A bed in a yurt at 10300 feet

Day  38      121 km ( 11553 km total)

An inspiring ride up into the mountains for a 'Yurt Experience' and to be close to the chinese border.

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First let me get a few apologies/excuses out of the way.

There was clearly no wifi in the mountains so this and future blogs had to wait until I was in China.  Then of course we have the 'Great Firewall of China'which prevents   access to all things Google, Blogger, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter & many more familiar tools.  Its taken a while to find a way to get through this so I can continue the journal but I think this will work.  I cant check it has of course as I cant see my blog here, so I may be talking to no one .... But hopefully not.

Anyway all this plus slow & unreliable wifi means I am a few days late & also I have to initially seriously cut down on the number of pictures uploaded. (note more photos added when I got home)

Excuses over, back to the blog......

We left out little Oasis of a hotel in Naryn, Kzyrgystan at a  ery resepcatble 11:30am as we estimated it was only 2 hours to the yurt camp in Tash Rabat that we would be staying the night.  This was also to be the meeting point with the other 4 bikers who would cross China with us.

First event of the day was to fill up with petrol, there neing none after Naryn until Kashgar in China, some 390km away.  That presented our first challenge of the day as I became seperated from the other two in the town & then we couldnt find each other.  I hung around for a bit a petrol station waiting for them (they were doing the same thing at another one) then gave up, sent them a satellite message & continued up into the mountains on my own.

Actually had a very enjoyable ride for the next hour when we came together again.  There is something about solitude & wilderness I find strangely relaxing, especially as it was nice & cool and the sun was shining.

The first 20 minutes or so of the ride was one of these sections of road that looks like a series of bomb craters on a construction site, but then it was good road all the way to the turning for Tash Rabat itself.

There were some lovely views as the road climbed steadily from 2000m in Naryn up to about 3200m.

The turning to Tash Rabat changed the road into a basic track which wound its way thourgh the peaks, following a small river up to the Yurt camp we were staying at just a few hundred metres from the old Silk Road Caravanserai itself.

The yurts have been adapted a little for tourists (ie they have basic beds, rather than sleeping on the floor as the locals would) but are otherwise authentic, each having its own heating stove to burn dried yak poo.

The track immediately up to the yurt camp, involved a rocky stream crossing - always a nice challenge to test your skills & nerve.  

Snortly after we arrived it started snowing a little, not enough to settle, but there was soon a covering of ice on the bikes.

In between snow flurries I had a walk up to look at the carananasarai and the views - beautiful!

Food was basic but hearty in a cummunal eating yurt and the night was very cold - so I kept most of my riding gear on all night.  You could also feel the affects of the altitude, particularly when walking up the hills.

Naryn - exceeding expectations

Day 37 316 Km ( 11432 Km total)

 

A nice ride into Naryn, a town with no accommodation to speak of apparently - wrong, found a very nice hotel for our last night in 'civilisation'

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The day started with some dodgy roads, not difficult really but I'm still a bit nervous after my tumble in Kazakhstan & my left hand is still painful, somits slow & steady for me.

No crash barriers here, more of a crash slope!

 

 

Lots of beautiful scenery

 

Very remore living for the hardy locals

Quite a lot of heavy traffic heading to & from the chinese border. Biggets problem for the motorcyclist is the dust clouds they create

Yup - still here & still smiling

Then the roads improved to match the scenery - wonderful

 

A 2000m high lake

 

 

Collecting the harvest

 

Arrived at the Khan Tegrin Hotel in Naryn, what a nice surprise - lovely rooms, great restaurant & decent surroundings for £15 per night!

Met up with Alan, who I had last seen in Tbilisi, Georgia.

The two Tigers enjoyed a catch up too!

Tomorrow night we are staying in a yurt camp near the Torugart pass and then its into China. The China crossing will take 25 days and then into Laos.

China unfortunately blocks access to Facebook, gmail & blogger, so keeping the blog up to date will be tricky. I have a few things I intend to try to get around this, but please bear with me if there are delays.

 

 

An uplifting ride into Kyrgystan & snow!

 

Day 35 393 km (11116 km total)

 

A bit of everything, village roads, bad roads, great roads, border crossings, sunshine, mountains & snow!

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After leaving Shymkent town, the roads through the adjacent conutryside were quite interesting,

fruit sorting by the roadside

 

Children going to school

 

But soon after the roads became unsurfaced, pretty straightforward, but I was constantly looking out for sand pits and so was travelling a little slower than normal.

Nice views opening up and a lovely fresh feeling to the air

 

The road continued for miles through open countryside

A few muddy patches from yesterdays rain, I was really glad we didnt attempt this In the storms yesterday. It would have been difficult riding and no scenery.

 

Feeling good, and there is snow in the hills we are heading towards, so time for a selfie!

 

The track continued enticingly towards the mountains

 

And then started a climb that would continue for the next hour as we climbed up more than 3000 metres.

getting closer ...

More people on horseback than in cars here - about 2000m now

 

By 2500m the snow was pretty close

 

A great riders road this - but quite a few pot holes and gravel waiting to catch out the unwary around the hairpin bends

Now we are getting really high, and its becoming quite nippy

Beautiful though ...

 

 

Approaching 3000m and the snow was starting to appear bythe roadside

 

The great road continued

 

A herder with his horses, these guys must be really tough

 

A roadside eatery ..

 

And some apparently unattended horses

 

Snow well & truly at road level now, this must have been horrendous yesterday.

A quick look back at the road I had just come up, before the final push to the summit of the pass

 

 

A herder with sheep

 

Loving this !

Such a contrast to the desert lanscapes of a few days ago

 

And here I am at the top, time for a quick snowball

 

The local bus stop!

 

And then its down the other side - wow!

Lots of hairpins

 

And scenic yurts

the valley became steeper as it got lower

More sheep

Pretty shear sides - need to keep an eye open for fallen rocks

Dramatic stuff

 

And back down at 500m ... What a great ride that was!

A look back at where I had just ridden from

 

the rest of the ride into Bishkek was mundane by comparison. In fact Bishkek was one of the more unpleasant cities to ride through, dusty, lots of traffic lights & traffic, really heavy fumes, and bonkers drivers everywhere. Stayed at a nice cheap quiet hotel in the outskirts of town.

 

Day 36 20 km (11136 km total)

The following day we stayed in the town, attandimg to various domestic jobs & work in the bikes.

i rode out to a 'container city' to find a guy caled "Dima Biker" in container 25 R who had a veritable treasure trove of bike bits & pieces plus what I was after, first grade motorcyle engine oil. 4 litres of Castrol Power 1 Racing - just what tnhe Triumph manual specified, in my panniers cor the 6000 mile oild change.

Dima reccomended a good mechanic, who would change the oil & have a look at a couple of other things for me. He was lovated a few km away in a local back street.

 

 

A good guy, Ronin (I think) who services, bikes, ATV's & jet ski's from his small but well kitted workshop. He is an off road rider & ex champion of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in his field.

The guard dog!

he made short work of my oil chamge & other jobs, and did a high quality job, cleaning everythimg carefully nefore reassembly, all the right checks etc.

Back at the hotel, it was time to reorganise the packing. Climate & altitude change ahead as we head navk into the high mountains and head towards the chinese border.

 

 

My blog may be a bit spasmodic or delayed for a while for a while now until I figure a way to get past limited wifi and chinese blocks Placed on some social media sites.