Today was all about getting the tyres sorted for Steve’s bike and U.S. Getting back on the road, oh and also hoping I was going to be feeling better from my bout of a very questionable tummy.

Well, I woke feeling a bit better and our the tyres were at the shop awaiting our arrival. Our friend came and kindly escorted us to his shop where the 3 tyres that Steve had ordered were sitting. Great to see the tyres but we soon noticed 2 of the tyres were the wrong model (tread type) we had ordered.

We had the one rear tyre fitted and that sorted our immediate issue, however it was somewhat difficult to explain and negotiate when neither of the parties could understand each other. The tyres were also non returnable to the distributor as they were a special order. Somewhere in the original conversations re the tyres our friends miss understood we think and hence the wrong order.

Steve finally worked out a solution and we were able to be on our way, but by this time it was already 1.30pm. We were kindly escorted to the highway we needed to head east and we stopped for a bite to eat before parting company with our escort and we could get on.

By the end of the day we managed approx 250km’s and have stopped in Mus for the night, leaving us a approx a 300km ride tomorrow in order to get to the border town and hopefully I will be able to eat as normal?

We received news this morning that the tyres for Steve’s bike will arrive tomorrow morning which was a positive start to the day.

Unfortunately I (David) had woken up with a very queasy tummy which as the morning went on it simply knocked the stuffing out of me! So the plans for today of washing the bikes etc were shelved in favour of staying close to the hotel room.

Steve took the opportunity to visit an Internet cafe and downloaded his movie files and backed stuff up which invariably takes a lot of time and patients on Steve’s part when using foreign language computers. I took the time to lay down and rest.

All the rest I was getting did an amazing job on assisting my sprained ankle in getting better. I am pleased to report  at least one part is on the mend! Ha

We finished off the washing and we then started to hear the news of the ISIS suicide bombing in Suruc, Turkey which is a border town with Syria. It has been a terrible day for Turkey with dozen’s killed. Fortunately we are well aware of the trouble zones and are currently 300km’s away from that area.

Later in the afternoon our Turkish friend Zuilfi Dal came by as he was aware I had an upset stomach and he insisted I take a local remedy of a certain type of nut and a random fizzy drink. That was not before we stopped off at his mates shop where he proceeded to explain my problem to anyone of the locals who cared to listen, which was then followed by a good round of laughter by the locals and pointing at me! It was a funny moment however.

So I have taken the nuts and drank the fizzy drink and it’s now a couple of hours on and things do appear positive.

Tomorrow we hope things go to plan and we should be on our way to towards Iran this time tomorrow with a shiny new tyre on Steve’s bike.

Today was going to be an easy one for us, after yesterday organising a tyre for Steve’s bike we only had a 100km ride to a near by town of Elazig to meet up with the owner of a bike shop who was to supply the tyre.

After pulling into a service station and asking the manager for assistance in directions to get to the shop, he was soon on the phone and we were advised to stay put as the shop owner was coming to us!

After a short waite a lovely chap by the name of Oktar Dal who owns Harput Motosiklet appeared and was soon escorting us into town. The next thing we pulled up outside a corner shop to visit Oktar’s brother and cousins and to have a tea with them. No rush here.

Oktar then left his van and jumped on the back of my bike and we were off to visit the ancient sites of Harput. It was as though around every corner there was some ancient relic. Nothing was too much trouble and we stopped after a short while for lunch in a lovely shaded outside cafe for a cooked meet and salad lunch.

The return trip to Elazig unfortunately went pear shape after David’s off (see other post for details). We did make it back to town and have found a hotel ($35au per night) for the next two nights as Steve’s tyre will arrive in two days  in the mean time we are meeting Oktar tonight for a meal and hopefully we can laugh at today’s events.

Todays ride truly turned out to be an adventure, covering 475km’s, climbing to 1978m over spectacular mountain ranges and yet again more Turk’s going out of their way to assist.

After leaving town this morning aiming to see an underground city dating back to the 6th century and housing 30,000 people our plan was foiled due to the a Turkish holiday for the end of Ramadan which closed the display until 1:30pm. Oh well, time for a coffee and push on.

We made our way around some sizeable mountains, climbing and dropping as the road constantly changed direction. One particular mountain pushed through the clouds and was heavily covered in snow. This was odd to see as later in the day we would be riding in temps greater than 34dgeC.

One of the other changes we are staring to see is Gypsy camps popping up at various locations near the road side, something we had not seen prior.

We arrived at a typical road side fuel stop where we filled up and took time out for a rest and Turkish coffee when we bumped into a Turkish chap riding a GS BMW who was more than happy to chat (although he could not speak a word of English). Steve took the opportunity to asked where can he buy a new rear tyre for his bike as it is getting heavily warn.

This question lead to us being escorted for the next 298km’s to the a City and along the way stopping for Cai (tea). Unfortunately on our escorted journey Steve’s bike suffered a puncture in the rear tyre which we noticed early when we pulled into a petrol station to meet up with our Turkish escorts friends. No problem as we soon had the puncture plugged and we were back on the road and heading to our destination with our Turkish escort.

We arrived in Malatya at 6:30pm at the motor bike shop our escort was taking us to. After several phone calls the Manager of the shop drove up and checked out the bike, made additional calls and said he could not help. He then drove off. This lead to several other phone calls and we now have a tyre ordered, which is at another bike shop 100km’s away that we will travel to and collect on Sunday! Sounds complicated, well it was. Our Turkish escort finally left us at approaching 8.00pm and had a 30km trip back from where we had been to get home! What do you say to people who help so willingly. Turks are great people.

The day finished with us getting a hotel room near by the bike shop and spending time having dinner at a truly local Kebab restaurant where we were clearly the only foreigners that had eaten there recently. Lovely.

We had an easy ride today of approx 280km’s travelling pretty much dead East from Konya to Goreme, which is in the heart of Cappadocia region of Turkey. We have been lucky with the temperatures in the last couple of days as the altitude (around 1,000m) tends to ease the heat.

Cappadocia is known for its facinating historical building that were built into the cliff faces and under ground dating back to the 2nd century and some of the townships supporting up to 30,000 people living in underground homes!

Seeing the sun set over this land was amazing and we managed to get out on the bikes and venture around some of the relics as darkness fell.

we have had such a great welcome and assistance from the Turkish people and today it was our turn to help back. A young lad had come off a quad bike and skinned both his knees and with no antiseptic etc. at hand he was concerned, so we gladly assisted with supplying first aid antiseptic and pads for him. It was nice to be able to give back.

And finally for the day, we managed to come across a “Kebab Center”, something that amazed us both. Ha