Day 4 - Pirot, Serbia to Edrine, Turkey

Breakfast is a somewhat confusing affair shared with what appeared to be a young ladies handball team. We're all slightly jaded from the previous evening but there's no time for dilly dallying.

We leave Pirot chased by a local dog (mostly after Hawk). The roads aren't very inspiring but they get us to the Bulgarian border. This is nice and straightforward and Slash is legal again from an insurance perspective. Before long we're entering Sofia to experience a bit of Bulgaria at least during our brief pass through the country. The roads are incredibly slippery in the town. If slippery tarmac wasn't bad enough we then hit slippery bricks and everyone has to be really cautious especially with the local driving standards having taken a turn for the worse. We adopt a close formation pattern to prevent ingress which mostly works.

After a brief stint and a very modern and impressive service area the rain starts and it's a quick stop to don the wet weather gear. The next 2 hours are awful riding. The rain lashes down and the cross winds are very unpredictable. The traffic also seems to increase heavily and before long we're playing overtaking games with lorries and local car driving nutters. We get quite stretched out at some points as the conditions make the overtakes difficult. As the rain stops we pull over to remove the wet weather gear and are joined by a bunch of Greek bikers who are just on a Sunday jolly into Bulgaria. They're a really nice bunch and invite us to meet up in Greece if our route takes us their way. They also give us a tip for a hotel in Edrine which we stick up our sleeves for later.

We're now on approach to the Turkish border along some more fast major roads and motorway sections. About 6km from the border we encounter a long line of lorries. This line is almost completely unbroken right up to the border. It turns out that lorries can sometimes wait 3 days to get through and the drivers are camped out with little picnics - not a problem for us though as we zoom to the front. This border turns out to be the worst encountered so far. There are 4 checkpoints in total where it seems one would have sufficed. We're directed to go through a car decontamination booth which isn't very practical on motorbikes. Hawk rides through at speed followed by Slash who gets a little bit damp. I'm sure those chemicals won't have any long term effects on his health. Warrior and Viper are good boys waiting for the correct green light and then speeding through before the decontamination jets start. Slash doesn't have insurance for Turkey so he has to trek off and find somewhere to buy some which takes about an hour. Hawk however is today's problem child. The Turkish officials don't like the fact that he doesn't own his GS and the paperwork he has is insufficient to convince them everything is legitimate. It looks for a while that they are going to deny him entry and our Turkish adventure is in jeopardy. After frantically trying to phone BMW colleagues in the UK (not easy on a Sunday) he eventually finds a document which they are willing to accept (grudgingly) and he just has to go through and X-RAY station to be allowed in. He's told never to try and enter the country again with the documents he has.

While we wait for Slash and Hawk to get their lives together we talk to a German couple who are en route to Istanbul. They've done thousands of miles on their 2 BMW's but the lady does admit to thinking about getting a Triumph next. She particularly likes the Tiger.

The sun is shining and we have about an hour to go to get to Edrine. We decide to take the Greek Bikers advice and check into the Hotel Margi. This is a great hotel and has a Turkish Bath / pool / Jacuzzi / sauna and gym. This is just the ticket for weary travelers and before long we're all in our swimmers. There's an ice bucket challenge to be done and I think it's fair to say that Warrior gives the biggest scream when it's his turn. After we've used all the water based facilities including the Turkish bath we all have a great meal in the rooftop restaurant. The waiter seemed intent on bringing us the wrong drinks order every time but as we're very magnanimous we drink it all anyway and don't complain.