Monday 10th October Sandikli – Afyon 23.82miles.

There are only 2 roads going north out of Sandikli – and I manage to take the wrong one, of course – it goes to a village called Kiz and ends.   I don’t have to backtrack all the way, thankfully.  I was only 1½ miles out of the way before I realised and soon got back onto the familiar D-650.   I had just started climbing a hill (the sign says 6% but I’m exhausted from the last few days’ efforts I think) when Mehmet stops and offers me a lift to the outskirts of Afyon.  I accept with alacrity and it’s just time to do some knitting.  His English is basic, but I think he polished ball room size floors with one of those huge polishers.  The hotels around the area where he drops me off are all full or look expensive and imposing.  I ride a half dozen miles or so closer to the centre of town and find a room at the Grand Ari for the Grand price of £35 or 150TL.  To compensate I find a hotel for tomorrow night and book it at just 15TL. 
 
I’ve been reading obsessively since leaving Gill and Jeremy’s with a couple of books: finished James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces”.  Discover from t’internet that his ‘memoir’ is mostly fiction.  He makes much of the ‘truth’ in his book and makes mock of and puts down liars in no uncertain terms, which is ironic and disappointing too.    Though, as pointed out by the poet John Dolan, many of the main characters in the book are very clichéd and if I’d stopped long enough to think, in the headlong rush the book is written in, I could have guessed.    Perhaps I enjoyed reading it because clichés are popular, are 'easy', right? 
 
As I get closer to Istanbul, there are noticeably more European refreshment stops: McDonalds, Starbucks, big motorway service stations.  However there are still the tulip glasses of never ending çay and the call to prayer echoing around the countryside periodically to remind me this is Turkey.