Day 88 to Samarkand, Uzbekistan, 388km, 7,614 to date

I’ve been web-disabled for awhile now, after crossing into Uzbekistan we couldn’t buy SIM cards without a local Uzbek passport.  After we arrived in Samarkand and checked into our hotel we got a small yellow sticky in our passports.  I guess this means we are now registered with the authorities and so are “legal”.  This hotel yellow sticky was the ticket to getting a SIM card.  Again about $2-3 for the SIM card and about $5 for 1.2gig.

I am continuing to have digestive problems, which is making me very weak, so again I took a day off and along with 5 others we taxied into Samarkand a day early.  

This was a good move because Samarkand is one of those mystical cities like Atlantis, that most of us don’t know if is a modern place or simply some pile of rocks in the middle of a desert that is thought to be the site of an ancient city.  The name Samarkand leads us to a world of dreams, of strange exotic places, the scent of perfumes, spices, fabulous palaces, bells of caravans, strange music - is this place real or imagined?  I can now tell you that it is a modern city that also has a huge collection of ancient (some restored) major buildings and mosques.  The area is heavily subjected to earthquakes, so the buildings still standing are a testament to the ancient construction methods.  Having said that I was inside the main (unrestored) dome of the Bibi Mosque today - definitely wouldn’t want to be there in an earthquake - it is all masonry (bricks and un-reinforced cement) construction.

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 The following heavily “borrowed” from Lonely Planet): Samarkand is one of Asia’s oldest settlements probably dating back to 500BC.  It was the capital of the Sogdian empire until taken by Alexander the Great in 329 BC, who stated that everything he had heard about the place was true except it is way more beautiful.  The city was a key intersection on the Silk Road, connecting China, India, Persia.  It grew and was very prosperous through the 6th to 13th centuries.  It was obliterated by Chinggis Khan in 1220.  In 1370 Timur made Samarkand his capital and over the next 35 years created what was considered the cultural and economic epicentre of Central Asia.  This was followed by a slow decline and suffered from a series of earthquakes that left it essentially uninhabited by the 18th century.  The Russians are credited with resuscitating the city to what it is today.

This guy is Timur, not one of your nicest people, reported to have killed/murdered some 17million people - 5% of the world population at the time.  But he was very successful.

His grandson is Mirzo Ulughbek who became ruler, but is better known as probably the best mathematician/astronomer of the day.  I visited the remains of the Observatory he built, the remains being considered one of the great archeological finds of the 20th century.  The visit rekindled a desire in me to return to the study of classic mathematical astronomy - something else added to my growing todo list for when I return.

This complex is the Registan (‘Sandy Place’ in Tajik), composed of three Medressas (schools), Ulugbek, Sher Dor (Lion) and Tilla-Karl (Gold Covered). The first built in 1420 under Ulugbek.

Some pics from inside the Medrasa's: (yes, that is gold leaf)

It is rather hot around here...

What used to be student dorms are now souvenir shops:

One of the sidewalks on a main street in Samarkand:

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I don’t understand the currency exchange here.  The official bank rate is 2,900 Som to $1US, however on the back market, i.e. the money changers at the gates of the markets, the rate, depending on how good a haggler you are, is up to 6,100 Som to $1US.  I managed 6,000, but I got dragged to his friends dried fruit stand, where I bought some very good walnut stuffed dates that for sure I paid way too much for…  I don’t understand why such a big difference between the bank rate and the street rate.   The inflation rate has been fairly high in Uzbekistan so that would account for some premium on the street market, but over 100%??

One of the riders that has now joined us here, Roger was also on this ride two years ago.  He started with me In shanghai and rode to Dushanbe where he became ill and had to leave the ride.  Roger is the person that found me immediate post my accident.   I never got a chance to talk to him two years ago.  Today I found out that I had crashed essentially in the middle of the street (a block from the hotel), and I was knocked out cold.  In fact Roger at first thought I was dead.  The locals wanted to immediately move me off the street, by Roger was concerned that I may have had neck injuries.  Roger was also panicking because he had no way of contacting anyone.   Carefully bracing my neck, they managed to move me onto the grass beside the street.  It was some 15 to 20 minutes before I came to.

And the location map showing where I am:

Rest day in Dushanbe:

I missed posting this post due to extremely poor web connection, will try again…

Again we are the recipients of local curiosity and generosity.  Twice later yesterday we met a local who was very curious as to our trip and was very quick to offer any help, ‘I’ll drive you to …’.  My “pay it forward” debt is really getting large!

As the Capital of Tajikistan, the city has all the international attractions, the high-end stores, foreign embassies and many nice restaurants.  One very popular with the ex-pats (where does that expression come from?) is called the “Public Pub”, an Irish Pub that could easily be in Ireland - very popular with all the UN people (Northern Afghanistan border commission) and the foreign embassy workers.  Important to me is that the food is very “normal” to my recovering digestive tract.

Have I mentioned before that the women here dress mostly Muslim but some also very modern Western.  The Muslim attire/dresses are very attractive, yes fully covered other than face, but the fabric is very light and blows in the wind easily - so yes both very exotic and erotic.

We are now out of the mountains and into the flats - i.e. it is now getting very hot, 39C (102F) yesterday.  We will be seeing serious 40C+ temperatures, the only question is whether we will see 50C (122F) or not - I suspect we will at least get close.  Bought an extra water bottle for the bike yesterday.

Tomorrow we leave Tajikistan and onto country #7, Uzbekistan.  We think we are prepared for the border crossing (Visia’s inlace etc.,), however two years ago, the border crossing was extremely slow with hours of standing around in the hot sun - hopefully not so this time.  Uzbekistan is home to the next two highlights of the trip, Samarkand and Bukhara, which are way up there on the exotic names list of this trip. 

This is the local fresh goat market - really fresh, as in it was live an hour ago.

Visited one of the local museums yesterday, it held what are probably the oldest things I have every seen, some of the rock tools and human skulls dated back to 2-3,000BC.  Some of the really really old places this trip is going through makes me feel I am touching the roots/nerve endings of mankind.  A common question we have had is “… for how many thousands of years has man grazed livestock in this valley?”.

One of the main streets:

Day 85 to Denau, Uzbekistan, 105km, 7236 to date.  291m up, 597m end

Hot, but an easy day.

Crossed from Tajikistan into Uzbekistan, this is country #7 of the trip.  The border crossing was a bit entertaining, i.e. slow.  They very carefully went through all our bags, including looking at every picture on my laptop.  Most of us have fairly serious bags of medical supplies, a lot got confiscated.  Also, one of the guys has a drone that he has used to capture some excellent photography - the drone was confiscated, actually not confiscated but thrown out. So much for $1,000.

Not any pictures as the countryside is flat agricultural land.  Of interest is that every piece of land is under cultivation.  There has been a change from the very small family/subsistence farming in high mountains (Pamirs) to the large “industrial” farms that are are now the norm in the valley, flat lands.

Both in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan there is a common gesture - holding the right hand over the heart and nodding at you - this is like saying “you are in my heart”, a form of high respect.  A gesture that I have commonly been the recipient of.  Also almost every car that passes us on the road, both in the city and on the highway, beeps and waves, usually with a thumbs up.  Commonly with a “welcome to Uzbekistan”.

We are in a hotel tonight, they like 3-storey walkups in this part of the world - really fun carrying a heavy bad in 30+C temperatures.  Two odd (to our eyes) sights this evening - the hotel is on the equivalent of Blanchard St., in Victoria, quite similar in many ways, except the occasional cow wanders through the parking lot and feeds on the boulevard grass.  Then shortly after a quite well dressed older gentlemen rides past on a donkey.

The web connection here is impossible.  I'll try again tomorrow.  Presently in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

Day 83 to Dushanbe, Tajikistan,  7131km to date.

I have been sick for a few days, normal travellers gut problems - I’ll spare you the somewhat entertaining graphic details..  The following is a bit out of order and a collection of notes from the last few days:

I am now in Dushanbe, the Capital of Tajikistan a large international city, beautiful buildings and old tree lined streets

Going back a few days:  I was confused as to the economy, what I saw was subsistence farming, very small plots of land, just enough for the family.  That and tending a couple head of livestock - every morning we see one or two cattle being lead off to pasture.  Yet, I see a fair bit of new building and cars, the money has to come from selling something, maybe remittence money.  Could be some drug money?  I also note there are a fair number of police checkpoints and military watch buildings (looking to Afghanistan) so there is some federal money coming in, also in Khorog there is the University of Central Asia so again some fed money.  I talked to our local support guy, Jovid - most of the money income is remittence, i.e. one or more of the kids are now educated and working away, typically in Russia and sending money home.  This also explains why some small household building projects are partially done with no-one working - waiting for the next package of remittence money.  Also, Russia is wanting to maintain effective control on the country, so a fair bit of funds flow into Tajikistan for their armed forces, in particular along the Afghan border.

Saw a couple of “do not enter, mined area” signs today at the start of trails that led up into the Tajik mountains.

Interesting views over to Afghanistan (see pics below) some nice looking small villages, occasional new building complex (military??) and some classic buildings that look to either be a very tight village or (a drug lord’s?) estate.  I’m impressed with their tenacity to build a “road/trail” into the vertical rock faces on the Afghan side of the Panji river.  I expect there were mule trails there for centuries, however the tracks I am seeing have been built in the last few (30-50) years.

There is little difference in the settlements on the two sides of the river  - anywhere there is a water source coming down the mountain, things are green, people are living there and crops and animals are family farmed.  The Tajik side has a bit easier (relatively speaking) time of building a road, so the road on this side is better than the Afghan side - I expect the Russian support also shows.

One of the riders saw a trio women in Burka’s on the Afghan side following men,  I have heard some interesting arguments supporting the Islamic “protection of women”, I’ll expand in a future blog entry.

The road has been extremely rough for cycling, part of the reason is that there are constant slides, this is also an earthquake area, they are continuously needing to rebuild the washed out and/or slided out sections.  In fact we had some 5km detour around a village where a major slide wiped out the one side.

Camped underneath date trees, also saw pomegranate trees (like orange trees).  Also, seeing the sheets/netting underneath the Mulberry trees to catch the dropping fruit.  We were given a large plate of Mulberry fruit the other night - very good.

It is always fun going thru a small village, all the young kids come out yelling “Hello Hello”, and I need to “hi-five” each one as I ride past.  I also make a point of either waving (kids or young adults), or at least doing a head nod (to elders, male and female) - always returned with a smile.

Some pics:

A common sight, the rugs have been washed and are drying.  One always takes their shoes off before entering any house or Yurt:

There was a wedding going on next door to our camp, so I wandered over.  There had been food, music and dancing, then a special piece of music played and everyone started clapping in unison and the bridal party then started to exit:

This is the radiant bride.  I gather the totally covered up attire is traditional back to the arranged marriages - I guess the new husband gets to "open" the package, sort of like a Christmas present to see what he got...

 I believe the parents:

For several days we have cycled down the Tajik side of the Panji river with Afghanistan on the far side:

 This was wonderful to stand under on a very hot day!

Day 76 to Khorog, Tajikistan, 135km, 66532 to date.  603m up, 2078m end

(Unable to access the web for a couple of days, so some catch up...)

A relatively easy day, mostly downhill ending at a reasonable 2078m or 6,818 ft.  We’ve now done the high altitude part of the ride.

Not many pics as the scenery is essentially unchanged for several days now.  Also, it was raining lightly for 2/3rds of the ride and I’m sensitive about water on the phone.  The smell of sage was very strong whilst raining.

Again today, I was the recipient of local generosity - I had stopped for a coke and was talking to several of the local kids, when the store owner came out and gave me a bag of small apples and baby apricots.

Some pics:

Yes, this photo is staged, but the surface of the bridge is way worse than it looks.

At Khorog we look across the Panji river for our first view of Afghanistan, only about 100ft. away.

For this first time on this trip I was sick this morning - so am going to spend a lazy day (it is a rest day).  The timing is good in that we are camped on the grounds of a 5-star boutique hotel, with full use of the facilities.  I am having a wonderful breakfast on the outdoor patio looking at the bridge to Afghanistan and people walking back and forth over the bridge.

The location map:

Day 75 to Hot Springs Camp, Tajikistan, 85km, 6397 to date.  1050m up, 3550m end

Today we cycled over the last two high altitude passes of the full ride, one at 4,175m, (13,698ft.), then the 2nd at 4,280m (14,043ft).  We have continuously been over 10,000ft for more than a week now, today the riding was really hard, I feel like I am totally out of gas.  I am not alone, our lunch today was just before the 2nd pass, arriving at lunch, one of the riders collapsed from exhaustion trying to get off his bike.

Some pics:

Top of last climb over 14,000ft:

This is the Pamir Highway "logo":

Day 74 to Alichur, Tajikistan, 106km, 6312 to date.  925m up, 3875m end

Not much to say about today, other than another day riding at very high altitude.  We are seeing very few people,  commonly no sign of man for 30-40km,  then in the middle of nowhere, a person just waiting on the side of the road.

Myself and Irwin, yes it is starting to get hot..

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Some scenery pics:

Another top of climb, this time 4,128m or 3,544ft: