TURKEY
Thank goodness I am now in Turkey and almost home. I must admit I did feel very cut off while I was in Asia even though I did have a satellite phone which works very well and I have been in constant touch with my wife and family but you cannot imagine what the feeling is like to actually get back into Europe.
   
    I was still at the boarder just inside Turkey with a car that didn’t work and needed to get to the first town Dogubayazit and as there were so many people around me it was not difficult to find a person who was willing "at a cost" to tow the car the 28 kilometres down the road though they did look a bit like the local Mafia. I was uneasy all the way to Dogubayazit and couldn’t wait to get the car to a hotel and not the one they wanted to take me to but one of my choice, pay them off and get inside.
   
    They arranged to meet me in the morning as they would get a lorry to take me and the car to Ankara where I would be able to send out for all the new parts I needed for the car as I was not able to get anything done here but I was to say the least very uneasy about there presents and worried for quite a while thinking of how to get the car to Ankara without there help. I got myself booked into the hotel and after unloading the car and cleaning it up a little I went inside to have a shower and then a talk with the manager who didn’t speak a word of English. We communicated quite well and he understood the situation enough to get things started.
   
    Later on that evening he manager came to my room and told me he had arranged for a lorry and driver to come in the morning then put the car onto it and drive all the way to Ankara, some 743 miles away and costing around £300. As I had no choice I had to accept and spent the rest of the evening relaxing as best I could.
   
    I got up the next morning at around 4:30am and had shower then took all the bags down to the car and waited for the lorry to arrive which did at 5:00am.
   
    Yet another country that has no idea getting a car onto the back of a lorry, we first had to find a bank high enough for the rear of the lorry to reverse up to and then push the car off the bank and into the lorry, that just leaves one problem, how to get the car off !!!!!. Still, by this time I was not all that bothered as I had done it so many times by now that I knew there would be a way once we got to Ankara.
   
    Before I knew it I was on my way out of Dogubayazit and well on the way to Ankara.
   
    I knew it would be a long drive and would not get there for at least twenty four hours so I bought plenty of food including the Turkish bread which is my favourite in all the world plus water and sat in the cab reading my road map which I picked up and also writing my diary. At first I took lots of photographs as there was so much snow about and the scenery was so spectacular but in the end I was all snowed out and got a bit fed up with it. I don’t think Turkey had had so much snow before and most of the roads were either impassable or so slippery that the driver could not drive faster than twenty miles per hour. The day went and evening came but still we continued, I tried to imagine what it might have been like if I was still able to drive my car and came to the conclusion that I would have had a serious problem if I had. I might still be stuck in the snow now for all I know and was mighty glad to be where I was.
   
    The driver stopped at around 10:30pm to have a well deserved sleep and I went to the car to check it out plus to get some more cloths on as it was a bitter night. In Ankara the temperature was down to minus 25 degrees and even in the car it was minus12 degrees. I had to take most of my cloths off just to get my thermals on and that was an experience I will never forget.
   
    I got back into the cab and had a couple of hours sleep, until the driver got up and we were on our way again. I knew he was tired and so too was I but we had the radio on just in time to get the news and chanting which certainly kept me awake but the poor driver was starting to waver and I had to raise my voice a couple of times just to bring his attention to the driving and the edge of the road which was on my side and not to mention the rather long drop down to the bottom of the precipice.
   
    We eventually got to a town just outside Ankara and the driver pointed to a car transporter and suggested I get the car taken the rest of the way on it. "Not a f***ing chance I explained" you take me to Ankara that’s what you have been paid for. Well he was half paid as the rest would be given to him as soon as we got the car off in Ankara, so on that note we were on our way again and into Ankara by around 8:00am and what a job it was to get the car off the back.
   
    As we could not find any place to unload the car we had to start to look for an alternative and we saw a tall mound which would do, when we got out of the lorry I found to my surprise it was a mountain of ice and snow which had been pushed off the road and turned to almost rock "that’ll do I thought" and so the driver reversed to the mound and we began to unload the car. It was good at first but when it came to getting the front of the car away from the rear of the lorry there was no place for the wheels to touch and the whole car came down onto the ice with a crunch ripping the front of the car almost right off. At least one wing was hanging off plus the spot lights and bumper had gone and the front valance but hey, I was too tired to worry about all that by this time I was just happy to be back on the ground and close to getting the car repaired. The driver looked at me in horror when he saw what had happened but I paid him off and he went.
   
    The next job was to find a taxi that would tow the car to a hotel and when one eventually came along he was not prepared to tow the car but instead got hold of a tow truck and I and the car were taken to a hotel. To my surprise it was the Ankara Hilton, I know I said to the taxi driver, take us to a safe hotel that had a good car park but this was a joke. Anyway I went into the reception looking like something out of a horror movie and spoke to the staff, at first it was so nice to just speak English to them as I had not had a decent conversation for such a long time and then I explained to them what it was that I was doing and could they please help me out.
   
    I as offered a room at 95% discount plus I was able to park the car in there underground car park so that I could take the engine out and get it all sorted out. For about two day’s I did absolutely nothing except make telephone calls to England to arrange the shipment of a new gear box, then I bought a trolley jack and removed the whole engine. In a car park that had strip lighting and was around minus 4 degrees. As soon as I got the engine out I took it all apart and found the problem which was not the actual gearbox but the casing on the side. One of the cogs had eaten it’s way through the casing and out of the other side. There was no way I was going to get this repaired out here nor would I get any spare parts so I had to have anther one of those thinks and eventually decided it was going to be cheaper to fly home for a day and collect all the parts I needed to repair the problem and get on the road again.
   
    Back in England John from JPS Autos which are Mini specialists had sorted out a gearbox and casing for me plus got all the spare parts I needed ready to be collected then I booked a return ticket which I could not afford home and, the next day I came home. It’s amazing I was only five hours from home but while I was out there it felt more like a million miles.