Organised Chaos and 9/11The Brindisi ferry was an experience in itself. Unlike the Dover-Calais
crossing, this was a free for all when it came to getting on board. There
was no organisation by the Greek owned ferry company. There was a
bottleneck jam as everyone squeezed to get on at once. I had to secure the
bike with tie down straps I had bought myself as the car deck crew had no
intentions of securing the bike once I had parked up. The 9 1/2 hour
crossing took us across the South Adriatic Sea to Igumenitsa, Greece. We
planned to cross northern Greece to Turkey but the journey was halted two
days after arriving due to the horrific attack on USA. We, like the rest of
the world, would watch TV and listen to the world service radio as events
unfolded. It would seriously affect us crossing the Middle East, but from
which point? Was Eastern Turkey and Iran places were a possible backlash
against westerners could happen? We headed for Athens and spent eight days
using the internet and in book shops researching alternative routes around
the situation that was building in Pakistan and possibly surrounding
countries. Every route we looked into had its problems. I did not want to
fly as the risk of air travel, due to the attacks on the US, heightened my
already deep fear of flying. We attempted to get a ship with us as
passengers and the bike as cargo from Piraeus, Greece to Bombay, India but
no one was willing to take us, only the bike. The possibility of missing so
much of our intended route did not appeal. This was our first real low
point. We made the decision to head into Turkey and down to the south coast
to see how the situation developed and if the US would retaliate against
AfghanistanIn Greece we visited the beautiful fishing village of Parga, the ancient
ruins at Delphi and the spectacular world heritage listed rock monasteries
of Meteora.

OUR FIRST PUNCTURE

While in Greece we had our second front wheel puncture. The
front tube blew out doing 60mph, while fully loaded, luckily on a straight
part of coastal road. The bike was all over the place and I was sure it was
going to swerve off into oncoming traffic or the other way off the road.
Somehow it stayed upright and came to a halt. Repairing a front puncture
was something that took well over an hour as we had to unload the bike,
prop the front up, do the repair, then reassemble everything and load the
bike again. We were never short of people wanting to help and were often
brought water or fruit by the locals.