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.