22-Sep-08: Long Haul
China: Kashgar to Xigeer
151km, 5h 57min ride time
As we started out on our first full stretch of riding in China we experienced one of the consequences of being so close to the desert…dust, or more specifically, sand. There was so much fine sand dust suspended in the air when we set out this morning that the sun’s rays could not break through and instead it took on the eerie appearance of a full moon. The air remained full of a thick haze for the whole day and we all arrived into lunch coughing and spluttering as a result.
Lunch was beside the highway in a very small roadside town where we became the object of everyone’s interest…the locals stood around and just watched us which was really quite uncomfortable at times, especially when they peered over your shoulder as you were making your sandwich. Someone noted that it would be like a group of nomads with camels roasting a pig on a spit in your driveway, which I guess goes some way to understanding how strange we must be to them.
For the first 20km we backtracked our way out of Kashgar to the main highway heading east and so had to climb back up the downhill we had enjoyed on our way into the city! After climbing out of the city the road mostly levelled out with some ups and downs but nothing to really hinder us from covering the distance in good time. All the same 150km is a long way and I was pretty tired by the end of it…remains to be seen how tiring 4 consecutive days in excess of the same distance will be.
We have re-entered a desert like landscape again with little to offer by way of scenery but much more comfortable without the unbearable heat we had in Turkmenistan. The roads are very good and well maintained by large crews of workers who sweep the road shoulder and weed and shape the verge with shovels for kilometres on end. The abundance of cheap labour must result in seemingly such menial tasks having some benefit.
After a few sectional riders coming and going in and around Kashgar, the group has now stabilised and will remain the same until we reach Beijing. The departure of the fastest and slowest riders in the group has left us with a more homogenous group in regards to riding times and should make the logistics a little easier to handle. The fact that we are now in China make it easier to focus in an easterly direction towards the end and it now somehow does not seem all that far away, although the time is still equivalent to the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul and the distance is further!
Tonight we were to camp beside a small roadhouse in a small town but the owners changed their mind and would not allow us to camp and so we have rented the rooms in the roadhouse. I imagine their usual clientele is limited to truck drivers passing through and the rooms and facilities (or lack thereof) reflect the fact…the beds are dubious and I am itching (probably psychological) at the thought of bed bugs and will be using my sleeping bag despite the linen provided...sometimes camping seems like a luxury. Thankfully we will still be eating from Mile’s kitchen which has taken on an oriental flavour lately to reflect our location with dishes like Yak meat stir fry and shitake mushroom and noodle soup.
23-Sep-08: Scenic Rocks
China: Xigeer to Roadside Camp
146km, 6h 29min ride time
The question regarding the upcoming scenery was asked of Miles last night, to which he responded ‘very much the same, if you like rocks its very scenic’. And that was pretty much the order of the day, the same as yesterday, rocky hills to our left and the edge of the desert and a train line to our right. We are currently riding across the top of the Taklamakan desert, which is Turkish for ‘go in and you don’t come out’, and is apparently the location where the real life Indiana Jones’ passed through in pursuit of treasures left in cities abandoned over time due to glacial water sources drying up and subsequently buried by sand storms. We will skirt around the desert in a couple of weeks by bike…in historic times it would take 6 months to cross the desert by Camel.
To add to the monotony of the scenery we were also battling a headwind for half the day which made the day pass by more slowly and with less ease than yesterday. To be riding such long distances on consecutive days is already taking its toll…in contrast to the variability of a hilly day, on flat terrain you find yourself sitting in exactly the same position on the saddle for hours on end which gets extremely uncomfortable…muscles get more use and are tired as usual but also have less time to recover from the previous day which compounds the fatigue…mentally it is difficult to look forward with excitement, particularly knowing that the scenery won’t change and that mother nature blowing a wind in your face can ruin your already long day. I don’t love climbing but would take it over headwinds any day…a climb, no matter how steep, will always end…the end of a windy day cannot be predicted and knowing the fact does my head in!
24-Sep-08: Thawing Out
China: Roadside Camp to Aksu
171km, 7h 46min ride time
We haven’t seen much of it since western Europe but mother nature certainly went a long way towards correcting the balance today...it rained all day long. On what turned out to be the second longest day of the trip so far we didn’t really need any extra challenges, but in true Murphy’s Law fashion we got them anyway. From the moment we left camp it rained, at first only lightly and not enough to warrant a jacket but for the last 100km it really rained. The temperature dropped to 10 degrees as we sloshed our way across the countryside towards the town of Aksu.
I was going to note how good the Chinese are at building and maintaining roads after once again passing road crews in the dozens weeding and shaping the verges, this time using string lines to get them straight, but the perfect road conditions ended the moment we passed through the final toll road gate and onto a ‘free’ roadway. There were potholes everywhere which due to the rain became small ponds through which our wheels passed, on their way spraying out road grime and grit everywhere.
The scenery did not change much again today, although the rocky hills to our left disappeared and a few trees came into the picture on our right. We passed through a few more townships, none of which extended beyond 1km of buildings either side of the highway. But mostly it was head down and legs turning in an effort to get the day over and done with sooner rather than later. We arrived into town and our hotel for the night looking like drowned and dirty rats...you should have seen the look on the faces of other hotel guests as we traipsed our muddy shoes through the hotel foyer...the hotel is quite upmarket despite the $20 per room per night price tag.
In lieu of Mile’s Camp Kitchen we ate a selection of Chinese dishes at the hotel restaurant for dinner, which thankfully was up to scratch and satisfied all. After an evening of washing a whole host of wet and grimy clothing and stuffing newspaper into wet shoes we are looking forward to a good night of sleep ahead of another long day tomorrow and another day of forecasted rain.
25-Sep-08: Sunny Skies
China: Aksu to Desert Camp
163km, 7h 38min ride time
Contrary to the forecast today started out with perfect clear skies which blessed us with perfect riding weather all day. The first 75km was the most stimulating scenery we have had since starting out on our path around the desert...back on the well maintained toll road, we crossed through lands which due to glacial runoff were fertile and therefore vegetated and home to quite a few people. The roadway was busy with street produce stalls and families on their donkey led carts. With so much to look at the morning passed by quickly and before we knew it we arrived at lunch.
After lunch however was the same old story, rocky hills to the left and a train line and desert to the right. The next few kilometres into a drink stop at the 135km mark passed by quite slowly as the effects of covering the last of 630km over only 4 days start to become increasingly obvious...at this stage it is getting near impossible to find a ‘comfortable’ seated position, my legs feel like led weights which throb in protest at every pedal stroke and my neck and shoulders are stiff from fatigue, mostly after clinging on rigidly for dear life in the bad weather yesterday. But distraction works well to cure most ailments and a lesson in the financial markets made the last 35km of the day fly by without a single thought of any discomfort.
We are camped by the highway on a dry mud flat tonight. Most have deemed it to be the best campsite so far...the ground is dead flat and soft so that pegs go in easily and we have a stunning rocky mountain backdrop to complete the picture. Never mind the train that goes by every hour or the constant stream of traffic on the highway...earplugs work wonders and I never travel without them...I just hope we don’t get any flash flooding or our mud flat could become a wetlands! And speaking of ‘best’ things, we are being spoilt with dinner tonight being one of Miles’ great culinary masterpieces comprising a creamy risotto style rice dish with tasty beef rissoles accompanied by both a mushroom and Chinese greens salad and a roasted eggplant and herb salad...all very tasty and smelled fantastic in the preparation phase also. I have decided that I need to make an effort to pay more attention to how Miles prepares all these dishes so that I may come home with something to add to my culinary repertoire.
26-Sep-08: Market Day
China: Desert Camp to Kuqa (Kucha)
93km, 4h 19min ride time
As we rode through the outskirts of our rest day town my immediate thought was ‘oh no, I am going to be sharing my bed with a donkey!’ as the surroundings were more rural shanty town than tourist town. But no sooner had we turned a corner in the road did the surroundings become more modern, more city like and more promising. Our hotel lived up to first impressions and is a nice modern place set up to accommodate the needs of the mining industry.
We spent the afternoon looking about a nearby shopping complex and then battling out way through thousands of locals at the Friday market. The market was alive with activity and an authentic spectacle not tempered in any way for tourists...the locals bought and sold all manner of goods, including raw meat cut from the carcass hanging in the open on display and pastries covered in sugar hungry wasps.
For dinner we decided to once again attempt the ‘whatever you think is best’ combined with the ‘or will we just randomly choose’ approach. This time the staff were very amused and happy to play our game as they served us with a hot pot banquet which after a few appetisers revolved around a boiling pot of chicken stock. At first we ate the stock as soup which was followed by an offer to eat the chicken pieces lurking at the bottom of the pot...I passed on step 2 after lifting a chicken’s foot from the pot! Step 3 was to broil some beef steak strips in the stock, step 4 some noodles and step 5 some leafy greens. All this was accompanied by a huge plate of fried rice and so by the end we were more than satisfied and stuffed to the brim, hardly able to move!
Back in the hotel room we managed to get the temperamental internet connection to work and found some TV worth an attempt to watch even though it was in Chinese but much to our frustration and bemusement we could not figure out why the bathroom lights kept turning themself on and off randomly!
27-Sep-08: Looking for Money Trees
China: Kuqa (Kucha) – Rest Day
Today started quite late with a very dark room and a late night to promote a sleep in. I spent an hour or so doing some laundry by hand to compensate for the very expensive hotel service who I passed my dirtiest clothing over to and then went out in hunt of a massage centre rumoured to be nearby the hotel. I found the massage room by walking down the street peering into shopfront windows to find the one with people lying on massage tables on the other side. I walked in as Max walked out sprouting praise and so I was even more keen on trying the service. After only a 5 minute wait I was directed towards a table and asked to lie down.
Unlink my Bulgarian experience, Chinese massage is performed whilst you are fully clothed, so in my jeans and all I lay there as a young guy proceeded to work his magic...I spent an hour in agonising pain as he kneaded, pulled, prodded and karate chopped his way through all my aches and pains. Albeit painful it was a matter of being cruel to be kind and I left knowing that he had done a world of good and hope to get a free hour later tonight to go back for more.
After my massage we ventured out for some lunch and to restock the wallets as our funds are dwindling. It took multiple street crossings and walking blocks to locate a working ATM...despite an abundance of them, one on every corner, the first 2 were not working and the third was out of funds. We stood and waited and watched amused as the locals entered and re-entered their cards, trying withdrawal options, balance options and any other option before finally conceding that the machine was not working. We did finally manage to find one prepared to give out some money and so had a happy ending to a half hour mission before heading back to the hotel to wash all the grime from our bikes in preparation for a new and hopefully dry stretch of road!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Homeward Bound...
09-Sep-08: Persistent Bugs
Uzbekistan: Samarqand to Bo’ston
137km, 6h 47min ride time
As we head further east towards the mountains that await us in Kyrgyzstan the landscape is changing. Today involved much more climbing than the past couple of weeks have, albeit not much by comparison to the mountains to come or those we left behind in Turkey. What little climbing there was was more than enough for me as I have once again fallen victim to the persistent stomach bug that just keeps doing the rounds of our group.
The interest en-route today were the many roadside vendors. Some selling a variety of watermelons and apples all stacked high and others selling honey packaged in old waterbottles and 2L glass jars, some dark, some light, some creamed and some with the honeycomb added to the jar.
10-Sep-08: Tunnel Vision
Uzbekistan: Bo’ston to Zafar
127km, 6h 09min ride time
Everything, if anything, that happened today was completely overridden by the fact that I was still feeling sick, very sick. The morning went by not too badly as it was cool and the terrain fairly flat, but following lunch I was overwhelmed by nausea and faintness…some would question why I would still keep riding but after having already ridden every bit of the distance to date the motivation to keep riding is very strong…and besides, the alternative of sitting about in dirty clothes in the heat waiting until the last rider has passed through lunch in order to take a ride in the support van is not exactly a prize winning alternative. So I soldiered on and eventually made it.
11-Sep-08: Day of Memory
Uzbekistan/Tajikistan: Zafar to Chugand (Kojan)
79km, 3h 25min ride time, 4h border waiting time
Throughout quieter moments of today we each reflected on the events that make ‘September 11’ such a memorable date. We recounted what we were doing when the events of the day unfolded and once again expressed disbelief that such an event could occur. However, and almost insensitively, life goes on…
After a short 11km ride we arrived at the border between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the gates to which were due to open 30 minutes after our arrival at 7.30am, so we sat down and waited. Leaving Uzbekistan involved a series of formalities, including counting our money to ensure we were not smuggling currency out of the country (never mind the fact that they only count what you physically hand to them!) and filling out more useless and duplicate paperwork which will never be looked at again by anyone. Once being official checked out of Uzbekistan we proceeded to the Tajikistan border 200m down the road…and were told it was closed until tomorrow. Of course.
What ensued was a 4 hour wait to be allowed to pass through the border. During this time we were told that the Tajikistan president had passed through the area the previous day and so the border had been closed for security reasons. And now despite the fact that the president was clearly nowhere near us we were still waiting for ‘official’ word to reopen the border. So we did what we are now so practiced at doing…sitting about doing nothing. The guards entertained themselves and to a degree us, by helping themselves to gloves and helmets from our bikes…Manon had quite a battle to get her gloves back off one of the guards who had decided they would be good for holding his rifle.
Finally the official word must have come through as we were allowed to enter the country. The entry process itself was nothing more than someone having pre-collected all our passports and to stamp and hand them back…without ever putting a passport to a face! The customs process involved the laughable process of a ‘Doctor’ signing health certificates vouching for our health…but only on payment of the 3 dollar fee each and without having done an actual health check on any of us!
By the time we were back on our bikes it was 11am and the temperature had soared to a level that we thought we had left behind us in Turkmenistan. We also found ourselves once again in a completely desolate desert landscape which at times gave us the sensation of riding on the surface of the moon. Luckily for us a new road had been laid since last year and after a 20km at a 2% gradient which was frustratingly slow going despite a tailwind, we found ourselves coasting ever so slightly downhill with a tailwind at 55kph. At the 70km mark we regrouped and did a short convoy ride through the city of Chugand to get to our ‘homestay’ accommodation. The convoy was crazy as the driver went too fast and drove us through intersections with no regard to our safety behind him…but somehow we keep making it through unscathed.
The homestay appeared to be still in the late stage of construction with paintwork being completed as we sat about in the central courtyard waiting for our rooming allocations. The ‘house’ was configured so that the indoor areas flanked the 4 sides of a central rectangular courtyard and consisted of a series of rooms in which we could lay out our own mattresses and sleep. There were 2 cold showers and 2 toilets, one which did not flush without a bucket…which for 20 people, many of whom are still sick, didn’t really work overly well. But the place was clean and the family did a great job of preparing dinner which well exceeded our expectations…a roast chicken dinner, including roast potatoes which some of us have not had since leaving home nearly 4 months ago!
12-Sep-08: What a Joke
Tajikistan/Uzbekistan: Chugand (Kojan) to Qo’Qon (Kokand)
149km, 6h 27min ride time
Today was a joke…a nightmare of organizational blunders and bureaucracy at its worst.
The 90km ride to the border was easy with my feeling better and the occasional tailwind and we covered it in good time of 3.5 hours. But any time gained in the morning was lost as the next 2 hours were wasted by stupid bureaucracy. After leaving Tajikistan in less than 5 minutes we were found ourselves standing in a queue in the sun at the gates of Uzbekistan. Once again we found ourselves battling the locals who don’t understand the concept of queuing and who almost view it as a game to see how many of them they can get to the front of the pack. They pushed in every which way, including jumping barriers, and despite our forming a barricade of bikes to protect our territory we were loosing the battle.
To this point only one person was being processed every half hour and with 24 people in front of us and more entering by the minute our prospects were not looking good. In the end action only occurred when we started shouting louder than the locals at their repeated queue jumping which finally got the attention of a guard who was sympathetic to the situation and proceeded to split the locals away from us. And finally things started moving. The locals got what they wanted which was to pretty much walk straight through and we got what we wanted which was to be processed at last.
Customs was a joke with a scanner which I am sure was not actually attached to anything and more useless paperwork which was written in Russian and no local support to assist us at all. We bumbled our way through with the help of an officer who spoke a little English and most of us seemed to pass through easily enough after having our money counted and recorded and some having their bags searched out of curiosity rather than necessity. Although two customs officers nearly ended in a physical argument over Joan’s nationality as her visa stated ‘Africa’ which was not on their list and despite her repeated attempts to point out that it was ‘South Africa’ they were drawing their own conclusions and clearly not agreeing with each other!
As we all passed through the system individually I was pulled aside by the gate guards as I exited and I knew as soon as I handed my passport over that this was not an official check but one purely out of curiosity and for their own purpose of getting to talk to me and probe me with questions and laugh and talk about me in their own language as I stood there helpless to do much but pretty annoyed as I had already been there for hours. Eventually as Dan rode up behind me the guards gave my passport back and I was allowed to leave feeling a little violated but glad to finally be out of their and furious that there was no local assistance at the border to speed up the process.
Now already 2pm, we still had to ride a further 50km before we reached our destination for the day. Luckily the afternoon was equally good riding and we made good time until reaching the destination town through which we were supposed to have flagging tape showing us which way to go…but it obviously got stolen in places as we ended up at intersections with no way of knowing which way to go. We called our local support…whose phone does not receive or make phone calls but does send text messages, how useful…and were made to feel as though we had missed something rather than something having gone wrong.
Six of us got lost and hired a taxi to lead us to the street address we were given by our tour leader…but that only got us more lost as we were told Tashkent Street when we were actually staying near Tashkent Way. So having exhausted all reasonable options to find our own way there we were eventually in the position to finally say, “okay we are near this landmark and are staying here until you come and find us”. We did an extra 10km and by the time we got in had no energy left to chastise anyone for their lack of assistance throughout the day…and besides, at this stage I have given up giving feedback as it falls on deaf ears anyway.
We were staying in another homestay arrangement, complete with pregnant sheep in a pen under the stairs! The food was ordinary by comparison to last nights homestay but the shower was hot which pushed it up the ranking to some degree.
13-Sep-08: We Have a Winner
Uzbekistan/Kyrgyzstan: Qo’Qon (Kokand) to Osh
180km, 8h 13min ride time
After the past few days we would have been pretty hard pressed to successfully argue that anything could possibly go more badly…but it could and it did. Today takes top prize for lack of organistation and leaves me with no doubt in saying that I have never, and never will again, participate in a more poorly organised ‘organised tour’...it is many things, some of them good, but organised is not one of them!
Where do I start…we start the day with a breakfast which although interesting local cuisine was hardly fodder for a group setting out on the longest day of cycling we have had since Paris and for the majority, the longest ride we have done in our life. And so we set out on our bikes, less than satisfied but not in a position to do much about it. We rode a short convoy out of town to the main road and were then on our own to cover the 170km to the Kyrgyzstan border. The 90km to lunch was good riding and with the motivation for the day to be no longer than necessary, we covered it quickly.
Lunch was located in the main street of a town en-route and so we became the fascination of many locals who gathered around to see what the foreigners were doing. I was mobbed by group of young girls practicing their English phrases…‘hello’, ‘what is your name’, ‘how old are you’, ‘am and Uzbek and you?’…and a man who may have been their teacher who kept telling me that he loved me. I have been captured on more mobile phone cameras than I can count and Dan keeps joking that I am now the latest lycra clad porn star of Central Asia. But it is all good fun and makes for the positive moments of a stretch of this trip which has otherwise been less than perfect.
After lunch we head off for the second half of the day which would get us to our penultimate border crossing of the trip. I rode well and was pleased when I reached my first ‘century ride’, being 100 miles (160km), but the happy moment was short lived as within 3km and only 10km from the border I also achieved another first…my first flat tire of the trip! Thankfully I had Dan nearby who had the strength necessary to remove and replace my tire. The first attempt failed as one of the spare tubes I had been carrying since Paris also had a hole in it, but the second attempt succeeded and we were finally set to complete the final few kilometres of the day. As we sat by the side of the road for half an hour repairing my flat everyone else in the group rode past so by the time we got going again we were the last bar 2 to reach the border.
Behind us were Joan, the sweep rider, and Bill who had been having his own mechanical adventures throughout the day. One of his pedals came off as it stripped the thread in the crank arm and could not be reattached…so he innovatively found a place to have it welded on. He tells the story of him riding along on his newly welded pedal as he sensed it was not going to hold and how it snapped off again as he reached the climbing section 50km before the border. As he walked his bike along the road with his pedal in his bag on a mission to find another welder he came across a few guys on sitting by the side of the road. He presented his pedal in one hand and his bike in the other in an attempt to explain his situation. They fell about laughing. He then completed his charades act for a welder and they fell about laughing again…before reaching into the grass behind them and producing a welding mask and torch…they had been there repairing some roadside equipment. Talk about dumb luck.
They went on to reattach his pedal and Bill offered up his water bottle to cool down the weld…forgetting that it contained Gatorade…so as the yellow liquid dribbled out over the pedal the expression on the welders face changed and they fell about laughing again. It is common practice here for the men to pee into a bottle and throw it out the car window…so they thought the yellow liquid was, well, you know. Bill attempted to explain that it was not pee by drinking it but that only had them laughing even more. And so after the makings of a good story and a cup of tea Bill was back on the road to join us in Osh.
And here starts the organisational nightmare. Being such a long day we were all to cross the border as and when we got there and staff-wise, Ben was to cross first and Miles was to cross after the last of the riders. The first of the riders crossed at about 2pm and Bill crossed at about 7pm. So for varying degrees of the time in between the earlier riders were made to sit about waiting in their dirty clothing as Miles was crossing last with the van containing all our luggage. Smart thinking. There was no logical reason that could explain why Miles could not have crossed first and Ben last so that we could have our luggage in order to change clothes after riding 180km!
The hotel we are staying in is located in the worst part of town. It is pretty much a ghetto area and feels unsafe at best. Location wise the hotel is equal worst with the Velotrek in Baku and if not for the cooler nights would equal it as there is no air-conditioning, the room door does not lock and the toilet has no seat. It is hard to believe that we are travelling the silk route, stopping in towns which all have some historical significance, as we are staying so far from anything significant in each place that we may as well not be here at all. Once again on this occasion the hotel could not have been more poorly chosen.
As we all sat tired and dirty on the porch of the hotel we noted that fact that we are in the midst of a building site…just as a truck turns up and delivers a truckload of bricks right into the driveway of the hotel. About an hour later Miles tries to drive the truck in and gets it jammed between a pile of bricks and a pile of 20m long steel reinforcing rods. The latter impossible to move by hand and so it was all hands on deck shifting bricks so that the van could make the 60 point turn required to get it unstuck. After which we all ferried the baggage 50m from the truck to the hotel.
It is now 8.30pm on a Saturday night. All the money changers are closed and now having clean clothing we are finally in the position to eat dinner, but have no money to do so. Somehow after acknowledging they needed to do something about it, the staff managed to get us about $10 in local currency each and pointed us in the direction of the nearest restaurants. All of which were closed by this time of night. Tired and annoyed to the max we bought food at a supermarket and went back to our room thoroughly flabbergasted at how poorly organised the logistics of the day had been.
14-Sep-08: Making Do
Kyrgyzstan: Osh – Rest Day
Not surprisingly we were woken early this morning by construction noise outside our window. And not surprisingly the hotel has no laundry service. So our mission for this morning was to find some means of washing 5 days worth of filthy cycling clothing. Whilst walking around trying to follow some cryptic directions we had been given to a nearby laundry service we were stopped by a local who ‘asked’ if we needed help. For the following 20 minutes we followed him through a myriad of backstreets and seemingly across town…the whole time in an awkward silence as he spoke no English.
Eventually he guided us through a busy roadside market to the door of a dry cleaner and just disappeared without a word. The dry cleaner was an old man who was pleased to have foreigners as customers and despite his original offer we managed to convey that we needed our laundry back today as we were leaving tomorrow. We returned later in the day to clean laundry and a bill of $12 for two huge loads…I almost feel guilty for things being so cheap!
As per my interim post, we did try to find internet but it was terribly slow and had no ability to upload anything via USB and so in the end fairly useless for our needs, but we did try!
15-Sep-08: Heading Up
Kyrgyzstan: Osh to Gulcha
103km, 6h 26min ride time
We set out this morning on the first of 6 riding days which will take us to the highest altitude on the trip and potentially the coldest temperatures. The expected distance today was 106km, which compared with the past week was a nicer number to see…it helps with the mental battle, although we knew that the distances are shorter for a reason…climbing.
The route started climbing almost immediately and continued to do so for 65km through the Farghana valley which offered up the first really beautiful scenery that we have seen in a long time and once again reminded me why I chose to partake in a trip of this kind. The road was almost perfect up until the 60km mark with mostly new road surface interrupted by the occasional section of rough substrate. We shared the road with herds of cow and horses and flocks of sheep as they were being mustered to new pastures…lower pastures for the coming winter we presume.
At 60km the road turned bad with a steeper climb lasting 4km combined with roads of loose gravel and sand which made the climbing slower going. The bad surface continued for 15km, making the subsequent downhill painful on the hands and at times quite difficult to control the bike, albeit quite enjoyable…the latter more so for those of us with flat bars and tires with good tread than those battling with drop bars and slick tires. Over 15km, we descended the 1000m which we had climbed in the first 65km and continued on to finish the day riding alongside the valley river. We camped by the river guarded by mountain ranges on either side.
16-Sep-08: Mountaineering
Kyrgyzstan: Gulcha to Sary-Tash
84km, 7h 27min ride time
We knew today was going to be a day of climbing but until it was over none of us would have guessed that we would be riding the terrain we covered. The weather started out quite cold at about 13 degrees and we all head off with our bike bags packed with our wet weather winter gear in preparedness for the worst conditions…like sleet, wind and snow, all of which were endured on last year’s trip.
The day warmed up quite significantly and reached the early 30s despite our ascent. By lunchtime at 50km we had ascended 800m and after lunch were to ascend a further 1000m…little did we know that it would be in the space of 20km and on roads which could barely fit the definition of such. The surface progressed from rough gravel and potholed tarmac to a fine dust filled with rocks. We climbed a series of seemingly never ending switchbacks, about 12, to reach the summit.
At the top of the summit it was 10 degrees and who knows how much colder with the wind chill…the descent was absolutely freezing as we were chased by storm clouds down into the town of Sary-Tash. As we rode into town it felt completely deserted, like a ghost town, particularly with the dark skies threatening and the strong wind blowing…in fairness, who in their right mind would be out in that weather! Much to our relief we arrived at camp to find we did not need to put our tents up as we were staying in a Ger camp with a breathtaking view of snow covered mountains in the distance.
17-Sep-08: Bone Shattering
Kyrgyzstan: Sary-Tash to Chinese Border
58km, 5h 37min ride time
This morning started at about 4am with the local dogs taking each other on over the task of rampaging through our garbage and distributing it all over the ger camp grounds! Even inside the ger it was cold. I spent a restless night uncomfortably cold in my sleeping bag but too cold and tired to get up and put more clothing on. To prove our conviction that it was cold there was frost on the windscreen of the vehicles.
It was 2 degrees when we started out and we all had on our winter woolies accordingly. The day was to be a short one but one of very rough roads…I wondered how the roads could get any worse than we had yesterday…but the day proved that they could and they did. We rode on a surface which could not rightly call itself a road other than it being used by traffic to get from a to b. It was more like a river of sand and stone and riding through it was bone shattering…like holding onto the horns of a bull.
To compensate for the bad road the scenery was spectacular and we paused often to admire it whilst rest our aching hands and arms. We were flanked by mountain ranges, the snowy covered northern face of one to our right and the rocky southern face of the other to our left. The temperature rose during the day but there was an icy wind blowing in from the snowy mountains which kept us well chilled.
Beyond the final police checkpoint before leaving Kyrgyzstan and entering China the road turned to beautiful new tarmac…a sight for sore eyes and a blessing on sore hands and bums! Camp was in the valley between the mountain ranges with a view of the snow covered mountains. After a cold night in the Ger I am not optimistic for my chances of warmth in a tent tonight, our final night before crossing into China for the home stretch!
18-Sep-08: Finally!!!
Kyrgyzstan/China!: Chinese Border to Ulugqat
68km, 3h 36min ride time
As I had suspected, sleeping in my tent in the cold did not work all that well and I slept fitfully and cold once again. The process of packing up and eating breakfast left my hands and feet so painfully cold I could not use them and was convinced I was on the verge of frostbite!
We were all excited and a little apprehensive at the day for us to cross into China finally having arrived. We were on the road by 7.45am and arrived at the Kyrgyzstan border at 8.30am. The border did not open until 9am and so we waited…and waited…we eventually made our way into the processing hall and we were given a medical check, in which we were asked if we were feeling well, duh, yes of course! As we waited to be stamped out of the country there was a power outage which brought things to a grinding halt for about 30 minutes. We were finally processed to leave the country by 11am…only 2.5 hours, not bad.
In the follow few kilometres of ‘no mans land’ we passed through another Kygyzstan checkpoint without trouble and arrived at the first of the Chinese checkpoints…which had closed barely 5 minutes before we got there…and there was no room for negotiation. The customs officer who had accompanied our new vans into no mans land said ‘here we are master, you wait ‘till 4 o’clock’…so as we sat under the ‘welcome to china’ sign we were under no doubt that we had arrived!
Luckily 4 o’clock was Beijing time and so it was ‘only’ a wait of 2.5 hours while the guards had lunch. In the time that we sat there under guard a further 2 tour groups arrived, by foot, and were grouped similarly to wait…although without our interpreter to assist them I imagine the whole process would have been more than a little bemusing for them. The guards separated the groups and would not let us talk to one another…it is anyone’s guess as to why! Eventually, we were all herded 200m back behind the ‘official line’ (where we were allowed to talk) and the boom gate closed in front of us, before a bus load of guards returned 10 minutes later to an apparently orderly checkpoint! The guards were all wearing strange 3D looking sunglasses, which we assume were some means of detecting fake passports? And they checked our luggage as we passed through looking for maps, books and cameras…the latter which they checked for photos of the checkpoint…luckily they did not check mobile phones!
We then made our way on the actual border where despite being made to ferry all of our luggage through individually, was quite efficient. Annoyingly, the border guards ignored their own rules on photography and kept taking photos of us as we unloaded the van and passed through customs. At 6.00pm local time we finally crossed onto Chinese soil…still with 50km to ride. We were rushed through a lunch of stale bread and peanut butter and on our way by 6.30pm.
The ride was spectacular on rolling hills through magnificent mountain ranges made somewhat magical by it being dusk…although I did not like being under such pressure to arrive…dinner was booked for 8pm. By 7pm, it was obvious that we would not be arriving by 8pm…we finally got in at about 8.45pm. Camp had been relocated to the front landing of the ‘restaurant’ we were having dinner in…the small town equivalent of a strip shopping complex. The area was bustling with excited kids, mangy dogs, bulls and the odd donkey and was adjacent to a putrid gutter into which everything was dumped and so smelt disgusting. But we were in…finally in China…after all the visa dramas and worry we are finally in and now officially on the home stretch.
19-Sep-08: Heading Down
China: Ulugqat to Bush Camp
115km, 5h 00min ride time
We woke at our restaurant camp to the sounds of dogs, cows and donkeys. Despite the sun still being on Kyrgyzstan time, the country is officially on Beijing time, making sunrise at 9am! Now that we have descended a little the temperature is a bit milder and we started out in 10 degrees rather than 2, which makes all the difference to the sensation in hands and feet!
It was so quiet that we felt as though we owned the road as we rolled our way through magnificent mountains which had the ages of time painted on their rocky face. After 50km the mountains parted as we descended into a wide open valley with mountains getting further and further away. The descent was fantastic and led us onto flat roads with a tailwind which allowed us to easily cover 120km in less time than even the shortest of the most recent days.
The afternoon sun still has some bite and holds reminder of Turkmenistan, which we hope will fade as winter approaches. We camped in the middle of nowhere by the highway and adjusted to our new schedule of dinner at 8pm and sunset at 10pm. Every police car that drove by dropped in to check us out, as did a few locals!
20-Sep-08: Freewheeling
China: Bush Camp to Kashgar
72km, 2h 06min ride time
The ride today took a backseat with it taking a tick over 2 hours to cover the 72km into Kashgar as it was 98% downhill. Arriving early has turned today into an unofficial rest day and we spent the afternoon wandering around the city and getting the necessities, like laundry, out of the way. The city is a bustling place much larger than any we have seen for some time and is a return to civilisation with ready access to all services, including internet, yay!
We wandered out for dinner and after much hunting finally chose a place which seemed busy and smelt good. No sooner had we uttered a word of English the waitress freaked out and would not play our game of ‘we’ll have what she is having’ or ‘what do you think is best’…luckily a local who spoke English came to our rescue and helped us to order some dinner. The result was a soup full of seaweed and all manner of fungi and a flaming hot dish of lamb which had us blowing our noses and breaking into profuse sweating! Not a raging success but an experience nonetheless!
21-Sep-08: Catching Up
China: Kashgar – Rest Day
This morning I rose slowly after a restless night of sleep…I blame the spicy food…and ate a breakfast of bread, bread, jam and more bread and noodles if you could stomach them for breakfast. I then joined a small group of riders for a visit to the famous ‘Kashgar Sunday Market’…it was a bit quiet as we had arrived early in the day, but offered an endless supply of souvenir style wares, nuts, lollies, silks, wool fabrics, leather shoes, belts, knives and in another area which we did not get to, all manner of livestock including camels, donkeys, sheep and cows etc.
I returned to deal with routine bike issues and some not so routine which required me to ride across town to the bike shop and sit and wait for an hour only to have the mechanic dismantle pieces of my bike and tell me pessimistically that my bike was a ‘bad bike’…after convincing him to reassemble my bad bike in any case I rode back to the hotel with a new $12 shimano bottom bracket in hand just in case…the TDA mechanic assures me that I will not die but will have a noisy ride until the next rest day where he will get the tools required to remove and replace the bottom bracket if necessary. Otherwise I have spent the afternoon gorging on internet time and finally bringing my blog reasonably up to date…with this massive diary entry and some new photos!
Uzbekistan: Samarqand to Bo’ston
137km, 6h 47min ride time
As we head further east towards the mountains that await us in Kyrgyzstan the landscape is changing. Today involved much more climbing than the past couple of weeks have, albeit not much by comparison to the mountains to come or those we left behind in Turkey. What little climbing there was was more than enough for me as I have once again fallen victim to the persistent stomach bug that just keeps doing the rounds of our group.
The interest en-route today were the many roadside vendors. Some selling a variety of watermelons and apples all stacked high and others selling honey packaged in old waterbottles and 2L glass jars, some dark, some light, some creamed and some with the honeycomb added to the jar.
10-Sep-08: Tunnel Vision
Uzbekistan: Bo’ston to Zafar
127km, 6h 09min ride time
Everything, if anything, that happened today was completely overridden by the fact that I was still feeling sick, very sick. The morning went by not too badly as it was cool and the terrain fairly flat, but following lunch I was overwhelmed by nausea and faintness…some would question why I would still keep riding but after having already ridden every bit of the distance to date the motivation to keep riding is very strong…and besides, the alternative of sitting about in dirty clothes in the heat waiting until the last rider has passed through lunch in order to take a ride in the support van is not exactly a prize winning alternative. So I soldiered on and eventually made it.
11-Sep-08: Day of Memory
Uzbekistan/Tajikistan: Zafar to Chugand (Kojan)
79km, 3h 25min ride time, 4h border waiting time
Throughout quieter moments of today we each reflected on the events that make ‘September 11’ such a memorable date. We recounted what we were doing when the events of the day unfolded and once again expressed disbelief that such an event could occur. However, and almost insensitively, life goes on…
After a short 11km ride we arrived at the border between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the gates to which were due to open 30 minutes after our arrival at 7.30am, so we sat down and waited. Leaving Uzbekistan involved a series of formalities, including counting our money to ensure we were not smuggling currency out of the country (never mind the fact that they only count what you physically hand to them!) and filling out more useless and duplicate paperwork which will never be looked at again by anyone. Once being official checked out of Uzbekistan we proceeded to the Tajikistan border 200m down the road…and were told it was closed until tomorrow. Of course.
What ensued was a 4 hour wait to be allowed to pass through the border. During this time we were told that the Tajikistan president had passed through the area the previous day and so the border had been closed for security reasons. And now despite the fact that the president was clearly nowhere near us we were still waiting for ‘official’ word to reopen the border. So we did what we are now so practiced at doing…sitting about doing nothing. The guards entertained themselves and to a degree us, by helping themselves to gloves and helmets from our bikes…Manon had quite a battle to get her gloves back off one of the guards who had decided they would be good for holding his rifle.
Finally the official word must have come through as we were allowed to enter the country. The entry process itself was nothing more than someone having pre-collected all our passports and to stamp and hand them back…without ever putting a passport to a face! The customs process involved the laughable process of a ‘Doctor’ signing health certificates vouching for our health…but only on payment of the 3 dollar fee each and without having done an actual health check on any of us!
By the time we were back on our bikes it was 11am and the temperature had soared to a level that we thought we had left behind us in Turkmenistan. We also found ourselves once again in a completely desolate desert landscape which at times gave us the sensation of riding on the surface of the moon. Luckily for us a new road had been laid since last year and after a 20km at a 2% gradient which was frustratingly slow going despite a tailwind, we found ourselves coasting ever so slightly downhill with a tailwind at 55kph. At the 70km mark we regrouped and did a short convoy ride through the city of Chugand to get to our ‘homestay’ accommodation. The convoy was crazy as the driver went too fast and drove us through intersections with no regard to our safety behind him…but somehow we keep making it through unscathed.
The homestay appeared to be still in the late stage of construction with paintwork being completed as we sat about in the central courtyard waiting for our rooming allocations. The ‘house’ was configured so that the indoor areas flanked the 4 sides of a central rectangular courtyard and consisted of a series of rooms in which we could lay out our own mattresses and sleep. There were 2 cold showers and 2 toilets, one which did not flush without a bucket…which for 20 people, many of whom are still sick, didn’t really work overly well. But the place was clean and the family did a great job of preparing dinner which well exceeded our expectations…a roast chicken dinner, including roast potatoes which some of us have not had since leaving home nearly 4 months ago!
12-Sep-08: What a Joke
Tajikistan/Uzbekistan: Chugand (Kojan) to Qo’Qon (Kokand)
149km, 6h 27min ride time
Today was a joke…a nightmare of organizational blunders and bureaucracy at its worst.
The 90km ride to the border was easy with my feeling better and the occasional tailwind and we covered it in good time of 3.5 hours. But any time gained in the morning was lost as the next 2 hours were wasted by stupid bureaucracy. After leaving Tajikistan in less than 5 minutes we were found ourselves standing in a queue in the sun at the gates of Uzbekistan. Once again we found ourselves battling the locals who don’t understand the concept of queuing and who almost view it as a game to see how many of them they can get to the front of the pack. They pushed in every which way, including jumping barriers, and despite our forming a barricade of bikes to protect our territory we were loosing the battle.
To this point only one person was being processed every half hour and with 24 people in front of us and more entering by the minute our prospects were not looking good. In the end action only occurred when we started shouting louder than the locals at their repeated queue jumping which finally got the attention of a guard who was sympathetic to the situation and proceeded to split the locals away from us. And finally things started moving. The locals got what they wanted which was to pretty much walk straight through and we got what we wanted which was to be processed at last.
Customs was a joke with a scanner which I am sure was not actually attached to anything and more useless paperwork which was written in Russian and no local support to assist us at all. We bumbled our way through with the help of an officer who spoke a little English and most of us seemed to pass through easily enough after having our money counted and recorded and some having their bags searched out of curiosity rather than necessity. Although two customs officers nearly ended in a physical argument over Joan’s nationality as her visa stated ‘Africa’ which was not on their list and despite her repeated attempts to point out that it was ‘South Africa’ they were drawing their own conclusions and clearly not agreeing with each other!
As we all passed through the system individually I was pulled aside by the gate guards as I exited and I knew as soon as I handed my passport over that this was not an official check but one purely out of curiosity and for their own purpose of getting to talk to me and probe me with questions and laugh and talk about me in their own language as I stood there helpless to do much but pretty annoyed as I had already been there for hours. Eventually as Dan rode up behind me the guards gave my passport back and I was allowed to leave feeling a little violated but glad to finally be out of their and furious that there was no local assistance at the border to speed up the process.
Now already 2pm, we still had to ride a further 50km before we reached our destination for the day. Luckily the afternoon was equally good riding and we made good time until reaching the destination town through which we were supposed to have flagging tape showing us which way to go…but it obviously got stolen in places as we ended up at intersections with no way of knowing which way to go. We called our local support…whose phone does not receive or make phone calls but does send text messages, how useful…and were made to feel as though we had missed something rather than something having gone wrong.
Six of us got lost and hired a taxi to lead us to the street address we were given by our tour leader…but that only got us more lost as we were told Tashkent Street when we were actually staying near Tashkent Way. So having exhausted all reasonable options to find our own way there we were eventually in the position to finally say, “okay we are near this landmark and are staying here until you come and find us”. We did an extra 10km and by the time we got in had no energy left to chastise anyone for their lack of assistance throughout the day…and besides, at this stage I have given up giving feedback as it falls on deaf ears anyway.
We were staying in another homestay arrangement, complete with pregnant sheep in a pen under the stairs! The food was ordinary by comparison to last nights homestay but the shower was hot which pushed it up the ranking to some degree.
13-Sep-08: We Have a Winner
Uzbekistan/Kyrgyzstan: Qo’Qon (Kokand) to Osh
180km, 8h 13min ride time
After the past few days we would have been pretty hard pressed to successfully argue that anything could possibly go more badly…but it could and it did. Today takes top prize for lack of organistation and leaves me with no doubt in saying that I have never, and never will again, participate in a more poorly organised ‘organised tour’...it is many things, some of them good, but organised is not one of them!
Where do I start…we start the day with a breakfast which although interesting local cuisine was hardly fodder for a group setting out on the longest day of cycling we have had since Paris and for the majority, the longest ride we have done in our life. And so we set out on our bikes, less than satisfied but not in a position to do much about it. We rode a short convoy out of town to the main road and were then on our own to cover the 170km to the Kyrgyzstan border. The 90km to lunch was good riding and with the motivation for the day to be no longer than necessary, we covered it quickly.
Lunch was located in the main street of a town en-route and so we became the fascination of many locals who gathered around to see what the foreigners were doing. I was mobbed by group of young girls practicing their English phrases…‘hello’, ‘what is your name’, ‘how old are you’, ‘am and Uzbek and you?’…and a man who may have been their teacher who kept telling me that he loved me. I have been captured on more mobile phone cameras than I can count and Dan keeps joking that I am now the latest lycra clad porn star of Central Asia. But it is all good fun and makes for the positive moments of a stretch of this trip which has otherwise been less than perfect.
After lunch we head off for the second half of the day which would get us to our penultimate border crossing of the trip. I rode well and was pleased when I reached my first ‘century ride’, being 100 miles (160km), but the happy moment was short lived as within 3km and only 10km from the border I also achieved another first…my first flat tire of the trip! Thankfully I had Dan nearby who had the strength necessary to remove and replace my tire. The first attempt failed as one of the spare tubes I had been carrying since Paris also had a hole in it, but the second attempt succeeded and we were finally set to complete the final few kilometres of the day. As we sat by the side of the road for half an hour repairing my flat everyone else in the group rode past so by the time we got going again we were the last bar 2 to reach the border.
Behind us were Joan, the sweep rider, and Bill who had been having his own mechanical adventures throughout the day. One of his pedals came off as it stripped the thread in the crank arm and could not be reattached…so he innovatively found a place to have it welded on. He tells the story of him riding along on his newly welded pedal as he sensed it was not going to hold and how it snapped off again as he reached the climbing section 50km before the border. As he walked his bike along the road with his pedal in his bag on a mission to find another welder he came across a few guys on sitting by the side of the road. He presented his pedal in one hand and his bike in the other in an attempt to explain his situation. They fell about laughing. He then completed his charades act for a welder and they fell about laughing again…before reaching into the grass behind them and producing a welding mask and torch…they had been there repairing some roadside equipment. Talk about dumb luck.
They went on to reattach his pedal and Bill offered up his water bottle to cool down the weld…forgetting that it contained Gatorade…so as the yellow liquid dribbled out over the pedal the expression on the welders face changed and they fell about laughing again. It is common practice here for the men to pee into a bottle and throw it out the car window…so they thought the yellow liquid was, well, you know. Bill attempted to explain that it was not pee by drinking it but that only had them laughing even more. And so after the makings of a good story and a cup of tea Bill was back on the road to join us in Osh.
And here starts the organisational nightmare. Being such a long day we were all to cross the border as and when we got there and staff-wise, Ben was to cross first and Miles was to cross after the last of the riders. The first of the riders crossed at about 2pm and Bill crossed at about 7pm. So for varying degrees of the time in between the earlier riders were made to sit about waiting in their dirty clothing as Miles was crossing last with the van containing all our luggage. Smart thinking. There was no logical reason that could explain why Miles could not have crossed first and Ben last so that we could have our luggage in order to change clothes after riding 180km!
The hotel we are staying in is located in the worst part of town. It is pretty much a ghetto area and feels unsafe at best. Location wise the hotel is equal worst with the Velotrek in Baku and if not for the cooler nights would equal it as there is no air-conditioning, the room door does not lock and the toilet has no seat. It is hard to believe that we are travelling the silk route, stopping in towns which all have some historical significance, as we are staying so far from anything significant in each place that we may as well not be here at all. Once again on this occasion the hotel could not have been more poorly chosen.
As we all sat tired and dirty on the porch of the hotel we noted that fact that we are in the midst of a building site…just as a truck turns up and delivers a truckload of bricks right into the driveway of the hotel. About an hour later Miles tries to drive the truck in and gets it jammed between a pile of bricks and a pile of 20m long steel reinforcing rods. The latter impossible to move by hand and so it was all hands on deck shifting bricks so that the van could make the 60 point turn required to get it unstuck. After which we all ferried the baggage 50m from the truck to the hotel.
It is now 8.30pm on a Saturday night. All the money changers are closed and now having clean clothing we are finally in the position to eat dinner, but have no money to do so. Somehow after acknowledging they needed to do something about it, the staff managed to get us about $10 in local currency each and pointed us in the direction of the nearest restaurants. All of which were closed by this time of night. Tired and annoyed to the max we bought food at a supermarket and went back to our room thoroughly flabbergasted at how poorly organised the logistics of the day had been.
14-Sep-08: Making Do
Kyrgyzstan: Osh – Rest Day
Not surprisingly we were woken early this morning by construction noise outside our window. And not surprisingly the hotel has no laundry service. So our mission for this morning was to find some means of washing 5 days worth of filthy cycling clothing. Whilst walking around trying to follow some cryptic directions we had been given to a nearby laundry service we were stopped by a local who ‘asked’ if we needed help. For the following 20 minutes we followed him through a myriad of backstreets and seemingly across town…the whole time in an awkward silence as he spoke no English.
Eventually he guided us through a busy roadside market to the door of a dry cleaner and just disappeared without a word. The dry cleaner was an old man who was pleased to have foreigners as customers and despite his original offer we managed to convey that we needed our laundry back today as we were leaving tomorrow. We returned later in the day to clean laundry and a bill of $12 for two huge loads…I almost feel guilty for things being so cheap!
As per my interim post, we did try to find internet but it was terribly slow and had no ability to upload anything via USB and so in the end fairly useless for our needs, but we did try!
15-Sep-08: Heading Up
Kyrgyzstan: Osh to Gulcha
103km, 6h 26min ride time
We set out this morning on the first of 6 riding days which will take us to the highest altitude on the trip and potentially the coldest temperatures. The expected distance today was 106km, which compared with the past week was a nicer number to see…it helps with the mental battle, although we knew that the distances are shorter for a reason…climbing.
The route started climbing almost immediately and continued to do so for 65km through the Farghana valley which offered up the first really beautiful scenery that we have seen in a long time and once again reminded me why I chose to partake in a trip of this kind. The road was almost perfect up until the 60km mark with mostly new road surface interrupted by the occasional section of rough substrate. We shared the road with herds of cow and horses and flocks of sheep as they were being mustered to new pastures…lower pastures for the coming winter we presume.
At 60km the road turned bad with a steeper climb lasting 4km combined with roads of loose gravel and sand which made the climbing slower going. The bad surface continued for 15km, making the subsequent downhill painful on the hands and at times quite difficult to control the bike, albeit quite enjoyable…the latter more so for those of us with flat bars and tires with good tread than those battling with drop bars and slick tires. Over 15km, we descended the 1000m which we had climbed in the first 65km and continued on to finish the day riding alongside the valley river. We camped by the river guarded by mountain ranges on either side.
16-Sep-08: Mountaineering
Kyrgyzstan: Gulcha to Sary-Tash
84km, 7h 27min ride time
We knew today was going to be a day of climbing but until it was over none of us would have guessed that we would be riding the terrain we covered. The weather started out quite cold at about 13 degrees and we all head off with our bike bags packed with our wet weather winter gear in preparedness for the worst conditions…like sleet, wind and snow, all of which were endured on last year’s trip.
The day warmed up quite significantly and reached the early 30s despite our ascent. By lunchtime at 50km we had ascended 800m and after lunch were to ascend a further 1000m…little did we know that it would be in the space of 20km and on roads which could barely fit the definition of such. The surface progressed from rough gravel and potholed tarmac to a fine dust filled with rocks. We climbed a series of seemingly never ending switchbacks, about 12, to reach the summit.
At the top of the summit it was 10 degrees and who knows how much colder with the wind chill…the descent was absolutely freezing as we were chased by storm clouds down into the town of Sary-Tash. As we rode into town it felt completely deserted, like a ghost town, particularly with the dark skies threatening and the strong wind blowing…in fairness, who in their right mind would be out in that weather! Much to our relief we arrived at camp to find we did not need to put our tents up as we were staying in a Ger camp with a breathtaking view of snow covered mountains in the distance.
17-Sep-08: Bone Shattering
Kyrgyzstan: Sary-Tash to Chinese Border
58km, 5h 37min ride time
This morning started at about 4am with the local dogs taking each other on over the task of rampaging through our garbage and distributing it all over the ger camp grounds! Even inside the ger it was cold. I spent a restless night uncomfortably cold in my sleeping bag but too cold and tired to get up and put more clothing on. To prove our conviction that it was cold there was frost on the windscreen of the vehicles.
It was 2 degrees when we started out and we all had on our winter woolies accordingly. The day was to be a short one but one of very rough roads…I wondered how the roads could get any worse than we had yesterday…but the day proved that they could and they did. We rode on a surface which could not rightly call itself a road other than it being used by traffic to get from a to b. It was more like a river of sand and stone and riding through it was bone shattering…like holding onto the horns of a bull.
To compensate for the bad road the scenery was spectacular and we paused often to admire it whilst rest our aching hands and arms. We were flanked by mountain ranges, the snowy covered northern face of one to our right and the rocky southern face of the other to our left. The temperature rose during the day but there was an icy wind blowing in from the snowy mountains which kept us well chilled.
Beyond the final police checkpoint before leaving Kyrgyzstan and entering China the road turned to beautiful new tarmac…a sight for sore eyes and a blessing on sore hands and bums! Camp was in the valley between the mountain ranges with a view of the snow covered mountains. After a cold night in the Ger I am not optimistic for my chances of warmth in a tent tonight, our final night before crossing into China for the home stretch!
18-Sep-08: Finally!!!
Kyrgyzstan/China!: Chinese Border to Ulugqat
68km, 3h 36min ride time
As I had suspected, sleeping in my tent in the cold did not work all that well and I slept fitfully and cold once again. The process of packing up and eating breakfast left my hands and feet so painfully cold I could not use them and was convinced I was on the verge of frostbite!
We were all excited and a little apprehensive at the day for us to cross into China finally having arrived. We were on the road by 7.45am and arrived at the Kyrgyzstan border at 8.30am. The border did not open until 9am and so we waited…and waited…we eventually made our way into the processing hall and we were given a medical check, in which we were asked if we were feeling well, duh, yes of course! As we waited to be stamped out of the country there was a power outage which brought things to a grinding halt for about 30 minutes. We were finally processed to leave the country by 11am…only 2.5 hours, not bad.
In the follow few kilometres of ‘no mans land’ we passed through another Kygyzstan checkpoint without trouble and arrived at the first of the Chinese checkpoints…which had closed barely 5 minutes before we got there…and there was no room for negotiation. The customs officer who had accompanied our new vans into no mans land said ‘here we are master, you wait ‘till 4 o’clock’…so as we sat under the ‘welcome to china’ sign we were under no doubt that we had arrived!
Luckily 4 o’clock was Beijing time and so it was ‘only’ a wait of 2.5 hours while the guards had lunch. In the time that we sat there under guard a further 2 tour groups arrived, by foot, and were grouped similarly to wait…although without our interpreter to assist them I imagine the whole process would have been more than a little bemusing for them. The guards separated the groups and would not let us talk to one another…it is anyone’s guess as to why! Eventually, we were all herded 200m back behind the ‘official line’ (where we were allowed to talk) and the boom gate closed in front of us, before a bus load of guards returned 10 minutes later to an apparently orderly checkpoint! The guards were all wearing strange 3D looking sunglasses, which we assume were some means of detecting fake passports? And they checked our luggage as we passed through looking for maps, books and cameras…the latter which they checked for photos of the checkpoint…luckily they did not check mobile phones!
We then made our way on the actual border where despite being made to ferry all of our luggage through individually, was quite efficient. Annoyingly, the border guards ignored their own rules on photography and kept taking photos of us as we unloaded the van and passed through customs. At 6.00pm local time we finally crossed onto Chinese soil…still with 50km to ride. We were rushed through a lunch of stale bread and peanut butter and on our way by 6.30pm.
The ride was spectacular on rolling hills through magnificent mountain ranges made somewhat magical by it being dusk…although I did not like being under such pressure to arrive…dinner was booked for 8pm. By 7pm, it was obvious that we would not be arriving by 8pm…we finally got in at about 8.45pm. Camp had been relocated to the front landing of the ‘restaurant’ we were having dinner in…the small town equivalent of a strip shopping complex. The area was bustling with excited kids, mangy dogs, bulls and the odd donkey and was adjacent to a putrid gutter into which everything was dumped and so smelt disgusting. But we were in…finally in China…after all the visa dramas and worry we are finally in and now officially on the home stretch.
19-Sep-08: Heading Down
China: Ulugqat to Bush Camp
115km, 5h 00min ride time
We woke at our restaurant camp to the sounds of dogs, cows and donkeys. Despite the sun still being on Kyrgyzstan time, the country is officially on Beijing time, making sunrise at 9am! Now that we have descended a little the temperature is a bit milder and we started out in 10 degrees rather than 2, which makes all the difference to the sensation in hands and feet!
It was so quiet that we felt as though we owned the road as we rolled our way through magnificent mountains which had the ages of time painted on their rocky face. After 50km the mountains parted as we descended into a wide open valley with mountains getting further and further away. The descent was fantastic and led us onto flat roads with a tailwind which allowed us to easily cover 120km in less time than even the shortest of the most recent days.
The afternoon sun still has some bite and holds reminder of Turkmenistan, which we hope will fade as winter approaches. We camped in the middle of nowhere by the highway and adjusted to our new schedule of dinner at 8pm and sunset at 10pm. Every police car that drove by dropped in to check us out, as did a few locals!
20-Sep-08: Freewheeling
China: Bush Camp to Kashgar
72km, 2h 06min ride time
The ride today took a backseat with it taking a tick over 2 hours to cover the 72km into Kashgar as it was 98% downhill. Arriving early has turned today into an unofficial rest day and we spent the afternoon wandering around the city and getting the necessities, like laundry, out of the way. The city is a bustling place much larger than any we have seen for some time and is a return to civilisation with ready access to all services, including internet, yay!
We wandered out for dinner and after much hunting finally chose a place which seemed busy and smelt good. No sooner had we uttered a word of English the waitress freaked out and would not play our game of ‘we’ll have what she is having’ or ‘what do you think is best’…luckily a local who spoke English came to our rescue and helped us to order some dinner. The result was a soup full of seaweed and all manner of fungi and a flaming hot dish of lamb which had us blowing our noses and breaking into profuse sweating! Not a raging success but an experience nonetheless!
21-Sep-08: Catching Up
China: Kashgar – Rest Day
This morning I rose slowly after a restless night of sleep…I blame the spicy food…and ate a breakfast of bread, bread, jam and more bread and noodles if you could stomach them for breakfast. I then joined a small group of riders for a visit to the famous ‘Kashgar Sunday Market’…it was a bit quiet as we had arrived early in the day, but offered an endless supply of souvenir style wares, nuts, lollies, silks, wool fabrics, leather shoes, belts, knives and in another area which we did not get to, all manner of livestock including camels, donkeys, sheep and cows etc.
I returned to deal with routine bike issues and some not so routine which required me to ride across town to the bike shop and sit and wait for an hour only to have the mechanic dismantle pieces of my bike and tell me pessimistically that my bike was a ‘bad bike’…after convincing him to reassemble my bad bike in any case I rode back to the hotel with a new $12 shimano bottom bracket in hand just in case…the TDA mechanic assures me that I will not die but will have a noisy ride until the next rest day where he will get the tools required to remove and replace the bottom bracket if necessary. Otherwise I have spent the afternoon gorging on internet time and finally bringing my blog reasonably up to date…with this massive diary entry and some new photos!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Quick Note
This is just a quick note to let you all know I am still safe. I have found an internet cafe in Osh, Kyrgyzstan but it the computers have no USB ports and so I cannot load my blog or photos. I will try again this afternoon to find better internet....
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Windy Days
04-Sep-08: Dial Up Blues
Uzbekistan: Bukhara – Rest Day
Today involved taking a walk into the old town from our hotel which was located about 1km outside it…the walk took us through dirt backstreets winding through ramshackled mud and timber housing and spilled us out into a grand paved plaza surrounded by archways and overlooked by a minaret. The old town is quite compact and most of the attractions are within walking distance of each other. So we just wandered and found ourselves passing through carpet markets inside old buildings with ornately arched ceilings and eventually made our way to one of the primary attractions, being the mosque and the second largest minaret in the country. Both of which were ornately decorated on the outside with mosaic tiling and very impressive.
After having taken in all of the sights we had the energy to travel to we returned to the only internet café we managed to see on our travels…it was dial up and very slow and temperamental but enough to allow me to upload the text of my last blog and update my map but did not have enough grunt to upload photos and so was only a partial success, but better than nothing. I returned to the hotel for an afternoon of taking it easy.
05-Sep-08: Battling Winds
Uzbekistan: Bukhara to Zorum
147km, 7h 35min ride time
After the day we had riding into Bukhara the first thing I did this morning when I woke up was draw the curtains to have a look outside…and saw the only thing I was hoping not to see…a gale force wind still blowing the trees about. With nearly 150km to ride today the prospect of it being an easy flat day blew away as quickly as a tissue in the wind.
The ride started with an 8km convoy out of town to the main highway where the wind shadow created by the convoy van left us behind to battle the gale force headwind on our own. And we battled as it blew us from the front and side but never from behind as we prayed for. Having stopped for a toilet break early on Dan and I were left trailing the main group who had formed a peloton to share the wind battle…we caught up with them just before lunch and joined up with them for the second 75km after lunch.
Initially the group were riding hap hazardously in single file which was very ineffective given that the wind was blowing from the front right. After a while a few of us who were experienced in riding in a peloton formation explained the concept of riding in 2 lines and after a couple of rotations everyone got the hang of it and it became a very efficient means of getting some kilometres under our wheels…it was a bit like speed dating as we set up the changeover so that the people on the right filed up as the people on the left dropped back and so with someone different to talk to every kilometre the distance quickly ticked by.
At about 4pm we finally rolled into our camp stop and did little else but eat, wash and set up our tents…in a cow paddock, with a few bulls tethered to the apple trees only metres from us…before going to bed exhausted.
06-Sep-08: Please Turn the Wind Off!
Uzbekistan: Zorum to Samarqand
117km, 6h 42min ride time
This morning was cold…at 15 degrees it matched the coldest temperature that we have had so far on this trip. Add the wind chill factor and it was damn cold! The winds had stuck about overnight and we were in for another day of battling headwinds.
So far the riding in Uzbekistan has not really been anything of note scenery wise….just a course on a main road surrounded by mostly crop farming land. Occasionally the road passes through a town and usually past a school which in the afternoon at about 1.30pm are swarming with children heading home for the day. The boys wear black slacks and white shirts with ties and the girls wear blue dresses and white frilly aprons with big ornate white hair clips and look a little like French maids. And they are all excited to see us ride by and often run alongside us or out closer to the road to yell things out that we can’t understand.
For the first 35km this morning the headwind was gentle and not overly bothersome by comparison to the past few days, but it did not take long for it to reach its former intensity and start blowing us all about the road again. The wind made what would otherwise have been a reasonably easy ride into a difficult one, but we eventually made our way to the edge of our destination town, Samarqand.
As we rode through the outer suburbs of town we passed by a hive of activity alongside us, military bases, private schools, general streetside shopping, the most activity we have seen since Turkey. The route to the hotel had been flagged for us so it was just a matter of keeping our eyes peeled and hoping that no one had taken down the orange tape! We found it without any drama and were disappointed to discover that we are once again on the outskirts of town…5km from the centre where all the interest is and nowhere near anything else of note…and we are here for 2 days!
The hotel is nice enough but after a while seemed that it may be 4 star in appearance and 1 star in function. The toilet in our bathroom wouldn’t flush and as it seemed like there was no water in the cistern I went to turn on the tap at the wall which pulled straight out of the wall and caused water to flood all over the bathroom floor. After a bit of a mad panic by hotel staff they shut of the water to the room and gave us another room…little did we know that they were fully booked and the ‘new’ room we were given was simply just a fellow riders who had not arrived yet, so when he arrived he had no cold water! And someone else could not remove their key from their door or turn on their main lights…need I go on…
Anyway, as I said the place is nice enough (ie. is clean, has reasonable beds and air-conditioning) even if it is poorly located. We managed to find one open restaurant nearby and ate there early as we were exhausted and not looking to take taxi’s anywhere tonight…the waitress spoke very good English and told us that she learnt at school in Samarqand back when it had good schools and good teachers in the soviet times. We attempted to order whatever she or the chef thought were good and had reasonable success with a couple of salads and soup, but the main course was a beef fillet in a walnut crumb drenched in the oil it had been fried in and so not great but edible and filled the hole.
The wind is still about and has dropped the temperature significantly to a point where I now need to wear a jumper and long pants outside…it is strange to have been sweltering only a week ago and now facing the prospect of our coldest temperatures on the trip in less than a week.
07-Sep-08: Playing Tourist
Uzbekistan: Samarqand – Rest Day
With the knowledge of having 2 days of it was much easier to gain motivation for playing tourist rather than being overwhelmed by the need to rest up. Samarqand is one of the highlights of central Asia and so we were pretty keen to see all it had to offer and so spent the entire day walking from one highlight to another and at the end of the day jumped in a taxi that took us back to the hotel. The photos really tell the story of what we saw, being a range of restored and original historic monuments including a Mausoleum, Mosque, Necropolis and a large and vibrant street market.
Uzbekistan: Bukhara – Rest Day
Today involved taking a walk into the old town from our hotel which was located about 1km outside it…the walk took us through dirt backstreets winding through ramshackled mud and timber housing and spilled us out into a grand paved plaza surrounded by archways and overlooked by a minaret. The old town is quite compact and most of the attractions are within walking distance of each other. So we just wandered and found ourselves passing through carpet markets inside old buildings with ornately arched ceilings and eventually made our way to one of the primary attractions, being the mosque and the second largest minaret in the country. Both of which were ornately decorated on the outside with mosaic tiling and very impressive.
After having taken in all of the sights we had the energy to travel to we returned to the only internet café we managed to see on our travels…it was dial up and very slow and temperamental but enough to allow me to upload the text of my last blog and update my map but did not have enough grunt to upload photos and so was only a partial success, but better than nothing. I returned to the hotel for an afternoon of taking it easy.
05-Sep-08: Battling Winds
Uzbekistan: Bukhara to Zorum
147km, 7h 35min ride time
After the day we had riding into Bukhara the first thing I did this morning when I woke up was draw the curtains to have a look outside…and saw the only thing I was hoping not to see…a gale force wind still blowing the trees about. With nearly 150km to ride today the prospect of it being an easy flat day blew away as quickly as a tissue in the wind.
The ride started with an 8km convoy out of town to the main highway where the wind shadow created by the convoy van left us behind to battle the gale force headwind on our own. And we battled as it blew us from the front and side but never from behind as we prayed for. Having stopped for a toilet break early on Dan and I were left trailing the main group who had formed a peloton to share the wind battle…we caught up with them just before lunch and joined up with them for the second 75km after lunch.
Initially the group were riding hap hazardously in single file which was very ineffective given that the wind was blowing from the front right. After a while a few of us who were experienced in riding in a peloton formation explained the concept of riding in 2 lines and after a couple of rotations everyone got the hang of it and it became a very efficient means of getting some kilometres under our wheels…it was a bit like speed dating as we set up the changeover so that the people on the right filed up as the people on the left dropped back and so with someone different to talk to every kilometre the distance quickly ticked by.
At about 4pm we finally rolled into our camp stop and did little else but eat, wash and set up our tents…in a cow paddock, with a few bulls tethered to the apple trees only metres from us…before going to bed exhausted.
06-Sep-08: Please Turn the Wind Off!
Uzbekistan: Zorum to Samarqand
117km, 6h 42min ride time
This morning was cold…at 15 degrees it matched the coldest temperature that we have had so far on this trip. Add the wind chill factor and it was damn cold! The winds had stuck about overnight and we were in for another day of battling headwinds.
So far the riding in Uzbekistan has not really been anything of note scenery wise….just a course on a main road surrounded by mostly crop farming land. Occasionally the road passes through a town and usually past a school which in the afternoon at about 1.30pm are swarming with children heading home for the day. The boys wear black slacks and white shirts with ties and the girls wear blue dresses and white frilly aprons with big ornate white hair clips and look a little like French maids. And they are all excited to see us ride by and often run alongside us or out closer to the road to yell things out that we can’t understand.
For the first 35km this morning the headwind was gentle and not overly bothersome by comparison to the past few days, but it did not take long for it to reach its former intensity and start blowing us all about the road again. The wind made what would otherwise have been a reasonably easy ride into a difficult one, but we eventually made our way to the edge of our destination town, Samarqand.
As we rode through the outer suburbs of town we passed by a hive of activity alongside us, military bases, private schools, general streetside shopping, the most activity we have seen since Turkey. The route to the hotel had been flagged for us so it was just a matter of keeping our eyes peeled and hoping that no one had taken down the orange tape! We found it without any drama and were disappointed to discover that we are once again on the outskirts of town…5km from the centre where all the interest is and nowhere near anything else of note…and we are here for 2 days!
The hotel is nice enough but after a while seemed that it may be 4 star in appearance and 1 star in function. The toilet in our bathroom wouldn’t flush and as it seemed like there was no water in the cistern I went to turn on the tap at the wall which pulled straight out of the wall and caused water to flood all over the bathroom floor. After a bit of a mad panic by hotel staff they shut of the water to the room and gave us another room…little did we know that they were fully booked and the ‘new’ room we were given was simply just a fellow riders who had not arrived yet, so when he arrived he had no cold water! And someone else could not remove their key from their door or turn on their main lights…need I go on…
Anyway, as I said the place is nice enough (ie. is clean, has reasonable beds and air-conditioning) even if it is poorly located. We managed to find one open restaurant nearby and ate there early as we were exhausted and not looking to take taxi’s anywhere tonight…the waitress spoke very good English and told us that she learnt at school in Samarqand back when it had good schools and good teachers in the soviet times. We attempted to order whatever she or the chef thought were good and had reasonable success with a couple of salads and soup, but the main course was a beef fillet in a walnut crumb drenched in the oil it had been fried in and so not great but edible and filled the hole.
The wind is still about and has dropped the temperature significantly to a point where I now need to wear a jumper and long pants outside…it is strange to have been sweltering only a week ago and now facing the prospect of our coldest temperatures on the trip in less than a week.
07-Sep-08: Playing Tourist
Uzbekistan: Samarqand – Rest Day
With the knowledge of having 2 days of it was much easier to gain motivation for playing tourist rather than being overwhelmed by the need to rest up. Samarqand is one of the highlights of central Asia and so we were pretty keen to see all it had to offer and so spent the entire day walking from one highlight to another and at the end of the day jumped in a taxi that took us back to the hotel. The photos really tell the story of what we saw, being a range of restored and original historic monuments including a Mausoleum, Mosque, Necropolis and a large and vibrant street market.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Goodbye Turkmenistan!!!
27-Aug-08: Money Matters
Turkmenistan: Ashgabat – Rest Day
First task today was to replace my travel adaptor as mine short circuited in the worst hotel in central Asia. Admittedly with the apparent lack of any real technology I was a little concerned that I may not find one in this country, but asked the hotel reception for a pointer in the right direction anyway. Surprisingly she suggested that there was a market just around the corner from the hotel which would sell what I was looking for…and did it ever…it was an open air market with all manner of bits and pieces for sale and about 10 vendors all selling a variety of plugs and adaptors, so I found what I was looking for and some.
With task one complete it was on to task two which was to find somewhere to withdraw money…there are no ATM’s in Turkmenistan…just another example of the controlling rule over the country. Money can only be withdrawn from a bank. And to make it more difficult one bank deals in Visa and another in Mastercard…so we had to make a journey to both. Firstly was the Mastercard bank which was located next door to a huge modern department store…very much like the Myer centre in Brisbane…but almost more modern in some ways. We were like kids in a candy store at the sight of more than 2 brands of toothpaste and had a giggle to ourselves at the ‘Barf’ brand of laundry detergent.
After having lunch at the shopping centre food court and returning to the Mastercard friendly bank, after 2pm when it re-opened after closing for lunch, we jumped into another taxi to get to the Visa friendly bank. Despite indicating he knew where he was going, the taxi driver clearly had no idea but after stopping and asking a few people he finally got us there.
The exchange rate here is 14,000 Manat to US$1 and the largest bank note is 10,000 Manat…so the equivalent of US$20 is made up of 28 bank notes each worth about 70 cents! So both now carrying huge wads of cash we had run out of time to move on to the third bank where we could have changed our left over Azeri Manat but cut our losses at having now consumed nearly an entire rest day running around town and decided to head back to the hotel.
Easier said than done in the absence of taxi’s…we could not find one! And so spent the next 1.5 hours in the baking sun walking back to the hotel…I was not a happy camper when we finally got back but a good dinner and a bath did manage to cheer me up. The upside of being forced to walk back was that we got to see the result of Ashgabat being a city which has clearly had a lot of money injected into it. Many of the buildings are clad in marble and the public areas adorned with fountains and monuments galore…all quite impressive.
28-Aug-08: A New Adventure
Turkmenistan: Ashgabat to Kaka (Archeological Desert Camp)
124km, 4h 32min ride time
Having been so long, comparatively, since we have all been on our bikes, today was like a new beginning. We awoke early to a much darker morning than that to which we were waking to in Turkey despite being the same hour, and readied ourselves for a brand new day of cycling in one of the hottest countries in the world.
Before heading off on our police led convoy out of the city we were the centre of attention for the local news station who interviewed a few of the riders and staff about our trip. I was one of the lucky few to receive attention and was going fine until asked what I thought about Turkmenistan…hmmm…I quickly dodged the question by saying that I was yet to see much of it as we had been held up by the ferry but that I did like Ashgabat and will see the rest once we get going again. Phew!
By 7am we were back in the saddle and starting out on our new adventure through the Asian continent. We were trailed for the whole convoy by the television crew cameras and the police and once left to our own devices after 7km we were like a bunch of newly released caged rabbits. It felt good to be back on the bike after the week we had endured.
The morning was relatively cool and we rode on a newly constructed flat road for the first 45km, so the conditions were good for making good time. We made the lunch stop at 65km within 2.5 hours and were on our way again when the heat hit at about 11am and from there intensified rapidly. At the 80km mark we were pulled over by police to join the front 2 riders who had been told that we were being expected to sit and wait for all the riders before being allowed to continue on…given that the last rider in the group was about 3 hours behind the front few, the prospect of waiting well into the peak of the heat was not one we took kindly to. I am one of only a few who carry a mobile phone and so was able to call the staff and have our local guide come back and sort the situation out…and thankfully, 20 minutes later we were back on our way.
We rode into camp at 12.30pm and dived for the cover of the limited shade that we could find, which initially was in the vicinity of the camp kitchen until Miles felt a little overcrowded and a second canopy was erected for us. Camp is on the grounds of an archeological site and we are free to wander about the site complete with remnants of beautifully painted pottery just lying about on the surface of the site. It amazes me that such a site is just left for anyone to wander about…although admittedly there would not be many who would be out in the middle of nowhere!
The highway we followed today is pretty much the only major road in the country which skirts around the bottom of the Karakorum desert extending for a thousand kilometres to the north. Small towns nestled in the foothills of the mountains to the south are visible from the highway and accessible via side roads, each marked by an arch-like gate structure and extending perpendicularly from the main highway like the branches of a tree. Despite these small towns each located a few kilometers at the least away from the highway there was little else en-route barring a few plantations growing cotton and grapes…as we ride by the plantation workers whistle and wave enthusiastically. The workers wear full headscarfs which cover their entire head except for a small slit for the eyes and provide a protective barrier between them and the baking sun. The landscape is otherwise very barren with little vegetation aside from thorny bushes and grasses burnt to a crisp by the summer sun…and the occasional water mirage!
Back at camp we spent the afternoon hiding from the heat until it finally started to lift at about 6pm, at which point we ate our first camp dinner in nearly 3 weeks…on tonight’s menu was beef rissoles with a potato and a beetroot salad. Unlike the others I waited to put up my tent until the sun had tempered and promptly afterwards went to bed… under police guard to ensure we don’t go anywhere in the middle of the night.
29-Aug-08: Mother Nature at Work
Turkmenistan: Kaka (Archeological Desert Camp) to Tejen
119km, 4h 20min ride time
I started today tired after a disturbed night of sleep…a sheet lightening storm and accompanying strong winds started at about midnight and continued for quite a few hours. The wind was extraordinarily strong and made quite a noise rustling through everyone’s tents…most of which having been erected without the wind in mind. My tent for example had the bare minimum of pegs holding it down and despite my needing to visit the toilet hut I did not dare for the fear of my body weight being the only thing holding the tent down!
As a result of the wind and the warm night, which required tents to be enclosed by mesh only to avoid overheating, I awoke to find a fine layer of sand dust had blown in through the insect mesh and over everything inside my tent, including me! After dusting off I went through the usual camp morning ritual and made an early start in an attempt to beat as much of the heat as possible…however as it turned out most of the day was overcast and the temperature very mild by comparison to the days before.
The road was flat and the scenery just as barren as the day before with the exception of a few camels crossing the road and a couple of slightly larger towns en-route. With the help of a strong tail wind we made it into camp by midday and beat all bar an hour of the suns triumph over the cloud cover. The afternoon heated up but the strong wind continued, and combined with the shade of a few trees at our camp, provided good relief over the heat.
The police presence was still in force today but thankfully without any unforeseen bureaucratic delays and so was of little consequence despite the constant feeling of being watched…even when trying to find somewhere private to pee, which due to the landscape is a challenge anyway!
30-Aug-08: Changing Winds
Turkmenistan: Tejen to Mary
120km, 5h 57min ride time
We woke to a cool morning…cool enough to require sleeping bags to be dug out in the early hours. After a breakfast of porridge we got another early start for our last stretch into a rest day in the town of Mary. As soon as we started out however we knew that despite starting early we were still going to be in for a long day…today the winds had changed and we were now riding into them. The road surface has also been getting increasingly worse and today was no exception. It was a very long day which took us 1.5 hours longer to cover the same distance as the previous 2 days despite the road also being dead flat the whole way.
We had another minor repeat of the police stopping us during the day suggesting that we must regroup before being allowed to move on but it only lasted for 5 minutes until we had gathered to a group of 10 or so…just as well because my phone has now been blocked for use by the country and we could have been there for hours waiting without being able to contact anyone.
The landscape changed a little today and I noticed more ‘greenery’ which reminded me of some coastal locations back home where native shrubs are planted to combat erosion of sand dunes. Trees…ie. anything that would provide useful shade…were still a rare sight, but did increase in number marginally as we rode closer to the main town.
We have been advised that from now on we should be staying in hotels on rest days and that we are done with the worst of the hotels…both pieces of news music to my ears! Our hotel in Mary is quite a good one considering the backwards nature of the country in general...we have air-conditioning which is the main thing and everything else is clean and in good condition.
Communication of any real note appears to be banned in this country as there is really no internet to speak of, except for the rare dial-up internet café which I hope to find to upload this blog, and the telephones in the rooms are only for calling reception or other rooms, not for outside dialing! We are still being watched constantly by the police and we are told that there is only one mobile network which is constantly monitored and that hotel rooms are bugged!
After a tough day of riding we had a restful afternoon of napping and reading and walked a couple of blocks in search of a dinner that did not involve doner…we had success with a local restaurant which served pizza and some very yummy juice smoothies, all of which we ordered by pot luck or by asking the waiter in charades what he thought was good. All in all it turned out well and we had 6 drinks, 2 large pizzas and 2 pieces of cake all for under $15!
31-Aug-08: Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
Turkmenistan: Mary – Rest Day
The day started at 7am with a knock on the door as I was about to jump into the shower. As I opened the door a bit perplexed at who on earth would be calling at this hour of the morning I was greeted by the hotel laundry lady with an armful of my laundry…soaking wet! The following 15minutes were spent in a 3 way conversation with reception who spoke a little English and the laundry lady who spoke none, trying to comprehend why on earth I was being presented with wet laundry. In the end the lady left with my wet washing in hand clearly understanding that I was not interested in having it back until it was well and truly dry. Many others also had the same experience, with Manon actually being presented with the wrong laundry and having to allocate everyone’s laundry whilst standing in the hallway in her pj’s.
Our mission to find an internet café was intercepted by others who had tried the evening before and although finding the café discovered that it closed at 2pm on Saturday and would not reopen until 9am on Monday…which given we only had Sunday was of little use to us. And so resigned to the absence of the internet, the morning was spent wandering about the nearby bazaar market before heading back to the relative comfort of the air-conditioned hotel for lunch and some R’n’R.
Whilst wandering we were careful not to walk within a 50m radius of anyone resembling a police officer or military personnel for fear of being held up from doing that which we take for granted in a free country. Once the heat had burnt out of the sun after 6pm we took the opportunity to wash our bikes followed by an early dinner and an early bedtime in preparation for 3 more days cycling in the desert.
01-Sept-08: Sandy
Turkmenistan: Mary to Desert Camp
134km, 6h 10min ride time
This morning started with a 5km police convoy out of town, the need for which was lost on all of us…a convoy is usually required for one of 2 reasons, either because of bad traffic or difficult directions, neither of which was present this morning. The police used their sirens and lights to guide us out of town at 6.30am and drew a lot of attention doing so which was really quite cringingly embarrassing.
With the view to avoiding dehydration I have been diligently following Dr Joan’s advice to drink a bottle of water before departing on a ride, the consequence of which is to need to go to the toilet about 15 minutes into the ride, particularly on a slightly cooler morning as we had this morning. And so by the end of the 20 minute convoy I had only one thing in mind and pulled over at the first opportunity, unnoticed by the police who were leading and sweeping our group. This meant that as I rode to catch up the last riders I was behind the sweeping police car…my riding up behind it to a couple of bewildered officers inside was quite amusing and the first time I have felt free for the first time since entering this country.
The route today had 2 alternative paths, one which went through a town and one which followed a bypass around it…both routes converged after the town and so although most riders went through the town, some including myself did take the bypass as it was the official route direction. Having the group split in 2 directions sent the officers into a flap and those that went through town were harassed and waved down to turn around and take the other route. We have learnt by now to play dumb and just motion that you are looking for a drink and keep riding…the whole idea of being followed ‘for our own safety’ is ridiculous as it is very obvious that the primary motivation is to keep foreign influence out of the townships…the locals are always friendly and very excited to see us and certainly no threat.
As we rode today on newly constructed road (much to our delight as we understand it not to have been in place last year) the temperature reached a relatively mild 38 degrees in the shade. It amazed us that in the middle of the desert, as we certainly are now, there are still signs of human habitation…there were a couple of small isolated townships based on industry of some sort and on the outskirts of these towns young children and women stand by the roadside, dressed like bank robbers with only their eyes exposed, selling fermented yoghurt drinks and craft items. The whole scenario reminded me of Anakin Skywalker’s home town in Star Wars.
After lunch we passed along a 20km stretch of road which was crawling with trucks going in both directions transporting sand…which flew off the back of the trucks and all over us as we rode. By the end of the 20km we were all encrusted in sand which had worked its way through into every nook and cranny including between toes, inside ears and between teeth! After the ‘sand storm’ the road was pretty much clear and made for relatively easy riding despite a gentle headwind which built up for the last 40km or so. We are camped tonight behind a police checkpoint at the border between 2 provinces and surrounded by desert sands and scrub for as far as the eye can see.
02-Sept-08: 134,000km!
Turkmenistan: Desert Camp to Turkmenabad
129km, 6h 33min ride time
After a pretty good night of sleep today’s ride also started well with a nice cool morning but wore on pretty quickly as the road continued to slope ever so slightly upwards and into a slight headwind, the combination of which was extremely tiring. Aside from 5 camels, another fully loaded cycle tourist and a few passing cars and trucks there was absolutely no sign of life for 100km until we entered the outskirts of the second largest city in Turkmenistan, Turkmenabad.
The great interest of the day was the loaded cycle tourist from Japan who at 38 years old has been cycling for 8 years, through 114 countries and has covered nearly 134,000km! I feel like I am just doing a loop around the block by comparison…and he is fully loaded with 70kg of bike and gear and put us to shame by rolling into our lunch stop not long after we did despite us having covered 40km since pulling over to chat to him earlier in the day. He joined us for lunch and again for dinner and may well tag along for another few days as his planned route is similar to start with as he makes his way east to China and then on to South-east Asia and maybe back to Australia before heading home in 2 years time to ‘re-join society’.
Once again we had the police making their presence known at about 100km by pulling over riders until a dozen or so had regrouped…meaning the first rider had to wait an hour until we rolled in just in time to be let passed to join the unofficial police convoy through town. As we were about 500m behind the main group we were tailed by the sweeping police car for the final 25km to camp…when we stopped to refill water bottles, they stopped and reversed the car to be beside us, at which point Dan chastised them for spewing exhaust fumes over us and indicated that behind us was a better place to drive…in response to which they turned off the car engine. Further on the road they continuously sounded their sirens and which stopped traffic in both directions unnecessarily as it was not even heavy traffic and the road was very wide. After one too many times of being deafened by the siren I turned around and angrily indicated that they were deafening me…after which they no longer sounded the siren. They seem to think that they are helping us but they are seriously more trouble than anything!
Camp is located on the far side of the final police checkpoint before crossing the border into Uzbekistan and out of this country…yay! In the afternoon the area was full of workmen who all watched in amusement and perversion as we all bathed using water from a hand pump. Later in the evening just before dinner one of the riders, James, noticed a couple of guys lurking about his bike and as he went over towards them noticed that they were cutting off his cycle computer and then rode off with it…stupidly towards the police at the checkpoint who quickly caught them. The thief returned the computer saying sorry and was then taken in by police. About half an hour later they obviously made a run for it as the police dog went chasing after them with an officer in pursuit…we think they got away…not sure what the penalty for theft is in this country but I imagine I would probably want to run too!
Once again the police do something to prove that they are crazy! As I was getting ready for bed in my tent and officer who had just started a new shift started doing the rounds of the grounds and shining his torch into peoples tents…when he got to my tent he shone his torch right in and peered in with his face so that it was just about pushed up to the mesh. Needless to say I told him where to go and zipped up my door cover, at which point he walked around the back of my tent to the other door and did the same and then again back around to the front…it was a bit scary! He then moved on to other tents as I heard everyone do much the same as I left my tent and went and told Miles what was going on and got him to distract the officer and explain that we were sleeping…of course the police did not speak English and by this stage our interpreter had left but Miles seemed to manage with charades and so we were able to sleep in peace.
03-Sept-08: Forces Against Us
Turkmenistan/Uzbekistan: Turkmenabad to Bukhara
126km, 7h 04min ride time
We knew today was going to be a long day before it started with the knowledge that we were crossing another border and prior experience at having dealt with Turkmenistan beuracracy. You would think that after making it so difficult to get in to the country that they would be pleased to let you out…not that simple. After riding 30km to the border into a strong headwind we waited for about half an hour for the border gates to open at 9am.
At 9am we made our way through the first passport check towards the passport control office to leave Turkmenistan…and queued…and formed a blockade of bicycles either side of our group to keep out the locals who don’t seem to understand the concept of lining up and think that they can just push in where they like…not if we had anything to do with it! After about half an hour of standing in the sun the first of our group was let through and then the rest progressively over the next half hour so that on the other side we emerged with our bicycles and no passports into a holding pen for passport-less hostages! Another half hour passed before our passports were returned to us and we were allowed to cross into the 1km zone of no-mans-land between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
As we made our way across no-mans-land we met a gentleman from Belgium who had been stuck there for 3 days…he left Uzbekistan with the intention of heading into Turkmenistan but on trying to enter the country they advised him there was a problem with his visa and refused him entry and also refused to offer him any help beyond the process of sorting out the problem which could take up to 10 days if it ever happens! Uzbekistan would not let him back in as he only had a single entry visa which had expired and so he was stuck. After 2 days of no food and water the Uzbekistan border staff felt sorry for him and allowed him in to purchase food at their restaurant and to plug in his mobile phone so that he would be able to call his consulate for assistance. I cannot comprehend that something like this could happen in this day and age, but obviously it does!
We proceeded through the Uzbekistan entry process which involved handing our passports over to 7 separate people on the way through and filling out a number of forms to declare how much money we are taking into the country…the advice we have suggests that if you leave the country with any more cash than you entered with, even if it was obtained legitimately from a bank, it will be taken from you…so we were all very careful to fill the forms out correctly!
So a total of 3 hours after starting the process we finally emerged as free tourists into Uzbekistan and to the prospect of riding a further 110km into a headwind which had intensified to gale force. There was very little on the road from the border to our destination of Bukhara, which we reached at 6.30pm absolutely exhausted and ready for a shower and bed.
Turkmenistan: Ashgabat – Rest Day
First task today was to replace my travel adaptor as mine short circuited in the worst hotel in central Asia. Admittedly with the apparent lack of any real technology I was a little concerned that I may not find one in this country, but asked the hotel reception for a pointer in the right direction anyway. Surprisingly she suggested that there was a market just around the corner from the hotel which would sell what I was looking for…and did it ever…it was an open air market with all manner of bits and pieces for sale and about 10 vendors all selling a variety of plugs and adaptors, so I found what I was looking for and some.
With task one complete it was on to task two which was to find somewhere to withdraw money…there are no ATM’s in Turkmenistan…just another example of the controlling rule over the country. Money can only be withdrawn from a bank. And to make it more difficult one bank deals in Visa and another in Mastercard…so we had to make a journey to both. Firstly was the Mastercard bank which was located next door to a huge modern department store…very much like the Myer centre in Brisbane…but almost more modern in some ways. We were like kids in a candy store at the sight of more than 2 brands of toothpaste and had a giggle to ourselves at the ‘Barf’ brand of laundry detergent.
After having lunch at the shopping centre food court and returning to the Mastercard friendly bank, after 2pm when it re-opened after closing for lunch, we jumped into another taxi to get to the Visa friendly bank. Despite indicating he knew where he was going, the taxi driver clearly had no idea but after stopping and asking a few people he finally got us there.
The exchange rate here is 14,000 Manat to US$1 and the largest bank note is 10,000 Manat…so the equivalent of US$20 is made up of 28 bank notes each worth about 70 cents! So both now carrying huge wads of cash we had run out of time to move on to the third bank where we could have changed our left over Azeri Manat but cut our losses at having now consumed nearly an entire rest day running around town and decided to head back to the hotel.
Easier said than done in the absence of taxi’s…we could not find one! And so spent the next 1.5 hours in the baking sun walking back to the hotel…I was not a happy camper when we finally got back but a good dinner and a bath did manage to cheer me up. The upside of being forced to walk back was that we got to see the result of Ashgabat being a city which has clearly had a lot of money injected into it. Many of the buildings are clad in marble and the public areas adorned with fountains and monuments galore…all quite impressive.
28-Aug-08: A New Adventure
Turkmenistan: Ashgabat to Kaka (Archeological Desert Camp)
124km, 4h 32min ride time
Having been so long, comparatively, since we have all been on our bikes, today was like a new beginning. We awoke early to a much darker morning than that to which we were waking to in Turkey despite being the same hour, and readied ourselves for a brand new day of cycling in one of the hottest countries in the world.
Before heading off on our police led convoy out of the city we were the centre of attention for the local news station who interviewed a few of the riders and staff about our trip. I was one of the lucky few to receive attention and was going fine until asked what I thought about Turkmenistan…hmmm…I quickly dodged the question by saying that I was yet to see much of it as we had been held up by the ferry but that I did like Ashgabat and will see the rest once we get going again. Phew!
By 7am we were back in the saddle and starting out on our new adventure through the Asian continent. We were trailed for the whole convoy by the television crew cameras and the police and once left to our own devices after 7km we were like a bunch of newly released caged rabbits. It felt good to be back on the bike after the week we had endured.
The morning was relatively cool and we rode on a newly constructed flat road for the first 45km, so the conditions were good for making good time. We made the lunch stop at 65km within 2.5 hours and were on our way again when the heat hit at about 11am and from there intensified rapidly. At the 80km mark we were pulled over by police to join the front 2 riders who had been told that we were being expected to sit and wait for all the riders before being allowed to continue on…given that the last rider in the group was about 3 hours behind the front few, the prospect of waiting well into the peak of the heat was not one we took kindly to. I am one of only a few who carry a mobile phone and so was able to call the staff and have our local guide come back and sort the situation out…and thankfully, 20 minutes later we were back on our way.
We rode into camp at 12.30pm and dived for the cover of the limited shade that we could find, which initially was in the vicinity of the camp kitchen until Miles felt a little overcrowded and a second canopy was erected for us. Camp is on the grounds of an archeological site and we are free to wander about the site complete with remnants of beautifully painted pottery just lying about on the surface of the site. It amazes me that such a site is just left for anyone to wander about…although admittedly there would not be many who would be out in the middle of nowhere!
The highway we followed today is pretty much the only major road in the country which skirts around the bottom of the Karakorum desert extending for a thousand kilometres to the north. Small towns nestled in the foothills of the mountains to the south are visible from the highway and accessible via side roads, each marked by an arch-like gate structure and extending perpendicularly from the main highway like the branches of a tree. Despite these small towns each located a few kilometers at the least away from the highway there was little else en-route barring a few plantations growing cotton and grapes…as we ride by the plantation workers whistle and wave enthusiastically. The workers wear full headscarfs which cover their entire head except for a small slit for the eyes and provide a protective barrier between them and the baking sun. The landscape is otherwise very barren with little vegetation aside from thorny bushes and grasses burnt to a crisp by the summer sun…and the occasional water mirage!
Back at camp we spent the afternoon hiding from the heat until it finally started to lift at about 6pm, at which point we ate our first camp dinner in nearly 3 weeks…on tonight’s menu was beef rissoles with a potato and a beetroot salad. Unlike the others I waited to put up my tent until the sun had tempered and promptly afterwards went to bed… under police guard to ensure we don’t go anywhere in the middle of the night.
29-Aug-08: Mother Nature at Work
Turkmenistan: Kaka (Archeological Desert Camp) to Tejen
119km, 4h 20min ride time
I started today tired after a disturbed night of sleep…a sheet lightening storm and accompanying strong winds started at about midnight and continued for quite a few hours. The wind was extraordinarily strong and made quite a noise rustling through everyone’s tents…most of which having been erected without the wind in mind. My tent for example had the bare minimum of pegs holding it down and despite my needing to visit the toilet hut I did not dare for the fear of my body weight being the only thing holding the tent down!
As a result of the wind and the warm night, which required tents to be enclosed by mesh only to avoid overheating, I awoke to find a fine layer of sand dust had blown in through the insect mesh and over everything inside my tent, including me! After dusting off I went through the usual camp morning ritual and made an early start in an attempt to beat as much of the heat as possible…however as it turned out most of the day was overcast and the temperature very mild by comparison to the days before.
The road was flat and the scenery just as barren as the day before with the exception of a few camels crossing the road and a couple of slightly larger towns en-route. With the help of a strong tail wind we made it into camp by midday and beat all bar an hour of the suns triumph over the cloud cover. The afternoon heated up but the strong wind continued, and combined with the shade of a few trees at our camp, provided good relief over the heat.
The police presence was still in force today but thankfully without any unforeseen bureaucratic delays and so was of little consequence despite the constant feeling of being watched…even when trying to find somewhere private to pee, which due to the landscape is a challenge anyway!
30-Aug-08: Changing Winds
Turkmenistan: Tejen to Mary
120km, 5h 57min ride time
We woke to a cool morning…cool enough to require sleeping bags to be dug out in the early hours. After a breakfast of porridge we got another early start for our last stretch into a rest day in the town of Mary. As soon as we started out however we knew that despite starting early we were still going to be in for a long day…today the winds had changed and we were now riding into them. The road surface has also been getting increasingly worse and today was no exception. It was a very long day which took us 1.5 hours longer to cover the same distance as the previous 2 days despite the road also being dead flat the whole way.
We had another minor repeat of the police stopping us during the day suggesting that we must regroup before being allowed to move on but it only lasted for 5 minutes until we had gathered to a group of 10 or so…just as well because my phone has now been blocked for use by the country and we could have been there for hours waiting without being able to contact anyone.
The landscape changed a little today and I noticed more ‘greenery’ which reminded me of some coastal locations back home where native shrubs are planted to combat erosion of sand dunes. Trees…ie. anything that would provide useful shade…were still a rare sight, but did increase in number marginally as we rode closer to the main town.
We have been advised that from now on we should be staying in hotels on rest days and that we are done with the worst of the hotels…both pieces of news music to my ears! Our hotel in Mary is quite a good one considering the backwards nature of the country in general...we have air-conditioning which is the main thing and everything else is clean and in good condition.
Communication of any real note appears to be banned in this country as there is really no internet to speak of, except for the rare dial-up internet café which I hope to find to upload this blog, and the telephones in the rooms are only for calling reception or other rooms, not for outside dialing! We are still being watched constantly by the police and we are told that there is only one mobile network which is constantly monitored and that hotel rooms are bugged!
After a tough day of riding we had a restful afternoon of napping and reading and walked a couple of blocks in search of a dinner that did not involve doner…we had success with a local restaurant which served pizza and some very yummy juice smoothies, all of which we ordered by pot luck or by asking the waiter in charades what he thought was good. All in all it turned out well and we had 6 drinks, 2 large pizzas and 2 pieces of cake all for under $15!
31-Aug-08: Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
Turkmenistan: Mary – Rest Day
The day started at 7am with a knock on the door as I was about to jump into the shower. As I opened the door a bit perplexed at who on earth would be calling at this hour of the morning I was greeted by the hotel laundry lady with an armful of my laundry…soaking wet! The following 15minutes were spent in a 3 way conversation with reception who spoke a little English and the laundry lady who spoke none, trying to comprehend why on earth I was being presented with wet laundry. In the end the lady left with my wet washing in hand clearly understanding that I was not interested in having it back until it was well and truly dry. Many others also had the same experience, with Manon actually being presented with the wrong laundry and having to allocate everyone’s laundry whilst standing in the hallway in her pj’s.
Our mission to find an internet café was intercepted by others who had tried the evening before and although finding the café discovered that it closed at 2pm on Saturday and would not reopen until 9am on Monday…which given we only had Sunday was of little use to us. And so resigned to the absence of the internet, the morning was spent wandering about the nearby bazaar market before heading back to the relative comfort of the air-conditioned hotel for lunch and some R’n’R.
Whilst wandering we were careful not to walk within a 50m radius of anyone resembling a police officer or military personnel for fear of being held up from doing that which we take for granted in a free country. Once the heat had burnt out of the sun after 6pm we took the opportunity to wash our bikes followed by an early dinner and an early bedtime in preparation for 3 more days cycling in the desert.
01-Sept-08: Sandy
Turkmenistan: Mary to Desert Camp
134km, 6h 10min ride time
This morning started with a 5km police convoy out of town, the need for which was lost on all of us…a convoy is usually required for one of 2 reasons, either because of bad traffic or difficult directions, neither of which was present this morning. The police used their sirens and lights to guide us out of town at 6.30am and drew a lot of attention doing so which was really quite cringingly embarrassing.
With the view to avoiding dehydration I have been diligently following Dr Joan’s advice to drink a bottle of water before departing on a ride, the consequence of which is to need to go to the toilet about 15 minutes into the ride, particularly on a slightly cooler morning as we had this morning. And so by the end of the 20 minute convoy I had only one thing in mind and pulled over at the first opportunity, unnoticed by the police who were leading and sweeping our group. This meant that as I rode to catch up the last riders I was behind the sweeping police car…my riding up behind it to a couple of bewildered officers inside was quite amusing and the first time I have felt free for the first time since entering this country.
The route today had 2 alternative paths, one which went through a town and one which followed a bypass around it…both routes converged after the town and so although most riders went through the town, some including myself did take the bypass as it was the official route direction. Having the group split in 2 directions sent the officers into a flap and those that went through town were harassed and waved down to turn around and take the other route. We have learnt by now to play dumb and just motion that you are looking for a drink and keep riding…the whole idea of being followed ‘for our own safety’ is ridiculous as it is very obvious that the primary motivation is to keep foreign influence out of the townships…the locals are always friendly and very excited to see us and certainly no threat.
As we rode today on newly constructed road (much to our delight as we understand it not to have been in place last year) the temperature reached a relatively mild 38 degrees in the shade. It amazed us that in the middle of the desert, as we certainly are now, there are still signs of human habitation…there were a couple of small isolated townships based on industry of some sort and on the outskirts of these towns young children and women stand by the roadside, dressed like bank robbers with only their eyes exposed, selling fermented yoghurt drinks and craft items. The whole scenario reminded me of Anakin Skywalker’s home town in Star Wars.
After lunch we passed along a 20km stretch of road which was crawling with trucks going in both directions transporting sand…which flew off the back of the trucks and all over us as we rode. By the end of the 20km we were all encrusted in sand which had worked its way through into every nook and cranny including between toes, inside ears and between teeth! After the ‘sand storm’ the road was pretty much clear and made for relatively easy riding despite a gentle headwind which built up for the last 40km or so. We are camped tonight behind a police checkpoint at the border between 2 provinces and surrounded by desert sands and scrub for as far as the eye can see.
02-Sept-08: 134,000km!
Turkmenistan: Desert Camp to Turkmenabad
129km, 6h 33min ride time
After a pretty good night of sleep today’s ride also started well with a nice cool morning but wore on pretty quickly as the road continued to slope ever so slightly upwards and into a slight headwind, the combination of which was extremely tiring. Aside from 5 camels, another fully loaded cycle tourist and a few passing cars and trucks there was absolutely no sign of life for 100km until we entered the outskirts of the second largest city in Turkmenistan, Turkmenabad.
The great interest of the day was the loaded cycle tourist from Japan who at 38 years old has been cycling for 8 years, through 114 countries and has covered nearly 134,000km! I feel like I am just doing a loop around the block by comparison…and he is fully loaded with 70kg of bike and gear and put us to shame by rolling into our lunch stop not long after we did despite us having covered 40km since pulling over to chat to him earlier in the day. He joined us for lunch and again for dinner and may well tag along for another few days as his planned route is similar to start with as he makes his way east to China and then on to South-east Asia and maybe back to Australia before heading home in 2 years time to ‘re-join society’.
Once again we had the police making their presence known at about 100km by pulling over riders until a dozen or so had regrouped…meaning the first rider had to wait an hour until we rolled in just in time to be let passed to join the unofficial police convoy through town. As we were about 500m behind the main group we were tailed by the sweeping police car for the final 25km to camp…when we stopped to refill water bottles, they stopped and reversed the car to be beside us, at which point Dan chastised them for spewing exhaust fumes over us and indicated that behind us was a better place to drive…in response to which they turned off the car engine. Further on the road they continuously sounded their sirens and which stopped traffic in both directions unnecessarily as it was not even heavy traffic and the road was very wide. After one too many times of being deafened by the siren I turned around and angrily indicated that they were deafening me…after which they no longer sounded the siren. They seem to think that they are helping us but they are seriously more trouble than anything!
Camp is located on the far side of the final police checkpoint before crossing the border into Uzbekistan and out of this country…yay! In the afternoon the area was full of workmen who all watched in amusement and perversion as we all bathed using water from a hand pump. Later in the evening just before dinner one of the riders, James, noticed a couple of guys lurking about his bike and as he went over towards them noticed that they were cutting off his cycle computer and then rode off with it…stupidly towards the police at the checkpoint who quickly caught them. The thief returned the computer saying sorry and was then taken in by police. About half an hour later they obviously made a run for it as the police dog went chasing after them with an officer in pursuit…we think they got away…not sure what the penalty for theft is in this country but I imagine I would probably want to run too!
Once again the police do something to prove that they are crazy! As I was getting ready for bed in my tent and officer who had just started a new shift started doing the rounds of the grounds and shining his torch into peoples tents…when he got to my tent he shone his torch right in and peered in with his face so that it was just about pushed up to the mesh. Needless to say I told him where to go and zipped up my door cover, at which point he walked around the back of my tent to the other door and did the same and then again back around to the front…it was a bit scary! He then moved on to other tents as I heard everyone do much the same as I left my tent and went and told Miles what was going on and got him to distract the officer and explain that we were sleeping…of course the police did not speak English and by this stage our interpreter had left but Miles seemed to manage with charades and so we were able to sleep in peace.
03-Sept-08: Forces Against Us
Turkmenistan/Uzbekistan: Turkmenabad to Bukhara
126km, 7h 04min ride time
We knew today was going to be a long day before it started with the knowledge that we were crossing another border and prior experience at having dealt with Turkmenistan beuracracy. You would think that after making it so difficult to get in to the country that they would be pleased to let you out…not that simple. After riding 30km to the border into a strong headwind we waited for about half an hour for the border gates to open at 9am.
At 9am we made our way through the first passport check towards the passport control office to leave Turkmenistan…and queued…and formed a blockade of bicycles either side of our group to keep out the locals who don’t seem to understand the concept of lining up and think that they can just push in where they like…not if we had anything to do with it! After about half an hour of standing in the sun the first of our group was let through and then the rest progressively over the next half hour so that on the other side we emerged with our bicycles and no passports into a holding pen for passport-less hostages! Another half hour passed before our passports were returned to us and we were allowed to cross into the 1km zone of no-mans-land between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
As we made our way across no-mans-land we met a gentleman from Belgium who had been stuck there for 3 days…he left Uzbekistan with the intention of heading into Turkmenistan but on trying to enter the country they advised him there was a problem with his visa and refused him entry and also refused to offer him any help beyond the process of sorting out the problem which could take up to 10 days if it ever happens! Uzbekistan would not let him back in as he only had a single entry visa which had expired and so he was stuck. After 2 days of no food and water the Uzbekistan border staff felt sorry for him and allowed him in to purchase food at their restaurant and to plug in his mobile phone so that he would be able to call his consulate for assistance. I cannot comprehend that something like this could happen in this day and age, but obviously it does!
We proceeded through the Uzbekistan entry process which involved handing our passports over to 7 separate people on the way through and filling out a number of forms to declare how much money we are taking into the country…the advice we have suggests that if you leave the country with any more cash than you entered with, even if it was obtained legitimately from a bank, it will be taken from you…so we were all very careful to fill the forms out correctly!
So a total of 3 hours after starting the process we finally emerged as free tourists into Uzbekistan and to the prospect of riding a further 110km into a headwind which had intensified to gale force. There was very little on the road from the border to our destination of Bukhara, which we reached at 6.30pm absolutely exhausted and ready for a shower and bed.
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