Iran

 "If you go to Ahmadabad, take a gun," Intriguing local advice ...

"I'm not a brooch man," Adam decides against some of the more glitzier items in the Isfahan bazaar.

"You are a very activity wife!" A gentleman is impressed to see Cat on her bike.

"Clothing that I have to hold between my teeth?!"  Cat rejects the chador (the big black cloak) after seeing middle-aged ladies gripping the fabric between their teeth as they walk along so their hands are free. A headscarf will suffice.

Departing Iran

The memory of our arrival in Iran seems sweeter in comparison to our departure. After elbowing our way to the front of the "queue" - a loose term - the baggage men hassled the check-in girl about our bikes. They didn't want to take them.

"The bikes are on standby," She insisted as they kept up a running commentary. They'd also refused to take a baby stroller for the couple in front of us. Bikes and babies on standby? What kind of airline is this? The answer is Iran Air, a government airline, and with all Iranian bureaucracy it's best to be calm and polite ... then burst into tears.

"Our visas end tomorrow. There's not another flight for days. The bikes have to come with us. This is Iran - we can't just get another visa, we can't come back just to pick up the bikes! We have to fly tonight! What are we going to do?" Cat ended the argument with crocodile tears. Our bikes were wheeled through.

Passengers were instructed to hurry to the departure lounge. Hurry and wait. 6:30pm came and went. 7:30 there was the offer of "Everyone, come drink tea!"

Then, "The plane will arrive at 8 o'clock, inshallah. "

Cat's reaction, "Inshallah? In-sha-LAH? I want a plane driven by a pilot, not by God's will! Christ, we're going to miss our flight"

And we did. The flight arrived in Dubai 2.5 hours late and Iran Air helpfully hadn't checked our bags or bikes through to Sri Lanka, us being on standby and all. When we realised it was too late. We ran to the Sri Lankan airlines gate in Dubai but missed the flight. The Transfer Desk tried to help us, fainlly contacting the Iran Air offical at the airport. He promptly went home so as to not deal with 20 irate passengers.

It was 48 expensive and excruciating hours of being on standby, repeatedly taking our bikes through security then back out, visiting Iran Air for a dose of unapologetic unhelpfulness. No compensation, not even a cup of tea. "Yes, you can write to someone but Tehran makes the decision. Nobody gets compensation" then, came the inane question, "But how do we know that you don't want to stay in Dubai?"

"Because I have an onward ticket... see?"

Iranian idiosyncracies

* The word for bicycle is doocharkar - literally, two wheels

* Persian script is right-to-left, but on roadsigns, kilometre numbers are written left-to-right. Our favourite number is 5 (panj) which looks like an upsidedown loveheart (or a little round bottom)

* Satellite tv is banned but loads of people have it.

* All programs cease at 5pm for the call to prayer to be televised

* "Made in Thailand" is a guarantee of clothing quality.

* Women can get an education but if they don't get the marks in the national exam for university (limited places), "They must marry".

* The state-run tv channels don't show US or UK shows. Instead, French crime series, Australia's "All Saints", and New Zealand real-lie medical emergencies. 

* Women need their father's or husband's permission to obtain a passport or rent an apartment

* "Hoodies" are in fashion! Teenage girls wear them over their manteau coats.

Shiraz, last stop in Iran

Shiraz is an uncompelling city, once famed for wine, now famed for wine making a comeback. We found felafel, cake and a Chinese cycle tourer called Liu, but no wine. 

A pilgrimage to Hafiz's tomb was entertaining for a couple of hours. Hafiz and Sadi were famous poets of Ye Olden Days, when love, romance and the sublime were appreciated by Persian rulers.

The surprise of Shiraz was a photography exhibition in the old citadel, until recently a prison. The photos showed Shiraz of old, mostly men, but even back in the early days of photography it seems that Iran's ruins were already in ruins.

And the women of Persia were veiled, then unveiled in the 1930s and veiled again with the Islamic revolution of 1979. Only the tribal women look suitably defiant.

We spent two days resting our weary selves, recoiling at the "entertainment" of gory, re-enactment montages honouring the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war. Serious-looking men and mullahs dominate Iranian television, though women make appearance as news readers, interviewees and a few actresses.

But our greatest televisual joy was the state-run news channel and its news ticker in English.  The rhetoric varied between paranoid-aggressive and hilariously naive: "Iran: Give us nuclear fuel or we will make our own." "President: Iran's enemies on the verge of collapse". Sources are fantastically vague ("Iran says", "Cleric says", "human rights groups confirm") , and there were plenty of moments of "how is that news?" 

On our last day in Iran we learnt an important fact: "Iran is 17th in the world for mushroom production." News indeed!

A run-in with the Religious Police

We arrived at Perspeolis on our doocharkas and, after an 80km day and visiting the other pre-Islamic sites of Pasagarde and Nagshe Rostan, we were in a hurry to catch the late afternoon light on the ruins.

It's the jewel of Iran's ancient heritage, probably because it's the only one with a lot of columns and carved reliefs still standing. It was built by King Darius I, 515 BC then destroyed by Alexander the Great, Iskander the two-horned devil from Macedonia.  

So we left our bikes in the parking lot, bought our tickets and hurried across. Before the ticket seller, an older man in uniform, could get to his feet, a young guy in normal clothes at the entrance stopped us,

"Mister, in Islam we wear black," He gestured at his lower legs.

"You mean long," Adam thought, then said aloud, "This pre-dates Islam."

"No Mister, you cannot."

"This isn't Islam," Adam insisted, "This is Darius! Alexander! You don't even know your own history!"   Shorts are permitted for male cyclists, but whenever we've stopped at mosques he's put long trousers on but at the other pre-Islamic sites, the ticket sellers waved away his efforts and said not to bother.

The busybody wobbled his head and appealed to Cat, "Missus okay but Mister no,"

"I'm not going in there without my husband!"

"You don't even know your own history! This isn't Islam, it's before Islam!" Adam stormed away.

We haven't learnt much Farsi, but we have a few key phrases to trot out so Cat said (for the benefit of the ticket bloke as much as the busybody), "We cycle 7 months. We cycle Iran 2 months! No problem. Today, problem," Irritated by another headwobble she snapped, "Persepolis is Darius! Not Mohammed!"

Then, as always when faced with rude Iranian bureaucracy, her eyes started to well up ... At this point the ticket seller stood up and gestured for the tickets, and gestured to Adam to come back, "Okay," The busybody apologised and disappeared.

As we walked around Persepolis we realised we'd just met our first religious policeman. No uniform and rather than saying, "In Iran," he said "In Islam..." 

Australians 1, Religious Police 0.  We felt as victorious as the Alexander, who surely didn't need to be so destructive. Apparently he needed more than  a thousand horses to carry away all the booty.  

There's a lot of graffiti carved into some of the statues. One particular effort made us wonder, "If we'd been asked to reveal our names would Adam would have been let in after all, trousers or no trousers...?"

The road to Ahmadabad

Tired of the noise of autobahns, we turned off the Yazd-Shiraz highway onto the secondary road through the Zagros mountains. We had a princely sum of $3 in our pockets and spent up on naan bread, (5 cents for a big flat naan), and enough left over for biscuits to fill our biscuit tin.

At Eglid, the only major town on our route, we literally stopped traffic and pedestrians so rare is it to see a foreigner here, let alone on bicycles. Outside the main bank, a crowd of women gathered around Cat, wanting photos. 

In the bank, the teller turned the Euro note over and over, staring at it uncomprehendingly. After a few phonecalls and Adam signing a piece of paper with the serial numbers written on them, we had money.

Knowing that our map wouldn't be good enough for our backroads route to Pasargarde, to rejoin the highway, Adam asked for someone to write directions in Farsi. It would help with reading the roadsigns or asking people.

A local school teacher, Mossein, took charge, writing directions in Farsi on a piece of paper, an arrow between each town. A crowd gathered around Adam and Mossein, giving advice on the route. "Do you have a gun? Don't go to Ahmadabad without a gun."

When Adam eventually appeared with the directions, we headed to Mossein and Maryam's home for lunch and left Eglid five hours after arriving. Just in time to find a wild camping spot.

From Eglid to Aspas was a 15km uphill, terrifying as drivers leant into their doors like Michael Schumacher on a corner. But the reward was a long downhill into Aspas and Adam's new downhill record: 74.4kmh.

We found the one person tall enough to ride Adam's bike at Aspas fruit shop, and again a crowd gathered to talk to Adam while Cat, dutiful "wife" loaded the bikes with food for the bad road to Ahmadabad.

25 km from Aspas we camped next to farmer's fields for the night, wondering about that gun we'd been advised to procure. Not for bad men, as we'd presumed, but wolves and bears. As we set up our tent a hunched, undernourished canine shape slunk from the shadows ... we bought Rexy Dog's nightwatchman loyalty with a packet of biscuits and half our rice dinner!

The next morning we stopped at the good road-bad road turnoff to double check the route to Ahmadabad. Bad road but flat, they said. 10km later we realised, those locals never take this road! The countryside was a desolate basin between mountain ranges, and we finally understood what the locals meant about wolf country.

From gravel road it became a BMX track with enough minor turnoffs to make us worry about our direction. We looked for the road more travelled.

We arrived at the river, stagnating in low parts, and our enthusiasm waned when we saw the road curved into the mountains. (see our Gallery for better photo of the incline)

Three steep dirt climbs and then we descended into the valley and an enormous flock of goats. Three shepherds moving their flocks together were as surprised as us.

19km after reaching the flat our tyres touched bitumen at a village of horrid teenage boys near Pasargarde. The ruins that once belonged to Cyrus the Great were, after a big days riding, underwhelming. We were glad that entrance was only 5000 rials (50 cents)

Probably as disappointed as Great Old Cyrus would be if he knew his name has been appropriated by Appalachian hillbillies.

The friendly ticket seller, Saeed, was the highlight of the ancient site. We spent longer with him than looking at the stones. "Husband and wife?" he asked. Cat confided, "In Iran, we're husband and wife." Saeed grinned knowingly, "But in Australia, no!"  

Politics and politeness

"So now you know it's all lies."

We were surprised at this comment. The guy, about our age, had just told us how he'd been travelling to India, clearly considering himself more worldy than the others in thsi cornershop for whom he had to translate. 

We let his comment go, preferring not to point out that our media is held somewhat accountable for their reporting and that we have technologial freedom to obtain two views, left and right-wing. Nor that Iran is not the sole focus of media attention.  

We've not sought political opinions from Iranians but when they've been offered it's often the wistful, "Better in Shah time ..." or the resigned view, "The government has oil. It doesn't need the people."

A quick history note: the Qajar dynasty fell in early 1920s and the mullahs of Iran were worried: next door in Turkey Ataturk and the Young Turks were making a secular state. So they appointed a bright young general, Reza Pahlavi (he made up his last name, it means "champion" or something similar). The Pahlavi's ruled until his son, quite fond of the high life and with the ego of priviledge and tools of dictatorship (secret police, army) was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. 

The students, angry at the Shah's opulence and his restrictions on people's freedoms and viewpoints, helped bring Ayatollah Khomeini back from exile to Iran. The choice was royalist or Islamic; democracy doesn't seem to have been presented as a third option.

Thirty years later, the current generation of students want freedoms against what was imposed by the Islamic Revolution. The few students we've met are applying for higher education abroad. "There is only reverse engineering in Iran," one moaned, "You must copy a foreign design of a product. I want to create!"

Ironically, United States and Britain benefit from the brain-drain of modern Iran. Boston, London, these are the aspirations of this generation.

Yazd

Yazd is the romantic oasis town of eastern Iran, a shelter through the ages from Mongol invasions and the searing conditions of the desert plains.

The old town is clay and straw walls, and the favoured hotels/hostels are the Silk Road Hotel and The Orient Hotel. Both beautiful clay buildings, traditional courtyards and rooftop access. We parked our bikes at Silk Road, happy to see The Basques' bikes already there and intrigued by the other two bikes.

They belonged to Steve & Heidi, "The Flemish" cyclists, and in the other hotel were "The Austrians", Vera & Tobias, "The Englishman", Chris - a conglomeration of cyclists and all eager to chat. "The other basque," was Asier, plus Megan & John, Meike & Ronald, Aussie, Irish, and Dutch respectively provided the non-cyclist conversation, a nice break from punctures and broken parts stories - hilarious perhaps only to those on 2-wheels?!

The traditional houses mean an opportunity to explore the rooftops, permittable at sunset in certain areas for those with heads for heights.

Yazd is also famed for camel burgers and camel carcasses are hung up in butchers. After looking at Asier's photos of an adorable baby camel only minutes before our burgers arrived, Cat lost all appetite for camel burgers. Snakes and rats okay, but not camel.

Also thanks to Asier initiating conversation to this man from Baluchistan (talk about National Geographic Eyes!), Cat was able to take this photo of him with Asier ... after he'd adjusted his beautiful headscarf, of course. The Baluchis are a tribe from the eastern border with Pakistan, notorious for being unconquerable.

Aqba

We missed the must-see clay town of Nain, zooming past at dusk and preferring to camp than find a hotel. Our route promised a town called Nowgonbad and we were keen to get a photo of the sign.

The next morning we cycled on and on and on, passing a camel sign and two clay houses worse for wear. Nowgonbad was dubbed, Nowgone. We never found it. Or any camels.

With the last of our water nearly depleted we cycled on and made the turn at Aqba, a small town of clay houses and town walls. The streets were deserted and down an alleyway a women in chador walked silently; this must have been what Nain was like before being listed in the Lonely Planet.

The breadshop at the main intersection was our first stop. Then we turned left down the main street and found the drinking tap in the centre of town. In big cities or tiny villages these taps provide clean drinking water and we haven't had to resort to bottled water at all in Iran.

We asked a boy the whereabouts of a maghaze (shop). "For cheese," we explained.

"Come to my house. Bread and cheese we have. Eat lunch."

Hospitality and free, clean drinking water are two things we'll remember about Iran. 

The saddest story ever told?

If you are born in Iran but your parents are Afghan refugees (from the 1980s Russian invasion of Afghanistan), the Iran government considers you to be "Afghan", not an Iranian citizen. This means no Iranian passport or equal rights as 'Iranians'.

Only a resident permit for the town you live, official permission required to travel to another town; to travel without permission risks arrest... a scary thought. Sometimes you can study at univeristy, other times 'Afghans' not permitted.

To get an Afghan passport means relinquishing your resident permit and thus being truly stateless ... either deported or going to Afghanistan of own volition, a country that is not "home". 

"We're used all the time," one Afghan man told us, "The west say no nuclear for Iran so Iran says 'give it to us or we deport the Afghans.' They know the west will say, 'no don't deport the Afghans. Let's talk instead.'  After years of being treated badly, his family have given up and moved to Afghanistan. He's the only one who refuses to give up his birthplace and keeps hoping he can sit the national exam for university this year. 

Isfahan

The prospect of warmer weather and a room were as exciting as the prospect of buying a carpet in the ancient bazaar.  After three rainy days battling against ridiculous headwinds and our visas running out, we put our bikes on a bus to Isfahan and watched the wind from the comfort of a heated bus.

Isfahan is a fantastic city, crowded with ancient heritage and countless shops. Shopping seems to be an iranian passion and the age-old tradition of clustering shops into areas continues. We found haberdashery street, shoe avenue, and the very glitzy bridal street.

After submitting our passports to renew our visas, we were picked up by Ali, a local man who took a few hours off work to take us on a guided tour. As well as learning some history of Isfahan, we learnt where to find the best bastani, icecream, which just happened to be in the Meydan Imam.

The Meydan Imam is a huge square, lined with corridors selling carpets, lanterns, Indian silks, spices, everything you can imagine. That night we went to dinner with Ali and his family at the sumptuous Naghse Jahan restaurant, above a courtyard in the Meydan Imam.

We caught up with Urdin and Izaro, the Basque cyclists we met in Armenia. We all agree: Iran is much easier cycling than Armenia! Cat and Izaro are trying with their headscarves but can't quite carry off the glamorous Iranian style!

Izaro and Urdin had had to wait in Tehran for India visa and a story of their friend's effort to leave Tehran made us glad we never went: 3 hours cycling and he was still in the city. Makes Isfahan's 1.5 million population seem miniscule!

Ali again showed us inimitable hospitality by taking a few hours to visit the Shaking Minarets. When one minaret tower is shaken from the inside, the other one vibrates as well. Knowing our tummies rumble as regularly as the minarets, Ali took us to a tea shop and to the best beyrani (mincemeat pancake) in Isfahan, down an alley just off Imam Khomeini Square.

And the carpet update: we indulged! We met our kindred carpet spirit in Mr Hazegh, thanks to his son Mohammed. For 35 years he's being travelling to meet nomads in Iran, travelling by donkey, camel and foot if necessary. He's as passionate about the people and his journies to find the carpets as the pieces themselves.

The family have Paradise Carpets in the Meydan Imam, but their second shop, usually for merchants, is in the basement.(No.19 Afrinesh Bazar, paradisecarpets@yahoo.com) We thought we'd decided on a Baluchistan carpet, until he unrolled a Zamreh carpet and we were speechless:  this chocolate-coloured carpet literally glowed in the light.   

And a good tip about carpets: some nomads edge their carpets with goat hair to deter snakes and scorpions who don't like the scent of goat. So we'll be camping in goat poop from now on.

How to survive Iranian drivers

• Consider yourself immortal and bounceable; everyone else does
• Ride with your trigger finger poised on both brakes
• Forget about the drivers behind, danger comes side-on or reverses toward you
• Stick to the main highways - at least they have a shoulder to cycle on
• WSSP! Wave, shout, swerve, pray!

The long and windy road

We turned off the Tabriz-Tehran highway at Soltaniyeh to follow a reccommended route to Hamadan, a secondary road.  It was three days of crippling headwinds and rain, the worst weather conditions we've had on the trip so far. The scenery was monotonous countryside of ploughed fields and hills in the distance. North-east Iran seems to be a series of wide, windswept basins.   

At Qeydar, as we cycled along the mainstreet we gradually picked up a cavalcade of boys on motorcycles and bicycles. When we stopped to ask directions to the breadshop we were utterly surrounded. Tourists, let alone cyclists are a novelty!

We met Ahmad, an English teacher, and spent a wonderful afternoon with him and his family before getting back onto the road. 

We made it 20km out of Qeydar before it was dark and in our tired and cold state, decided to camp in the open rather than plug along the highway in the dark to find somewhere more concealed.  A silly decision: we got bogged in mud and had to bunny-hop-lift our 60kg bikes that were clogged up to the gears! Then we got a visit from the police.  

They arrived just as we had put our tent up and were putting our panniers away. "Bad men," we were warned and he drew his finger across his throat for emphasis.

Not much happens in Qeydar we realised.  Adam had to speak on the policeman's mobile phone with a man at the station who simply wanted to practice English. They wanted to see what was inside our tent. When we dutifully unzipped our tent, one of the cops took a sleeping bag out and wore it like a superhero cape!  

Three hours from the city of Hamadan we met the local television crew and were filmed. We were waylaid by conversation and tea as we rode in by a lovely couple.

The television station reccomended a hotel that turned out to be $85/night and at the top of a long hill. We weren't very happy. Hamadan is exceptionally friendly and lots of people helped us until we eventually found Asrejadid Guest house (Khandany Alley, Ekbaten Street) for $10/night: no glitz & glamour, no humour at reception, about as comfy as concrete but clean and drier than another night of camping!

45 seconds from mortality

Few things will make us stop on an uphill, not even a fridge on a lonely mountain road, or a pickup truck that flips over in the rain and slides down the highway 100 metres ahead of us.

But when it smashed into the car that had just overtaken us, we cycled hard, barely believing what we'd seen and that the three boys crammed into the pickup's cabin were now clambering out and rushing over to the car.

Adam helped them wrench open the car door. The passenger, a middle aged man was shouting and wanting to be lifted out. They laid him on our picnic mat and we put our first aid kit to use, taking charge because the boys were in shock and nobody around.

That soon changed but nobody seemed to know what to do other than discuss the accident, peer into the wreckage and take photos of Adam putting pressure on the bloke's bloodied leg. Why do you need his jacket? To cover him. Why do you want his mobile? Someone needs to telephone his family!

When the ambulance arrived, the concept of a triage was unusual. Immobilise the leg he complains about, he's hysterical so give him a drip for the pain, oh, now notice his bloodied leg and the person plugging a gaping hole with blood everywhere.

Six men tried to manouevre the stretcher, accidentally tipping the bloke into the ambulance head first. Then the stretcher rolled back out the backdoor of the ambulance and they had to catch it before it rolled downhill.

"Do you reckon the guy would want a kangaroo pin?" A couple of foreigners climbing into the ambulance wouldjust be part of the confusion.

Soltaniyeh

Our travel so far has focused more on people and conversations than monuments, but we were passing through Soltaniyeh and our map said there was a big mausoleum in town and it wasn't on a hill (We're not fans of going uphill to 'see stuff' unless there's going to be a lot of awe and free cup of tea).

We could see the aqua-coloured dome 8 km away, so there looked like a suitable amount of awe in store. It got even better when the ticket man said, "Mister, go up."

Inside, the Soltaniyeh dome itself is obscured by scaffolding so, to get their $1 worth, visitors are allowed to climb the stairs and walk around inside and outside the dome.

Iranian restoration of monuments is notoriously slow.  Hold it up with scaffolding seems to be the option rather than actual restoration work. We realised why it's a slow process when we watched the workmen outside. A good half hour of entertainment provided by the fella who prefers to maneouvre under the chain rather than take a few steps around the pylon...

How fast is fear?

The answer, in Cat's case, is 40.1 km/hour! We were initally pleased that Iranians tend to blast a tunnel through a mountain rather than go up and over like their Caucasus neighbours. The tunnels are usually pretty well lit and if we're lucky we can see the light at the end.

But then we experienced the notoriously terrible driving. With trucks on our heels and finding herself in the lead, the effort of quelling panic and imaginings of being mashed against a tunnel wall was too much and Cat pedalled like the blazes ... look out Lance Armstrong!

A few hours later we watched in disbelief as a truck tried to overtake us in a tunnel, not noticing the oncoming trucks in this confined space of two lanes. Screeching brakes, Cat screeching at Adam to go faster, and ten very long seconds until we were back out in sunshine. Think one of us would prefer to go over rather than through these mountains.

First impressions - 20th October

The attention we receive is almost overwhelming. People stop on the highway to take photos with us, to give us food. Around the towns it's always "Hello Mister!" and we're having a difficult time paying for anything. Doubtless when we do pay, it's probably more than local price, but every interaction is so charming and polite.  Sometimes we just have to slap our money on the counter!

Clothing, well, Cat has to remember not to roll up her sleeves when feeling hot or tucking into a meal! But no hassles with her attire thus far. There are more chadors (big cloaks)being worn than we expected, but some of the manteau (thigh-length coats) that women wear are very figure-hugging.

Makeup is a must-have and we haven't seen any women covering their faces like the Wahhabi sects of Yemen or Saudi or Konya, Turkey. What little is permitted is put on show - even the occasional stocking-clad ankle!

Men wear collared shirt and polo t-shirts, t-shirts not as popular. Adam wears loose shorts to cycle in and wears trousers in town. Again, no problems. Iranian cyclists love their lycra. If anything, his beard is controversial because Iranians favour clean-shaven or "designer stubble", associating beards with learned Mullahs or the much-disliked neighbours, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The sexes are segregated. Women sit at the back of the bus, men at the front. Boys walk with boys, girls with girls, though we've seen two daring couples holding hands. We're always bumping into each other and asking, "Was that an accident?" Only supposed to touch if it's an emergency. Crossing a busy road constitutes a pinkie-holding emergency!

It feels more "western" and affluent here than in Georgia or Armenia. Posters of Ayatollah Khomeini and the President are sold alongside Christian Ronaldo, Van Damme, and 50 cent. The only posters of women we've seen are the rainbow-coloured religious type or movie posters where they appear alongside men.

Juice bars are as popular as traditional (man only) tea shops. Cat's been invited to sit with Adam and the men in tea shops in small towns, but never in the city.  

Iranian roads - 18th October

The greatest hazard on Iranian roads are the drivers. The second hazard is being given more food than we can carry!  We're making a lot of apple crumble on our camp stove and missing the big "ration biscuits" of Georgia and Armenia that make it perfect.

In return, we give gold kangaroo pins and fluffy clip-on koalas. But the best gift seems to be taking photographs of people we meet and asking them to write their address on an envelope. "Ah-dress posta?"

The main highways have wide shoulders that we cycle on. Iranian drivers are friendly but terrible, pulling over at the last minute and reversing toward us, overtaking like maniacs. All this makes the Islamic State's ban on alcohol reassuring. Our lives flashed before our eyes on a few occasions; too many more and each day will seem like a disco.

Road rules are beknownst only to Iranians. We think the etiquette is to ignore traffic lights and simply push out. Pedestrians step out and trust that drivers will slow down.  Terrifying whether on two wheels or foot. We almost mowed down a sprightly Nana in her ankle-length chador!

Welcome to Iran! 15th October

We spent half an hour waiting outside an empty cubicle at the Armenian border while guards and cleaning ladies chatted and shrugged when we asked for someone to stamp our passports. Cat eventually lay down on the ground in mutiny. Soon enough, the stern lady appeared to stamp our passports and we cycled over the bridge into Iran.

Iran's Nurduz checkpoint took ten minutes and the guard at the x-ray machine waved us through rather than hassle us with unloading all our luggage. Welcome to our country!

Cat's attire of pantaloons tucked into socks, big blouse (half-thigh) and bright headscarf under her helmet seems acceptable, though for modesty's sake she dangles her shirt tails over the back of her bike seat.  (Picture to come!)

The Aras river valley border between Iran and Armenia and Naxcivan(Azerbaijan) is arid and mountainous, and if it wasn't a border zone, would have been beautiful to photograph. The first Iranian we met was a Environmental Guard, who told us there are gorg (wolves) and reignited Cat's hope of hearing wolves howling outside our tent.  The second was an Iranian cyclist, Hossan, who cycles 200km every Wednesday.

Hossan escorted us to Jolfa and found us a hotel. "Okay, 'Hotel' is a loose term, I have to admit," Adam agreed when Cat was aghast at both the bedding and beardie-weirdie clientele from Pakistan and Afghanistan, workers in the Aras Economic Free Zone.

She went into a few hours of sartorial shock: headscarf and socks must be donned when outside our room, even to nip down the hall to the toilet. This usually gets a few beardie viewers peering out their doors. Hoping for a glimpse of titillatingly bare toes, perhaps? 

After nine tough days in the saddle we needed a day off in Jolfa. We did a few laps of the roundabout and learnt that in Iran cakes are sold by weight in big boxes. Heaven.

We had a surreal evening with Mohammed, who we met in a shop. We thought we were going to have dinner with his family so met him and his cousin, Reza, with a big box of cakes. Cat was allowed to sit in the back of the car with Reza, a man not her relative and soemthing that wouldn't be allowed if she was an Iranian woman. 

They drove us to Hami Shad, a nearby town, to eat chicken wings, smoke shisha pipe and drive around listening to Sabrina's 80's pop hit, Boys, Boys, Boys!  Then we went home.

Something was definitely lost in translation.

Armenia

"What tanks?" - To Adam's sheer disbelief Cat was too busy looking at cabbage fields and day dreaming to notice the ten tanks in convoy .

Up and up and up and up

From Kapan to Meghri our map showed tight contours and this time, it wasn't wrong. Two days of climbing, averaging 5 km per hour, but it was exhilarating to be tackling our last mountain range of Armenia.

We had just read Chris & Larissa's blog (www.fietsenvoorsac.nl) about pushing their bikes through the snow in the pamirs, Tajikistan, and knew that in worldwide mountain terms we had it easy: clear days, good highway, 12 percent climbs that we could (just) cycle ... even if the odometre was registering a pitiful 4.3 kmh!

The reward was a 36km downhill and a cup of tea with Avo, Armenia's own Marlboro man. We met him outside of Meghri when we stopped at a spring opposite his shack. He buys and sells diesel, gleefully making 1000 dram ($1.80) profit and selling cups of beer to Iranian truck drivers.

In Agarak, the border town, a black 4WD pulled over and the tinted window wound slowly down. Not Armenian mafia, but Richard and Arsun, Aussie and Greek-Armenian, who have just started with the Agarak mine. These two relish a challenge: the "most up-to-date" data from the mine dates back to 1988.  And Avo probably sells off some of the mine's diesel! 

Rich gave us beer, a bed, hot shower and fantastic hospitality. A great end to Armenia.

To Tatev

Heading south from Yerevan, Armenia improved immensely. We even got the occasional smile and wave, rather than the usual honking of horns and stares.

When we stopped to buy fruit and honey in Areni, a wine growing area, Volodya insisted we visit his cellar. Then we had to try his wine.

Like a pair of Goldilocks we progressed from the little bottle, medium bottle, big bottle. Three glasses of homemade wine are the reason we never made it to Norovank monastery, another of those poscard places.

We flagged down a cyclist zipping downhill toward us. Stuart, an englishman, relinquished a great pace in favour of chocolate biscuits and an hour's chat. He' having the opposite experience to us: okay turkey, amazing Armenia.

We had a cunning plan to avoid the infamous 49 hairpin turns on the Goris-Kapan highway and cut off a few kilometres: going via Tatev monastery and rejoining the highway at Kapan.  Our map indicated we'd avoid some big contours as well as hairpins.

Outside the village of Halidzor, our last chance to stock up on supplies for two days (one egg and questionable sausage meat), we met a group of Iranians who assured us that we had a big climb ahead.

When we rounded the corner we saw the road dropping into the valley far below and then climbing higher than our height on the opposite mountain range. Thunderclouds were rolling in so we camped and saved the zigzag road "for 'Ron."

'Ron proved to be a challenging morning. We accidentally filled up our water bottles with sulphurous spring water at Devil's Bridge in the valley. The steep road to Tatev proved to be dirt; any trace of bitumen eroded by time and tourist vans.

Tatev monastery unfortunately didn't have a Bloke Down a Hole story to rival Khor Virap monastery, but it did have a brick missing in the wall of the church where treasure had been hidden until it was plundered.

And as for avoiding those 49 hairpin turns and big contours?

We lost count after 60 hairpins and wished we had an altimeter. In one day we crossed two mountain ranges and two valleys, countless steep dirt switchbacks, an hour of dense fog, and two kms of mud that had Cat happily skidding along and Adam dreading cleaning our bikes. And two tough days ahead of us as we race to exit Armenia. Bring it!

Postcard Armenia - 6th October

Khor Virap monastery is the postcard shot of Armenia: monastery and Mount Ararat.

It was here that Grigor the Enlightenor was put in a hole by a despotic king for thirteen years. It sounds like a Life of Brian-type story and we spent our visit trying to be respectful and choke back our giggles.

"You'll need a shoehorn to get me out of here," was Adam's prediction when he climbed down the hole in Khor Virap. His verdict: another of those "use your imagination" experiences.

"Not even a 'Grigor woz 'ere' scratched into the wall?" Cat asked, disappointed.

"Nothing! He didn't really maximise his time down there, did he?"

Armenians would disagree as the man was later Saint Grigor and loads of places, streets, small boys named after him. Still, sticking a bloke down a hole for thirteen years then deciding he's a saint is a good story. If only his name was Brian...

And at last, a Magic Carpet! - 1st October

Short of finding a genie in a lamp to grant us the wish of a magic carpet, we didn't think we'd any chance of getting an Iranian visa before the winter snows set in, if at all. Though Cat did keep an eye out for a magic lamp at the Yerevan weekend market...

Zoreh at "Magic Carpet Travel" is our saviour. She reassured us via email and counselled that another hot chocolate would distract from worrying. Our visa approval number arrived in a miraculous 5 working days. Unheard of! At last some good luck for us and proof that magic carpets do exist: www.magic-carpet-travel.com 

If we find the magic genie lamp at Yerevan market this weekend, Zoreh can have one of our three wishes.

We hurried to the Iranian embassy here in Yerevan and handed in our passport to the kind lady. A box of sweets was handed around to everyone waiting for visas. This definitely isn't Armenian territory, Toto!

We'll pick up our visas at 12:45, Monday 5th October - have a celebratory hot chocolate for us wherever you are! "Imelda of the Headscarves" has quite a collection already but had to wear sombre black for the offical visa photo.

We've 8 days left on our Armenian visa so will cycle hard to the border crossing at Meghri. Even the infamous 49 hairpin turns can't deter us!

An idiot's guide to obtaining an Armenian visa extension - 28th September

Step 1, Locate OVIR (Office of Visa & Immigration Registration) by asking directions at least three times in a 300m radius of the corner of Magrashots &  Amiryan Streets. (OVIR is behind the theatre on Magrashots St, go down the side lane.)

Step 2, Walk to the front of the queue at Room 212, open the door and peer inside, look exasperatedly at all the other people in the queue, stand and fiddle with your mobile phone, check your watch, peer through the door again, huff and puff your way to the back of the queue. Watch every person after you do the same.

Step 3, Spend the next hour-and-a-half observing the harried little official enter and exit his office armed with pieces of paper and an arbitrary sense of who should be served next. Almost as arbitrary as the Armenian sense queuing.

Step 4, Reach the front of the queue, stand your ground and stare down little old ladies and stout women armed with children. Sympathy has no place here, Mama!

Step 5, Get the visa extension form and bank code from the official. Extensions are 500 dram (90 pence) per day, paid at any bank. Pay the bank and get a receipt. Straightforward until the bank can't translate your surname into Armenian ...

Step 6, Get a passport photo and watch in disbelief as the photographer airbrushes the photo.

Adam's unkempt beard and hair were trimmed to strange proportions, like an identikit photo: "Have you seen this man?" Armenian standards of beauty seemingly override all concerns of documentation legality.

Step 7, Return to the queue outside Room 212. Clutch those precious papers, including a copy of the form and "Australia's Most Wanted" photo, and eyeball determined Nanas and glamorous VIPs (Very Important Princesses) to the back of the queue. 

Step 8, Hand over the official papers, watch him staple them and give them back, "Room 217."

Step 9, Room 217 has moved to Room 215. The unsmiling women with very shiny lapels on her unflattering grey uniform scowls then stamps the forms and hands them back, "Room 212."  Back where we started?

Step 10, Queue until summoned to place your form on a pile boxed on his desk. "Three days come back." Try not to kick the wall with exasperation as you leave. Three days means we'll be here another weekend.

Step 12, Chance it and return on the 3rd working day, Monday. Wave your paper about and eventually catch the official's eye. Select your form from the box on his desk and give him your passport.

Step 13, Slam the door when told to leave the room because someone has pushed in front.

Step 14, Watch him hurry down the hall to "process" your application, i.e. stamp and write the new exit date in your passport. Wonder aloud why - apart from exemplary bureaucratic laziness - this couldn't have happened in one day?

Carpets and spanners

To distract ourselves from worrying about the Iranian visa debacle, we went to Yerevan's weekend market,  the Vernissage.

Recycling is big business here but only if it makes you money. There is secondhand paradise at each end of the Vernissage; souvenirs in the middle if you so desire a pomegranate-shaped pot or lurid painting of Mount Ararat.  

We wandered along considering the merits of a gasmask, a surveyor's tripod, peach-coloured crockery, handcarved wood. There's even a section dedicated to terrifying medical instruments, sharp and shiny.  

We're looking for a second shirt for Cat to wear in Iran, but the Vernissage traders are all charlatans, wanting £10-20 for a second-hand shirt! Apparently Kings Road and Le Frog are good "German brand". There was no negotiating after we laughed in disbelief.

Amidst all this trash and treasure, a size 15 spanner should be easy enough to find, but only 10, 12, 14 and 17 sizes. Did the Soviets only use four sizes of nuts? Speaking of nuts, we almost bought a carpet.  

Iranian visa worry caused a moment of madness. We had a whole two minutes of dreaming then we heard the price: 1000 euros! "Armenian antique!" The woman assured us.

Cat walked away at that point but Adam bargained the woman down to 400 euros, ignoring her pleas, "Armenian antique! Antique! Please, it's my business!" We splurged 600 dram (£1) on five lamajo (mincemeat pitabread) instead. The lamajo glass hut is the best shop in Yerevan.  

Yerevan, city of glamourpusses and gangsters - 24th September

We have a room in an apartment in a former KGB building - security guaranteed! Our host, Hayk, works in Armenia's film industry and it's great to sit around the kitchen table chatting. Our apartment is our haven in this unfriendly, uninteresting city.

Another haven is Segafreddo Cafe, on the corner of Northern Avenue and Tumanyan Street, opposite the park. Karen and his staff look after us every day, except the one day each week we wash our clothes and have to stay at home until they dry!

Northern Avenue is the poshest street in Yerevan. We scuff past the designer shops wearing the same worn-out clothes day after day.

Sitting in Segafreddo, we sip divine hot chocolate and watch the beautiful and exceptionally-buxom parade by. Gorgeous girls in tight jeans and oversized sunglasses totter past short men dressed in the latest shade of gangster black. Everyone laps Northern Avenue then sits on the benches to pass comment on each other.

"There's about a window of seven years before they start turning into their mothers," is Adam's scientific conclusion after a few hours of watching girls go by.

Perhaps in the city of wanna-bes, in a country without much tourism from non-Armenians, it's no surprise that we're laughed at block after block. Though rudeness gets wearing after a while, particularly when people literally turn around, point and laugh.

For the oldest Christian country in the world, shouldn't Armenia welcome two wandering pilgrims? Adam certainly looks the part with his explosion of a beard. But no, this is the rudest place we've been, and can count the number of polite and nice people we've met. Three of them are fellow cyclists! 

As well as meeting up with Graydon again, we met Izaro and Urdin who are cycling from the Basque country www.1000milla.com and waited 8 weeks to get their Iranian visa...!

The Iranian visa debacle - 19th September

Iranians are famous for their hospitality so when a young Iranian who Adam employed in London said his family would help us with the invitation letter to obtain our visas, we leapt at the chance. 

In Turkey we double-checked twice that this was still the case, checking again in Georgia. “Yes, yes, just let me know when and where you want to get your visa.”

So we arrive in Yerevan, Armenia, expecting to pick up our invitation letter and make visa application asap. Instead, an email saying the offer is reneged. "Not a good situation in Iran, but enjoy your trip." It was an up-yours of an email and we veered between livid anger and feeling helpless. 

If he had told us earlier that his family didn't want to be our invitees we'd have applied months ago using a visa agency and be on our way. Instead we wait out the long weekend (Armenian public holiday!) to hear from visa agencies and to find out if we can extend our Armenian visa as well.

We know four cyclists who are currently in or have just been to Iran: unrivalled hospitality, no government hassles; the opposite of media accounts about embassy staff politics and ridiculous Americans who don’t have visas.

So we're in a bind in a little country with only 2 open borders: to Georgia or Iran.

Plan A is to (hopefully) extend Armenian visas and pay £200 each for an express visa (though Iranian visas are never guaranteed!), and hope we don't end up cycling in November snows ... Plan B is to retrace our route back to Turkey, meaning 1000km unnecessarily cycled ... Plan C is to track down an Armenian truck driver we know who drives to Syria every few weeks ... Plan D is to get a bus through Georgia to Turkey and cycle to Syria ...

"Let's go with Plan G!"

Clouds and concrete - 14th September

Armenian roads are the highlight of the country so far. Bitumen, relatively few potholes and people selling fruit by the roadside. Buckets of peaches, figs and tomatoes, all organic fruit because Armenia can't afford pesticides.  

We cycled along the Debed Canyon in Aussie-Canadian convoy enjoying peaceful nature littered with rubbish and charmless Soviet architecture of rusting pylons, crumbling cement and broken windows. Every small village and town we passed has abandoned buildings, even more so than Georgia. But we finally found a reason to take a photo - the village of Shnogh!

We cycled up to the monastery at Haghpat; a steep climb out of the Debed Canyon that brought us up onto a plateau and our second Armenian church.

Armenian design is pretty groovy, and not just for those earthquake-proof niches that Cat raves about. The architects tried to make each church unique, and their designs are similar to Celtic patterns.

The canyon looked picturesque and hazy in the warm evening light and in the morning there was a lot of cloud but it wasn't until we reached nearby Alaverdi (a true Soviet jewel) that we realised, "This isn't just cloud, is it?"

The highlights of Alaverdi include the billowing smokestack, stagnating pools of water and decaying apartment blocks, as well as the cable car and UNESCO church up on the plateau. (UNESCO means free entry, yippee!)

The MIG jet was invented by an Armenian and we learnt this because in Alaverdi there is a museum dedicated to his achievement. We gave it a miss. The cable car was enough fun for one day.

Back on the road - 13th September

"Irina's" is one of the few budget accommodation options in Tbilisi. Irina is a corpulent Georgian who rarely moves from her chair, sitting in a fug of cigarette smoke as people come to pay homage and beg for a bed.  We got the beds belonging to her daughter and grandson.

At Irina's we met Graydon, a Canadian cyclist of no fixed abode, most recently a teaching stint in Burma. (www.silkroadride.blogspot.com) So, as always, mutual bicycle appreciation and tales of the road were in order. We also warned Graydon about The Charlatan, the trader at the old Velodrome, the only place to get bike parts in Georgia.

We got two  secondhand inner tubes and a box of patches for 20 lari (£8). As a show of kindness the owner patched up each inner tube for free before selling them to us. As for cycling the Velodrome, let's just say it made Georgian secondary roads look tip-top.

We collected the Schwalbe tyres that Troy & Reehan had couriered from London to UPS Tbilisi. At last we could replace Adam's crappy Chinese tyre (Thank you both!). Cat initially dismissed the derelict building as abandoned but there was a small scrawl and footprint on a wall that led us to the main UPS office of Georgia. But of course it's here!

The three of us cycled from Tbilisi to the Armenian border, passing through villages of ethnic Azeris who spoke Turkish. Such a mixed up corner of the world.

Even the signs had us confused. Close to the border we wondered if we'd taken a wrong turn when the sign said, "Burma 1km".

With a stern warning not to overstay our 21-day visas and begrudging acceptance of Adam's beardless passport photos on his visa application, we were admitted to Armenia. 

Georgia

"This country will be great when they build some roads," - Cat's enthusiasm for a 'tarred road' usually wanes some time around lunchtime ...

"I don't think I'm ever going to be able to do the splits,"Adam's effort at Soviet-style gymnastics to limber up for Georgia only lead to crushing disappointment

Tbilisi - 11th September

Our initial impression that this country is slowly crumbling has been confirmed by Tbilisi. The heart of the city is a combination of old Georgian grandeur (houses with wooden balconies on the first floor, rusted ironwork and ornate stone facades) and Soviet-style infrastructure of metro stations and bridges.

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The street names are usually in Georgian script, but we were rescued by Gozan, a Georgian cyclist, who showed us to Marjianashvili Street. This is the cheap accomodation area. Georgian houses are built around courtyards set back from the street; grand designs but like most things in Georgia, the buildings have been patched up time and again.   

The Velodrome is the best place to get over-priced bike parts in Tbilisi but it's in about the same condition as the roads!  

The pavements on many streets are half-taken over by street stalls, usually women, selling fruit, vegetables, second-hand clothes. Old women beg outside designer shops and watch the shiny 4WD cars go by. One woman snoozed in the shade, still possessively cradling a box of possessions she had to sell: three pairs of earring and a brooch. Tbilisi is a series of street markets.

"So, do you like capitalism?" Gozan asked us.

It was a difficult question for two Australians to answer. Our capitalism has a few pleasant trappings of socialism: healthcare and unemployment benefits.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has created huge poverty in Georgia. Gozan said simply, "If you don't work, you will die." He's a mathematician who can only get work tutoring students, making enough to survive and occasionally repair his bicycle. We also heard of a teacher who taught for 30 years and now lives on a pension of 69 lari a month. (less than £35/month).

For all that it's a new bargain backpacker destination and a playground for wealthy Georgians, Tbilisi seems like a city with a worn-out soul. We're keen to get back to the countryside and our stinky little tent.

Patching up - 8th September

"Lesson learned," Adam announced, "Never try to scrape off patch glue with your super sharp Leatherman knife." This was how the second puncture of the day became a third. At this point, Cat gave up trying to help and waited ... and waited ...

The Schwalbe tube didn't seem to take our patches despite sandpapering and roughing it up, so eight patches and a few lengths of Hungarian gaffa tape later we were on the road again.

Cat's next puncture happened during a roaring gale and spitting rain. We're almost out of patches so let's hope Tbilisi has a bike shop!

Wild Georgia - 10th September

The Turks, with all the friendliness of ancient enmity warned us, Georgia, dikkat! Be careful in Georgia! Refugees from neighbouring Abkhazia, corrupt officials, terrible drivers, oh, Georgia is a dangerous place.

Admittedly the drivers are terrible. The newer the car, the worse the driver. Hearing the spluttering of a Lada that's as old as it's driver is comforting - they drive reasonably slowly. Even slower if the backseat is piled high with watermelons or there's a pallet of pigs strapped to the roof. Wouldn't want to bruise the produce on a pothole!

And there are plenty of potholes. We took the 'secondary tarred road' from Ninotsminda to Manglisi and bumped our way for 100km. Dried mud track seemed luxurious after tens of kilometres of stones. Where the road was almost impossible for even the sturdiest Lada, the locals had simply dig another road alongside the bad road. 

We can't decide if digging a parallel track constitutes initiative or perverse laziness about fixing roads ... either way, the Georgian government doesn't seem to prioritise the countryside people. We've seen the poorest living standards of a "westernised" country that we've seen, and the grey afternoon sky didn't help our impressions of these small villages.

Adam became the focus of the local drunks who insisted we take a photo of them. An Aussie, two Georgians, two Greeks and the common language is Turkish!

The historical irony was lost in a haze of cheap Ukranian beer: Turkey has been the enemy of each country during the last century. And to complicate the situation further, one of the Greeks wrote the address of the village shop in Cyrillic so that we could send him this photo.

Food became an issue. We couldn't find many markets, even in reasonably sized villages, and it must be a poor region because on other roads people have a table outside their front gate to sell fruit from their trees or home bottled wine.

We were excited to find a market in Poka and the best things available were sardines, two-minute noodles and Snickers bars. While we filled up our water bottles at a spring, a woman gave us three carrots. You would have thought we'd won the lottery!  

When we did find a market, we learnt to go crazy and buy four days of supplies, even stooping to the 'dirty meat' that Cat despises. Though after a few days of screwing up her nose, even she capitulated to a meal of pasta and "sausage".

"Meat is a pretty broad term," Adam agreed, but hunger and a lack of options can induce anyone to lower their standards to ground-up offal disguised with chilli. It went nicely with the 'football bread', a shrink-wrapped loaf that doesn't dent even when you kick it!

Vardzia - 4th September

We met a French couple, Jean and Marie-Michelle, on the road to Vardzia. Then, half an hour later, met Sam and Riza and their Georgian friends, who happened to have a nice bottle of Georgian wine and baskets of fruit in the back of their car - true Georgian travelling style. One cup of that wine and Cat lost all fear of downhill... 

Our plan to camp at Vardzia, the cave city, was interrupted by a rainstorm so we camped in a disused quarry, much to the consternation of a cow the next morning.

Vardzia is incredible. It doesn't look particularly impressive at first, but it's a huge complex, originally thirteen storeys high. It was built in the 12th century by Queen Tamar and her father, and has hundreds of rooms.

It also has some frescos including one of only four remaining pictures of Queen Tamar. We couldn't work out which one she was and didn't feel inclined to ask the local priest. With a ponytail and two incisor teeth - only - he had a vampiric smile and a glazed look in his eyes.

We planned to take the road from Vardzia to Komodo, but looking at eleven switchbacks of dirt road and only having two bottles of water and half a packet of sultanas, we decided against it. Luckily, because finding food was going to prove difficult for the next few days.

Akhalaka-whatey? - 3rd September

We've been wild camping in the forest most nights, but we splurged one night in Akhalkalaki. A local shop has a Russian truck driver's dormitory in the basement for the bargain price of 5 lari per bed (5 lari = £1.70). Being a couple we got the romantic room with five Soviet hospital-style beds and some hand-drawn porn on the vivid blue walls. Picasso definitely didn't drive a truck...  

The Russian truck drivers were very glad to see us, but it was hard to find a common language. Russian? Nyet.

German? Nien.

English? No.

Turkish? Ahz.

Beer? Beer!

Funnily enough, neither party even asked if the other spoke Georgian  ...

Stocking up at the local market took two hours, visiting different markets and making conversation. A shopkeeper gave us water, juice and a roll of toilet paper that resembled a brick of crepe paper; about the same absorbancy as well. 

We found the fruit and veg stalls down a muddy side lane with lots of bees hovering over the fruit. It's about 1 lari for 1 kilo but it's only a bargain if it fits in our panniers.

Georgians are much more reserved than the Turks but gharma joba (hello) usually starts the conversation that ends quickly because we don't know Russian and we definitely don't speak Georgian beyond four vital words: Gharma joba (hello), madloba (thank you), nah hwam diz (goodbye) and epsi (6) - the number of eggs for our egg carton! 

So while Turkey was all about tea and talking, Georgia seems to be about landscapes and quiet times.

Velcom to Georggggiaaaaaa! - 1st September

This greeting from the border guards had us excited for Georgia. We crossed out of Turkey with three days left on our three-month visa, feeling sentimental about leaving but excited for Georgia and it's famously bad roads. Gule gule Turkey, gharma joba Georgia!

Aussies no longer need visas to enter Georgia so it was an easy crossing from Turkgozu to Vale.

Out of the border post and we were back in the 1940's: old-style lorries made of wood and rusted rivets, a rocky road that hadn't ever seen bitumen, concrete milestones and small houses that looked aeons-old.

At last, 5km from the border, we came to the town of Vale and met bitumen for a fantastic ride down into the valley. Who said Georgian roads are all bad?   

Beautiful goodbye - 31st August

We sped out of Kars and got a flat tyre 10km down the road. Adam's Continental tyre had managed a magnificent 4950km before shredding along the rim. He patched it up and we were on our way to Cildir Golu lake.

Easy cycling and perfect wild camping spots had us dreaming about moving here and setting up house on the shores of Cildir Golu. Cat will take up a new pastime that we only discovered in this region: goose herding. Seems less taxing than chasing errant cows or sheep.

The tyre held out for three repair jobs before the tube pushed through the other side and burst. Luckily, Adam was stationary at the time of the ear-ringing explosion and a plumber's truck came along within minutes to give us a lift to Ardahan.

It was a 40 km detour to find a new tyre and we used our last inner tube. Ardahan is a sleepy town and things didn't look promising but we don't take yok for an answer. Besides, there's always an eager urchin on hand to help Adam look for a fantastic made-in-China tyre. Cat meanwhile stayed with the bikes and watched horse and cart deliveries go up and down the main street.

As we cycled out of town we were accosted by packs of dogs and Adam accidentally bounced a rock off a passing police car instead of the dogs. They made sure we were escorted out of town... 

We climbed - slowly- up into the mountains, scouring the green and golden walls ahead of us and hoping that the road didn't go there, or there, or there, and definitely not there....

We curved along the valley past Damal, passing four men all scything in unison, an agricultural Barbershop Quartet. At the village of Seyitoren we camped at the bottom of the last big pass, saving it for the next morning.  

The borderland of forests is different to farmland Turkey and when we started seeing ruined fortresses along the valleys we knew we were close to Georgia. Though the mountains looming in the distance had us wondering again where the road would go once we crossed the border. Not there, or there, or there...

Turkey

Quotes of Turkey

"Bookshops and guitar shops really are a sign of civilisation." "Bookshops? What about public sanitation?" - Adam finds a flaw in Cat's reasoning. 

"Can't wait to buy a car..." - Four months into our trip and Adam's bike seat has lost its novelty

"What bike?" - Cat's sense of responsibility and purpose is lost in the face of a big juicy burger. The first transfats in months, thank you Diyarbakir Burger King

"Great, I could use someone who speaks Turkish," - Swiss cyclist, David's faith in our lingual ability was open to disappointment.

"Everyone has an Indiana Jones in them," - Mustapha's philosophy on travel.

Reflections on Turkey - 26th July

Nearly three months and two thousand kilometres devoted to this great country and soon we will be over the border in Georgia. Turkey has been a spectacular part of our journey

There was hospitality more than we dared dream of and fewer dogs than we dared hope. Mountains, lakes, pine forest, high pastures, flat and dusty plains: we’ve seen nearly every landscape Turkey has to offer.

If we do say so ourselves, we believe we’ve represented our country to a high standard in all Turkish pursuits: tea drinking, kebab consumption, excessive use of the phrase çok güzel, and shouting our conversations so as to include everyone.

Things we’ll miss about Turkey
- Incredible hospitality that began with Sema in Bodrum
- Kilos of peaches, apricots and cherries straight from people’s orchards
- Speaking our baby-Turkish and being understood
- Freedom to picnic and camp anywhere
- Quiet yet proud Islamic faith (especially the bit about aid to travellers of all faiths)
- 1 lira chicken doner
- Easy pace of life, yavaş, yavaş (slow, slow) has become our mantra! Tea and conversation take precedence; everything else can wait

Things we won’t miss
- Misplaced male pride in having five, six, even twelve children, making a wife look a ravaged eighty years old when she’s only fifty-five
- Turkish drivers on winding roads – the One True Faith is carte blanche to drive like maniacs!
- Horrible kids  and teenagers in south-east Turkey
- The undercurrent of a controlling state (13 year old on trial for insulting the Prime Minister, YouTube banned, compulsory military service)

Our favourite Turkish words
Hoş geldiniz – welcome!
Çok güzel – good / great / bewdy / bonza / bloody brilliant! (level of emphasis interpreted by hand gestures and tilting of head)
Arkadash - friend
Tammum – okay
Afiyet olsun – enjoy your meal
Düz (dooz) – flat (not heard very often...)
Zor – difficult
Yok! – don’t have / hell no, I’m not giving you any money
Rooj bosh – Kurdish for good morning but sounds Afrikaans
Kazza – accident (thus, Karen isn’t a popular name for Turkish girls)

Kars: life in a small town - 11th August

We were excited to arrive in Kars. It felt slower and more 'local' than other large Turkish towns. We found the market where people buy sheep, goats and cattle then were in a four-legged traffic jam.

Along the main street the honey shops have honey combs stacked in the window, dirty-white and chocolate-coloured sheep fleeces hang in the doorway of the wool shop, and at Sivas Pide (our favourite pide shop) rounds of dough are slapped onto a huge wooden paddle to be fired in the oven and we join the chat as everyone waits for their takeaway. 

We've become something of a fixture in Kars; a pair of eccentrics with our routine and limited wardrobe of two shirts and one pair of trousers each. Everyone knows we live at the Oz Keravansaray Hotel (famed for its one shower shared between the cheap rooms but only available if you can track down the key) and we make our appeareance, without fail, afternoons and evenings.

The smell of chicken doner cooking downstairs wakes us up and we trudge to the PTT Post Office. We dutifully hand over our slip of paper with name and parcel number, and they dolefully shake their heads, Paket yok - don't have your parcel. (Bike and tent bits, guidebooks that we can't get in Turkey)

In the evening we drop into the doner shop to place our order, "Ooch tavook buyuk", (Three big chicken doners)

Then cross the road to Bulut Market where we chat with Mohammed and his family, "Hoş geldiniz! Paket?" They ask hopefully. We shake our heads, "Paket yok" and everyone raises their hands, "M'shallah!" 

Mohammed tells our story to everyone standing nearby, and they look to us for verification. Yes, it's true, we nod, the town only five hours away has had our packet for over a week now but not delievered. M'shallah! We've even been stopped in the street by people asking, "Paket?"

Having boosted the income of Bulut market 22 days in a row it takes a while to do our shopping between conversing with everyone. We cross back to the doner shop for our little slices of chooky love at 1 lira (€0.50) a pop, and return to our lovely little room with its jaw-dropping decor of gold curtains and pink floral bedspreads. We're usually too hungry to wait until the cannon shot at sundown to signal the Ramadan day is over.

At 11pm our neighbour slams home after a hard day of work, which involves a lot of tea and cigarette breaks, and at 1 am the arrivals from the eternally-delayed train from Istanbul slam into their rooms. Peace reigns for a few precious hours. But now it's Ramadan so most people are up before the call to prayer at 4:30am.

After our first week here we snapped out of routine and trudged up to Kars Kalesi, the citadel on the hill. As Australians, the dates of old buildings are always impressive. Kars Kalesi was built in 1153, smashed by Mongols, rebuilt in 1547, smashed by Russians.  Shame it's one of the world's most boring castles.

Cat was excited to visit the castle after reading The Honourable William Sandwith's (lisped) account of The Siege of Kars. In the mid-1800s, the Brits, French and Sardinians (a little-known but largely underestimated world power) backed the Ottoman Turks against the ambitious Russians. Not a great calculation. The Allies were also fighting the Crimean war so Sandwith and his men were left to disease and starvation... and handed Kars over to the  Russians in 1855.

Despite it's vivid history, Kars Kalesi isn't a highlight of Kars, nor of Turkey. Apart from the prayer rooms, it's another of those 'use your imagination' jobbies to work out where the outer walls stood, where the invaders attacked, stretching even Cat's enthusiasm. 

Turkey might be lax at conserving any historical monument that isn't a mosque, but we rest assured that there's always a cup of tea on hand at the end of an ininspiring day.

Ani - 2nd August

Ani is 'proper World heritage' according to Cat and warranted a 90km round trip just for fun. Oh, you crazy cyclists!

Ani is the old Armenian capital, built from the 5th century onwards, but thanks to shifting empires and territorial divisions of this beautiful but bloody corner of the world Ani is now in Turkey. The Armenians watch this bit of their heritage from across the Arpaçay river gorge, part of the Turkey-Armenia border which is closed.  

Thanks to three major earthquakes and lack of care by the Turkish government, Ani is in a state of decay but its setting on a windswept plain above the gorge and valley is spectacular.

And there are enough buildings still standing for Cat to rave about carved lintels, vaults, cupolas and the power of the arch. Adam was architecturally appreciative from a seated position thanks to his excruciating back pain.

The raging gale also meant all he could hear was the wind, not another excited comment about An Armenian Niche! (For those who are interested, the Armenians built with a long inverted V-shape in their buildings as an attempt to earthquake-proof ... it worked for Ani Cathedral below)

A lot of stones from fallen buildings are scattered around or have been moved to border the footpaths ... because archaeologists need more of a challenge...  

The raging gale and hurricane on the horizon indicated that inclement weather was imminent but rather than find a quiet camping spot to see out the soggy evening we decided to cycle back to Kars and our warm shoebox at Oz Kervansaray Hotel.

Zipping down the last stretch home at 30kmh on a wet and windy night, well, some might say that was almost as thrilling as An Armenian Niche!

Bike clinics, peace initiatives on two wheels - 2nd August

In the village of Karliova we were having tea (just for a change) and a break from the irrepresible shoe-shine boys who wanted "money money", when a boy brought his bicycle over to us. It had two flat tyres, he had one new inner tube and wanted to know if we could fix the back tyre.

We'd given our small spanner away two days earlier because we didn't need it. Until now.  Nobody in Karliova seemed to have a spanner and pliers didn't work on the rear nut. So the boy settled for pumping up the front tyre, didn't want it patched, and the crowd were suitably entertained.

When we got to the ruins of Ani we were accosted by the usual grabbing urchins that appear at tourist sites. Cat turned the tables on them and started admiring their bikes, swapping English and Turkish words for parts. "You've got shocks?! Wowwee!" "How many gears?" And the one phrase guaranteed to make friends: “Siniz biciklet ÇOK çabuk!” (Your bike is VERY fast!)

These lads just wanted to look at our bikes and see how they worked, though they were too short to have a test ride. The leader, who we nicknamed The Mechanic, knelt down to count our gears, "One, two, three at the front. Nine at the back!" He turned to his mate and said scornfully, "Your bike's only got two and six..."  

The Mechanic politely asked to borrow the pumpa on Cat's bike to fix his friend's tyre. Again, we needed that spanner! The little kids all gathered around, bumping the bike, feeling the tyre and informing him it had, "Ahz hava," (little air). When everyone finally agreed, "Tammum" (okay) The Mechanic carefully unscrewed the pump and put it back on Cat's bike.  

In ten minutes these pushy kids were redeemed and we became off-limits to any hassles. Who needs the UN when you've got a bike pump to bring peace?

High on a hill lived a lonely goat herd - 29th July

Actually he was a cow herder and very excited to stumble upon us when his herd of caramel cows surrounded our tent. He had no idea where Australia was and doesn't follow Galatasaray football club so he doesn't know about Harry Kewell, Australia's sole contribution to the Turkish football league.

For once we had to capitulate and we became Austrians, and don't Austrian ladies have great taste in fashion? He was delighted to see that Cat was wearing her Big Mama Peasant Pants, "çok guzel! Turkish women, Austrian women, same trousers," he told her. Flattery gets you nowhere, especially when it concerns big pants.

We took four days to cycle from Bingol to Erzurum, all uphill as warned by James, an American cyclist we met in Bingol. We got 40km of roadworks and a moment when life flashed before our eyes: a boulder crashed from the clifftop excavation site to 5m away from Cat's bike - Health & Safety Turkish style.

We cycled up the highest pass we've done in Turkey, between Çat and Ezurum. It was a bit of surprise as it wasn't marked on our map, but at least we got a 5km downhill as a reward. James, meanwhile, was headed south to Syria with downhill and a tailwind. Oh, the envy...

The high pastures of north-east Turkey are busy this time of year with people harvesting. White bell tents pitched here and there, with huge piles of cow dung covered by tarps, a kangol sheepdog on guard and a docile donkey or two. 

Neat piles of hay checker the meadows and a mountain range looms behind. Rows of bee hives, all light blue boxes, cluster on the hillside and the only sounds are the wind, the bees, and people whistling for the kangol.

We could hear a recognisable zhoom zhoom sound, but to our disappointment the old men weren't duelling with light sabres, only scything their crops.  

Ups and downs - 26th July

Kurdish Turkey - the verdict is out. At the moment we're desperate to get out of the south-east and back to Turkish-Turkey. Cat now wears her İranian outfit: black thigh-length blouse and pantaloons, but still they keep coming. Mashallah! They must be desperate!

We stayed at sOil petrol station 25 km from Diyarbakir after a warm welcome and Adam struck up a friendship with some of the men. He helped them fix their well; they fixed another of our punctures (we had no choice but to hand over the wheel to the expert, Ali who is left of Adam!).

We sat drinking tea and playing chess with the local İmam and his son, but even then Cat was still harassed. Teenage Kurdish boys think they can touch her, a 'married' western woman sitting next to her 'husband' who's next to the İmam.

The little nine and ten year olds on the other hand just want to teach us Kurdish and guard our bikes. Such responsiblity!

They asked their father to invite us to their home and we had a wonderful evening with the men of the house (we only saw the women when they brought in our food).

The next day drivers stop to give us water but shortly after we're stalked by teenage boys as we cycle slowly uphill, like lions trying to wear down their prey and whistling to remind us that they can still see us. 

İt's a relief to arrive in Bingol, where they rarely see westerners and people just want to practice English or shout at us, 'Go faster!'. 

We couldn't cycle faster because the police insisted on giving us an escort to a cheap hotel, but we had to wait outside a baklava shop - the Turkish equivalent of a doughnut stop?

'May you live long and live in Diyarbakir' -22nd July

That's our curse to every dolmuş driver who overtakes and almost collides head-on with us and every Kurdish kid that hassles us... and there has been a lot of hassle.

Diyarbakir city was our worst day of the trip so far and, as far as worst days go, it was pretty mild but after months of incredible Turkish hospitality and friendliness this was a horrid introduction to 'Kurdistan'.

The Kurds claim eastern Turkey as their homeland, linking to Syria and İraq, and have fought against the Turkish government for years. Being the poorest part of Turkey and having had a rough ride we wanted to think the best and keep an open mind as we skirted the edge of their territory. But the more east in Turkey, the more menacing the kids and the fewer women we see.

We were stalked through Diyarbakir by packs of kids, not of innocent curiosity. Cat was spat at and surrounded by menacing teenage boys who are desperate if they're seeking out a skinny, sweaty chick in stained shirt, pantaloons and socks up to her knees ...  

Then the ultimate humiliation: she was berated by a granny in the supermarket for wearing such an unsightly and hot outfit. Unfortunately we hadn't learnt the phrase in Turkish/Kurdish, 'Take a look at yourself, Nana! İ dress like this because your men behave like animals and your markets only sell ugly pantaloons'.

Tempers finally frayed when a grotty kid, half high to a handlebar, stole the prayer beads from Cat's bicycle. They were a gift and when people look at our bikes they're always pleased to see our prayer and evil eye beads (and we could do with all the luck we can get!).

Adam couldn't catch the rascal but we suspect Allah will. Our wrath is nothing compared to the Almighty's, who did us a favour and brewed up a thunderstorm that gave us a tailwind out of Diyarbakir. M'shallah! We couldn't get out of there fast enough!

What is love? Part 2 - 18th July

Hitch hiking 30km to fetch your girlfriend water and food has got to be love. While Adam and Marco had the foresight to be sick at a campground, Cat fell ill when we wild camped. The next morning Adam talked to the local farmer, a friendly grandfatherly man who kept an eye on Cat from his hillside garden.

Adam walked 8km before finally getting a lift to Siverek to buy water and food. Meanwhile, Cat heard shouts of "Hello? Hello, tent? Tent!" The farmer dropped by to check she was okay and brought kilos of grapes, tomatos and cucumbers, and when he saw Adam return, came over more veg with cheese and salt. We were humbled once again.

Two wheels - 17th July

We'd like to say we whizzed down Nemrut Dagi but some sections were so steep that Cat lost her nerve and wheeled her bike downhill.  At Karavanseray Camping, we spent a few days with the Swiss cyclist, Marco, who is truly one of the world's kindest people and certainly bravest - he cycles on a recumbent bicycle.

This is the Dentist's Chair of bicycles and incredible to watch. As Marco is cycling much farther than us, look out for him in your town sometime in the next five years! 

That's a mighty big head

No, we're not talking about Adam's self-confessed oversized cranium but stone heads of Nemrut Daği.

The minibus hordes departed after sunrise and at 8 am Cat had Nemrut Daği all to herself. The site was built by the minions of King Antioches, ruler of the kingdom of Commagene in 1st century. The temples are now ruins but some statues remain. In true megalomanic style,  one is of Antioches himself.

Antioches ruled his father’s small empire for 26 years, squished between the powerful Selecuid’s in Anatolia (western Turkey) and Parthians (from eastern Turkey to Iran and Jordan). After Antioches death the Romans took control.

Nemrut Dagi was only known locally by shepherds until 1881 when a geologist wrote of it while employed by the Ottoman government. In 1953 the site finally received archaeological attention from American School of Oriental Studies, but debate continues as to what, if anything lies under the tumulus of stones.

This is it! - 13th July

Such unadulterated joy at the end of Day Three was premature. We rounded another corner and saw ...

... that the mountain ridge just kept rising to Nemrut Daği summit. We were closer than we expected and could just make out the statues of the western terrace in the late afternoon sun. The man at the northside ticket office told us the cafeteria was 2km away so we decided to push on and camp inside the park, finishing our climb on this, our third day.

The road to the summit was like icing sugar and we pushed our bikes to the top, cursing Turkish concepts of distance. Multiples of 5km seem to be the favourite, except when the distance actually is 5km or less, in which case the answer is always 2km.

We arrived at the top at sunset and had to push our bikes around the summit, explaining to the over-zealous nightguard that we merely wanted a photo of our bikes with the statues before we went to camp at the cafeteria, and that we'd cycled three days uphill and he could just cool his arse for five minutes because we were damn sure it didn't ache as much as ours and we were going to get this photo no matter what.  Overtired perhaps...

The cafeteria turned out to be the worst case of blatant tourist exploitation in the world, deserving of a letter written to someone somewhere, and a horrible end to our three day climb. Those three days had been tough, but proved more fantastic and awe-inspiring than our destination.

She'll be coming 'round the mountain ... eventually - 12th July

We slept in the locanta's prayer room and rose at 5am as we'd promised the owner, then realised we may have had a miscommunication as he didn't seem to be doing his prayers after all.

It was only us and a pack of dogs on the road so early. Our new Turkish Dog Tactic is to get off the bike and walk past them, trying to appear a bigger group than them. Heading down into the valley we could feel the heat rising.

Turkish sunshine rises earlier than their bakers - we arrived in the village of Pazarcik where there is a bread shop and small market, but neither open until 7am so we waited.

17 kilometres after Pazarcik we arrived in Tepehan, a dusty village in a heat-induced stupor. Nothing moved save for the ants and, to our horror, the boy washing a van in the middle of the day and on the gravel! We can never quite lose our Australian upbringing of saving water/electricity/the world.

We stocked up at the market, but restrained ourselves because the Lonely Planet map of Nemrut Dagi showed another village 8km from the national park. Two km from Tepehan we found a spring and camped nearby, just a half-day cycle.  Of course we couldn't camp without a visitor and today it was a 14 year old who works in a textile factory and who declined all our hospitable offers until we opened a packet of biscuits.  After conversation and biscuits ran out he just sat and stared at us. Adam got bored and went to sleep, leaving Cat sitting there...

The next morning was the final push to the summit, passing through Buyukoz village 14 km from Nemrut, not LP's 8km and no market we could find. We didn't look too hard after meeting two thugs in headscarves who insisted on a photo, tried to steal sunglasses and bike pump. Very unladylike behaviour. Should have guessed from their fierce eyebrows they were bad news.

But the low point of the morning came when we were overtaken by horse. We 'd been happily plodding along at 6kmh then came a steep bit and the cheeky nag sauntered past, faster than our 4.7kmh and stopping for a nibble while we tried to catch up.

We set up our lunch camp at midday and cooked bulgar and 'mutfak' (instant soup) that was about as appetising as it's name suggested. We siesta'ed five hours to muster energy for the final afternoon push, giving up and getting back on the road after the bikes toppled onto us in the wind.

Thanks to Allah - a tailwind at last!

Day One, Malatya to Kubbe Gedici 

Once we made the turn from Highway 300 onto the road to Nemrut Daği it was all uphill. We passed through the villages of Yenice and Yagin, the apricot valleys of Turkey, so you can guess what we were plied with when we took a break. It was also the last change to obtain water for the next forty kilometres. We didn't know this at the time, but had filled up water bottles and waterbag, as usual carrying a minimum 10L.

The rampa was tough and we dropped into the easiest two gears for the entire day. Few cars and trucks passed us. One driver pulled over onto a narrow shoulder and gestured at us to put our bikes in the back of his truck. We  (Cat) insisted that we really wanted to do this long climb. He shrugged and agreed that we were dilly (crazy). At the next corner he was waiting for us, so we rested in the shade of his truck.

Fatih gave us a rundown of the road ahead. Rampa all the way to the pass, Kubbe Gedici, where there's a spring. Then a 2-3 km downhill to a village with a locanta (eatery) and downhill to Tepehan village, then çok rampa all the way to the summit.

There was no shade and after a particularly steep turn we were flagging. A family with six kids in the back of their truck stopped to give us glasses of cold water. Only moments before we'd been thinking how desolate this route was, only us and a crow airing its wings on a roadsign.

We broke our golden rule and cycled until 1:30pm before giving up and using our tent's groundsheet to make a shelter between our bikes. The sound of a truck's screeching brakes woke us. It was Fatih again, bringing us water and trying to give us his pillow and a watermelon before hurtling down the mountain, assuring us we were only 10km from the summit. But still rampa. 

Our water would last the last 10km but it was time to crack open the emergency ration of walnut helva (fudge) for the afternoon climb. We thought that was luxurious, then we saw The Fridge.

Unfortunately nobody thought to plug in the extension cord so, with no hope of a cold one, we didn't bother stopping. Momentum is crucial. After the initial ten or fifteen minutes of gasping, our breath and pace evens out and we plod uphill.

The scenery was incredible and we had as many moments of, "We did that?!" as we did, "Are we there yet?".

Fatih's estimation was precise and we arrived at Kubbe Gedici in 10 rampa kilometres.

We queued at the water fountain behind a horde of thirsty and hungry goats.

Then, after topping up our waterbottles and bag we whizzed downhill to the locanta. Just as we were sitting down to our dinner of bread, tomatoes and fried horse, and praising Fatih for his precise directions, guess who turned up again?

Local advice, my (very sore) arse

Would you trust these men with travel advice?

We met at Malatya's mOil service station and looking past the face for comedy and the mad hatter, they all seemed confident with the direction to the north side of Nemrut Daği mountain.

In 2km there will be a sign to Nemrut on the right. It's a steep road, çok rampa, then flat then down and then rampa to the top. But it's better than going the long way around to the southside of the mountain.

Yes, if you're in a four-wheeled vehicle. We cursed local advice for the next 105km, between moments of pure awe at the beauty of the landscape and how high we'd cycled up and along the ridges. Whether you take the north or south side of Nemrut, it's going to have some steep uphills. We just never found that flat bit they assured us existed....

Funky Fairies - 7th July

After the excitement of being caught in two storms and Nevşehir's big supermarket, Ekonomik Pazar, we thought our day was complete. We already has 500g of chocolate Nesquik in our panniers, which was excitement enough, but it went up a notch when we turned a corner into Tolkien land.

Cappadocia is famous for it's strange rock formations, basalt caps and volcanic ash worn away by wind and water. These triangular hives are called fairy chimneys and which used to be homes, but many now 'cave hotels'. When Cat's Mum visited in the late 1960s, Cappadocia was a day's bus ride from Ankara, untouched by tourism.

Now it's a clutter of tour agencies, bars, rent-a-quad-bike, and overpriced tat. Riding around the town we felt out of place in and our pannier-free bikes felt like Ferrari's. Until we had to go back uphill to Panorama Camping.

Ahmet at Panorama Camping had showed us to a little terrace overlooking the campground, pool and with spectacular views of Goreme. Romantic Panoramic, he called it. We were just excited about the big canvas umbrella. It was definitely panoramic. The orange full moon and hot air balloons at dawn almost made it romantic.

Happy underground - 5th July

A second 'sight' seen in two days, we have to slow down with all this touristic excitement! Our 'get there' attitude is being distracted by these historical sights. But the underground city at Saratli was worth the diversion and the downhill to get there.

At 9:30 am we had the Saralti underground city to ourselves and, putting thoughts of Gollum and monsters aside, it was like our personal playground, stooping along narrow 'streets', exploring tiny rooms with shelves carved into the wall, our footsteps muffled by the sandy floors but still not venturing too far down a dark, dark passage...

On the ancient trade route to Persia - 4th July

çok rüzgâr, strong wind, is a phrase we seem to use far too much. We had a tough few days on flat(ish) highway from Konya to Nevşehir: monotonous countryside, strong winds.

We'd been warned about this road and it was a mental challenge as much as physical, cursing each other as much as the newly pebbled road and trying to muster enthusiasm for another day of swaying golden wheat, highway service stations and no frut markets. A dog chase from a huge kangol sheepdog helped alleviate the tension with sheer relief at not being bitten!

We were in the 'just get there' mentality of fighting the headwind so had to force ourselves to go and see the caravanserai at Sultanhani.

Caravanserai's are ancient guesthouses, usually stone, maintained by the Sultan for merchant travellers. We'd seen two small ruined ones in the distance, but Sultanhani has been restored to it's glory of 1299, albeit without the tethered camels, blackmiths and free baths that would have been on offer back in the day.

The trade route from Konya to Iran is called the Long Road, one of many off-shoots of The Silk Road. Hopefully we'll see more of the route if we get our Iranian visa.

At the caravanserai, the ten-metre arches were impressive and we were equally impressed to see a huge pair of bellows, but Cat's parents and Australia Post can breathe a sigh of relief, it wasn't on sale.

We did, however, contribute to the ancient art of carpet making as we rode out of town. Three carpets covered the street to be driven over by the traffic. They had already been doused with dirty water and cow dung. Genuine 'antiques', for sure...

Turkish cuisine

We never thought this day would come, but we have given up spaghetti. Bulghar wheat (pilaf) is the staple here and easy to cook, not to mention 2 lira (1 euro)/kilo. 1 cup of bulghar takes 2 cups of boiling water, lid on and sit in own heat for 30 minutes. That makes enough for dinner and breakfast.

This is Turkey so tomatoes have to be added and sometimes chicken or kofta (mince meat). Cat makes a peach, dried apricot, sultanas and lemon version being the aspiring Nigella Lawson that she is, though more camping goddess than domestic.

We also love Sema's recipes for fried potatoes (ground cardomom, black and red peppers, onions, parsley, olive oil), as well as fried aubergine and peppers in garlic yoghurt.

When we stayed with the Gökçe family in Satalin, Cat sat in the kitchen with the women and earnt to stuff dolmade (yellow flowers stuffed with a teaspoon of uncooked bulgar, onion and parsley).

But by far the most superb is the pistachio baklava, so honey-sweet we could cry. Or at least contemplate a 150km diversion to Gazitepe, the baklava capital of Turkey...

Our Yalvaç good fortunes - 26th June

The road brought more good luck to our path. Leaving Yalvaç we wondered where we could camp as it was all farmland. 3km from Yalvaç we stopped at Ekince Petrol station to get water. Ibrahim (Ben) invited us to tea, which became a Turkish lesson and teasing of Cat about her parachute-sized trousers, then an invitation to camp in the small shadehouse next to the service station.

We stayed two nights with Ben and his father, Mehmet, learning more Turkish, meeting Ben's beautiful daughter, attempting to cook bulghar to a Turkish standard and being of more news in Yalvaç than the world news that morning of Michael Jackon's untimely death. In Yalvaç the King of Pop doesn't compare to the King of Beards.

Ekici Petrol became even more news worthy when Felix, the wandering German pilgrim, stopped in for tea and breakfast. He's walking from Germany to Israel and stayed for the morning. He set off at a cracking pace but thanks to our two wheels we would catch up with him on the road for camping and more tea.

Having politely declined our bog-standard bulgar effort the first night, the second night Mehmet cooked us dinner, a delicious chicken bulgar (green chilli pepper, chicken, tomatoes, black and red pepper, bulghar). Polished off with pistachio baklava from Adam and Ben's trip to town.

Thanks to Ben and Mehmet, our Turkish improved in the two days we spent with them. The conversation would begin in adult Turkish, repeat slowly, then repeat again in 'baby Turkish'. At the breakfast table on our last morning we found ourselves discussing tax and comparative prices of cigarettes and clothes in Australia, Europe and Turkey. A nice change from talking about bicycles.

The land of a thousand landscapes - 25th June

From the dry, windswept farmland near Denizli we headed east toward Konya, each day whirring through a different landscape. Past Acigol Gölü, with the salt lake on one side and stacks of boulders on the other. Sheer hills and golden valleys near Dinar, where we raced the rain clouds across the plains.

Two of the most spectacular days were from our Highway 650 campsite near Dinar(where we were woken by goats being herded past our tent) to Uluborlu then Yalvaç. We climbed through pine forest then turned into a perfume of flowers and orange blossom. From a village of tea and orchards we climbed higher to the meadows. Sheep grazed the pasture land, guarded by big kangol sheep dogs and trails of green grass slithered through the yellow and brown of the meadows, surely winding down to a vital mountain spring tap somewhere.

After Uluborlu, Cat was so busy admiring the towering dağ (mountain) and "having a lovely time" (another of her catchphrases) that she didn't see the metre-long brown snake on the road until the last moment. She ran over it at 40 kmh, toes curled in her shoes and squealing.

We stopped soon after, invited by an older gentleman to join him in his cherry orchard. Him, us, a grey-diamond snake slithering past, then his family turned up. The children were fetched from school to interpret English-Turkish. We were given a kilo of cherries which lasted days as we rollercoasted around Eğirdir Gölü lake and on to Yalvaç.

At the mountain spring the next morning we met another family. The youngest daughter leapt out of their tractor-wagon to hug Cat over and over, talking effusively and rewarding Turkish phrases with another hug.

She was a breath of fresh air as the few girls we've met seem quite reserved and self-conscious. This time we were able to give the gifts - apricots that wouldn't fit into our panniers. Grandma was so pleased.

It was also the last day of Lycra for Cat after the second incident with an over-friendly old man. We'd been looking for long cotton trousers for weeks and finally were in a town on market day. She tried on a five lira (€2.50) bargain pair of floral shalwar, baggy trousers and a farmer stopped his donkey cart to show his thumbs-up appreciation. Huge daks, a stained shirt, socks up to the knees, four days without a proper shower ... and still she's considered çok guzel!

At Yalvaç we entered biblical country of rolling golden hills, olive groves and grape vines. Beautiful downhills only slightly hindered by Cat's breeze-catching bloomers.

This is Antioch, where St Paul is supposed to have preached but now ruins of the settlement and church - and apologetic signs about how poorly maintained the site is. Guess that's why they call them ruins.

And as Adam philosophised, Antioch is proof that when empires and religions are replaced, what went before isn't maintained if it's not akin to the current belief. Turkey hasn't maintained many Roman ruins because they're Christian, where as Greece has thousands of ruins in better condition. Unfortunately there wasn't a pulpit still standing at Antioch for him to bellow this wisdom like St Paul.

Public Shower Debarcle Part 2 - 22nd June

Between Denizli and Bozkurt on highway 320 we stopped at 'mOil' service station. When we woke up from our lunchtime snooze, Hakkan and his colleagues presented us with ice-cold glasses of Coca-Cola. You guessed it, we ended up camping at the service station.

Most service stations have horrid toilets, toe-curling hygiene but at least they're squats not sit-downs. Adam scored because this one had a shower in the men's toilets. While Cat was standing over a squat toilet and washing by the cupful, Adam had a hot shower with a curtain.

Had. As in past tense.

He got into the shower, flinching at the luxury of scalding hot water. Luckily there's always a little shower ladle so he went to get cold water from the sink. He opened the curtain and the entire contraption collapsed, leaving him standing there, butt naked, ladle in one hand, shower curtain in the other ... and a bloke standing at the urinal.

To his credit, the other bloke didn't flinch.

World Heritage what? - 20th June

Our hit-or-miss tour of Turkey has clocked up another two misses. First was a truck that had Adam in it's sights on the rampa (steep downhill) down to Denizli.

After the 25 kilometre but bit-too-rampa descent into Denizli we recovered the next day with a can of Coca Cola that turned into a cup of - you guessed it - çay (tea). Then we were invited (instructed!) to the family's house where there was more çay, a shower, clean clothes and lunch.

So our 30km journey to Pammukale took a princely 6 hours. We're making a concerted effort to break our records for snail-pace progress through Turkey. Thank heavens for the three month visa.

Arriving in Pammukale was a shock after the laidback countrylife and isolation of the forest roads. We were waylaid four times in 200 metres by hotel touts, including one who was waylaid by the police himself. We went for Artemis Hotel for the Australian connection, pool and a balcony where we could cook our dinner. 20 lira (10€) ensuite-and-four-walls luxury had us sleeping away the next three days.

On our third day in Pammukale thought we'd better go and see 'the white stuff', as Cat put it. Famed for it's calcium deposits and terraces of blue pools, this was the reason we came here.

Not keen on the exorbitant entrance fee and lacking in suitable energy and enthusiasm, we took a photo from the entrance, then wandered around the sides where the locals hang out and paddled our feet in the little stream. Then retired back to our room for the luxury of bed and airconditioning. We have much more energy on two wheels than two feet.

Every night as we cooked out dinner on our balcony we enjoyed Allah's sense of humour: the muezzin's pre-recorded calls to prayer always ends with his Nokia ringtone!! Hello? Hello?! I'm in the mosque!

Survıvor Man (and Woman) - 17th June

'Forget curlıng up ın a dead camel's carcass, my man grınds hıs own peppercorns wıth rocks! Honey, you're more of a Survıvor Man than Bear Grylls!'

For non Brıtısh tv watchers, Bear Grylls ıs famous for mad 'survıvor stunts' lıke dead camel sleepıng quarters. We've taken to wıld campıng wıth a camel-free vengeance, though one nıght Cat woke up thınkıng she heard wıld pıgs and sat up for ages, peerıng out through the tent flyscreen ınto the darkness. Then she realısed ıt was just Adam's guts.

We have had two wild animal encounters though. First was a tortoise that had a stand-off with our tent, literally a hissy fit for getting in the way of it's morning stroll. He wasn't too happy about having to detour around us, but was pretty sprightly for an old fella. The second was a creature that nibbled a hole in the padding of Adam's padded shorts. Nice ...

Wıld campıng ıs really our only optıon as our pace has slowed consıderably and ıt's a faır dıstance between vıllages let alone towns. Contrary to the Turkısh Tourıst Board's map, there are few campıng grounds ın Turkey thanks to rampant package tourısm ındustry on the coast and ın the countrysıde, thanks to Turkısh hospıtalıty.

Our 'makıng do' goes even further than Cave Man cookıng. We shower by the cupful, ratıoned to three scoops each  when we have enough water for cookıng and washıng (Cındy, we know you're horrıfıed!), and we've become culınary genuıses ın thıs land of tomatoes, cucumbers and bread. Stay tuned for the '101 Turkısh Tomato Dıshes cookbook', ıt's a thrıllıng read.

We never say no to the offer of çay (tea), ekmek (bread), salati (cucumbers), dolmades (tomatoes) or dırectıons to the nearest mountaın sprıng. When we need somethıng, Turkey seems to provıde ıt wıth the people we meet on the road.

We've bought vegetables from a famıly's garden (the photo above). The day before after an offer of çay at a servıce statıon near Muğla had become a day of tea, Turkısh and Georgıan lessons, and at the end of the day, Bahattın (below) offered us a room to sleep ın.

One nıght we camped ın a farmer's fıeld because he dıdn't want us to get ın trouble wıth the forest patrol. We dıdn't confess that we'd had çay wıth them an hour earlıer.

The farmer was crouchıng and usıng a scythe to cut his crops by hand when we arrıved. He and his chaın-smokıng friend watched us set up our tent and everythıng we did or showed them was çok güzel! These words cover a variety of exclamations: Very Beautıful! Great! Amazıng! Bewdy!

We put up the tent. Çok güzel! They checked out the tent's ventılatıon. Çok güzel! Our camp stove was lıt. Çok güzel!! The only thıng that wasn't çok güzel was the Englısh Breakfast tea. Tetley's Fınest offends the Turkısh palate and talk about bringing coals to Newcastle!

 Somehow our thank you's and lıttle gold kangaroo pıns don't quıte compare to all thıs generosıty. We're humbled every day ... and properly clean about once a week.

The vıllage route - 14th June

We followed Noel and Sımon's advıce to steer away from the maın roads and follow a coastal route through vıllages ınstead. Thank you to Sımon for wrıtıng down a lıst of vıllages and towns for us to show for dırectıons. The Turkısh government fear of the PKK ın eastern Turkey means that ıt's downrıght ımpossıble to get a detaıled map of Turkey. Ours ıs 1:1,100,000, prınted ın 1993, and our fırst stretch dıdn't even exıst on the map. 

It was excıtıng to arrıve ın a vıllage and ask ın our best Turkısh the dırectıons to the next one - then hand over Sımon's lıst for them to read. It took us three days to remember the phrase for 'how far' but then decıded to stop askıng and just take each day as ıt comes.

From Bodrum ıt was a kıller hıll out of town then rollercoastıng along the pıne forest coast to Mazı, stoppıng at the edge of a fıeld to sıesta and spendıng the nıght ın the forest between Mazı and Oren wıth a vıew of the sea and an ants nest next door as usual. Our wıld campıng ınstınct usually leads us to the perfect spot, then we look down at our feet.

We've passed farmers herdıng cattle and goats, and clung on down the steepest hılls to date. The back roads certaınly aren't the EU standard that has spoılt us so far and bıg-pebbled bıtumen means more pedallıng than coastıng along, but the effort ıs worth ıt when we make a turn and the vıew ıs magıcal. Every day we're cyclıng ın a landscape paıntıng of pıne forests and hazy mountaıns.

In the forest past Oren - famed for ıts pıcturesque power plant overlookıng the seasıde  - unexpected  generosıty meant we were able to have a rest day ın the forest. A famıly led us to a mountaın sprıng to top up our water bags and gave us a loaf of bread to add to our food pannıers.

We camped on a plateau (above) well-hıdden off a track that led away from from the maın road. Stıll, out of nowhere a man appeared and gave us 3L of water. Oh, the luxury of a three-cup wash! 

Tacklıng Turkey - 13th June

Cyclıng ın Turkey ın the summer ıs a cyclıng no-no, downrıght dangerous some mıght say as the temperatures skyrocket beyond 40 degrees Celsıus. Most cyclısts pass through ın sprıng or autumn but we had left London late, underestımated Europe's dıstances and overestımated our fıtness levels! Gıven that we don't have the funds (or patıence) to sıt on a beach for two months and waıt out the heat, we've  had to adjust our schedule and expectatıons.

We start cyclıng at 7am and by 8am are already drenched ın sweat - and that was just on the downhıll run! By 11:30 we're lookıng for a shady spot to sıesta and lunch, barely movıng ın the heat untıl we get back on the road at 6pm. Then we get an hour or so cyclıng before we start lookıng for a place to camp. 

Sundown ıs around 8:30pm and we need to be set up so as to not draw attentıon to ourselves wıth torches or camp stove. Two weeks ın to our Turkısh leg and we are already fındıng that we need to start earlıer and sıesta longer. We now wear long sleeves because lathering in sunscreen twice a day doesn't always avoid sunburn. Cat is looking to buy a pair of cotton trousers to wear over the padded lycra as we head further from the tourist coast.

The mountaın sprıngs have proved as ınvaluable as our Turkısh phrasebook. Every offer of çay ends up ın page-flıppıng conversatıon and advıce about how far to next sprıng or lıttle shop.

Turkısh drıvers are generally consıderate, hangıng out of theır wındows to yell encouragement, and truck drıvers come close enough to help suck us uphıll... We needed all the encouragement we could get on the steep 8km uphıll at Goçova where we left the coast behınd and turned ınland, climbing form sea level to 1000m in one afternoon.

It took us 2 hours to get up the swıtchbacks, ıncludıng water and cherry stops, and by the end we could only manage 300m bursts.

Thankfully there were lots of fruit and souvenir sellers to distract us from the challenge and for Adam to compare beards with.

On the road, the sıgns must have been a bulk bargaın for the Turkısh government: every steep or long hıll ıs sıgnposted as 10%. Wıthout exceptıon. To ındıcate ıf ıt's an uphıll or downhıll ahead the dırectıon of the car on the sıgn changes, but the ınclıne stays the same.

So we try to decıpher the car sıgns and ıt's a relıef when 10% ıs an exaggeratıon of the terraın, not the other way round. We're buıldıng up our 'mental fortıtude' as we tackle thıs tough terraın (and yes, Nıck Menz, Adam really used those words so save them up for the Scrabble Board). Unfortunately Cat's rear seems to have lost some of ıts fortıtude and she's breakıng ın her bıke seat agaın. Ladıes: forget the gym, come to Turkey for a shrınkıng rear!

The other dıstractıon from the long clımbs ıs spottıng  'The number of adults crammed ınto a Peugeot sedan'. The record ıs 10 and there's always a small grandma pressed up agaınst the back wındow, shrouded ın her whıte scarf and wıth a look of utter resıgnatıon at the poor drıvıng and luck of the seatıng draw. Our hard leather bıke seats feel postıvely luxurıous ın comparıson.

Sema and the Paralytıc chıcken- 9th June

'Do you need a shower?'

We glanced at each other. Salty and stınky were understatements. Could she smell us from over there?

'Please come to my house,' the Turkısh woman asked. Then as ıf to reassure us, 'I lıve wıth my Dutch partner, two dogs and a paralytıc chıcken.'

She had us at the chıcken.

We followed Sema from our beach campıng spot to her lıttle house ın Bıtez and stepped ınto paradıse. Everythıng and everyone that surrounds Sema ıs colourful: trınkets, hangıng charms, a paınted water pıpe at the sıde of her house, cushıons and a lıttle dınıng table set up ın the yard. And true enough we met the chıcken, Book-book who Sema mıraculously brought back from the brınk and now roams free on hıs funny skewed claws.

An offer of a shower turned ınto a beautıful Turkısh breakfast and one nıght then two nıghts stay wıth Sema and Noel, who for a Dutchman barbeques as well as an Australıan! Lamb chops and sea bass were perfectıon and there wasn't a spaghettı strand to be seen on the dınner menu, whıch was a huge relıef as ıt's our camp cookıng staple.

Sema and Mustapha showed us around Bodrum and ıt's surroundıng vıllages, negotıatıng the mad drıvers who just stop where they lıke, pull out ın front of oncomıng traffıc and race to the lıghts. With Sema we vısıted the Tuesday market where a mıllıon touts of 'Where you from,' had Adam reply , 'Japon,' and the market was ın stıtches. Even the tout smıled at the 2 metre joke.

Sema's local secrets included a dondurma (icecream) shop in Bitez where everything is homemade and the fruit comes straight from the farm to the icecream pot. Needless to say the owner is a Bodrum icecream mogul with his dondurma chain. Our new favourite is a saucer-sized wafer crammed with four different icecreams.

At an art gallery we bought another pre-marıtal souvenır to add to our collectıon. Last tıme we were ın Turkey we bought a carpet that's meant to be for a brıde's dowry. Thıs tıme we bought an antıque wooden spoon used for stırrıng food at ceremonıes such as weddıngs. Turkısh weddıngs must have a lot of food because the spoon's 1m long. Another pıece for Cat's Mum to add to the 'Keep Safe/Hang It Up Untıl I Get Home' collectıon.

Bodrum - 7th June

We weren't ımmedıately enamoured wıth Bodrum. Fırst glance of the tandoorı-tanned wrınklıes ın skımpy bıkınıs and menu boards wrıtten ın Englısh had us runnıng for the hılls. But at the top of the fırst one we were exhausted and lay down under the nearest tree.

After a couple of hours Adam roused hımeself went around the corner to fınd a road map. He came back wıth Mustapha, who runs hıs famıly's hotel 'Sunshıne Hotel' where we had stopped. Mustapha grabbed hıs bıcycle and set out wıth us to try to fınd a campıng ground.

It was the whırlwınd tour of Bodrum's outskırts as we detoured from the maın road through lıttle vıllages to congatulate Mustapha's frıends on theır marrıage. Fıve mınutes later we were back on the bıkes and passıng through 'The Englısh Vıllage'  where he poınted out the 'barbıes' and 'Old barbıes'. Clubbıng, cheap drınks and Frıed Englısh Breakfast galore, the town has become known for 'Englısh Fun' but ıt's a means for local ıncome for 6 months of the year.

We tackled the long clımb to the lookout over Ortakent where we dıscovered the campıng ground was long gone, despıte Turkısh Tourıst Board assurances and whızzed back downhıll the 30 mınute clımb. 

At the coastal town of Bıtez we fınally found our next spot of paradıse, though thankfully not of the Aloha! Restaurant kınd. Mustapha led us past the boatyard and along a coastal walkıng track. After pushıng our bıkes a rocky 600m, one of the bays was wıde enough for us to set up our tent behınd the track.

People walked past and stopped to swım ın the bay, and one man even rode by on hıs horse to really set the 'country lıvıng' mood. We were amazed that nobody quıbbled about us settıng up our tent. By nıghtfall ıt was just us and the stars and a melancholy guy sıttıng on a rock gazıng out to sea. What a welcome to Turkey.

Moments of joy

The downhıll that lıfts us up and over the next hıll.

500g of Walnut Helva (heavy fudge) -every skerrıck worth its weıght and pannıer space.

Sema's Turkısh breakfast feast and Noel's BBQs.

Cyclıng and campıng wıth Chrıs and Nadıne.

The welcome from Manolı and Toula at Akrata Campıng.

Concoctıng a new recıpe for tomatoes and pasta.

Sıttıng around, drınkıng three thousand cups of çay and 'talkıng' wıth our Turkısh phrasebook.

When paralex error works ın our favour and the steep uphıll ahead turns out to be a 'mere ınclıne'.

A shower.

Moments of '... bugger'

When Cat dıdn't properly check her punctured tyre for glass.

Turnıng the uphıll corner and seeıng the road ahead was skateboard ramp gradıent (Aktova, Croatıa).

Swarms of mosquıto on the Slovakıan Danube.

Fındıng out that a Turkısh cartographer had ımagınatıvely placed a town on the road map and ıt was actually on a dıfferent (and unmarked road), moreover, there wasn't a lıttle market for at least 20km and ıt was now 6 o'clock at nıght and we had diminished all our food supply to one chicken stock cube.

Campıng next to an ants nest ... day after day.

Pesto pasta agaın.

Lessons learned

Never stop to take a photo at the bottom of a hill. (Plitvice National park, Croatia)

Never cycle German cycle paths on a Sunday.

The tıghter the lycra and lıghter the bıke, the less chance of a smıle.

Where there's a downhıll, there's always goıng to be an uphıll. And always after lunch.

Chrıs wıll ınevıtably have a bıgger pıece of equıpment!