08.05.22

We hear all these stories of being caught in the complexity of customs and immigration and other types of legal issues when you travel, but we have been very lucky. Until now. We had some friends who literally had to leave Turkey within 24 hours with their car since they overstayed their welcome. When we got our two-year residency in Turkey that went amazingly well and we rarely had issues. But we recently tried to leave Turkey to go to the Greek island of Chios, and found out that we owed a steep penalty because we did not notify Customs about our motorcycle which remained behind in Turkey when we went to the US in June. It seems that even though the bike sat in a secured garage and was not ridden, we were supposed to notify Customs that a vehicle was left behind.

Who knew?

We had a ticket for the ferry, but were unable to leave until we paid the penalty. The problem was no one knew how much it was! It was a Saturday, generally a non-working day for the government, so we started with one person, then another, and eventually three or four people actually worked on the problem, while we waited all day trying to understand what was happening, and no one could explain it properly. The 0900 ferry left and we were finally told that the fine was 7615 Turkish Lira: $425 USD. GULP! All because a bike sat unattended for 30 days while we were out of the country. There was no battle to be won here, they required cash, so I had to hit two ATM machines, and then we had to decide to take a later ferry or shine it on; we took the later one and killed time until 7:00 p.m. after being there for about 12 hours.

We would have encountered this problem when we left Turkey eventually, it just so happens that we experienced it now. This is just part of the trials and tribulations of dealing with the multiple regulations in different countries along with language barriers, and we had our share in the US, too. Between city, state, county, and the IRS, there are a multitude of government regulations that have no common sense. Our situation was complicated since we are US citizens with a US driver’s license, driving a RENTED motorcycle from Romania, and having temporary Turkish residency.

Chios was nice, we found a nice room near the ferry, and explored as much as we could over a few hours. The next morning at 0820 we caught another ferry to the island of Lesbos (still in Greece), so that was easy. Our few days on Lesbos were very pleasant and we got to explore some of the island, plus found some nice coves to relax in and float on the salty Aegean waters.

We started our four-month bike journey on July 4, so we are one month in. I’ve lost count of how many rooms we have stayed in and for the most part the trip has been great. Kat and I both got COVID, one after another, and we took a small spill on the bike, with (fortunately) no serious injuries, other than my ego and her fear of having it happen again.

If someone asked us to write an essay on “How I spent my summer,” we have one hell of a story to tell!