Merhaba 2000

HOW DID ALL START?

Real question is: When?

Was it the idea? Were they all the preparings?

Was it the day of leaving home?

For me the beginning was the decision!

In the summer 1999, I was very ill. The illness got me over the night. My nerv sistem was damaged. I thought I would die. I wasn’t able to walk, to see, to talk and at the end to breath… My girlfriend of the time was there for me. I promised myself: if I get out of the hospital on my own feet, I would buy myself a motorcycle!

Yes,

I went from the hospital on my own feet! After two weeks a brand new Kawasaki was mine!

A year of learning followed. I love riding !

Okay, I have a bike, I can ride it… Where should we go?

Where to go?

Tunis, Spain, Monte Negro…Turkey? I have a friend in Turkey! His name is Sadik, we met in 1998 in Venice. We could visit him! Why don’t I send an E-mail to him?

I recived the reply very soon, he was so happy hearing from me again! He was looking forward meeting us!

There was a lot to do: Get proper shoes and clothing, maps, travel guides, camping equipment… It was very important to prepare the bike: new rear tire, total check on all systems… And to make a windshield and a luggage holder. This one was hard!

The funny thing was visa… We found out 4 days before leaving that we need one!

Mateja and Renato, who had just returned from Turkey, gave us a lot of information!

We tried to contact Sadik, but we haven’t heard from him for a month now!?

Where is he?

Decision was made, time to go, with or without Sadik!

A ferry boat will take us from Trst (Trieste) (Italy) to Igoumenitsa (Greece), and from there: riding.

We were just infront of the Turkish border, no message from Sadik…

But we met Milan and Magda from Praha (Czech Republik), who had just returned from Turkey with their Kawasaki ZRX1100. Really Beautiful bike. I could eat it.

They had an accident, but they told us that Turkish people are the kindest people on the Earth. They gave us very useful information. And they lend us their Lonely planet travel guide.

We crossed the border… Because we still hadn’t heard from Sadik, we decided to continue our trip in the opposite direction as first planed. So we turned South towards Izmir and so gave Sadik more time to contact us.

We had a cell phone with us and we turned it on on mornings and evenings, to send and recieve some short messages…

It happened near Izmir… Sadik had sent us a message. Yey :)

After passing Izmir we turned to the Central Turkey headed to the natural mirracle: Pamukkale (Snow Castle) a few kilometers before reaching our destination the »thing« happened. A fu* accident. I turned from gross asphalt road to polished concrete of a petrol station (after 300km of the day already) and the bike just slided. We were so lucky: no hard injuries, my girlfriend injuried her knee, I injured my wrist and elbow. Scratches only. Luckily. But the most important: the bike was okay with taped turn light afterwards and a few scratches on the exaust pipe and handlebar. Anyway we were able to continue the journey. Turkish people who saw the accident jumped in right away without any hesitation. They were picking us up before we fell :) Thank you guys.

After enjoying Pamukkale we were on the road again to another natural mirracle: Cappadocia. Very wide area of geological and historical atractions.The road from Pamukkale to Cappadocia was long and wonderful too.

We could stay in Cappadocia forever, it’s so wonderful ! But the time is pusshing…

… we have to move on!

From Cappadocia to Sile at the Black sea coast is a long road. When we left Goreme in Cappadocia at 9:00 am, there were over 30 deg. Celsius, but we climed a mountain ridge, 1400 m high, and at 3:00 pm there were only 11 deg. Celsius. We wore all the clothes we had, but it was still too cold. We stopped in a small town named Gerede for a cup of warm tea and a very kind policeman offered us to stay over the night. He cooked us a diner and he told us that 9 months of 12 is raining in Gerede . Me not live in Gerede. No, thank you.

Sile is located just near Istanbul. We rested for 2 days, because we knew it won’t be easy to enter Istanbul. It’s a big city, officialy 10 milion inhabitants unofficialy 16 milion (numbers from y. 2000). We knew that road trafic in Istanbul is hard. People drive on bumpers. One more nasty thing happened: the battery of the cell phone

went flat for the first time, we had a brand new charger with usand I had tested it before we started the journey, but, yeah, you guessed it, it wasn’t working. . . I charged the phone battery directly from the bike’s battery (the price of that action was that phone battery – NiCd was deceaset in a few weeks later on), so that we were able to contact Sadik again. We set the time and place of meeting. Because Sadik gave us good instructions we arrived there with no mistakes and just on time, he waited us for less than 5 minutes !!! (And no GPS remember!)

Meeting was emotional . . .

I asked Sadik if he knows a good and cheap hotel. And his answer was: Of course – my place !

We met his family: his father and mother, his sisters and brothers. Sadik has another sister, who is married and lives with his husband in their own home and an elder brother who lives in the U.S.A., they all love each other very much . . .

They accepted us as we were their own kin, they took care of us as we were a prince and a princes.

Yes, truly Sadik, your home was the best and the sweetest hotel in town!

We stayed with Sadik and his family for 4 most beautiful days . . .

Than we had to move on.

Leaving was very emotional . . . It wasn’t easy to leave such kind people . . .

Quite soon we crossed the border . . . And we just flew throught Greece, we stopped only in Delphe for a day.

We spent our last day in Greece waiting for a ferry boat to take us home . . .

Doing so, we met Sergio from Mexico, he was on holiday on the islands. We became friends and he invited us to his home in Mexico city.

On the boat we were together with Sergio and we met his friend. After 10 min. or so talking in English, we found out he was Slovene too, his name was Bojan and he’s been living in India for several years. He invited us visiting him in India.

Finnaly home . . . A bit less than 5000 km riding in 21 days.

We met many wondarful friends… we saw many beautiful places. We are talking to Milan and Magda where to go in 2001 together.

My girlfriend and I became engaged (if you remember the cactus near Efez) . . .

We’ll marry . . . someday somewhere.

At this moment I’m saying thank you to everybody who helped us when preparing or on the journey, Special thanks to Sadik and his family, to the policeman in Gerede, Milan and Magda, to guys who helped us at the accident, to policemen who let us go when driving too fast and all who the others not named here.

We took 255 pictures with a camera that you got in a package of washing powder (year 2000 remember!), as you can see some of them are just great.

P.S. ...and yes, two days after the journey, rear amortiser (shock) broke.