Dog-Biscuit and Far Eastern Turkey

Dog-Biscuit and Far Eastern Turkey

We arrived in Doǧubayazit situated in far eastern Turkey, to find it's a fair resemblance of it's Lonely Planet travel guide description. If I recall correctly, it goes something like; 'a dusty little frontier town' ... Riding to town was a not-so welcoming sight. The first thing I saw was ...nothing. Well, when I say nothing, it was because I couldn't see a thing due to the real live full-on dust-storm, which had quickly blown up. How did they know?

Star Wars ....It put me in mind of that scary frontier town on Tatuin, in the very first Star Wars film. You know the one ... where the heroes walk into town, and all the inhabitants look as though they'd cut your throat for a fiver. The band are playing in a seedy looking bar, and only stop when someone gets their arm cut-off by Sir Alec Guiness, AKA Obe Wan Kenobi (nobody's called me that for years) after whipping out his light sabre. The band resume playing, and the background chatter filters back ...

Just before entering town I'd pulled over to wait for Bjorn, who'd stopped to take photo's a few Km's back. The wind was still making travel conditions difficult. I watched the fairly spectacular, if somewhat purturbing sight of a huge reddy brown cloud of dust that created an opaque curtain, and which obsured everything apart for Mount Arrarat looming high above. I knew that this lofty peak was close, but didn't expect it to be so imposing. There were cars coming and going along the main route in, but the point of focus came and went in the hazy gloom. Across the road a small band of people, mostly women and youngsters were digging and filling wheel-barrows with something. Tatty looking buildings could occassionally been seen a short way beyond the activity, and depending on the density of the dust came and went from view. The 'something' remains to this day unidentified, but whatever it was, it was being transported across to this ramshackle township. The thought occurred, of what life could be like for these people. And went on to wonder if weather conditions like this were a regular event for them? If so, then I couldn't imagine this would be a nice place to live ...

First impression's then weren't too good, and were confirmed shortly after entering the town with my travel buddy, who'd caught up a few minutes later. Shortly after riding in, we pulled up to confer, and were instantly accosted by a handful of predatory boys aged around 10 or so. “Money!” came the demand in clear conscise English. Yeah, right? ... As if we were going hand over a big wad of dosh upon casual request? Largely we ignored them, and after a brief parley, rode towards the centre. Again, the image of Star Wars came to mind. Small densely packed streets with people busy about their business, though shouts and whistles in our direction meant we were'nt going to blend in unnoticed. Bjorn's assumption that we were going to find a really cheap hotel, were dashed by the first place on the main drag who asked for 60 Turkish Lire. Crikey, that was steeper than the last place in Erczinum, which definitley had more going for it. Second attempt at haggling with Hotel Arrarat was pretty much the same, but we eventually found a small and accomodating, and more importantly with my dwindling funds, a cheap hotel.

But as it turned out, it wasn't as dodgy as it's first tawrdy impressions hinted at. Though it most definitely had an 'edge' that we'd not detected during our stay in other parts of the country. A conversation over beer and kebap during the latter part of the evening, found us agreeing that we'd crossed an invisible barrier over the course of the day. A barrier where conventions we were used to existed one side, and something else on the other. It had to be somewhere before Agri, because a short fuelling pit-stop earleir that day saw a crowd of guys surround me while I was filling up.

They seemed pretty animated, as I must have been quite an unsusual sight in their quiet unassuming servo'. One of their number tried for all his worth to flog me an aging and well-used pair of Zeiss binoculars. ????? Now, did I honestly look as if I was the kind of person who's sole purpose for coming to Turkey, was to find a good pair of binoculars? Or perhaps I was being unkind, and this was the holy grail of the binocular world, with magical powers to see into the future ... or distant galaxies maybe? Or maybe looking into them was akin to seeing god? The prospective salesman actually called over one of the local police, who'd been sat minding-his-own. I guessed he was summoned to add weight to the negotations, but I'd already picked up on the fact he was a kind of mate of theirs, and therefore not in attendance in his official capacity. Some minutes whizzed by, as this somewhat bizzarre scene unfolded, which had all the hallmarks of going on for hours if I let it. Guessing this was simply some kind of entertainment to break up a dull afternoon for the gas-pump gang, decided to terminate matters. And so I said to the 'Arfur Daley of Agris' that 'I had to be off', and knowing he wouldn't understand, told him I just 'didn't have room for his wonderful bino's, no matter how much of a bargain they were'. Hitting the start button, bid them all adieu and rolled out back onto the road again.

Somehow, even though there was only the one main road, Bjorn and I lost each other. Looking in my mirror could no longer see the fuzzy reflection of a motorcyclist behind me, so slowed down to see if he appeared. He didn't, so decided to stop and wait for him to catch up. 10 minutes go by and assume he's stopped to take photographs again. I dawdle on doing 50/60Kms/hr for half and hour and then stop again. Another 20 minute wait and am starting to wonder if there's a problem and should go back. Not so, as he rocks-up some 10 minutes on, motoring at a rate of knots. He'd obviously been going some, to catch me. It turned out he'd followed the sign for one of the towns on our route, but the main road skirted it as a ring-road. So instead of the leisurly tour I'd had to get where we were, he'd found himself fighting the rush-hour madness of a local bazaar town.

Now I've been across a few poorly maintained roads during my many years of motorcycling, but to ride through road-works that went on for tens of kilometres was a novelty. There were a few slightly hairy moments as I had weave quickly around axle-deep deep pot-holes, as well as sudden changes in the road surface where it went from solid to loose and on occassions dangerously large chunks of gravel. Again, for those not familiar with some elements of motorcycling, dealing with loose surfaces ranges from something like fun and exciting on a Sunday afternoon's off-roading, to scary as hell at the end of a tiring days travel. One stretch was around 5K and was simply gravel spread rough-shod right across. And I do use the term 'road' with some prudence. To be honest, it wasn't so much road works to maintain the bloody highway, as road-building. Once more my western expectations had caught me out. What I was experiencing was the building of a motorway, while I was riding on it. Most novel!



Yeah, that's me in front of the wagon. I was fed up of eating his dust, so blatted past on a very loose surface!


Doǧubayazit was our last Turkish town. The migration eastwards continued, with the next country on our list being Iran. Potential owner of nuclear power, thorn in the side of the Yankee empirical war machine and with a leader that seemed to take great joy in baiting Bush & co. More importantly though, Ave'mydinnerjacket's eyes are too close together. Another border crossing beckoned.