Fordsburg Pilgrimage on The Dude (Gomoto Yesterday 150cc)

My day job is directing reality TV shows.  I am a freelancer with an emphasis on “free”!  I don’t know if that makes me kak at my job or too expensive.  The clue points to the fact I ride a scooter and not a fancy German sedan!  I wouldn’t have it any other way. With all this free time I get to explore my city on my Gomoto Yesterday 150cc aka. The Dude!

The Dude is 5 years old. 

He was a wedding gift from ScooterM in 2011 and since then I have wracked up 4641km. We have been on many adventures together in the past 5 years. In all this time his starter engine has never failed. Through winter, rain and shine he starts every time.  The Dude needs little encouragement to putter!

The air is cold in Gauteng despite spring approaching. I am on a pilgrimage to explore Jozi’s Islamic quarter. A stone's throw from Johannesburg's inner city is Fordsburg.  (Yes! In sunny South Africa) 

A Minaret amongst the sky scrapers of Johannesburg

Welcome to Fordsburg #fnb

A small Muslim community in the heart of this African metropolis. The locals are at least 5th generation South African, mostly of Indian and Pakistani heritage.  Why they came to live in South Africa is a question for google.  I however came here for one thing. The food. In particular, a triangle shaped pocket of heaven. The Samoosa.

It feels like you’ve been teleported to the Middle East the moment you enter Mint Street.  It’s wall to wall eateries and hookah bars. The smoking kind & not the rent by the hour kind! The atmosphere is friendly and the shop keepers welcoming. What I love about my scooter is its ability to ramp pavements and turn on a ticky. Parking is never a problem on busy streets. I removed the center stand years ago to prevent scraping. Only the kickstand remains.  

My first stop timed with the midday call to prayer. Rookie error! I guess my appetizer at Bismillah’s will have to wait for an hour. Bismillah’s is an institution.  With 7 canteens around the country the food is fresh and service prompt. I hear the ice cream is beyond amazing.  #nexttime

Next door to Bismallah’s is a hole in the wall Bangladeshi canteen.  The shop keeper was back from the Musjid and allowed me to try his Khaja treats.  It’s a sweet, sticky, crunchy kiss of joy.   Glucose levels restored the need for savoury was now strong.

Bangladeshi Khaja

If you grew up in the 80’s and 90’s you would have been to the Oriental Plaza at least once to buy your sister / mother / aunt material to make a dress.   As a young boy I begrudgingly attended this matric dance dress right of passage.  Today I was taking back my dignity in search of a samoosa.  2 blocks west from Mint Street, the Plaza is an unassuming shell.  Inside though you feel like you’ve crash landed in a Souk on the Persian Gulf.  Incense fills the air, linen and material shops with discount signs pepper the alley ways.  The bright LED light of the “World of Samoosas” shone brightly in my eyes!

The Dude is a small scooter for a big person. Its max loading is 150kg which means it can take Scootersteve’s tenth of a ton weight easily.  And the suspension is forgiving and soft.  I have often mentioned cruising on The Dude feels like riding a marshmallow.  It’s what you need in the urban jungle with the broken roads and potholes.

Back to the Samoosa.  My pilgrimage was near complete. I had reached my metaphorical Mecca. "World of Samoosas" is the best of the best.  Each order is prepared fresh and the wait is well worth it.  I ordered 4.  A bargain at R3,80 each ($0,30).  The lamb spice packs a punch. A Killarney housewife’s sensitivities are not catered for here! This is Halal Heaven!  Like the Dude my tummy is firing on all 4’s! 

Samoosa 

The Dude is a tame, forgiving ride.  The 150cc power plant could do with a few extra horses.  I’ll take any superbike from 0 to 10km/h, but the acceleration from 10-60km/h is snail like. One day I will own a Vespa 300 GT!

What I like most about the Gomoto Yesterday is the ride position.  It’s the cruiser of scooters.  Wide bars and a long wheel base makes for effortless riding.  Even the pillion has a built in back rest and foot pegs. 

You will either like the retro styling or hate it.  I love it! The only downside of the design is the lack of storage under the seat.

Make now mistake this bike is a Chinese import with a price to match.  But unlike the Motomia and other knock-offs the Gomoto has a better build quality and boxes above it class in aesthetic appeal.

The Dude has proven himself over the year and my score is a biased 40/50.     

Santorini, Greece: Chavs, sunsets & culture on a spoon.

Scootersteve (sorry about speaking in the 3^rd person) doesn’t like mass tourism.  Camera clad tourists climbing on and off cruise ships cause him to break out into hives.   

By the bus load they attack the local habitat with destructive abandon.  Spatial awareness and quiet whispers are not their modus operandi.  It’s about quantity over quality. Savouring the beauty is done with view finders and over-sized smart phones. Picture uploads and status updates are measured in thousands per second.

They arrive by the bus load

Escape and evade.  Thankfully I have my trusty Kymco Agility to put as much distance between me and the passengers of the MSC sheep!

Disclaimer: I am open to the idea of binge drinking at sea where we never dock. Like that cruise from Durban to nowhere.  No one will be hurt in our reveling!

Santorini.  Or Thira as the locals call it.  It’s a lekker volcanic island somewhere between Greece and Turkey.  It floats in the Aegan Sea and is sinking due to too many invading tourists between March and October every year. 

Thira's west coast cliff or caldera

Calmness is restored as the windy months of Autumn blow in.  Restaurants are boarded up as the sheep disembark. Perfect for a spot of scootourism Steve style!

I knew about the popularity of Thira before I booked our ferry tickets from nearby island Paros. With an acute awareness of my need for silence, I booked us into a humble digs on the cliffside of Megalochori.  It’s far from the hoity crowd of Fira (The main town) & half the price with twice the view. Mission accomplished.  And we had our trusty Kymco ysterperd!* Freedom was reigning supreme.

* ysterperd – Afrikaans slang for iron horse

View from the room in Megalochori

I wasn’t very complimentary about the Kymco Agility 125cc in a previous story (Cappadocia).  This had more do do with the age of the scooter than anything else.  In Thira I had the pleasure of riding a newer 2011 Agility. What an improvement.  Better styling, 16” mag wheels and a raised step for Mrs pillion to rest her weary feet!

Santorini and sunsets are synonymous. The Northern village of Oia is a Lonely Planet must see destination. Stay away. Too many chavs with white Puma sneakers! But the scooter ride up to Oia rates up there with Chapman’s Peak drive in Cape Town. 

From Fira take the provincial road called Eparchiaki Odos Firon-Ias. It is spectacular, meandering road that skirts the western caldera cliffside. 11km of sweeping bends high above the the Aegan. Soul food stuff.

So if Oia is where the sunsets are, does that mean it holds the exclusive rights? Of course not.  Humans are weird creatures. No man can own the west. Except maybe Donald Trump!  Santorini is a long crescent-shaped island with 23km of west coast. Take your pick. It all makes for epic sunsets.

Top Tip: Autumn in Santorini is still considered sweltering summer for the Brits. They come in their droves from mud island for a week of sun and debauchery. The town of Kamari flanks the airport on the flat east coast.  “Simba, you must never go there. Ever!”

The rest of the Island is retiring into a sleepy hibernation. Tourism is seasonal so you have won’t be spoilt for choice when it comes to eateries.  The tiny local population is less than 13 000, so bar a few supermarkets and bakeries, pickings are slim.  

It took some time but we found a strip of top notch restaurants down south in Perivolos. "Seaside" was a winner. Let's keep it a secret from the MSC crowd.

A modern bistro with a view of the ocean. Service second to none and dare I say the best cocktails in the Cyclades. 
   

Reasons to go to a Greek Island? 

Sunsets. Check!

Beach cocktails. Check!

Yoghurt. Huh?

You haven’t lived until you’ve have eaten this delight. Unlike the ubiquitous chav this yoghurt has some culture! Creamy and double thick it is served as a dessert.

Marliese and I indulged on our final night. The waiter suggested we try some yoghurt with queenz?  Queenz? Oh well! When in Greece I suppose. The yoghurt arrived as 2 large quenelles, dotted with yellow leach-like strips of who knew what.  Here goes nothing. I was transported to my childhood. The flavor of Zoo Biscuits exploded in my mouth.  Quince!  Like the fruit. Not queenz!

The Kymco held it’s own. Zippy, agile and reliable.

The styling of this 2011 is a step up on the 2009 but nothing amazing. The 2016 Agility is available in the US for $2000. Not entry level but there is no evolution in the styling. 

http://www.kymcousa.com/showroom/scooters/agility125/index.html 

My money is on the Kymco Super 8 series. For an extra $200 you get naked handle bars and a rear seat that folds up to a back rest! This is the new flag bearer of awesomeness. The Taiwanese manufacturer has an arsenal of new scooters I need to try in upcoming adventures, and I look forward to the chance. 

ScooterSteve happily rates the 2011 Kymco Agility 125cc a respectable 35/50.

Legal note: In the EU there is confusion about what size scooters can be rented with a standard drivers licence.

In Greece they rent you a 50cc without a licence! BUT the current trend, and loopholes in regulation, the 125cc seems to be the legal choice for now.

Cappadocia, Turkey: I can’t believe I had travelled half way around the world to be impressed by a white cock!

2014 was an epic year.  Marliese and I took 3 months off work and slummed it through Europe.

We tag-teamed places to visit.  I wanted to Ski in Austria, she wanted to island-hop Greece. She wanted to visit Montenegro and I had had heard about this mythical place in central Turkey called Cappadocia. 

I think the best way to describe Cappadocia is with pictures.

Awesome is used far too much. But I reckon this qualifies as the aforementioned?

Fun Fact:  More hot air balloons take off from Cappadocia than any other place on earth.

We flew into Kayseri via Istanbul on a delightful low cost airline called Pegasus.  Cheap and cheerful and half the price of Turkish Airlines.   A short 1 hour transfer to Goreme and we were in the heart of the action.   Autumn was creeping in, so although the day time temperatures were in the mid 20’s, at night it fell to freezing.  From December onwards, Cappadocia is transformed into a winter wonderland. 

You’ll need a good 4 days to take in all the sights of this lunar-like landscape.  There is a bus service linking the 3 major towns of Cappadocia (Goreme, Uchisar and Urgup), but who wants the hassle of figuring out bus schedules?   The best way to get around is on 2 wheels.  The roads are good and the distances between attractions is not more than 40km.  Perfect for a 125cc Kymco Agility.   From the get-go let me say that it’s less agility and more stiffness!

2009 Kymco Agility 125cc

My intention is not to lambaste the engineering of this machine. For TL45 ($15) a day, you can’t expect the leasing agency to provide the newest & best in 2 wheel motoring.  The Kymco would have to do.  And at the price, as long as it didn’t breakdown, I was a happy biker.

Cappadocia is hilly. 125cc is a little underpowered for the terrain, especially when yours truly tips the scale at 220 pounds!   Fat jokes aside, the suspension handled the weight of Marliese and myself effortlessly.  A little more grunt on the sweeping mountain passes would have been appreciated.  But scootering is not about the speed. It’s a sensory experience - smelling every corner, feeling the land. Being connected. 

The road to Uchisar Castle

I am not going to bore you with a geology lesson.  If you google Cappadocia, and I encourage you to, you will be inundated with phallic references and lewd jokes. It’s easy to see why.

. . .and in Ushisar, amongst this towering rock, my wife and I found the biggest cock of all.

Cock a doodle doo! This feathery monster took me above my waist.  I can't believe I had travelled half way around the world to be impressed by a white cock!  

Back on topic, Cappadocia impresses at every turn.  Geologically, socially, gastronomically.

3 stand out things to do and see are:

      1. Scooter the alternative road from Goreme to the underground city of Derinkuyu.

Forget the D765 route. It’s a busy truck corridor. Travel southeast via Urgrup & Ayvali.  A meandering journey through pumpkin country will ease your senses.  And these Turkish farmers are clever chaps. They have burrowed storage silos into the sides of hills to preserve the veg during the colder months.  Well worth seeing.

Pumpkin storage silos burrowed into the hillsides

The underground cities of Kaymakli and Derinkuyu are rather impressive. 6 stories deep and filled with stories or religious persecution and Ottoman destruction.  Ps. They are not for claustrophobics.  A welcome change from the above ground action.

     2. Eat at the Anatolian kitchen in Goreme.

Authentic Turkish food with a modern twist.  I won’t pollute this blog by using words like “artisanal”,  "craft" or “foodie”, but the Anatolian Kitchen recognizes that modern travel is about keeping up with trends.  

I can’t get enough of Turkish food. Forget pizza and try a Pide (pronounced peeday).
Plain pide with soft, spreadable cheese is better than a focaccia hands down.  On our second visit we excitedly asked the waiter to bring some flat bread with their special soft cheese (and dips!)  He brought us the bread and a plate of “Budder”.  We asked him to repeat the name of the lovely cheese.  “Budder!”.   The penny dropped. Not soft cheese after all but good ol’ butter! Bring on the budder.

      3. Hike the Rose Valley.

I love scooting. But some things are best done on foot.  The Rose Valley hike is an easy amble (6km) through the sandstone terrain of Goreme.   Cappadocia is yet to experience mass tourism on a European scale.  But it is gaining in popularity.  Hiking is great - you get to avoid the crowds. You know?  The lazy, camera-clad tourists who spend half their holiday getting on and off tour buses!

Back to the scooter. . .

This older version (pre 2011) of the Kymco Agility 125cc served us well.  My biggest pet peeve is not having foot pegs for the pillion. Where must Marliese put her feet?  Thankfully ours had an aftermarket cage welded to it which solved the dangly-feet debacle.   The riding position is very forward.  This makes for an off balance experience when cornering.   Riding feels more like pushing a trolley than controlled cruising. 

The unbreakable Kymco scooter can really go anywhere.  Suspension was soft and forgiving on the cobbled streets, but solid when I needed to stop quickly. The electric starter worked adequately.  The engine purred to life with some sustained pushing of the starter button.  I reckon a small tune up would have alleviated the slight flooding caused by the choke.

The kymco is an average bike.  26/50. It does the job. Nothing more.
You won’t be smilling because of the bike. You’ll be smiling because of where the bike takes you.   In Africa we have a saying.  “We have time. We don’t need to measure it.” This holds true for Cappadocia.  Take your time.  There is no rush.   Let the moments find you.  And eat some Pide, with extra budder.