Always time for some extra custard...and End of Blog Blog

10th June

Having arrived in Almaty we relaxed. Sunday we wandered about Almaty - not the most exciting place, but it has noticeably improved since we were last here five years ago. There are now manhole covers, cafes and restaurants. There also seems to have been a road re-surfacing programme or maybe our memories from five years ago are not as correct as we think they are.

We 'wasted' the Sunday. Park, War Memorial, Bazaar and café. We then took the cable car up to the base of the Almaty Telecom tower which was perched on a hill above the city. We thought that we would get a better view of the Tian Shan Mountains from there, but the truth was the view was better from our hotel balcony in the city. Ah well! What we did find there however was the Almaty amusement park - coconut shies, rifle ranges etc. And a photo opportunity with an eagle. Anybody who has not seen the film 'Eagle Hunters' should by the way! The captive eagle struck us as being very cruel. We were quite ashamed on reflection when we realised that we didn't normally have the same reaction when we see birds of prey on stands at fairs in the UK. Is an owl any different? Anyway, the eagle was quite magnificent and a bit scary. Go and see the film!

mm

Having 'wasted' the Sunday, our job on Monday was to get the bike to the freighters. All fine and dandy and no issues going back to the freight depot near Almaty airport, where we had started all this five years ago. We had restrained from buying our return plane tickets in order to ensure that all the customs requirements with regard to the bike were completed first - and avoid what happened in Azerbaijan when Paul was stopped from boarding the plane, had to wait an extra four days in Baku and buy another ticket. Once was enough.

 

So after delivering the bike to the people in charge of the packing case/frame wrapped in cling film - (we were not 100% sure what was being planned), we went to the office and dealt with passports and the bike documents.

The question then arose about the Kyrgyzstan certificates. Well, what Kyrgyzstan certificates?  We weren't given any. Problem! We should have been given some when crossing from Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan - not sure by which side - but it was immaterial really, we didn't have any from either. There were worried faces in the freight people's office; visible stress, quite a bit of animated Kazakh or Russian being spoken, "We need to speak with Customs people after lunch - go back to hotel". So we leave them with the bike - it was being crated anyway, and we return to the hotel. We tell them that we would really not want to go back to Kyrgyzstan in search of paperwork that should have been given to us if we can avoid having to do so.

And then we wait. And wait. It was a long afternoon. We only have an internet connection in the hotel, so we passed the afternoon there. Sometime in the afternoon we received a call asking whether we had been to either Armenia or Russia on this trip? We did not understand the relevance, but as we had visited neither this time round it was not an issue for us. 

Wait some more. Probably it wasn't that long really but time was dragging and until the bike was sorted, we daren't buy plane tickets. Suddenly there was a solution! If we appointed the freighters to act on our behalf and signed a contract with them, in theory they should be able to sort things out with the Customs officials and it would probably be a good idea to say 'thank you' to the Customs Officer. So we shook the dice again, passed 'Go' and paid, rather than received, the '£200'. After a few spelling corrections to the seven page contract which seemed to have been prepared for someone else and not properly updated.

Now for the airplane tickets. They thought that it should be OK and the "Azerbaijan issue" should not arise. According to the Customs Officer there was no record of the bike having entered Kazakhstan, we were told. They also did not believe that the Kazakh systems would cross reference our passports showing that we had entered the country on a motorcycle, so all should be good.

 

So we took the risk. The plane was now @9 hours from take-off and we would have 'some' time to eat, wash, sleep and get to the airport. But not that much. And not enough time to complete all the on-line formalities which meant that there was an extra $40 to pay at check in to have boarding cards. Of course the airplane tickets had increased in price by $100 during the afternoon.

We wrote this whilst on the airplane somewhere above Central Asia on our way to Kiev where we changed for London. We are on our way home and there is every possibility that our luggage and the bike will make it too.

All's well...

We made it home on Tuesday the 11th June; our luggage the day after and the bike the week after that. We are all now recovering and trying to get back into the swing of things.

We started this blog in 2014. It was about our trip round the world on our Electraglide, London -Sydney - New York. It was a bit daft then, it seems even sillier now. However we have now been round the world, two up on a Harley Electraglide, which is perhaps not the most appropriate of motorcycles for such a jaunt.

The idea of the trip came out of our desire to visit our eldest son, Xavier, in Sydney, Paul's reluctance to flying all that way and some psychological rehabilitation for Paul post-cancer.

Of course things didn't work out due to further health issues and we failed to make the start line; or, one could perhaps say, that we moved the start line from London to Almaty. It has taken four instalments over five years to complete what we had envisaged would take us six months. As well as Almaty to London via China, South East Asia, Sydney and New York, we also knocked off some of the trip on a summer run from London to Sofia via Istanbul. We then pushed the frontier back further East in 2017 from Sofia to Azerbaijan before breaking down outside of Sheki. So this trip has now closed the loop. And there have been other jaunts to St.Petersburg, Spain, Portugal and Ireland in between the longer trips.

The blog was about going round the world. We have done that now and the blog itself is looking a bit dated. So it's the right time to end it. What have we learned on the way? Well let's have dinner together and we will tell (bore?) you all about it!

In the meantime - the next little adventure beckons though we are not committing to what that is yet!

No sleep till Almaty

8th June

No sleep till Almaty

The bikes in Bishkek that had been delivered by truck were in special steel frames/crates with screens removed, if they had them. Front wheels had also been removed to reduce the volume, so the bikes could be double-decked on the lorry. Most of them are a third the size of our bike. The guys seem to have been waiting a number of days for the arrival of the bikes; they worked well into the night putting the bikes back together.

We expect to be one of the last to leave in the morning, but we seem to be first - we are probably heading in different directions anyway, after all, we have already done the Pamir Highway...

Just 240km to do today and we cross from Kyrgyzstan into Kazakhstan. Our fears about not having any paperwork from Kyrgyzstan to exit the country were unfounded. The only thing that happened was that the soldier insisted Francoise went through with people crossing by foot and not as a passenger on the bike. The Kazakhstan guys were probably the friendliest of all - don't mention Borat or ask whether they are all brothers? They were charmed by the now quite dirty tails on the back of the bike. All done and dusted in record time and we are riding what should be the last leg.

Once we clear the border and are in open country, Francoise needed a loo stop. Plenty of suitable trees. Already to go again. We were only 20km from the border in Bishkek, so we still had the final 200km to complete. Getting closer. Toilet breaks are, almost as a requirement, away from everything. Nothing except wildlife. In this instance a lot of flies that have been bothering Paul whilst he has been waiting to get going again. All good to go. All not good.

Total electrical failure of the bike. Francoise cursing herself about having had to stop for the toilet break. Paul asking himself whether he had forgotten how to make the bike work? It was also very warm and the flies seemed to be congregating. Play around with the switches for a while. Turn the bike off and on again just to see - but it doesn't come on again. Surely, not with 200km to go? What was the Plan B?

Tools out, off comes the seat, take off the bits and pieces that sit on top of the battery box, swat a few flies and jiggle around with the leads from the battery. Seems to work as electric comes back on. Put everything back together, eat some of the flies and start the bike. But it doesn't start - it dies straight away. Repeat process but before putting bike back together, start bike this time. Paul now getting quite grubby. Bike starts and is put back together again. Whilst Paul is putting the bike back together two Rumanians from the hotel turn up and ask whether everything is OK? Francoise explains - they had probably never seen a dirty Harley before (the bike was clean now but they had watched Paul cleaning it yesterday morning) or a Harley rider actually looking under the seat. One has to note that Paul's abilities are very limited in this respect, but we seem to have power at least now...

We vow to ride the 200km to Almaty without stopping. No tea or toilet breaks. No stopping for roadworks to pluck up courage - or at least if we do, we don't turn the engine off - and no stalling the bike! 

 

We manage another 10km and then lose power whilst riding. Repeat process with regard to removing seat etc. No need to eat any more flies as we seem to have stopped in an area with none. Just masses of big black birds. Very Hitchkockian.  Re-jiggle wires and remove some of dust from terminals and re-tighten connections etc. Oh for some WD40! Everything good and we ride. Roads are good, road works minimal, even get above 70mph on some stretches! All about getting there now.

 

We reach Almaty with clearly some issues with dirt, vibrations and electrics and also the clutch. But we are there - round the world, two-up on an 'in-appropriate' motorcycle - back at the same hotel in Kazakhstan , where we had had to start in 2014 following Paul's admission to hospital. We made it!

 

And in the nick of time. Thunder and lightening, very very frightening and it is no longer an issue anymore whether we have covered the seat cushions as they are getting very, very wet because we don't have to ride tomorrow.

So what about Kazakh viniculture? 

Whether the weather be...(Bishkek)

6th June

Whether the weather be... (Bishkek)

Heavy rain during the night. Heavy rain when we got up. Heavy rain after breakfast. Decision time? Widely varying weather forecasts - and do you trust them anyway? If we stay another day in Toktogul hoping for the return of half decent weather, can we be sure that it will be half decent? So we decide to move on and set off in the rain, it was quite a heavy down pour. We are in the mountains after all. Gone were yesterday's beautiful vistas.

We have had no police issues this trip. However this morning a Policeman did stop us for exceeding the 40km/h speed limit after a road junction - in pretty close to perfect isolation. He was hidden in the shadows and had a camera. He waved us down and Paul pulled up. He asked us to move to the side of the road. Paul said 'No'. He then started talking about more than 40km/h and Paul just kept saying 'No'. He then asked, 'Tourist ?' To which Paul changed his stock answer from 'No' to 'Yes'. And he waved us on.

First climb was to 3,200m. It was cold at the top. Plenty of snow around but no rain as such - just dampness because we were in the clouds. The poor motorcycle is making all sorts of noises, not all of them due to the poor petrol.

Paul is also paranoid about the clutch which 'doesn't feel right' and is not sure whether it is because he is cold, he hasn't used his winter gloves up until now or something minor, or serious, with the bike itself? But we made it up to 3,200m so there is still some traction. Might also be down to getting stuck in sheep traffic, that went on for over a kilometre. Sheep move slower than even the Harley. Following sheep's backsides with glasses steaming up whilst having to ride the clutch a bit seems slightly surrealistic in retrospect. Whilst speaking of the backsides of sheep - they are rather different here. They are said to be near 100% fat and rather prized. You can have a lump between your lumps of meat on a shaslik - or even 100% sheep's backside if you so wish.

We only descend to 2,300m, which is the plain. It is still quite bitterly cold, still above zero but low, single digits. We are now in yurt territory. There are a fair number of them, mostly selling fermented milk and dried yoghurt balls. Our plan was to stay in one of these yurts that offered hospitality. We had pictured it with the sun shining, sitting outside on the grass with the alpine flowers all around us, a few of the herder's animals contentedly munching the grass around us and, maybe, an evening meal beneath the stars? It wasn't going to be like that today. Cold and miserable came to mind.

 

We also could not understand how it was meant to work as there were a lot of yurts. Was it the ones with red Kyrgyz flags? We did see a row of six yurts set back from the herder's yurts all in a nice line - umhh, getting less idyllic all the time. There is definitely a business opportunity is Kyrgyzstan relating to signage - there are no signs for anything be it road signs or simple 'come stay at my yurt' signs, and shop window dresssing which is simply appalling. How people are enticed into shops is unknown to us. Especially when all shops selling the same thing are grouped together. It won't just be this that we don't understand...

Decisions, decisions. We decide to press on to Bishkek and forget the yurt stay. BUT....

We are cold and wet and some tea, bowl not cup, would be welcomed. Francoise indicates to pull over, just after we had passed something that might have been a chaikana, the usual offering, set back from the route and access by the usual bomb cratered gravel with puddles of undefined depth. Slow U-turn in road, negotiate the war zone and park up. BUT...

Inside, the cafe is magnificent. None of this dirt, dust and grime but bright orange and white with sausage rolls, pies and cakes! And the man spoke English. Clearly this is the other side of yurt life. Perhaps.

At the end of the plain another mountain pass rises to 3,200m again, but this time with a tunnel at the end of it. Concrete base that was quite broken up so very bumpy, but it was reasonably well lit and ventilated. However the fans were extremely loud. Every time we passed one, we felt there was a lorry right behind us about to run us over.

The last 50kms into Bishkek were miserable. Shake, rattle and roll with the pot holes again - broken road, road works, dust, fumes - the what has become the depressing usual whenever we get near a town/city. One wonders how the locals put up with the pollution - we also wonder whether Paul not being well is linked to breathing all this in?

Once in Bishkek we still have another 10kms ahead of us, but the road surface is better and Paul is clearly 'keen' to get to the hotel as we start crossing double white lines, jumping traffic lights and weaving in and out better than the local mini-buses. We don't even get 'horned'. Training in London traffic clearly has its benefits, as long as you can trust the road surface.

Hotel recommends a really nice restaurant for the evening which serves fried bread, soup, pasta equivalent and beer. All is well with the world again.

We quite enjoyed the cafe life in Bishkek - it was far more lively than any of the other capitals we had visited. The city has only existed for roughly the past 150 years. As it was 'just' part of the USSR before, there are no great sights to see. Lots of soviet blocks, a park, a flag, an important looking building, a displaced statue of Lenin and some inviting cafes. And the Bazaar of course bizarrely called the 'Osh Bazaar' in Bishkek, where apparently you can find anything within ten minutes. So we set ourselves the task of some swimming pool flip flops for Francoise and her Charlton Lido as well as  a shoe brush and polish for the motorcycle boots. Eight minutes and less than £3 for the lot. Cheaper than the tea we then had at a very pleasant café on the way back.

About the flag. Red background - Red Russia/Communism etc? Plus a yellow sun because its a nice sunny country? But the hot cross bun in the middle?

Paul had chosen the hotel because its photo showed motorcycles parked in front of it. Paul had spent the morning cleaning the motorcycle but at that time there was only our bike, a small Honda and another bike under a cover. However later on in the evening 34 motorbikes appeared, mostly East European off-road bikes looking to do serious business. A number of people were looking in awe at the Harley and some asked Paul how we had got here - they had all come in two trucks. Paul told them we had ridden here. They looked even more in awe and  asked whether we had done the Pamir. Paul was sorely tempted to say, 'But of course', but was serious worried about his nose elongating if he did so. Nonetheless we might probably be destroying some of the myths with regard to Adventure Motorcycling. 

Fried bread, beetroot, meat and potatoes for dinner at the same cafe. Very enjoyable.

We also found another Greenwich on route - clearly some unknown historic links with Kyrgyzstan. Can't be seafaring.

Just one day off completing our RTW odyssey now.

Where the nuts come from...

3rd June

Where the nuts come from...

 

Paul far from perfect today, but we decide nonetheless to ride to Arslanbob which was always our plan. We hadn't anticipated things being so hard. The main roads are bumpy enough, but Arslanbob is 50km off the main road and at the end of a cul-de-sac. Supposedly the world's biggest walnut forest. No information to date on the state of the roads has been accurate and we decided that if things get too difficult we would turn round.

 

But we made it - the road wasn't too bad and Paul was improving. We are now in homestay territory - no longer hotels. The village is incredible - we are so much out of place here. Nonetheless two bottles of water come in a Morrisons plastic carrier bag - there was a stack in the shop - and you don't have to pay 5 p for them.

 

Our homestay does have a separate toilet and shower block,  they prepare dinner for us and there are beds. So surely this is no different except better than camping? All the children here want their photos taken - Francoise reminisces on polaroid cameras.  It would have been great to give them a hard copy instead of them staring at the screen of the camera. Big smiles from the children nevertheless.

 

Arslanbob has electricity and there is plenty of water off the mountains. Forget about WiFi. We hear the call to prayer and some of the ladies wear headscarves of various types - but no hijabs. Bizarre contradiction of a lady in the park in Osh having an almost complete headscarf, but breast feeding openly. Similarly a lady in Arslanbob today walking down the street breast feeding with the Mosque as a backdrop. But this is normal - it is us that attract the stares, with or without the bike.

But why is this place listed as one of the top four must-see's in Kyrgyzstan? Despite Paul still not feeling well the following day,  we did a short trek to see the local attractions - walnut forest etc. Underwhelmed. There are far more interesting 8km walks within 20km of wherever you find yourself in Europe. Still don't get the place. People say that a Gerrman tourist spent some time here and basically said, 'ain't this quaint?' Since then Arslanbob has been part of all the tourist guides. Well worth a miss. Unless you like authentic dust. Central Asian towns, villages and roads are dusty. 

 

Ready to leave and head north to Toktogul, 300kms away - no homestay before then. A far more interesting scenic ride and we can now see the end in sight. We thoroughly enjoyed the roads, the sun is shining and despite not feeling 100% we knock off 300km quite happily.

Our homestay are interesting and sociable.Two nights ago we ate with some Turkmen who had left Turkmenistan in 1989 for Russia and were now classed as dissidents and not allowed back. They were interested in Francoise's recent photographs of the country. Last night we dined with two Belgians from near where Francoise was brought up. Tonight at the hostel we shared a meal with a Czech motorcyclist. Thanks to Mr Google Translate, Paul also enjoyed a conversation with the slightly older Kyrgyz owner of the house. Every topic came up from Central Asia, Arslanbob, problems with the Uzbeks and garden roses and geraniums. All that thanks to technology!

 

 

 

OshGosh B'gosh

31st May

OshKosh B'gosh

 

When our children were very little, some of their more trendy counterparts wore OskKosh B'gosh striped dungarees. They were very trendy indeed at the time. And reassuringly expensive - not all kids were wearing them. Ours weren't. Apart from the first three letters, this has absolutely nothing to do with our trip.

We crossed over from Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan heading for Osh in Kyrgyzstan. The run to the border was on the first bad roads we had come across in Tajikistan.

Map wise, this part of Central Asia is more difficult than the rest. The borders go all over the place and there are enclaves belonging to other countries within the Kyrgyzstan territory. Apparently Stalin  had a shaky hand when he was drawing the borders and he never intended they become international borders. So we could not just set the Garmin for Osh, as it would have taken us back through Uzbekistan. We certainly didn't want to go through that again - visas, checkpoints etc.

 

We stopped on the way to the border to check maps etc.  - nowhere in particular, the middle of nowhere and this old man came up to us. You think you are in the middle of nowhere and then all of a sudden people just appear. It was like that in China whenever we stopped for a roadside loo break. Anyway this man had a bucket full of peaches and apricots. This is the territory. All he wanted was to give us some of his fruit. We didn't want to offend, but equally we had no means of carrying any - and they were ripe! There followed a lot of hugging and sign language for ''No, we can't' , but we left as friends, we think -  he left eight fruit perched on top of one of the pannier. Francoise din't have the heart to throw them away, so she put them in her camera bag and had her camera round her neck.

No issues with the Tajikistan border - not even exporting fruit - though we were sure we had not found the best route for the bike, as we joined a really nice road 2km before the checkpoint. Thanks, Mr Garmin.

 

The Kyrgyz side proved different. Firstly the gate was locked and the soldier tried to tell us to go away. We stood in front of the gate, he phoned someone and we recognised something like 'tourist'. He then unlocked the gate and waved that we get on the bike and ride up to the buildings. Passport check fine and then the Health man seemed to want a certificate that stated that we weren't HIV+. There was nothing on any website about us needing this and due to the total lack of any common language, we just shrugged our shoulders. At least we could sit down inside an air conditioned room. Our newly found friend left the office and we stayed  there. There then seemed to be a heated discussion outside and he eventually came in and waved us out.  The soldiers and our new friend went through the stroking of the animal tail ritual at the back of the bike and by the time they had done a token inspection of our luggage, we were waved through. We were probably the day's excitement. What has slightly concerned us though is the total lack of any bits of paper - we have never had this before. Let's see whether this is something we will regret later?
 

We stopped about a km after the border, ate some biscuits , drank some water and of course, ate some fruit. Then we had to clean Francoise's camera bag.

It was midday and we had 230km to do. We had been told there was a new motorway linking Batken, the border, with Osh. All we had to do was to follow the signs. Almost immediately after lunch,  a scrappy blue sign showed Osh to the left down a very wide gravel road. Motorway? We asked a taxi driver, he pointed the other direction for Osh which we took and drove into the town of Batken - handy since we needed to change some dollars into Kyrgyz money anyway. We then asked a policeman/ soldier which way to Osh as we were again at a T-junction. "Right"indicated the man. Another sign further on pointed to Osh straight on, so we continued.. The road starts to get very bumpy- wonder when the motorway will start? It is deserted - really deserted. One starts to wonder what the Plan B is if anything happens? The road is now really challenging. The bike is bumping around all the time and one wonders how long it can hold up like this. We pass some soldiers on the left. They are wearing Uzbek uniforms. We pass some more. We keep going. We arrive at an Army checkpoint. They want passports. We hang around for 15 minutes to be told we can't go through. This is a Uzbek enclave within Kyrgyzstan and we don't have transit visas. It had taken us over an hour to get here on bad roads and now we have to ride back to where we started. So we did. It was also getting quite hot now.

We went back to the initial blue sign and took the gravel road with the usual potholes. It was not a short road. We were on it for about an hour. Our bike isn't meant for this. We stopped everybody overtaking us or coming the other way - not a lot, and asked them,  'Osh?'. They all waved us on, so we kept going. We eventually hit a tarmac road and it was bliss  - at the 'T' junction some bemused boys said, 'Osh left,  Batken right'. Mr Garmin was indicating that we should return to Batken. But why hadn't we been able to find the start of this fine road in Batken?

 

We had a good ride for about 100km and then we hit the road works. Gravel, mud, holes, broken concrete, lorries spraying water to keep the dust down - every rattle makes Paul wince about what part of the bike is not holding up to the strain. And then more bone crunching roads and it is getting dark now.  Just what is the Plan B if we can't make it to Osh? We had had some warm water, biscuits and fruit and that was it during the day. We start counting down the kms to Osh.

 

Nonetheless we arrive at our Hotel just before 2100 - Kyrgyz time; an hour 'lost', as we crossed the border heading Eastwards. All in all, an eleven hour ride.
 

Our hotel is a Soviet relic and in some ways quite charming for it. Hard boiled eggs and 'meat' product in inedible skins for breakfast with potato pasties. They are refurbing the hotel, room by room, which means the jack hammers start at 0800 in the morning. But we were in one piece and had a good night's sleep. Osh isn't a tourist hotspot, but we are finding we need a lot if breaks on this trip - it is proving hard for us. So we visited Sulaiman's throne in Osh - a big, rocky outcrop in the centre if town. Apparently King Solomon was meant to have come here, hence the name, Alexander the Great and Mohammed was meant to have prayed here. Almost a full hand. And then we wandered about the park and the Bazaar - saw one of the few remaining statues of Lenin still standing - Osh was called Leninabad in a previous time. And Paul cleaned the bike and put gaffer tape on various bits.

Paul was really not feeling well the following morning, we hung around a bit and decided to have a very short day and find somewhere to stay at Jalalabad. We arrived early afternoon and Paul slept the rest of the afternoon. In the evening at dinner, he felt very unwell and passed out. The trip is taking its toll on us. Paul also made a bit of a mess in the dining room whilst he was out, the floor needed a big clean afterwards - lucky there were stone floors and we were the only guests. Big bump on the back of his head - the table survived.