Time to finally leave the Göreme Camping camp ground which had been really good to us. The next camp ground would be at the Mediterranean Sea, some 250km away. Not really a big day, kilometre wise, and looking at the map…the road would be many-laned and fast. Thus we left, just to get the cloud cover back that was our constant companion before Cappadocia.

The beginning of the ride was unspectacular. Soon, we hit what must be the motorway…with a toll gate. There was no one around and no barrier, no sign that said motorbikes are not allowed so we just went on it. So far so good. About 20km in, we needed fuel and just to be on the safe side, Flo wanted to do a 3 km detour off the motorway rather than wait for a station on it. So we left the motorway again at the first exit. Again, a toll gate, no one around, no barriers. This time, when we left, an alarm sounded. Whoot? We stopped immediately at the side of the road to ask how to deal with it but THERE WAS NO ONE AROUND. Not even the alarm going off could produce a human being that we could talk to.

Confused, we rode to the fuel station and Flo googled how Turkish motorways work. There is a toll (*check*) and you need to have a card for contactless payment (*uncheck*). Okay, where to get such a card? “Every PTT and Shell station will sell them”. Asking the guy at the fuel station, we rode to the next post office about 5 km away. Fair enough, you can do that to avoid setting off any alarms. The real reason to fix this is because the bridge over the Bosporus us also a toll road and we really, really want to ride it. It took the staff at the post office about 15 minutes…to realize they could not help us and to send us to the post office in the next town. Great. By now it was 11.45am and with our luck, the office would just close at 12, right?

Bor, the next town, was another 8km away. Now it started raining. Yay. -.- Or not. There, the yellow of a post office! Flo jumped inside and while I got off to take cover as well, he came back out again. Too small, we needed a bigger post office. We took one wrong turn getting to the “right” one and I was thoroughly annoyed. This is hilarious…if they want you to pay the toll, maybe it should be a bit easier to get that stupid card?

Now things worked out. Flo got his card, we had to put 50 Turkish lira on it as the smallest amount (!) and I now felt as if I could eat a horse. Figuratively. The first place, of course, was a kebab shop but they were kind enough to point us to a place further up the road where vegetarian food would be available. We gladly sat down and after the initial confusion about a vegetarian I was offered a cheese pide with fresh salad as a side. So good! Flo enjoyed his pide with minced meat and we were so happy about the food which was freshly made (even the dough!) that Flo had tea as dessert while I chose the sweet rice pudding. Also really good. 🙂

Feeling much better now that we didn’t have to deal with things on an empty stomach, we got back on the motorway. This time, the entrance toll gate even gave us a green light. Riding for 120km, time and miles flew past. Soon, we were only 60km away for tonight’s camp ground and had to get off. Again, the alarm went off. WHY? No idea. It should be contactless payment but it didn’t work. This time we stopped near by the three men standing around but really, they just said it needs to scan the barcode and that we should simply ride on. You have about a week to go to a post office to tell them that it didn’t work before you are fined…

Welcome back to Europe’s bureaucracy. However, we don’t want to burn any bridges as we are unsure when we will want to ride through Turkey next so leaving with an outstanding fine seems like a bad idea.

To top today’s great experience off, when we reached the Mediterranean coast, we were not impressed. Mersin and the next towns looked too much like the Caspian Sea in our eyes: Rows of hotels blocking the view. Arriving late at the camp ground next to a construction site of the road, we are left with a feeling of uncertainty as not even the coast excites us. Will we be able to enjoy Turkey or should we really just power through to get to Frankfurt?