On the Monday after our arrival in Istanbul we headed off to the Syrian consulate where the information we had previously gathered was confirmed. That is, we need a letter of recommendation from our own consulate. The British consulate charges 68 pounds for this, a pro-forma standard letter which just needed our names inserting and printing off on the office printer. This is about three times the cost of the Syrian visa itself. The Canadian consulate charges slightly less for their letter.
So we took heed of all the reports of visas being available at the Syrian border and did some sightseeing instead. On our last evening we met Mustafa, one of Caroline's students from the English Language school back in Eastbourne, who kindly took us to tea.

Beau, Caroline, Mustafa and Ken.
Last evening in Istanbul

We departed Istanbul on Wednesday (14th October) for the south-west coast with John, the Australian we had met earlier on his way home from England on an old 250 Honda.
He had received his Iranian visa with minimum fuss so was all set to take his route through Pakistan and India.
Late that day we were on the Sea of Marmara at Sarkoy where a number of coastal campsites were shown on our maps, but again none existed, it was all new houses and apartments. We were a long way from any big towns and darkness loomed so we stopped at what appeared to be an old abandoned and derelict beach café with grass around it, enough for our tents.
The owner of the smart sea-front house next door said it should be ok to camp so we settled in, tents pitched a yard from the water's edge.
The narrow beach was all pebbles making it ideal for a little bonfire and John went back to the small village of Eriklice for supplies as we didn't even have water.
In the darkness, with food laid out and tea underway, a white van stopped on the grass.

White-van-man was an elderly gent who managed to explain he owned the land we were on. He tried earnestly to explain lots of other things that we couldn't make head nor tail of. But eventually there was talk of 'Euros', so we didn't make head nor tail of that either but offered him tea instead. He looked a bit non-plussed at first, then accepted and his mood subsequently changed. Maybe he had realised that, in the Turkish tradition, as we were the visitors to his premises he should be offering us the tea. So he relaxed, accepted some food by the light of our fire and did his best to relate his life story, or so it seemed.
Then he wanted to show us his establishment. He waved his arms around at all the space and the old café. He explained about the toilets - we don't know what - but he did manage to convey the fact that he didn't have the keys with him, nor to the other locked, warped and peeling door to what seemed to have once been the kitchen.
We moved on to the patio, full of rusty drinks cabinets and derelict furniture. Except for two magnificent-looking sofas under cover and in the dry. Leaning against one was an old battered pavement name-board.
"Dahmet Camping"
With the day's menu underneath!
Little wonder it was ok to camp here.

Back at the campfire, Dahmet the white-van-man said his goodbyes and stepped off into the night towards where he had parked. But a short while later returned. Lots of hand signs revealed he had left his lights on and needed a push-start. But first in the best Turkish tradition we passed round more tea.
His van started after a couple of pushes and with much profuse handshaking he was gone. We like to think that our impromptu visit will convince him that there are still travellers around who want camping at the water's edge and he'll be inspired to bring his campsite out of retirement.

And then..... we had the icing on the cake, which was even better than icing on the cake.

"Who wants ice cream for dessert?" Asked John as the flickering light of our campfire pierced the night and we finished the last of the bread, rice, Turkish salami and pasta.
He had secretly bought four Cornettos on his earlier shopping trip.
"How on earth do you keep them cold??"
Well, being Australian, John knows these things.
"It's simple mate! Y' just keep them together under a layer of pebbles on the beach. They'll stay cold for hours no worries."
What more could we ask for??

The next day brought the answer as it took us further down the west coast, beyond Edremit, where we actually found camping - outrageously expensive.
The third place we tried was up a long dirt road through dozens of olive groves, and actually had no camping anyway, only expensive bungalows. Retracing our steps we took a small track off of the main dirt road, through more olive groves, in search of an out-of-the-way spot to camp. This track ended at a pick-up van parked up against a little wooden footbridge over a stream.
We investigated, finding a remote farmhouse on the other side and a welcoming husband-and-wife, whose tractor wouldn't start.

Remote hidden farmhouse

We helped with that but couldn't work out how the tractor got there with only a rickety footbridge for access. Whereupon the husband let the clutch out and clattered away into the distance, to return some minutes later on the other side of the river next to the pickup van.
Now we discovered that he needed to get the tractor round there in order to use the tractor's compressor to pump up a flat tyre on the pickup.

With all that done, the serious welcome got under way. Irfan and his wife Sadria offered us camping in the large yard of the farmhouse. Vehicle access from where the pickup and our bikes were parked was back to the main track, down a side-track further along, across a ford in the stream and up to the yard.

Bikes lined up by Irfan's tractor after the river crossing

Dinner would be laid on in about an hour, by candlelight (no electricity) under a tarpauline roof on the patio (rain was on the way). There was plenty of water constantly gushing out of a two-inch pipe above a butler sink, that was fed from a spring up in the hills with rain that fell many months, or probably years, ago. The gurgling plug-hole of the sink sat above a small ditch that circled round the yard and flowed off into the stream.
In view of the sudden but esteemed guests, Irfan and Sadria wouldn't go home that night but would stay in the farmhouse on temporary bunks and have breakfast ready for us in the morning.

It turned out that the farmhouse, with it's wood-burning cooker in the outdoor kitchen, was just a day-shelter for these two olive farmers who actually lived about ten kilometres away.
Well, dinner was a very long affair, during which we learned all the minute details of each other's families, friends and jobs, and what Turkish farmhouse cooking is truly all about.

Sadria's kitchen

Sadria serving Turkish tea

Breakfast the next morning was similar, the centrepiece being a huge bowl of wonderful baklava that the four of us could not get close to finishing, despite the spirited encouragement of our hosts.

John, Ken, Sadria, a friend of Irfan, Irfan and Beau, around a magnificent breakfast table.

To cap all that they then compelled us to strap huge bags of apples and mandarins to our bikes before departure.

We did not, unfortunately, have a clean scoresheet with the river crossing that morning. Water about a foot deep, rocky, about fifteen feet across and well used by the tractor.
The previous evening it was no problem, but the night's rain had turned the steep and angled exit slope into a bit of a mud chute that caught out two of our number.
No names to protect the innocent, but the fully-loaded bikes that we had to pick up, one almost upsidedown on the slope - HARD work - were not in the ownership of an Australian, nor a grandad.........
After minimal dusting down we were on our way.

What with that extended breakfast, and the slow progress made by four together as compared to one on his own, John decided that Iran beckons and continued on his own way the following day. But not before grinding to a worrying halt on the motorway to Izmir. He had lost all drive, and no sprocket could be seen on the gearbox shaft. It was wedged inside the cover, obviating the need for a search party to walk back up the road looking for it.
The two small bolts holding on the Honda-style serrated retaining washer had dissapeared, along with the washer. The loosening bolts had ripped grooves on the inside of the cover before falling out completely.
"Aw, look at that mate! I wondered what that noise was the last couple of days! But no worries eh?" confessed John.
- sigh! -
With chain and sprocket back in place we wound some steel wire tightly in the groove on the shaft to form an improvised retaining washer, carefully twisting the ends. It looked pretty neat, as though it might last until the Iranian border at least. It lasted to well beyond Izmir where John left us and we await news of his progress.

John, our Australian Ice Cream Man, leaves us for Iran.

We are now in Dalyan on the south coast, camped right opposite the Lycian 'Tombs of the Kings' rock carvings of Kaunos.

Bike parked under the campsite verandah. Rock carvings on opposite cliff face across the river.

It's a bit of a tourist trap, where we rest awhile. For a week, for family visits.
At least, amongst the end-to-end tourist restaurants with their incessant touts, we have found an excellent Turkish pide house in a corner of the main square. And Café Betus (Betty's Café), a house next to the campsite where Betty serves some excellent Turkish dinners in her front garden.

As well as the Lycian ruins, Dalyan is known for nearby Iztuzu beach. Famously and strictly protected as a breedıng place for Loggerhead Turtles. There's a spectacular dirt road up to a spectacular view of the whole area at the top of Bozburun Hill.

Turtle breeding beaches from the top of Bozburun Hill.

There's an interesting shortcut on the way up, but even the 'go anywhere' TTR250 couldn't quite make it, sticking to the track instead.

Late next week we'll depart eastwards, maybe four days to reach the Syrian border.