Back Home

We arrived back at Heathrow on Tuesday in the middle of the security alert and our bikes failed to appear at the baggage reclaim. There were an awful lot of very stressed passengers at BA's lost luggage counter, but we were pretty relaxed "You've lost our bikes.... but hey, we don't care - we're home!" All credit to BA, the bikes were delivered to our house the next day.

We were treated to a wonderful home coming by my sister Vicky and her partner Simon. They had cleaned and tidied our house, stocked the fridge with a vast amount of goodies and somehow managed to make our garden look tidy and cared for.

So, what's it like being home? Well, here's the good bad and the ugly:
Good

• Seeing family and friends again - didn't realise how much I missed them.
• Pure, safe drinking water, on tap. it's clear, cool and beautiful, and people use it to water their gardens!
• Hot baths every morning. (NB Rowena is delighted I am no changing my underpants more than once every 10 days).
• Our very own, sit on, clean, white, porcelain, fully flushing toilet.

Bad

• Television. Big Brother, Love Island, X Factor ......"64 channels and nuthin on" ....I think I prefer Yurt TV.
• Supermarkets - just too much stuff and no atmosphere. Bazaars are so much more fun.
• Cardboard tomatos. How come people in Central Asia get to eat big red juicy tomatos full of flavour and in the UK we get aneamic bits of cardboard?

Ugly

• Overweight people. Outside of Dushanbe and Bishkek, there were no overweight people in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It just feels a bit obscene that there should be so many here.
• Hipster trousers. In Central Asia everybody's trousers fitted. No fat bottoms bulging out of trousers that start somewhere around the groin. Just so much easier on the eye.

God, I've become a grumpy old man.

What I find myself missing the most is the fullness of the days. Days on the road were, tough and exhausting, sometimes baking hot, sometimes freezing cold, sometimes frustrating, sometimes exhilerating and occassionally frightening...but never dull. Life back home seems very tame and empty in comparison. Like being only half alive. I find myself driving too fast to compensate. And I miss the physical exercise - the human body really wasn't designed to sit at a desk all day.

I even miss the coarse grade sandpaper that passes for toilet paper in central asia.

Osh to Bishkek

It's amazing how fast Rowena will pedal when the promise of a hot shower is dangled in front of her. We completed the last 71km into Bishkek in just under four hours, which for us is a racing sprint. We have now rented an spacious appartment in the center of town for four nights and are enjoying the luxuries of hot water, a proper toilet and abundant food and beer. In fact, it has taken us less than 24 hours to go from fit touring cyclists to couch potatos.

Here's how we got on from Osh:

For the first few days we were joined again by Marija Kozin (pedalling solo to Beijing), who was waiting for a package of spares to arrive. After leaving Osh we spent a couple of days cycling round the eastern most tip of the Fergana valley. It was way to hot to cycle around mid day, so we laid up for a couple of hours and ate water melon - two for the price of one at the road side stalls. We also enjoyed the most mosquito infested campsite of the trip. Too many even to take a leak.

At Bazaar Korgon, we turned off the main road and headed up to for Arslanbob, a picturesque Uzbek village high in the mountains. At Arslanbob, we had our first experience of the Kyrgyz Community Based Tourism (CBT). This is a really excellent initiative whereby villages are helped to set up their own tourist offices and network of homestays or B&Bs. So, you just turn up in the village, go to the CBT office and in no time you are sorted for accommodation. It works really well and the standard in the homestays is very high. A couple of other cyclists we met had recommended homestay No.12 in Arslanbob, so this is where we ended up. Run by the very charming nineteen year old Muharram Myrzamaksdova, this was wonderful place. Perched high on a hillside, it has a dreamy veranda that just hangs over a valley of walnut trees. We didn't do much except rest, admire the view and enjoy Muharram's excellent cooking.

After Arslanbob, Marija headed back to Osh and we continued on the main road towards Bishkek. Having been rebuilt recently the Osh - Bishkek road is actually in excellent condition, but it still goes through some very mountainous country and the next couple of days to Toktogul were hard, hot and dry, with some long climbs. Near to Toktogol we turned off onto a track that runs through the mountains to join the road to Kochkor. We gave our best shot, but the track was very rough and Rowena was ill (bad stomach bug), so climbing to the summit of the first pass over two days we decided to retrace our steps to the main road.

After another day's pedalling, we were finally found a suitable spot for a rest day and the chance for Rowena to recuperate. While she slept I made I collected wild apricots and boiled them up for jam - delicious.

The next two days were spent climbing up a beautiful valley to the summit of the 10,000' Ala Bel Pass. Near the summit we met a French Canadian cyclist going the other way. He was the only other cyclist we met who was carrying more stuff than us. We camped at the summit - cold, but very scenic.

Next day, just as we were setting off we had our first puncture since Austria.

On the way down we were once again short of food, so we stopped at a roadside yurt. As is the way in Central Asia, one thing led to another and we ended up spending the rest of the day and the night with Shydala and his large extended family. They had a herd of about twenty mares which the milked and made Kymys (fermented mares milk) to sell to the passing motorist. For the night, the floor of the yurt was covered with carpets and thick duvets and the whole family of 10 snuggled up together. Rowena and I were squeezed in down oneside in our sleeping bags. It was very cozy and atmospheric with the wind howling around outside.

Next day we continued our descent, down the wide Suusamyr valley. We then turned off the main road to reach the village of Suusamyr itself. Here, we stayed with Kubanychbek Amankulov. Kubanychbek is an economist (God know's what he does in Suusamyr, a one horse farming town in the middle of nowhere) who is branching out into tourism. His little gingerbread style cottage was very comfortable and his wife Normira's cooking really good. . As I had another dose of the trots (lots of moonlite trips to the loo at the end of the garden), we stayed a couple of nights with Kubanycheks.

The next day and half was spent climbing the 12,000' Tor-Ashuu pass, which gave great views of the huge valley below. At the top of the pass there is a 3km rather dimly lit tunnel. When Rowena emerged from this, she had some rather odd symptoms: acute tightness across the chest, tingling down one side then odd sensations in her cheek. We figured it was either an anxiety attack (the tunnel was pretty scary) or a mild stroke. Either way, as she was still breathing we thought the best thing to do was continue with the descent. And it was a really good descent, miles of steep switchbacks then a long run down a narrow rocky valley. (PS Rowena's "stroke" cleared up about half way down)

We then enjoyed a final moonlit camp, before setting out on Rowena's sprint to Bishkek.

When I asked him how the economy of Kyrgyzstan was doing, Kubanychbek Amankulov mimed a man slowly waking up . Well, Bishkek is much more awake now than when we were here eight years ago. Then, the majority of cars were geriatric Ladas. Now, second hand Audis from Germany previal, with a smattering of glitzy Japanese 4x4s. The shops are alot more glitzty too, having learned to advertise. It's still a nice place to be, with lots of shady treelined streets and a very calm atmosphere.

The Pamir Highway

We have now reached Osh in Kyrgyzstan. After a two weeks in the mountains at over 4,000m
it feels very strange to be hot and surrounded by plenty. Here's a run down of journey from Khorog:

Khorog to Murgab
When we left Khorog and set off up the Gunt vallety I had a dose of 10 second diarrhoea (10 seconds is the time you get to find some cover and get your trousers down). Around mid-afternoon, just as it started to rain, we were invited in for tea by a local familty. As is the way in Tajikistan, tea became a late lunch of bread, soup and watermelon. As news spread of our arrival there was a long procession of visitors, then a bottle of Vodka appeared and we had to drink a lot of toasts Well, we were planning to cycle a for a couple more hours that day, then we thought we might pitch our tent in their garden. But they wouldn't hear of it. They insisted we stay for the night and with our limited Tajik we could not prevent them giving up their sleeping room for us while they slept outside.

In the morning we continued up the pretty valley with huge peaks on either side. After two days we reached then hot springs at Jelady, stayed in the sanatorium and enjoyed our first (and only) hot showers in Tajikistan. The next day we climbed the 14,000' Koi-Tezek pass. As we neared the top the weather closed in and became particularly unstable. One minute we were in sunshine the next minute we were engulfed in snow and hail storms. The track down from the summit was pretty rough - Rowena fell off twice.

That night we pitched the tent in a raging gale. We were expecting more of the same in the morning, but when we opened the tent we were greeted by just the most gloriously still and clear dawn. We were on a wide plain, and all around us the snowy peaks of the Pamirs were lit up by the first rays of the sun. It was the only place I have been that was absolutely completely silent - incredible. That day we continued along the high altitude Pamir plateau, passed a series of eerie salt lakes. Traffic was a bit of a problem - during the day we were passed by at least 3 vehicles.
Late in the afternoon we reached the small settlement of Alichur and it's one very small shop. We were pretty pleased about this as we just about out of food (eaten our last Snickers bar and down to a handful of rice) and water.

From Alichur we had long hot pedal through some very dry mountains. We were so spaced out we didn't notice summiting another 14,000' pass. The next day we reached Murghab and comparitive civilization - comfortable guesthouse and well stocked bazaar. We also met up with three other cyclists, including super athelete Rod Oliver who was consitently clocking up 100km a day (we were managing about 50km)

Murghab to KaraKul
After a couple of nights in Murghb we set off towards the Kyrgz border. The first couple of days took us through more hot dry mountains. We were still around 4,000m and Rowena was suffering quite badly with the altitude - very breathless even when cycling on the level. On the second night out of Murghab we stayed with a young man and his mother. They inhabited this tiny one room cabin in the middle of nowhere - no running water, no electricity, no toilet and gathering the scrubby bush they burnt in their stove involved a round trip of 5km. It was difficult to understand how they survived and why the would be generous enough to put us up and share their bread and yogurt with us.

The next day we struggled up the 15,270' Ak Baital pass - the highest on the highway. We could barely stand in the raging wind at the top. A long, very cold, very rough descent brought us out into a wide dry valley and many miles of washboard track - just the pits on a bike. The head wind strengthened and we were regularly engulfed in sandstorms - the only thing we could do was hunker over the bikes until they passed. During one such storm, we were passed by a Czech couple in a Lada 4x4. They were really concerned about us and stopped to ask if we were OK. We explained we were doing this for fun.

Next day, after a 20km downhill, with a tail wind (there is a God!) we reached Lake Karakul. This is huge high altitude lake surrounded by snowy peaks. The weather changes every 5 minutes and with it the colour of the lake. One minute it is a vibrant turquoise, the next a deep blue then it's almost black as the clouds roll in. We stayed two nights in a really excellent homestay in the wind-blasted, end-of-the-world village that clings to one side of the lake.

KaraKul to Sarytash
The first day out of Karakul turned out to be one of the toughest of the trip. We had to battle into a really icy gale-force headwind, that made it difficult to breath let alone pedal. Anyway we finally made over the pass to a very cold camp on a glacial morraine. With some time in hand, before we our visa allowed us to cross into Kyrgyzstan, we were able to take our foot off the gas the next day. We dawdled along the rough track enjoying the mountain scenery.
The following day we climbed up to the Tajik border post. The soldiers there weren't very interested in our passports. Instead they waved us into their cabin and plied us with bowls of hot semolina, tea and bread. This was very, very welcome as we had had bugger all for breakfast. Luckily the Kyrgz border guard did not notice we were crossing a day early.
After the checkpoint it was a 2km climb to the summit of the 14,000 Kyzl Alt pass then an extremely rough descent into Kyrgyzstan. After Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan seemed incredibly green. That night we camped among the yurts studded over a wide grassy valley.
The following day we reached the small town of Sary Tash and our first shop since Karakul.

In the afternoon we climbed the 12,000' Taldyk Pass. I believe Taldyk is Kyrgyz for divorce, which is what Rowena was promising to do to me if I ever took her near another mountain. Anyway, we reached what we thought was the top, descended the otherside only to find out it was a double whammy and there was yet another climb to reach the true summit. Too knackered, we camped for the night and left the climb for the morning. In the morning we struggled up to the true summit and were rewarded with a meal of watermelon and bread from some friendly truck drivers. The descent was an extremely dusty, seemingly endless series
of switchbacks. Then we saw our first tree for about 4 weeks.


Next day we met up with a young Slovenian woman, Marija Kuzir http://www.kuzir.wordpress.com who is cycling solo from Slovenia to Beijing and back! - we are not worthy! We joined forces for the last couple of days and the last 9,000' pass. From the summit we raced down the last 60km of downhill into Osh - a really, really good day.

From Khorog

I forgot to mention in my last post that we had reached Khorog, capital of the Pamirs, at the confluence of the Gant and Penj Rivers. It's a very likable place strung out on both sides of the Gant.

Yesterday, as we pretty knackered, we hired a mini-bus to get us the last 100km into town. This was pretty eventful in itself and relied on us giving up the 1 litre of petrol we had for our stove when the van ran out.

The really nice looking MDSP guest house was full so we are staying with a family, in a appartment on the 4th floor of a crumbling block of flats. The plumbing is out of the ark and the whole town only has running water between 7pm and 7am. T

This morning we had to go and register with the OVIR (office of foreigners). We had to deal with an initially very fierce KGB type lady officer. But she gradually dropped her act and we eventually ended up watching her favourite soap on the telly in her office.

After that we spent a couple of hours in the bazaar. You really have to hunt for the stuff you need, like decent dried fruit, nuts and boiled sweets. As if we weren't carrying enough stuff to heave over the mountain passes, we also bought small collapsible chair. This will make life alot more comfortable for Rowena, who has difficulty bending her knees.

Tomorrow we will be heading up the Gant river towards Murgab, 300km and two passes over 4,200m away. We are also hoping to visit the world's second highest botanical garden a few kilometres outside of Khorog. Actually, the flowers have been one of the delights of Tajikistan - loads of wild, blousy white hollyhocks and acres and acres of yellow red-hot pokers. Just beautiful.

We will now be out of touch for about 4 weeks - until we reach Osh.

Wow!

Wow! What a country! So far Tajikistan has been an order of magnitude tougher, rougher, harder, more strenuous, more demanding, more precipitous, more awe inspiring, more enchanting and, just occassionally, more scary than anywhere we have ever been before.

Since leaving Dumshanbe we have been doing ten hour days on really tough roads. The surfaces have varied between completely knackered, potholed tarmac, sand (awful), river bed boulders (knocks the hell out of the bikes), just buldozed landslide (not as bad as it sounds), melted tarmac (really awfull), and for about 10km, pristine just laid chinese tarmac. We followed a river valley for a about 150km (harder than sounds), then had a monster, two day climb over the 3,200m Khahumabot (Tajik for Knee Cracker) pass.

One of the amazing things is that as we are struggling up these roads you would hesitate to tackle in a land rover, we get passed by 20 and 30 year old Ladas and Ford Consul look alikes.

The descent from the pass was unbelievable. It was as if a couple of Tajik road engineers had taken some acid, looked at one of those wildly switch-backing alpine roads and said "We can do better than that!". Some how they found a way to get this road down a near vertical gorge. It took us four hours of hanging on our brakes to get to the bottom of it in one piece.

The descent through the gorge took us to Kailiakum, from where we have been following the Penj river, with Afghanistan just 100 yards away on the far bank.

It's been hard to get enough to eat. Shops are few and far between and don't have much stock apart from a few candles and a packet of stale biscuits. So, we are getting better at foraging vegetables from the locals. Also the havthe most devine yogurt and honey.

Scary moments so far have included, cycling with mine fields on either side of the road and getting woken by two dodgy looking armed soldiers in the middle of the night.

Sweltering in Dushanbe

We were crapping ourselves at the check in, but in the end Turkish Airlines didn't charge us for the 10kg excess baggage we had. They were more upset that I had packed tyres, pedals and a prop stand (looks very like a machine gun) in our hand luggage - it caused quite a stir when that lot flashed up on their scanner. Anyway we arrived safely in Dushanbe and it only took two hours to negociate immigration.

We are in a home stay with a Tajik family, sleeping on matteresses on the floor. They are very friendly and speak about as much English as we speak Russian.

The contrast between Istanbul and Dushanbe couldn't be more marked. Rush hour in Dushanbe is about three cars going down the main street (and two of them get pulled over by the traffic police). The streets here are palatially wide and lined with shady plain trees. The shade is essential as the mid temperature is around 40 degrees (god knows how we are going to pedal in that).

We have been sheperded round Dushanbe by a young english student called Mahbubulo who has done a great job of helping us get the supplies we need.

One of the most enchanting things about the Tajiks (and there are quite a few) is the way they put one hand on their heart when they say "hello" or "thank you".

On Sunday we are setting off for the 250km to Pamirs.

Around Marama

Great news - we have just heard that our GBAO permıts have come through. Thıs ıs a vıtal bıt of paper whıch we need to cycle the Pamır Hıghway ın Tajıkıstan. We are goıng to hang thıs on the sıde of our tent.

Whıle we have been waıtıng for the permıt to come thorough we have been explorıng the South Coast of the Sea of Marmara and the Galıpolı pennısula. Galıpolı was very beautıful - we camped ın a pıne wood just above the Agean. The sea really was turquıose clear and we swam from deserted beaches and sat around a pıne cone fıre at nıght. Just about as good as ıt gets. (If ıt makes you feel better - I stood on a sea urchın whıle swımmıng and have been pedallıng on a foot full of spınes for the past few days) We came back vıa the mountaıns and some really beautıful scenery and wıld flowers.

On the whole the weather has been excellent, but the day before yesterday it absolutely bucketed down - the heaviest rain I have ever experienced. We took refuge in a garage and were plied with endless cups of chai by the staff as we watched the roads turn to rıvers and the buses go by wıth bow waves. We then baled out into hotel.

The trıp has really been lıfted by the hospıtality and generousity of the Turks. This has ıncluded a free bed for the night ın Gelibolu ın exchange for an hours english conversation wıth some merchant marine cadets, the cafe owner who refused payment for our tea then went and bought us loaf of bread because he thought we looked hungary, the local teacher who led us to a very beautıful camp spot ın the hills on his moped and another cafe owner who absolutely ınsısted we come for a free breakfast after he saw us campıng ın a nearby fıeld.

Tomorrow we take the ferry back to Istanbul. We'll have a couple of days there before flying to Dushanbe.