Day 32 325 km ( 10554 km total)
A relatively short & easy ride today north to the capital city of Uzbekistan. Some news from Alan & a possible route change.
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I got news from Alan in the morning that he was in Shymkent & desperately needed new tyres, so was going to look there or Bishkek as there was some doubt overvthe set he had orderd in Almaty. Alan has crossed the Caspian sea by ferry rather than riding around and skipped Khiva & Bukhara so was now about a day ahead. All this meant it was probably not going to be feasible to meet up in Almaty. In addition as Russ & I already had our tyres, there was'nt any great need to go there any more.... Possible route change, but we decided to wait & see how Alan got on during the day and make a call in the evening when we got to Tashkent.
So Off back onto the Uzbek roads
After the delights of Khiva, Bukhara & Samarkand I was finding it hard to get enthusiastic about the surroundings, it just seemed more of the same as I searched around for something inspiring to photo or write about.
I even resorted to taking pictires of place names, when I found them more unusual than normal ...
The road at one point carved its way up through some low mountains
And on the plateau on the top there were lots of lovals selling fresh honey
And later roadworks forced us into a contraflow on the other side .... But this clealy gave more room for the goat herds
Quite bleak up here
The donkey's sure have to work hard
And horses, though I didnt see many of those
Donkey again - what happened to all the camels?
And again ...
Looks like this guy has to pull his own cart, oh no there's a donkey hiding in the background
This baby didnt want to wave, so his mum & grandmum made him!
'And another donkey please Rachel' .... Oops I drifted into an episode of countdown!
All Donkey'd out and in danger of arriving too early, we stopped for lunch at a roadside cafe with a water wheel
The usual Shashlik, bread tomato & onions ... But they were able to come up with some very nice tea too for a change.
Then it was on through the outskirts of Tashkent
And into the city ... No old silk road forts here .. Tashkent is home to about 2.3million people, and it felt strange riding through miles of inner city roads.
Accommodtion for the night looked very promising at first, a little boutique hotel with a small garden & swimming pool. But then we discovered the wifi wasnt working (because it was independance day!) and the pool was dirty, the restaurant was closed and there was no beer ... So it became coke o'clock & commincations by satellite tracker only.
I went out cor a walk to try and find a local eatery, but ther was none - lucky we had eaten a big lunch.
When I got back to the hotel, however I was joined by 6 Uzbek men who were living & working in Kazakgstan but were back in Uzbeck for a holiday and in a party mood. They had beer (good) parts of a dead sheep (not so good) and Vodka (oh dear!)
After a couple of beers, nibbles at the various sheep body parts & braving two rather large shots of vodka, I beat a quiet retreat as they started to order in local women for the night. Friendly guys though, they offered to share these too - time to leave!
No wifi, meant no messages received from Alan - so we decided to move onto Shymkent in the morning in Kazakhstan & try to reccomect with him.
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