For those of you not using a Turkish Keyboard this translation may help !!!!

Folks,

Well here we are again Welcome back to Mart's travelogue. Back on the road for four weeks yet again by popular demand................how does he do it?

The plan is to travel from Trabzon on the Black Sea coast in north east Turkey where I flew into today, then travel by whatever means available (and I am sure I will encounter a wide variety as usual) all the way to Baku on the Caspian Sea coast in Azerbaijan via Georgia and Armenia.

As usual I will keep you informed of developments, observations and just the general nature of the holiday.

First of which is baggage handling or should that be mishandling at Istanbul airport. If you ever go though there make sure your case is made from titanium. I witnessed the demise of a perfectly good suitcase under the wheels of the baggage trolley it was supposed to be on. It was sort of grated on the concrete to nothing but a handle and some bits, neatly collected up and put into the lorry drivers cab. However, the baggage handlers still continue to try to achieve the feet of balancing as many pieces of luggage as high as possible on the back of a Leyland Sherpa flat bed lorry and some equally tatty trolleys without them falling off........they have some way to go.

I have not had much chance to see much of Trabzon so far other than the airport, the hotel (3 pounds fifty) and a rather good cafe. Got to get your priorities right especially as I have no guide book on Trabzon at all. Just a case of trusting to luck and diving in at the deep end....marvellous.

Feel free to reply, ask questions or just catch up on life in general.

I cannot guarantee where the next internet cafe will be but I'll find one somewhere. Its just a case of getting used to Windows XP the Turkish version and the Turkish keyboard to go with it which has lots more keys on it...........what does this one do...................Þ. Oh I am sure it will come in useful somewhere.

Regards

Martin Weaver