Not a normal day.

Place: Ankara

Tunes: No pockets in the motocross shirt, so no ipod. You can imagine what a vuvuzela sounds like. Make it a bit more boring and you know what the exhaust of the BMW sounds like.

We are now in Asia. It is almost impossible to pay for the toll roads though.

Finnish soldier, come and get some bread...

Driving at the speed of light.

This morning there was some completely unnecessary sightseeing. I did not go as I was trying to fix my lights. Now they are even worse than they were, not that it can get much worse. Maybe I can duct tape a glow-worm on the antlers to double the light output. Whoever designed these lights should be shot!

Count the credit card machines on the desk. Why?

As we were leaving Istanbul, there was a bit of drama with the parking lot attendant who had a different idea on the motorbike parking prices than on the previous evening. After much shouting and waving of hands there was a bit of wrestling and a two-by-four was brought out. He also tried to block us in with his customer’s cars. Without success. How pathetic is that! 

The local people watching the show sided with us and told us just to ignore him but this was a man of principle. We got out of it eventually without too much bother. 

Today there was a slightly different pace to the show on the road and despite a late start we made it to the hotel in good time. The total driving time was something like seven-eight hours lunch included making this one of the shortest days so far. The highways are good, but you have to pay for that kind of fun. The last 50-30km to Ankara was very scenic and nice. Rolling hills with a sunset and all that. 

Would I rather be using public transportation? Would you?

Ankara itself cannot compete with Istanbul in terms of interesting things to see and is really just a convenient stop for us.

Rest assured. The 12h days will continue the day after tomorrow if not sooner as we have two border crossings to make and a drive to Beirut from Adana.

Turkish hospitality. Very tasty.

Normipäivä

Place: Istanbul

Tunes: Whatever they play on the mosque sound system.

Normipäivä translates as "a normal day" and that's what we had yesterday. To understand the concept of Normipäivä, you need to see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vtwkQcHA1I

If you still do not get it, you have no sense of humor and you may not read my blog anymore.

The driving today was pretty normal. Road racing in the morning and some "exploring" of the border zone between Bulgaria and Turkey. And being told to piss off by the border police. No-one got shot so it's all good, but what a way that would be to end the trip.

The border crossing to Turkey went smoothly even if they could make it so much clearer very very easily. We had some late lunch while we waited for the darkness to set and the final stretch to Istanbul.

So far my impression of the Turkish people was very positive. Everyone is friendly and co-operative. Just do not put them into a car. If you do, they turn into idiots. Everyone seems to be in a race, except in a race you usually have a certain direction where you are going. Here, it seems to be more about the racing, rather than actually getting from A to B. Also hitting the horn is something you do if you want to go faster, no matter where you are.

The city traffic in Turkey is just like the traffic on the highways except much worse. There are more cars and more people and if there is a gap in traffic half the size of your vehicle, someone will charge for it. It is irrelevant if it actually gets them anywhere any faster. Why they do this, only Allah knows.

In Istanbul, as normal, there was a bit of uncertainty about how to get to the hotel, so we decided to split up and search for it. The amateurs with the GPS found the hotel first. The pro’s decided to do a race with the taxi driver after 13 hours on the road and on the reserve tank. Much improved performance out of the corners because of the lighter bike. 

These are normal things that happen for any adventure traveller anywhere abroad and are unavoidable. It is much more interesting to follow a taxi and it is undeniable that this trick will work everywhere on the planet. Just make sure that you start from near the hotel.

We also saw one very nasty looking crash on the highway during this race. The car was driving almost as fast as we were and he/she crashed to the barrier at about 80-100kph and bounced around the lanes. At least two other cars got a proper smack also. Amateur!

Tired men in the hotel bar.

Much refreshed men in the next morning.

Our neigborhood mosque. This is where we always go.

Haga Sofia. Used to be a church, but is not anymore.

More flashbacks - Road Racing Romania

Tunes: New Order, Lacuna Coil

Place: Curtea de Arges

The locals helped us pack in Satu Mare.

We started off after not very much sleep but in surprisingly good spirits. Are we going to do the same again today as yesterday? Nope. It was much more reckless than that.

After a bit of city driving, we hit these really good big roads through the hills with not light traffic. Good visibility, no stray animals, no horses, horse shit or carriages... Just very nice scenery and very very good riding - some of the best bits so far. It was a fantastic start for the day. At certain points the scenery looked just like Tuscany.

This song came on precisely on the right time as well:

I don't want the world to change
I like the way it is
Just give me one more wish
I can't get enough of this
When it gets to be alive
And not just still survive
To hit and not to miss
I can't get enough of this

- New Order, Slow Jam

You could just keep on going and going like that, but all good things come to an end and the roads changed (or maybe we hit the small roads again). We had some lunch.

A police motorcycle. This guy has been chasing us for some time now.

Random cows as there was nothing else to put in here.

The main destination for the day was however the Transfagarasan road. This 90km bit of tarmac should be one of the best driving roads on the planet. Hundreds of corners through the woods and mountains with spectacular scenery. There's a lake in there somewhere as well. Top Gear did a piece about this some time ago and they were sufficiently impressed. I was looking forward to this very much.

We went through it footpegs scraping the ground. In the dark.

But why in the dark? It seems that some little countryside road around Sibiu covered in dead stray dogs and horse shit was more important to drive through than the Transfagarasan when the sun was still up. That’s where we spent the afternoon. On these roads two bikes also ran out of fuel adding to the delay.

We did go through it. The dotted line is the GPS tracking line.

Magnificient scenery on the Transfăgărăşan road.

Before today, I had two near-death experiences in my entire life. Now I have four. With my experience it is impossible to keep up with the fastest riders of the group on this road, but if you fall back too much, you can find the hotel on your own, so you'd better man up and try pretty damn hard.

As you cannot see the properly around corner you are riding in, you cannot really pick the optimal speed for it. It could be a 45 degree turn, or a 180 degree turn. In the latter case, you need to slow down quite a bit and this had to be done while going around the corner. The front break is the more effective of the two that you have but if you use that hard in a corner, the bike wants to go straight, which is not helping if there is nothing between the road and the cliff going down two meters from the road. The rear break is not as effective and you really do not want to lock it. 

As you may imagine, I learned these things the hard way as there has been no need so far to push really hard. After a couple of very near misses with a rock wall and a cliff I decided that I am a sissy and slowed down to a healthier pace.

The bike worked like a dream through it all. Except the lights, which are really not up to the job in this BMW. In my bike they are not even aligned properly it would appear. You cannot see anything past 20 meters in the dark. And of course not I could not stop and adjust them!

One thing that you would not see if you ride through this at daytime. It was the "worm of light". Some of the guys were behind me maybe a kilometer or so and while I stopped to take a picture of the beautiful scenery (see above), I could see the others riding through the corners further down the mountain. It looked like they were spaced pretty evenly and their headlights shone out through the forest and mist like there was some fantastic creature prowling the woods. I will not forget that in a while. One would have needed some proper kit to get a picture of that though.

The last thirty kilometers were quite bad with lots of big potholes, but still I really recommend driving through this road if you can. But don't go through, only stay on the north side of the mountain and take a sports bike or a sports car.

The worse traffic police in the world are in Romania. We must have driven past 20 traffic police cars today, driving like our hair was on fire, and did not get a single ticket. These guys are not doing their job right.

In Romania there are a lot of stray dogs on the roads. In Lapland it's reindeer. In Sweden it's social democrats on bicycles. In Eastern Europe it's dogs, what'll be the next suicidal thing trying to take you with them I wonder... Horses and carriages are a common sight also and of course travel without lights reflective surfaces – also after dark.

I also got shat on by a bird during the day. Twice!

Flashbacks - Through Eastern Europe

Place: Satu Mare

Tunes: Eisbrecher, Sparanza and many others

The morning was pretty normal with nothing too much out of the ordinary. Early wake ups mean that we get to the destination sooner, or so I thought. Countryside roads in Slovakia was the theme of the day and the sport was road racing.

A Slovakian farmer and his best friend.

Some of us got separated from the main group (as the asphalt warriors wait for no-one) at some point and as we were looking for them, the main body of the group decided to vote on going to the Ukraine (while having some lunch). Why, I still do not know. You have to love democracy. Maybe the idea was to get some stamps for one's passport. The rest of us were informed of this on the border. I have to say that it was a surprise that we were actually precisely where we were supposed to be for once.

During this fantastic process of decision making, Ari and I got some speeding tickets after a tiny little bit spirited riding after a couple of hours of the best behaved driving on this whole trip. Shows you that it pays off to drive like a hooligan.

The roads were mostly excellent with nice countryside scenery and not too much traffic.

We got to the Ukraine as the sun was setting. I will try and describe the first city we saw to you (the border town of Uzghorod). Imagine a junkyard. Throw in some hideous concrete apartment buildings and roads laid out completely at random. Then fast forward 50 years. Add drunken people, many Lada's, drunken people in Lada's, suicidal pedestrians that appear to be blind and wild dogs. That's what it looked like. I thought I had seen smog before, but no, I had not seen smog before. You needed a machete go to through this smog.

Seriously, why do people live in this junkyard that is falling to pieces? Is it that hard to organise some kind of maintenance to the buildings and the collection of trash.

The countryside was better and you could also breathe. All in all, we spent more time on border crossings than in the country itself. Democracy sucks! And we did not even get Ukraine stickers!

Can you get from Slovakia to Hungary and to Romania without going to the Ukraine?

This is the road to Uzghorod.

Monuments from WW II greet you on the border.

And so do the first locals.

When we finally got to Romania, of course we had to take the small countryside roads, in the middle of the night with the ever present stray dogs running around. I still have no ideas about the speed limits in this country, but we went through these dark little roads at about 100kph. 120kph when overtaking traffic.

You can imagine what a dog jumping in front of you from the bushes less than two meters away does to your cornering lines! You may have to break and unless you downshift at the same time, you will also have the wrong gear on for exiting the corner. Not optimal for power delivery. Thankfully no-one had to change their lines and we had a good race to Satu Mare taking only twice as long than we would have if we had stuck to the main roads.

On all of the roads going through the villages etc, everyone seemed to be outside, just hanging out with nothing to do on the main road. Some with chairs and little tables. Don’t these people have anything better to do? Like fixing all the fucked up shit surrounding them? Gypsies on the side of the road just look at you with hostile faces cooking with open fires. Some shout at us. I assume that they want this whole convoy to stop for them and to give them some money just because they shout at us. Have they seen that happen ever with a group of motorcycles that drives past?

We got to Satu Mare eventually and found the hotel after some searching at some time past midnight, after around 15 hours on the road. Not a bad day and there was action all throughout. 

One hour later we had an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet and beer. This was good as there was no time to eat after breakfast but chocolate. The hotel staff, and the guard dog also got a decent meal as Peter decided that no-one should go to bed hungry and ordered a sufficient amount of pizza.

As there was no disco next door, we decided to call it a day. Sleep came pretty quickly for some reason.

Easiest day so far

No riding today and I have managed to procure a charger for the laptop. We are back in business!

This place was a spa at some point in the past. In the background you can see the Black Sea. It's black.

The big church in the middle of town. Nice lighting.

Maybe this bus stop is just a bit over-engineered.

Today we have been strolling around and shopping for said charger in Varna. In the evening motorcycle maintenance and repacking everything. I found another plastic bag of stuff to send home tomorrow.

This place is nice and cheap. We got all sorts of supplies today and had some more beers yesterday evening. It seems that our hotel is next to a nightclub, so there is a constant buzz of people around the bikes. The hotel staff is however doing a very good job of watching over them and we also gave the biggest bouncer in the nightclub a big tip to keep an eye out. It looked like a gay club from the inside as there were no women inside.

In Varna, the roads and buildings have been left to rot after they have been built and only very few of them are properly maintained. Service in shops etc varies really a lot and there are occasions when someone tries to rip you off. But as mentioned, everything is cheap, the local beer is tasty and there are a lot of nice places to chill out. Also there are big malls where you can find pretty much everything you need.

About the traffic in Eastern Europe I could say that in general it is not as bad as I expected. You just have to look around and keep your eyes open. The locals drive in a very aggressive and selfish way with zero regard for anything else but themselves on the road. But they do not want to hit you on purpose either. So, they also keep their eyes open and react to whatever you are doing very quickly.

You can't quite see the the police cars in the picture but the traffic here is dangerous. For bicycles.

Undoubtedly there would be many sights to see and a lot of history. But chances to chill out and stay still for just a while are not that frequent, so that opportunity has been missed.

Tomorrow we head towards Turkey and Istanbul. The city traffic should be worse than anything we have seen before but I am glad that we are driving directly to the hotel. Maybe even without any detours on the countryside.

Lastly, it seems that we are famous. http://www.touratech.se/news/?article=218

In Varna.

Bad news I am afraid. Unfortunately I have lost   the laptop charger and all my texts and photos    from the last couple of days were there. I can    write with the pad but no photos. I will post the missing days if I ever find a new charger. This   pisses me off as those days were quite eventful. Icould summarise them with the word "reckless".

Just look at this road:

www.carsuk.net/top-gear-does-romania/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transf%C4%83g%C4%83r%C4%83%C5%9Fan

Then race it after 9-10h of driving. In the dark.
This took place between Satu Mare and Curtea de   Agnes. 

Today we drove from Curtea de Agnes to Varna on   the coast of the Black Sea. In comparison to the  last couple of days, today was a bit different. Wedrove four hundred and something kilometers on    roads that had two lanes in the same direction.

We even got to the hotel before dark. All in all, an easy day. We still need to find food, some     beers and all will be well. Tomorrow is a holiday,no driving, just bike maintenance and repacking.  Maybe, just maybe even some sightseeing.  

Poland Rally

Place: Katowice

Tunes: A constant lawn mower sound. No juice in the ipod.

The first thing you see out the window in Gdynia.

Copernicus.

A church.

Bikes parked in Torun.

Questionable taste in hats?

The others went to have the best ribs in the world, while I stayed at the hotel to write this. What I would not do for this blog...

This morning we had a refreshing truck driver breakfast (quantity beats quality) at the ferry and shortly after the Poland Rally begun. The Ferry from Sweden was a pretty basic affair. It was a long day and it's an early wake up, so no crazy parties this time.

Today's route was from Gdynia on the Baltic Sea to Katowice in the south. I was surprised by the kinds of cars you see around you. Most of them appear to be lorries with at least three axis and people seem to drive them like they are little Datsuns or Nissan Micra's. Some give way (which is very useful) but most practice for the next WRC* season. All in all, the traffic moves around quite easily, it's just the overtaking that is like playing russian roulette.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Rally_Championship

Another interesting thing on the roads here is that there are a lot of people selling things on the side of the road. Just about any kind of farm produce, mushrooms and berries can be bought easily from old ladies. There are also young ladies selling something on the side of the road, but as they are dressed in mini-skirts, it is a bit difficult to figure out what. Maybe they sold all of their berries and mushrooms already? 

Everythign about Poland seems nice so far apart from the traffic which is worlds apart from Sweden where overtaking is punishable by death. We stopped to see the center of Torun - a very neat place, where Copernicus did his work. It all looks grand indeed. Coffee and cakes followed, which were also grand. Nothing that exciting happened today to be honest other than a lot of riding on big roads through Poland.

Through hell in Moominvalley

Place: Should have been Örebro or Karlskrona, but was not bothered to write and I am in Katowice now.

Tunes: Muse, CMX and the sound of my blood boiling.

More driving through Sweden. Dry roads mostly so we could keep a good pace. The pace through the smaller roads was dictated by how far you can tilt the bike before sparks fly off the footpegs and after the extensive off-road experience of the previous two days, we did not even bother to slow down for the gravel bits. From 70 to 100 kph in one day, pretty good.

The scenery was full of trees. We did not see the forests as the trees were on the way. The further south you go, the more green you see instead of yellow. This is good.

We retired in Örebro for some sleep. In the evening some discussions were had about tyres and some other mechanical problems in our "unstoppable" BMW's. We will have to split up (in a planned way this time) and meet up at the ferry in the south.

Scenery in central Sweden.

More scenery.

Moomin hieroglyphs.

Yet more scenery.

Almost finished.

In the next morning, Pekka and I started a tour of the BMW bike repair shops of central Sweden. My issue was a worn out rear tire. I needed to find a new one and ideally have it changed immediately. We went to Carl Barks motor not far from Östersund. They could not give us the answers we needed, but we were passed on to other BMW dealers, where I managed to get a new rear tire while waiting very impatiently. 

I also met Gunnar, who was very helpful in getting an off-road tire for my rear wheel. Now I have a full set of off-road tires and a new Anakee 2 rear tire waiting in Egypt. It can be a spare, but I may have to haul it around all the way through Africa. Many thanks to Gunnar for the Continental and for BMW Carlbarks Motor and Bikestop. 

Ari and Markus headed to the Touratech importer somewhere very far away to get some navigation system issues fixed and a new mount (?) for one system. There they became instant celebrities as Markus's bike happens to be an old Touratech show bike with just about everything in their catalogue bolted on. 

It great when things just fall into place and everything works with the tires and everything. It was too good to last.

Take a 80 year old man. Give him poor eyesight, a car that is 50 years old and with tires 25 years old. Then imagine him driving in a storm, in the middle of the night. What kind of speed limits would that man set for himself? Then take those limits and subtract 10 kph. These are the speed limits in Sweden. That is because this country has been run by social democrats for such a long time. It's just the kind of thing that social democrats do.

These speed limits are also rigorously enforced by speed cameras and by moving obstacles. There are two kinds. One has a badge that says "SAAB" and the other "VOLVO".

A unique aspect of the Swedish driver is that he/she actually drives like they are in an examination of some sort. For example, you break before the speed limit sign as if the limit goes down and you only accelerate after the sign, as the limit goes up. Seriously, what the hell? Nobody drives like that after they get their driving licence. Anywhere. Ever. In Sweden, everybody drives like that all of the time and it did not help my blood pressure.

So, after my tire-circus was finished, I was in a bit of a hurry to get to Karlskrona for the ferry. Driving through Moominvalley (southern Sweden) for about four hours was a nightmare. I wanted to drive in to lorries just to make it stop.

Why do I call it Moominvalley? Because it looks like it. Everything looks perfect and you drive through some very picturesque countryside. It really is the perfect place to live if you want everything to be always nice and neat, predictable and constant. It will also be uneventful, bland, boring and lifeless. I felt like Stinky* storming through this place completely disregarding any lollipop shaped signs on the side of the road. 

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_in_the_Moomin_series

No doubt the perfect society was disturbed by this reckless behavior, but it's not like they are going to send me a speeding ticket. I have Belgian plates and even if they would send something to the Belgian police and ask them to find me, the paperwork and bureaucracy would take so long that I would have moved house five times and died of old age before said fine would reach me.
 
This country is one of the best places in the world where you can live, full of helpful and friendly people who all speak English, but sadly something here is just not quite right.  

You can't piss when standing up in Moominvalley.

For and explanation why, see:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/peeing_sitting_down

Sweden is looong

Place: Östersund

Tunes: Muse, Mansun, The Cult, Creed

Wikipedia tells us that: At 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of about 9.4 million. 

Riding through it I can tell you that this is one big country. Two days driving from Nordkapp to Östersund with a stop in Gallivare. About 10h driving each day and we still have two days to go to Karlskrona, which is about as far south as you can go in Sweden. Driving can be a bit slow as there are small villages with over-enthusiastic traffic police and all sorts of nonsense on the road, like hunters and moose. And chicken.

In Finland moose hunters actually go into the forest and shoot the moose there and then get a tractor or something to get the dead moose on to a road. Here, it seems that the hunter's don't bother with all this running around in the woods business and they just stand on the side of the road with a radio, a mustache and a rifle.

It has been quite uneventful most of the time. Yesterday, we went through the same great roads in Norway to some nice not-quite-mountain roads in northern Sweden. After a bit of that, we have just driven through some woods. Some nice lakes in there occasionally and we did go through the Arctic Circle (again). 

The traffic in general is not too bad and the riding is probably as easy as it will ever get on this trip. The only thing that is tested is your patience.

The road in the north went through these kinds of cliffs. Nice.

Crossing the arctic circle.

This guy is in the official "coat of arms" of Lapland in Finland. I guess this is also the case in Sweden, but being in Sweden, he has to be a bit more bling and has this really gay gold pendant thing.

Lakes.

More lakes.

And more.

There was a big section of roadworks along the way with some really bad bits. Very loose gravel with big rocks. Very unstable. These bits could be anticipated when the speed limit went from 70 to 50 and to 30. Nasty looking bits with my very limited experience.   

Of course we drove through all of them at 70 kph. I saw Jukka go through in front of me and the back end of his bike started to sway from side by side in an increasingly violent manner. So, this was to happen to me also? Man, this was a mistake and I should have slowed down ... and then I reached the same bit. My first thoughts when the rear end of the bike started to thrash around were "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die", but instead it was fine this time and every other time we went through a similar roadwork section, and I am still in one piece. 

Point the front wheel in the right direction and do not let go of the throttle. Who said you can't learn how to ride off-road by reading a book? Luckily in the first case (which was the worst bit), the tarmac started just in time before the back got completely out of control.

In Östersund it was a disco night. Gay disco as it seemed. 90% of the customers were men. But to offset this there was plenty of very feminine touchy-feely business around even if the people doing this were not actually gay (or who knows). You would not see this in Finland I assure you. Or maybe you need to go to the places with the rainbow stickers on the door. And man, I have never seen a more pathetic bouncer than in this place. Not far from home and I already feel like a foreigner.

Nordkapp - It begins here

Place: Repvåg Fjord

Tunes: Armin van Buuren

The adventure has begun.

We have been to Nordkapp and are on our way down south. Now this trip really begins despite the many false starts I have annoyed you with. 

We managed to dodge the entrance fee to the Nordkapp tourist area and managed to get the bikes in there as well. Unfortunately it was all covered in fog. Everyone was wet and freezing, but we got there, bought the stickers and took the photos. I am sure the view was fantastic.

On top of the world.

This is where we had to stop. Past the fence, 50m straight down and you are in the Arctic Sea.

The lamest troll you have ever seen.

The midnight sun for dummies.

On the way there, we got rain, mist and high winds. If you imagine a bike travelling in a straight line but tilted about 20 degrees, you have some idea how heavy the winds were.

The ride from Ivalo to Nordkapp was good. Four hundred and something kilometres. The temperature was two to nine degrees and raining right from the beginning up to the coast.

The scenery was rugged, yellow and red. You could see steep cliffs go straight up from the sea and dissappear into some clouds. The stereotypical thing to imagine here would be some viking boats or something out of Lord of the Rings. Still, the beach road up to Nordkapp is easily one of the best ones I have ever ridden.

With some phenomenally good trance, you can be completely immersed by the music, the scenery and the riding. I did not hear the bike or the wind. It was like gliding through the fjords in a fighter jet, completely focused. The signposts to Nordkapp seemed to follow each other with a couple of minutes in between even if there was 10-20 km in between. The bike was working like a dream. Fantastic.

This is why people drive motorcycles.

On the coast.

The two faces of Norway. No viking boats here.

What's that little spec on the road?

More scenery.

-->

Next corner downhill.

We were whipped through the roads at approximately the speed of sound. With results. I wonder if this is going to be like this all the way from here on?

Someone had to take a hit for the team.

The Norwegian police on duty.

Almost to Norway.

The march of the Michelin men.

The reindeer are a constant hazard as they just wonder around all over the place, including on the roads because they are too stooped to do anything else. The sheep in Norway are a different story entirely. They also roam around and go to the roads, but they do it with intent. They just don’t give a shit if they are lying down on the asphalt and happen to be on your way. It’s your problem, not theirs and they know it.

A motorcyclists best friend.

Do they look like they give a shit?

People have x Euros worth of riding kit and they are taping plastic bags around their feet and buying gardening gloves because their fingers are freezing. Seriously, what the fuck?

I got my fresh latex gloves for ten Euro's.

State of the art biking boots.

I'm not cold. Are you cold? It is not possible to be cold.

The view from the bungalow porch.