or Bust - Bandit Country Revisited

New readers might want to begin here.

The road between the Turkish and Greek border posts felt like proper no-mans land, with armed sentries, barbed wire and a general sense that these two countries might have fallen out with each other at some point. But while the Turkish side felt rather formal, the Greek side couldn't have been much more relaxed. Right at the edge of the village of Καστανιές (that's Kastanies, we've got another new alphabet to play with) it consisted of little more than a hut with two windows, one for us to wave our passports at and another for customs, who wasn't interested in us unless we had something worth declaring. Within seconds we were through and back in the EU. Better than that, we were back in the Eurozone, albeit the most broken part of it, so we could raid the nearest ATM for currency to see us through the rest of the trip.

Why go to Greece? Because it was there.

Right next to the border we found a small petrol station with friendly, English-speaking staff and a well-stocked ice cream cabinet. The Greek economy may be collapsing but they still know how to deal with the basics, and we loitered far longer than necessary before setting off. We were only due to be in Greece for 20 miles or so before looping back into Bulgaria, but we were a bit tired after an early start and in feeling a more than a little peckish.

Kastanies is the least likely border town I've ever seen, a charming, whitewashed little village at the very tip of Greece that looks like not much has happened in a hundred years. Nonsense, of course, as a hundred years ago it was still part of Bulgaria and feeling the brunt of the Balkan wars, but it was a sleepy little place. Riding through the village I spotted what looked like a small taverna and suggested we go back to try and get some lunch. We turned up a side road looking for somewhere to park, only to find a back garden, prompting the people who'd been sat at the front of the building to come out and see what was going on.

This was a chap and his mum, who ran the place. He spoke pretty good English and they seemed more than happy to have us in. I'm not sure they were really open for business, but trade is trade and they couldn't have given us a warmer welcome. After an iced coffee in the shade we asked if there was any chance of some food. He said he'd see what his could be rustled up, and before long we were sitting down to eat a simple meal that was one of the best we had on the entire trip. While we were waiting we had a look around the place and he ran us through the various photos on the walls, mostly of his late father's hunting and fishing exploits. Massive catfish from the nearby river, and a corker of a photo of him as a toddler sitting on the bonnet of a car wearing a chain of bullets. After a quick dose of ouzo at our host's insistence, we were back on the road, feeling glad we'd made yet another unnecessary detour.

A photo of lunch? Anyone would think this was Instagram.

From there we rode the short distance to the border post at Ormenio, where a surly Greek border guard looked at me and asked, baffled, why on earth we wanted to go to Bulgaria. Little did he know, we'd just ridden through it and loved every minute. Steve got some hassle for the video camera on his bike - it wasn't recording, but it was powered on, whereas I'd made a point of turning mine off. They're a bit funny about stuff like this in Greece, and I remembered the plane-spotters who were jailed as spies a few years ago just for taking photos at an airport. No real hassle though, and we were through in no time. The road quickly opened out to a full four-lane dual carriageway for a few hundred yards before the Bulgarian border post. The most pointless bit of tarmac I've ever seen, as the place was almost deserted and I can't imagine it ever having been that busy. A quick wave of our passports and we were through, stopping only to change some of our crisp new Euros into Leva for the day ahead. They do have ATMs in Bulgaria, though we hadn't seen one and the general advice is not to use them. Cards don't get you very far either, as it's still pretty much a cash economy - there might be a Visa sign on the door, but odds are cards won't be accepted.

Bikes resting in the shade

Our destination that day was Eco Camping Batak, a brand new campsite on the shore of Lake Batak just south of Plovdiv. I'd picked this one while doing some research online before the trip, and Nick at the campsite in Veliko Tarnovo had told me he knew the owner. Getting there meant 130 miles of minor roads across Bulgaria in 40-degree heat, relief from which came only when we passed through some heavy rain. While riding through the centre of Plovdiv I'd noticed an odd clunking sound coming from the back of the bike, but I put this down to the chain being excessively slack. We'd done almost 3000 miles in just over a week and one of the chain adjuster lock-nuts had seized solid and there wasn't much I could do about it while travelling.

Bulgaria, I think. It all starts to blend together.

Leaving Plovdiv we picked up the road towards Batak, another absolutely brilliant biking road with a reasonable surface that started winding gently through the countryside before heading up into the mountains. We gained altitude so quickly that the change in air pressure sucked one of my earplugs out and I had to stop to sort it out. I'd not looked too closely at the location for the next campsite, and hadn't noticed that it was a fair way up. By the time we got there it was early evening and the temperature was starting to drop.

Spoilt for choice

When we turned up, the office was deserted, so Steve called the owner as directed by a sign in the window and we went to set up camp. The site seemed pretty basic, with the ground sloping away towards the lake and a small cluster of sheds behind the office for the facilities. It was the only option unless we wanted to pay for a hotel, so the tents went up and after a short while the owner arrived. He sorted us out with beer at sub-Romanian prices, then gave us a quick tour of the place, which was far, far better appointed than first impressions had suggested. The showers and toilets wouldn't have been out of place in a decent hotel and a nearby building turned out to be a decent sized restaurant where we necked more beer and sampled some local dishes. Not the best choices we could have made, but better than brain.

Camping on the shore of Lake Batak

One thing that had caught my eye was the number of flash cars with UK plates, but with drivers who didn't seem to be speaking much English. The paranoia started to creep back, not really abated by a discussion with a local the following morning. I was told that there's very little crime in Bulgaria, but what crime they do have is entirely due to gypsies. The police aren't particularly interested in such things, but there are (and I presume this is a euphemism) private security firms who'll go into the gypsy camps once a year, rough a few people up, and make it clear that any more crime would result in another visit. And that's why there's no crime in Bulgaria. I'll reserve comment, suffice to say that the charm of being in Bulgaria was wearing off a little and I was looking forward to the next country on our list.

Mark had managed to loosen the chain adjuster on my KTM the night before, and I'd finally been able to adjust the slack chain. This had only made the clunking sound worse and, fearing something might be on the verge of failure, I checked my satnav to find the nearest dealer. I'd looked up every KTM dealer east of Austria before we left and entered them all as waypoints, expecting to need to visit one at some point. There aren't many in Bulgaria - three, in fact, only one of which I'd been able to find on Streetview. By sheer chance, that one was about 15 miles away in Pazardzhik, so I set that as our next destination and we went to see if we could get the bike sorted.

Not everyone had bought a new car on finance

Parking on the street outside the dealer, I walked in and asked if anyone spoke any English. The answer was yes, a bit anyway, and within moments the chap from the shop was rolling around in the road next to my bike taking bits off and trying to work out what might be causing the odd noise. After a while he came to the conclusion that the chain was on the verge of failure, and I needed to replace it there and then. The dealer's workshop was some distance away, and happened to be closed that day anyway, but they had the right part in stock so I bought it on the spot. By the time I got back outside, the others already had the bike up on some axle stands Simon had brought along and Steve was brandishing a chain riveting tool which we could use to do the repair in the street. I'd mocked the them for the sheer quantity of tools they'd packed for the trip but I was happy to eat humble pie as they saved my bacon in deepest Bulgaria. It was at this point I realised that the English-speaking chap from the shop didn't work there at all,  but was just another customer who'd spotted we were in a fix and was only too eager to help out. Seriously, Bulgarians, just how bloody friendly can they get? Amazing!

Mark + junior hacksaw = chain off in a jiffy

Before long the chain was replaced and we were ready to hit the road again, this time with no ominous clunking noise from the bike. We were heading for the Serbian border at Dimitrovgrad, a hundred miles away, and we soon picked up the motorway to the Bulgarian capital. Rather than ride through the centre of the city we picked up the ring road which, while slow, was nothing like its Bucharest counterpart. The last bit was rather bumpy, with a lot of construction work going on and huge holes in the tarmac, several inches deep, exposing an old cobbled road over which several layers of tarmac had been laid.

Not knowing whether the price of fuel was going to go up or down when we entered Serbia, but figuring it would be hard for it to be any lower, we stopped for fuel one last time in Bulgaria, then made sure we had our bike paperwork and passports handy before approaching the border itself. Getting out of Bulgaria was quick and easy, and entering Serbia was pretty much the same. We were on the main transit route and nobody was really interested in four bikes passing through. Our passports were given back with a faint entry stamp and a leaflet advising us about police corruption. At last, proper bandit country! We stopped briefly after the border to exchange the last of our Leva and a few Euros for a fistful of Serbian Dinars and after a brief chat with an Italian couple on their way home from Armenia we were on the road again.

Serbia wasn't really a destination as such, just somewhere we were passing through on the way to Montenegro. Our goal for the day was as close to Novi Pazar in the south east of the country as we could get, but the problem with my bike had meant we'd not left Pazardzhik until almost 2pm and we were running late. We pressed on, finding that the Serbs had clearly been in on the deal with the Romanians to corner the market in 50k limit signs. Using the same approach as before I found a local to tag onto and before long we were making decent progress, often at double the limit or more, slowing occasionally when oncoming vehicles flashed their headlights to let us know we were nearing a speed trap.

"Steve, put your gloves on. Mark, no you can't have lunch!"

The road from the border to Niš started out as one side of a motorway - only one carriageway had been completed, the other had clearly been under construction at some point but work seemed to have pretty much halted. The south of Serbia is quite mountainous terrain and before long we were winding through a valley on yet another great biking road, so long as you completely ignore every posted speed limit. As we approached Niš we joined a proper motorway and in no time we'd skirted the city and were back on local roads. It was almost time for a fuel stop and around the usual hundred mile point I pulled in to a garage. Simon protested, on the basis that it only had one pump and would take too long, and as the attendant appeared I shrugged and gestured that we were going elsewhere. He saw my GB plate and asked "where are you going?" I replied "London, eventually." He laughed and gave me a hearty thump on the back, which made me wonder a bit. A few miles later we stopped at a larger garage and I dug out a map to check the route the satnav was trying to take. I mentioned Garmin Specials in an earlier post, those satnav-induced detours off the sensible route to shave a few minutes off the journey, but this was the mother of them all. Kosovo. We were heading for a fucking war zone!

OK, the war's been over a while, but it's still a bit dodgy and none of us had insurance. The border between Serbia and Kosovo is still a little unstable and there can be issues getting in and out, so we did a quick about-turn and headed back to Niš. From there we hit the toll road briefly towards Belgrade before heading for the nearest town. We'd lost more time and the light was starting to fade, but we still had nowhere to stay.. I'd done a fair bit of planning before we left, finding places we could head for at the end of each day wherever we got to, but I'd kind of lost enthusiasm for the return leg and so the preparation had ended early. The nearest big town was Krusevac, not much of a tourist hotspot but we figured it would at least have a hotel.

Anyone for tennis?

Rolling into Krusevac we found a bustling town but nowhere that looked suitable for leaving the bikes overnight. The paranoia was trying to come back, and when Simon mentioned he'd seen a sign for a campsite at the edge of town I was keen for us to head back and check it out. When we got there it seemed deserted, there was nobody around and the lights were off. It was almost dark and the omens weren't good. Steve tried the door and as it opened he found two people sitting in the gloom. Neither spoke any English, and our Serbo-Croat was based mostly on pointing at things, but after some desperate gesticulations we were invited to set up our tents next to the tennis court outside. The soil was too thin for pegs and the mosquitoes were ravenous but before long we were all set up and ready for a drink.

Curry and beer, just like being at home

The venue turned out to be a family-run restaurant, with family consisting of an old chap and his daughter, and her English-speaking son who turned up a bit later. There was one person missing from this picture, and when Simon spotted a photo of a chap in military uniform inside the building I jumped to a few conclusions. They may have been correct - the kid looked about the right age and it was a dangerous part of the world twenty years ago. The kitchen was closed, and there was no shower we could use, but we all had stoves and emergency rations, and wet-wipes work wonders when they're all you've got. As we cooked up outside, our hostess brought out some bread and another round of beers, and we tried to chat as best we could about where we'd come from and where we'd been. It was a few days after the Wimbledon championship, and as the old chap pointed at the tennis court and made refences to the final between Murray and Djokovic (a Serbian) I tried to tell him that Wimbledon was where I lived. I've no idea if he understood, but they seemed happy to have us there and we were glad to have somewhere to stay - the beer and bread was a bonus.

Pure filth

As we packed up in the morning, Steve went in to pay. Camping for four, some twenty large bottles of beer, and a basket of bread, and the bill was less than 25 quid. Clearly we were all still going to have a lot of Dinars when we left the country.. Just as we were ready to leave, our hosts appeared with four small bottles of wine as parting gifts, and posed for photos with us and our bikes, very keen to have a GB plate visible. Mine was absolutely filthy and I had to clean the filth off for the country code to show up, in the process losing the smiley face that somebody in Bulgaria had drawn in the grime. We were well off the tourist trail at this point, and like many places we passed through I got the feeling vehicles with yellow plates were something of a novelty. This kind of thing just made the trip feel all the more worthwhile.

From Krusevac we skirted round Kosovo to Novi Pazar taking in yet another perfectly surfaced biking road that wound its way through a mountain valley. I love this kind of road, a seemingly never-ending series of S-bends where nothing makes more sense than a big bike. Having not seen any other bikes in my mirrors for a while I stopped outside a restaurant and flagged the others down as they caught up. We'd made pretty good time, so I thought I'd treat Mark to lunch. I don't mean I paid for it, I mean I let him have one. Over the meal we chatted, reflecting on how yet another country had blown away our expectations and proved to be nothing like we thought it would be. Well, to a point.

What surprised me about Serbia was that it felt poor. I'd expected it to feel rather more developed, being the biggest and toughest of the former Yuglosav states. But while the basic infrastructure was OK - the road surface was generally good, and it didn't have the same downtrodden feel as parts of Romania - it felt like life was a struggle. Towns looked a bit wild west, with market stalls in front of buildings rather than proper shop-fronts. This included Novi Pazar, which is a fairly sizeable city. Cars were no longer modern, either. I'd always wonders where old cars ended up when they "went to auction". Now I understood - right-hand drive models would end up in Africa, and left-hand drive models would go east. Serbia was full of cars I hadn't seen since I was a kid. Agricultural transport had improved though. Rather than horse and carts, the vogue was for vintage tractors that looked like they'd made a meaningful contribution to a Stalinist five year plan.  It made me wonder, if Serbia looked like this, what on earth would Bosnia be like? We'd have to wait for an answer to that one, as we had another country to go through yet.

Leaving Novi Pazar we followed the road back up into the mountains towards the border with Montenegro. As we pulled up at the Serbian border post, a chap in uniform appeared from the customs office and walked towards me. I expected the worst, but when he saw my GB plate he asked "You are an Englishman?" I was. He smiled. "You have just left Serbia. Have a nice day!"

Read on here.

Istanbul or Bust - Crossing Continents

New readers might want to begin here.

The road from Malko Tarnovo to the border post was questionable even by Bulgarian standards, mostly due to roadworks that had stripped away the surface. The weather on the north side of the mountains had closed in and it wasn't a pleasant ride. But it was an important one, because this would see us leave Bulgaria and, with it, the EU. On the other side we'd be in Turkey.

Nearly there

This was almost just a bonus - getting to the Black Sea had felt like enough to justify the trip - but was really the main point of the journey. Turkey means Istanbul, and that's where Europe meets Asia. Getting across one continent would be an achievement of some kind, leaving the continent another matter entirely.

There was a queue to get out of Bulgaria - leaving the EU means leaving the customs union, so vehicles were being inspected, but as usual nobody had any interest in the bikes so after a quick glance at our passports we were free to go. A hundred yards later we passed the signs that marked the Bulgarian border, and shortly after that we passed the same for Turkey.

Living in the EU means crossing borders is easy to take for granted, even outside Schengen. To enter Turkey, we had to buy a visa, but that was a fairly simple process. More importantly, we had to import the bikes. To do this they had to be booked in, with a corresponding stamp in our passports, and, booked out again when we left the country. If that didn't happen within a year, we'd have to pay import duty. On a ten grand bike that adds up, so we needed to be careful. The seasoned travellers we'd met back in Bulgaria were planning to export their camper back to Greece for the winter while they went home, to avoid the hassle of leaving it in Turkey.

Turkish bureaucracy

The border post at Dereköy came in two parts, and we pulled up outside the first one to see what was what. Inside, we found a number of windows, and had no idea where to start. A bit of lateral thinking suggested that starting at one end and finishing at the other might be a good idea, and the visa window looked like the right place to start. 15 Euros put a visa sticker in my passport and the chap at the Polis window stamped it up. Next up was a window marked with something about customs procedures for vehicles - there wasn't much English around but the little on offer was useful - where I handed over my licence, passport, green card and V5 to a confused looking woman who didn't seem entirely sure what to do with any of it. After some time, and a lot of pointing at bits of info on the V5 to help her out, I had another stamp in my passport and was pointed to the next window for customs. The chap at the customs desk couldn't have looked less interested if he'd tried, and gave me a bored look and a third stamp in my passport before waving me away.

Looking back at the Turkish border

Once the others had been through the same process we grabbed a quick coffee and then headed back to the bikes to get moving. A hundred yards or so later we came to another barrier, where the chap in the booth entered our vehicle registrations onto the system, checked they matched the details we'd given back at the main building, and sent us on our way. We were in Turkey at last.

The contrast between the two sides of the border couldn't have been more stark. The ride up to the border had been in dismal weather, on a broken road, but the ride down the Turkish side was in bright sunshine on deserted four-lane blacktop. There was an immediate sense that we'd entered a wealthier country and that feeling lasted until we got back to Bulgaria a few days later.

Our first challenge in Turkey was going to be getting stickers for the toll road to Istanbul. The toll system has changed a couple of times in the last few years, and the latest version involved a transponder linked to an account that's automatically charged when using a toll road. This included some motorways, and both bridges crossing the Bosporus, the stretch of water in Turkey separating Europe from Asia Minor. The toll only applies when crossing the bridges from Europe to Asia, and not the other way round, but since we were intending to make it a round trip this was something we were going to have to sort out. Unfortunately, the previous version of the toll system had been decommissioned a few months before we were there, and the changes were recent enough that nobody seemed to be able to tell us quite how the new system worked. We'd heard you could buy a transponder at a post office, so we headed to the nearest town after the border, Kirklareli.

Destination in sight

As we rode into town, the contrast with Bulgaria continued. There was a kind of hustle and bustle,  that we hadn't seen since Hungary. It felt modern, almost western one, but at the same time oddly different. An east-west clash that seemed to define the country. Simon and I went to the post office and within minutes realised it was a dead end - we were 60th in the queue to be seen, and we were going to struggle with the language barrier. Back at the bikes, Steve was convinced that the whole thing about toll roads must be nonsense and was sure that when we'd be able to buy something when we got to the motorway. Rather than argue, we headed for to the main road to Istanbul.

At the junction it was pretty clear that not only did the tolls apply - there were massive signs over the entry gates and when a car went through a siren went off - but there were no booths anywhere to be seen, just a control building set back from the road. After a quick debate about the merits of running the gauntlet with Turkish traffic police, we decided to see what the non-toll road was like. This turned out to be a big, well surfaced dual carriageway running all the way from the border to the centre of Istanbul, so we decided to leave the problem for the next day and just head for our hotel.

Every country seems to have its own approach to selling petrol, and Turkey was no exception. Generally, around Europe anyway, the pumps were either self-service or attended but even at the attended ones they're reasonably happy for you to serve yourself, especially if there are are more vehicles than attendants. In Turkey it was a bit different - when we rolled up to the forecourt the attendants all ran to a pump and beckoned us their way, as if they were in competition. They'd then fill up and hand over a little receipt to be taken to the cashier, who would then exchange payment for another receipt to be handed back to the attendant. Only then could we leave. All rather convoluted, but I'm guessing it's intended to stop people filling up without paying, and once we understood how things worked it was easy enough.

We'd seen some mad things on roads since we entered eastern Europe. Cows, horses, men with scythes, packs of wild dogs, chickens running everywhere, but Turkey topped the lot. Pedestrians would vault over the central reservation and run across the road between vehicles. Cars and bikes wanting to turn across would drive down into the ditch in the middle and back up onto the opposite side . Riding down the dual carriageway we saw a horse and cart in front of us. In the fast lane. Going the wrong way. Soon after, I looked to one side and saw a shepherd driving a flock of sheep through a petrol station forecourt. Modern yet completely foreign, it's a country of contrasts.

About 30 miles from Istanbul the gaps between towns seemed to end and the traffic got steadily heavier. About 15 miles out the conurbation started and the queue began. Because we were going into town, and it was Friday evening, the queue was mostly to get out of the city, and traffic in was reasonably free flowing until we got into the city centre, stopping occasionally around junctions but not as bad as we'd feared. I'd expected the traffic in Istanbul to be deadly, but was relieved to find it was no worse than London. Better, mostly, in that everyone indicated and seemed aware of what was around them, rather than being in their own little bubble as seems so common at home. If anything, rush hour in Istanbul was much like rush hour in London, but a bit safer. I think Mark found it a bit more of a challenge, being used to the empty hills and valleys of north Wales, but for me it was reminiscent of what my daily commute would be like if every other vehicle on the road was an unlicensed minicab and there were thousands of them.

Before too long we were off the main artery and a couple of hundred very slow yards later we were parked up outside our hotel, the Holiday Inn Istanbul City. We'd decided to treat ourselves a bit, and find a hotel with off-street parking for the weekend. As I checked in, the chap behind the counter asked where we'd come from. I said London. He then asked how long we'd been on the road. When I said seven days, he looked at me like I was crazy. This happened a lot, we got used to it, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hugely gratifying each and every time.

Once we'd locked the bikes up and unloaded, the porter took our huge pile of luggage (tank bag, panniers and topbox each, plus riding gear and sundry crap) up to our rooms. Having shared rooms with Steve all the way down, our keys went in the metaphorical bowl and now it was time for me to share with Mark. It'd mean a bit less snoring (like I can talk) but a few more night terrors. The riding was over for a bit, it was time to act like regular tourists.

First thing, as always was to score a couple of beers, but we were in a hotel in a big city so prices were rather higher than they had been over most of the previous week. Next up was laundry: luggage space was at a premium, so I'd only packed enough to see me to Istanbul. I was going to have to wash everything there and hope it dried in time for the journey back. I could have used the hotel's laundry service, but at their prices it would have been cheaper to bin the lot and buy new clothes for the ride home. So the room was converted into a makeshift laundry, complete with multiple washing lines, which doubled as a handy trap for anyone trying to walk across the room.

Knife fight in the Turkish laundry

Once everyone had got settled, we met up in the bar and went to find something for dinner. We were in Turkey, so that meant a kebab, and we were us, so it also meant beer. Being an Islamic country, secular or not, most places doing food don't do beer, but we were lucky enough to find a pub doing pretty decent food. And brain. I don't know what it was the brain from, but it would have been rude not to at least give it a go. If you imagine what you think brain tastes like, and what texture it has, then you're probably bang on the money. Bland, slightly greasy blancmange, I'm happy to have tried it, but I'll be even happier if I never try it again as long as I live. The kebabs were spot on though, and the beer was cold and plentiful. A fine way to round off a successful mission.

Steve plays Trout Mask Replica

The next day was our first rest day, but we only had two days in Istanbul before starting the journey home and we had a list of things to do. First on the list was working out how to get across the water to Asia. Buying a transponder for the toll bridge was out of the question, it being Saturday. Crossing without paying was an option, as was trying to settle up afterwards, but both posed risks for getting out of the country on Monday, so our only option was a ferry. Steve asked around at a foot ferry terminal near the Galata bridge and soon we knew what we had to do - there was a ferry from Sirkeci to Harem which would cost us 4 lira, or just over a quid. That problem solved, we went for lunch.

Beer and mosque, they way it ought to be

It may not even have been noon, but we didn't let that get in the way of tucking away two kilos of red snapper and a couple of pints of lager at a restaurant on the bridge. Feeling full, we went to tick off the second item on our list: sightseeing. Since we were in the Fatih district we went for a wander through the bazaar to pick up a few souvenirs.

Grand? It's bloody enormous!

The Grand Bazaar is absolutely enormous, with the shopping streets extending far beyond the walls of the covered market itself. Within the walls, the market's organised into areas specialising in certain things, and as we walked further up the hill we came into the antiques area. This was a treasure trove of random tat, from carpets to lamps to antique guns and everything in between. One highlight was a shop selling nothing but gramophones and music to play on them, the sound from which carried right down the street. Simon and I each picked up another fridge magnet and a little metal oil lamp, which seemed the least tacky option.

A One Direction free zone

After the bazaar we dealt with the next item on our list: getting a shave. We'd been on the road a week and we were all looking a bit scruffy. Three quid each bought Simon and me a shave from a burly Turkish barber. The bit where he used a bic lighter to burn the hair off my ears was unexpected, but I felt a lot fresher once I'd escaped, and we headed off to finish our list. That was the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque. It seemed a shame to come all the way to an Islamic country and not nip inside a mosque while we were there, but it was time for prayers and after hanging about for a bit we decided to go and get a pint while we waited. The chap whose restaurant we picked knew what he was up to and shortly after bringing our beers he brought a massive plate of chips and a couple of bottles of ketchup. Sure enough, one pint turned into two, and two turned into three, before we wandered off past the Hagia Sofia to find a taxi back to the hotel.

The meal that evening was much the same affair as the night before. We couldn't find anywhere doing both beer and meat, so we picked a place called Iskender and ordered the house dish. Large, with extra meat. There were tables outside, one set by the building and the other set by the kerb, and we sat outside stuffing our faces with doner meat until we were barely able to move. It was a great place to sit and watch the world go by, as the gap between the tables was the main pavement for pedestrians. Not just pedestrians though - bikes in Istanbul tend to have their reg plates removed and free from the constraints of the law they take every gap in sight, whether it's between cars on the road or tables on the pavement. It's not just the public either, more than once we had to lean in a bit as a police bike, two up, with the rider and passenger wearing tshirts, zipped past between the tables.

Feeling full, we walked to a bar on the way back to the hotel. Not the nicest bar in the world, the atmosphere had a definite air of, well, urinals. Ones that hadn't been cleaned in a while. Maybe never. We quickly finished our pints and headed back towards the hotel. Or, at least, Simon and Steve did, while Mark and I popped into another pub to see if it was any better. It wasn't.

Europe to Asia and back in 3 minutes

Sunday began reasonably early, as we had a proper objective for the day: ride our bikes to Asia. This was the end goal, the reason we'd come all this way, and we were about to achieve it. With a minimum of fuss we rode down to the ferry terminal, paid our 4 lira and joined the queue for the boat. Then I remembered I'd seen a separate area the previous day, marked for bikes, so we jumped the queue and waited at the front. Boarding a ferry in Turkey is a bit different to P&O in Dover, with health and safety kept to a bare minimum. Trivial details like waiting for everything to be off the boat before boarding are ignored in the interest of getting on as fast as possible and, frankly, it's a more pleasant system. No need to strap the bike down either, you just stay with it and hold it if it looks like it's going to wobble.

Chatting away on the intercontinental ferry

The journey itself only took about ten minutes, which flew by. As the boat neared the berth at the other side, everyone put their lids back on (if they had one) and fired up their engines. Unloading was, if anything, quicker than loading, with the first bike not quite waiting until the ramp was down before setting off. That got a loud cheer from all of us, and then we followed. We'd done it. We'd ridden to another continent. All we had to do was get back, and that just involved a quick ride through Üsküdar to the nearest bridge. Suddenly I realised we were already on the motorway heading for the bridge itself, and I made a dive for the first exit I saw. This wasn't a perfect plan, as there were clear no-entry signs either side of the sliproad and a sign underneath each that clearly said something about the police. Still, nothing ventured, etc, and it turned out to just be a road leading to a bus station. A few quick photos, while puzzled locals looked on, and we were on our way back to the hotel.

Europe, from a distance

We had very little to do for the rest of the afternoon, so did what came naturally: we went back to the pub. The smell of urinals had cleared a bit, and after a few pleasant pints we were ready for a snooze, so went back to the hotel to relax a bit and get packed. Nothing ever seems to quite fit back in luggage as easily as it came out, and it took a while, but eventually the deed was done and it was time to go and find some dinner. We headed back to pub and went large on kebabs until it was time for bed. We'd agreed a very early start in the morning, meeting before 7am, and the next day was going to be a long one.

While in Istanbul I tried to sum up what the last few days had been like. I'll quote here:

The bike's been perfect. The chain's a bit slack (after 2000+ miles in a week), but other than that it's been absolutely phenomenal. And Bulgaria... god, Bulgaria. I had visions of gangsters, cops wanting bribes, Soviet-era tower blocks, terrible roads and just generally a complete shithole. But it's been awesome, arguably better than Romania, which was everything I thought it'd be and everything I didn't. Bulgaria has just been everything I didn't. Completely confounded my expectations and taught me not to believe shit I read on the Internet.

Getting to Istanbul was different to getting to the Black Sea. The sense of achievement was there, but the road signs just pointed to places that were still ahead. Ankara, in particular. And beyond Ankara would be Iraq, Syria, Armenia, Iran, Georgia. Proper foreign, and a whole other level of challenge.

I'm a miserable bastard most of the time, not sad, but quite curmudgeonly. But this trip has made me glad to be alive.

Much to my surprise, we were on the road not long after 7 and the ride out of Istanbul proved to be easier than the ride in. The queue of stationary traffic on the other carriageway stretched even further than it had on Friday evening, but our side was free flowing and the decision to leave early seemed to have been a good one. We were heading home, and that meant taking the dual carriageway all the way to Edirne on the Bulgarian border. The journey was uneventful, with more of the same low-grade local madness on the road to keep us entertained.

At Edirne we had a choice: there were signs to Bulgaria, where we needed to go, or to Yunanistan, where we didn't. Taking a quick detour into Greece would hardly add any time to our journey but would let us add another country to the list, so we took a left and headed along the cobbled road to the sleepy border post at Vissa. This was a rather charming little spot with a little garden and some shade for us to hide in while Turkish customs went through every bit of luggage on Mark's bike. Either he was picked at random or his Welsh V5 marked him out as a troublemaker, but either way we were free to leave the country with our bikes and make a brief foray back into the EU.

Turkey was behind us, we'd achieved our ultimate goal, and it'd been a hoot.

Read on here.