During the first week on the road Turkish drivers had been as nice as could be expected. We’d frequently looked up to a loud blast on a horn to see an articulated lorry coming towards us, the driver with a massive grin on his face and both hands off the wheel waving for all he was worth. Or we’d be passed by a car, and the passenger would be hanging out the window yelling ‘Guizaaaaa‘ in reference to Neil’s ‘D. Guiza – 14′ Fenerbahce football shirt which he is aiming to wear every day of this ride.
It was amongst these friendly folk that our only unsavoury incident in Turkey occurred. Half way up a hill a motorbike slowed and the driver started chatting to Haz. This wasn’t unusual as Turks are very inquisitive and always intrigued by the idea of voluntary exercise. This guy didn’t look like the friendliest of characters however and we became wary of him as for the next 10 minutes he would overtake us, then wait for us to catch up, before overtaking again. Shouting ‘Mola! Mola!’ at us (we later found out this just meant ‘stop’, but at the time had assumed it was some kind of abuse) when we passed he became increasingly angry.
Eventually he decided to ‘mola‘ us his own way. Coming up behind Haz’s bike he tried to push her off by ramming his bike into her back wheel. Little did he know the power of the Monkey! Much to his (and our) amazement, Haz was merely shunted forward, while Mr Moto was brought to a rapid mola when he lost control and crashed into the tarmac. We left him (to much fist shaking and colourful language from Haz) picking himself up sheepishly from the road and looking over his bike to see what damage his idiocy had caused…
Being shaken by this and nervous that he would come after us once his bike started working again, we stopped at a roadside melon stall where we were treated to some true Turkish hospitality. We were given a seat in the shade and huge chunks of melon, and had one of those conversations with the melon seller and his wife where you have no idea what the other is saying but smile and nod lots anyway. The motorcyclist never reappeared, so we were soon on our way with our bellies full of melon, our handlebar bags full of peppers and tomatoes for which all attempts at payment were refused, and our faith in the Turks restored.