Kyrgyzstan: Osh

Osh brings us back into a much warmer climate, and back into the land of ear-bursting lorry-horns, cash machines, a good choice of restaurants, cheap phone calls to home and, above all: internet access. And the first email check since one week brings with it another problem: the rear shock I had ordered a week ago has been built to my specifications – but it hasn’t been delivered yet. In fact, for reasons unknown, it hasn’t even been shipped by Hagon Shocks – meaning: it will arrive in Osh within 5 days at the earliest. Yet another entry on the list of companies who’ve failed to deliver what they promised.

Nurlan, a friendly & helpful guy from Osh Guest House, helps us with safe storage for the motorcycles – and just as we ride into the parking premises, we get approached by Vladimir, a local Russian biker who happens to know a good motorbike mechanic in the outskirts of Bishkek. Bike-storage is safe as can-be, with an enormous beast of a growling dog guarding the premises. As we’re chatting away with Vladmir (Nurlan translating quite a few bits here), Len notices a missing subframe-bolt on my bike… and a quick look on the other side of the bike shows the same: both subframe bolts sheared off. THAT’S why the bike had been handling so badly since Murghab… I’ve got to say I’m rather embarrassed about this – but I never thought about checking the subframe bolts & simply blamed the bad bike handling on the corrugated roads.

After a brief intermezzo in Osh Guest House’s dormitory, we move on into a hotel (for the same price) to make ourselves comfortable & set up a base for the next week. Hotel Alai is a slightly run-down place with a true Soviet feeling to it: it’s cheap & cheerful, provides us with two separate rooms, one door key, cold water shower (funnily NOT during day-time), frequent power cuts and a bunch of not-so-cheerful hotel employees… but the place will do for now. It’s close to the main bazaar, and after setting up our two camping-stoves in the room, Len quickly gets into a routine of delicious cooking.

Whilst waiting for the rear shock absorber to arrive, the next week passes rather quickly: we make plenty of phone-calls to friends & family, every now and then go for a meal and a few beers in the evenings, visit Nurlan in Osh Guest House for a chat, and above all: ‘operation China’ still isn’t sorted out yet. Without much success, we try to find a Chinese lorry driver to take us ‘off the radar’ over Irkestham Pass into China, and through various sources of information (including our agent in China), we’re trying to find out when & if any other borders might open again, or if there’s any official ‘put-the-bike-on-a-truck’ alternative that’s within our budget.

One week later, my awaited spare part from the UK should arrive any time soon. And indeed, good news: it’s finally arrived. Bad news: it’s in Bishkek, some 700 km away – and I’ve got to pick it up in person. Any further delays from my side will cost me $3 per day for storage fees in the customs office. “Great”, I say to the lady in the UPS Bishkek office, “What would you say if you ordered a new TV and one week later you were told to pick it up a full 2 days journey away from where you actually wanted it delivered?”

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Tajikistan – Pamir Highway (2)

I wake up feeling cold & dizzy. No, not a hangover – it’s the altitude that’s getting to me, albeit very slowly and thankfully not a real altitude sickness. I walk down to Lake Sassyk-Kul (the ‘Stinking Lake’) for some photographs of the lake and valley and notice quite a lot of salination – a sign for the abundance of minerals in the Pamirs and the lake in particular. The lake’s shoreline is a feast of colours in earth tones & green, and would probably be a dream for biologists who are studying micro-organisms.

Back at the campsite, Len’s already half-way finished packing his panniers and tells me that the local sheppherd’s dog has just eaten all our bread from the plastic bag I had put it in. But the problem isn’t so much the bread – it’s more my motorcycle which doesn’t want to start up. At first, Len and I think that I might have left the light switched on or the GPS plugged in. Then Len tries to start up HIS bike, and he’s got the same problem: the engine struggles to turn over and refuses to start up. Too much of a coincidence. Probably the engine oil back in Dushanbe wasn’t quite what it said on the box (“Shell Super Helix 15w40”), but only a Chinese fake. We take off the luggage and push the bikes up a little slope – not much fun at 3700m in the cold. And with a bit of luck we manage to jump-start the bikes down the little gravel track. Great – so it really WAS the engine oil… and it’s not gonna get much warmer for the next few weeks.

Len sets off before me, whilst I’m riding back to a view point to get a shot of the lake and surrounding scenery. On my way back I meet some motorcyclists from Iran 2-up on a Suzuki GS1000, a plastic bag wrapped around their hands for wind/cold protection. Hang on – a 1000cc bike from Iran? It’s illegal to ride bikes over 250cc in Iran, no? They explain to me that they somehow got the bike on the black market & rode it from their home to the Turkmenistan border during night-time, so they wouldn’t get caught by the local authorities. Since then, they’ve been touring around Central Asia, trying to get to Beijing. But with the Chinese border closed, they had to turn around at Irkeshtam Pass and are now heading back into Iran.

I continue East on the empty Pamir Highway. The only vehicles I would see on this day are a convoy of mini-vans loaded up with toilet paper from China. Seriously - I mean: toilet paper!? Even if everyone in Khorog had the runs at the same time: Who on earth needs this much toilet paper? And above all: Wouldn’t it be easier to recycle local paper-trash into toilet paper? Shortly after Alichur Len’s bike is parked up next to a yurt. Chai-time it seems. The yurt-owners are from Alichur but of Kyrgyz descendence. They feed us with plenty of tea, home-made bread, fried noodles, yak butter and yak yoghurt. Once again we realize that sign-language goes a long way, and we would have loved to stay longer. But if we want to get to Murghab in time, we better move on. Weather and road conditions can change all too quickly up here in the mountains, and after last night’s late arrival we better play it safe this time.

Since crossing the 1st pass on the highway, I haven’t seen any trees or bushes whatsoever. The whole landscape looks barren, yet beautiful, and the only vegetation are dry steppe grass and some green bits of grass around the river beds and lakes. We comfortably make it to Murghab on very good roads, with only the occasional hump on the road and hardly any potholes at all. Finally, the Pamir Highway (or “M41”) is true to its name ‘highway’.

Murghab is a small mountain town with a wild-west feeling to it, nicely located near a lush green valley full of sheep, goats and yaks. At the end of the town we quickly find the eco-tourism office who provide local home-stays in the area. Gulnamo’s place is basic but well-kept, overlooking the local market suqare. She’s got two rooms for visitors, an outside squat toilet and shower facilities.
Although it’s the second biggest town on the Pamir Highway, Murghab is a lot more basic than Khorog. Whilst Khorog offers all sorts of facilities like cash machine, restaurants, internet cafes and even a university, Murghab is quite the opposite: electricity is available only in the evenings, and even then it’s just about good enough to charge up camera batteries – looking at the lightbulb during dinner-time I’d say there’s just about 5-10 volts coming through the cables, and whenever I try to charge up my laptop, the fuse blows within a few seconds. Water is supplied twice a week with a truck, from which the locals fill up buckets of water to take inside their homes. And with winter-time approaching quickly but no forest nearby, people mix yak-dung with earth and water to shape little ‘cookies’, dry them in the sun and then use them for firing their stoves. (Winter here means temperatures down to -30 degrees)

Within this basic environment, Gulnamo is doing the best she can to provide a little comfort zone for us travellers: food is basic but very tasty, with different kinds of vegetable each day (whatever is available on the market in the mornings), and the shower is actually better than the one we had in Khorog: Inside the bathroom is a little stove, which is accessed from outside the bathroom. On top of that stove is a huge metal bowl full of water. Every day, an hour before shower-time, Gulnamo fires up the stove to heat up the water. Next to the hot water is a bucket full of cold water – and an empty bowl to mix hot & cold water to the desired temperature. Very basic – but it works!

As we meet a group of travellers from France, we decide to prolong our stay in Murghab for another day. Len’s more than happy to chill out for a bit longer and catch up with some emails and blog-writing, and I join in with the others for a day of trekking in the mountains. We share the costs for the guide between the 6 of us, and seeing the ‘roof of the world’ from a 5000m viewpoint is hard to beat and shows the Pamir plateau from a different perspective than a bike ever could.
Something I wasn’t sure about when preparing for this trip is fuel availability in the Pamirs. There’s certainly no petrol stations around, and if anything, fuel is sold from local homes. As I’m taking a stroll around town, I encounter a group of motorcyclists from Poland who also need to fill up. They’ve been in this area a few times before and they speak Russian. One of the guys introduces himself as Sambor – and suddenly that rings a bell. Whilst researching fuel availability through one of the web forums back in England, I had been in touch with Sambor. And now we actually meet in person & he shows me where to get fuel… what a small world! As expected, the fuel comes straight from the bucket and by the sound of the bike engine it probably WAS 80 octane fuel – before someone diluted it with water & a good dose of yak-piss.

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Tajikistan – Pamir Highway (1)

The western gateway to the Pamir Mountains, Khorog is a small & relaxed mountain-town and capital of the autonomous region of Gorno-Badakshan (‘GBAO’). People here descend from Persia, and follow the religion of ‘Ismailism’, a certain form of Shiite Islam but without formal structure. During Russian times, the area depended very much on Moscow, and since the fall of the Soviet Union it’s been trying to be independent. In order to get here as a visitor, one needs a special GBAO Permit from the Tajik government (usually straight-forward to obtain).

On the way to Khorog, we see an endless number of enormous Chinese trucks going West – certainly enough trucks every day to supply the whole of Central Asia with cheap mobile phones and plastic toys for the next year. Without doubt: China is an exporting country. (Although I do wonder how these lorries will make it to Dushanbe… there’s only two roads, and we’d just about managed to get through the better one of them on our off-road/enduro bikes).

Although Khorog has a nice feel to it, there’s not really much to see and we don’t want to spend too much time here. We are planning to go south towards the Afghan border and follow the Wakhan Corridor back up to the Pamir Highway into Kyrgyzstan.

We stay at the cosy ‘Pamir Lodge’ for a few days, and just as I’m about to prepare the bike for the next stage of the trip, disaster strikes for the first time: The bike’s been extraordinarily reliable so far. But now, as I put the bike on the centre stand so I could oil the chain, I suddenly see oil rapidly dripping down just in front of the rear wheel. ‘Oil’ means either something engine-related or ‘rear shock absorber’. I have a better look at the mess, and after consulting Len we both agree that it’s got to be the rear shock. I put the bike on the side stand, and the dripping stops… maybe one of the seals inside the shock has disintegrated after all those miles on corrugated & potholed roads? Time to consult some F650 bike forums on the internet.

As it turns out, the problem really IS the rear shock absorber. Although the bike rides fine and without any suspicious ‘pogo-stick’ behaviour, I’m not confident to take on the Wakhan corridor (we had heard various reports about some tough off-road riding there).
To make things worse, we just heard rumours that China has closed the border to Kyrgyzstan recently, after some bomb attacks in Kashgar. We consult our agent in China, and he confirms that it is currently impossible to enter China via Torugart Pass/Kyrgyzstan. (Why we had to actually prompt our agent to tell us these rather important news is beyond my imagination – surely, this is essential information for our onwards journey). Seems like the real adventure has just started: Stranded in Tajikistan with a broken shock absorber, and with no onwards journey into China.

That evening, it turns our we’re not the only ones who are stranded: two other motorcyclists had their bike ‘serviced’ locally, and some brainiac of a mechanic managed to pour water into a gel-battery, rendering the whole bike useless with (due to the lack of motorcycles here) no bike-batteries available. Another traveller tells us about his experience of being stuck for one night inside a mini-bus in the middle of nowhere: one of those long Chinese lorries had a broken axle, blocking the whole road, and it was too dark to do the repair that evening.

Anyway… back to our own problems: If China is closed – how can we get from Tajikistan to Pakistan? Some of the travellers here are planning to cross through Afghanistan – an option we’re considering as well. But after some research and looking at the current safety situation in Afghanistan, we decide against it. I order a new rear shock absorber from the UK, to be delivered to Kyrgyzstan within the next 7 days, and around mid-day we finally set out for the Pamir Highway.

The Pamir Highway was built by the Russians between 1931 and 1934, mainly to supply troops and provisions into this remote border area of the former Soviet Union. For 700km, it stretches across one of the highest and least inhabited mountain regions in the world, which the locals call ‘roof of the world’ (although I thought they might want to discuss this with their Tibetan neighbours ;).

As we ride through the villages in the Gunt Valley towards the first pass, the scenery is still relatively green, with a fair bit of agriculture, bushes and trees along the road. Only in the distance can we see the enormous mountain ranges with snow-capped peaks. But the higher we get, the more barren, uninhibited and moon-like the landscape becomes.
Approaching the 4200m Koi-Tezek Pass, the nice tarmac we had so far soon turns into a seemingly neverending section of loose gravel. The sun’s already gone down, but we can’t quite pitch our tents yet as we’re not acclimatised to the altitude. In the dim evening light we just about make it back onto tarmac, before we finally descend to around 3200m near Lake Sassyk-Kul to set up our camp in the dark.

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Tajikistan – Dushanbe to Khorog

Over the past week, we had a very relaxing time in Dushanbe. After 5 months on the road, staying at Trevor & Yuli’s family home was a welcome change for us, and we quickly got used to all the modern amenities: air-conditioning, good skype-connection to phone family & friends, washing-machine and even a hot shower… what a treat!

After registering with the local authorities, we made use of our time and sorted out some bike maintenance: oil change, clean air filters and put on the knobbly tires as we weren’t sure about road conditions on the Pamir Mountains.

Trevor offered us to stay even longer, but it was time for us to get moving again. There are two routes, which lead to Khorog (gateway to the Pamir Mountains and capital of the autonomous Gorno-Badakshan region): The Northern route leads over the 3200m Sagirdasht Pass and is only open during summer. The Southern route follows the Afghan border and is about 100km longer. After consulting one of Trevor’s Tajik friends, we followed his advice and took the Southern route via Nurak and Kulyab alongst the Pyanj River to Kalaikhum.

The first day was a breeze: tarmac roads all the way to Nurek, where we camped out near one of the highest water dams in the world. The next day, our hopes for more tarmac roads should soon come to a grinding halt: shortly after the Shurabad pass, the so-called ‘road’ quickly deteriorates into a blend of gravel, dust and water-filled corrugations, leading through dried-out river beds (up and down through quite a few passages with large gravel/stones) towards our first river-crossing. Just as we suss out the river crossing, a driver from one of the oncoming cars warns us about the bad conditions ahead. Nice – so it’ll get even ‘better’, yes?

Half an hour later, we find ourselves on a building-site, which follows the Afghan border. Someone had decided to build a new road, and open it to traffic whilst it’s still under construction – great! The single-lane track is lined with warning signs for landmines (leftovers from the Afghan-Russian war), and every other kilometre we pass construction sites with workers, trucks and diggers. A tiring 3 hours later I look at the GPS: we’ve just done about 50 kilometres, and at this speed we probably won’t make it to the next village before sunset. To make things worse, Len gets stuck in an uphill section of loose gravel. Despite the knobbly tyres, the bike won’t move an inch and the back-wheel’s just spitting stones. We take off the luggage & shift it up the ascent, and with some careful throttle and a good push from the back, we get the bike out (‘supported’ by the hopeless honking from the cars in front and behind us).

Another 15 minutes later, we find a roadside chaikhana/restaurant, the owner of which is more than happy to see us and allows us to crash out for the night. A close-by stream provides clean water, and people feed us chai, bread, homemade yoghurt and some delicious apricots from their garden. Finally, after a long day a much welcome change for the better!

Morning comes, and with the breakfast comes the good news: “good roads after Zigar village” we’re told – only 10km away. And indeed: Most of the road from Zigar to Kalaikhum is smooth tarmac, with not a single pothole… something we hadn’t seen for a long time! Bikes are going fine, and for a change, the lack of potholes makes it possible to actually enjoy the gorgeous scenery here, riding in the valley between the Pamir & Hindukush mountain ranges.

Just before Kalaikhum, things get back to normal: OK-ish roads lined with potholes - although with a motorcycle, they’re relatively easy to navigate around. Len’s cruising ahead whilst I take the occasional photo-stop. And as we catch up in the evening, I can see Len & his bike on the right (as usual, surrounded by a crowd of kids), and a local girl on the other side of the road, shouting something over in English & signalling that we shall come over. Sulya’s English is fairly good, and with our lack of Russian language skills, it is very nice indeed to be able to communicate for once. She introduces us to her family, insists that we stay with them for the night, and 5 minutes later we find ourselves in their front-garden, surrounded by an abundance of delicious food: chai, bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, scrambled egg, nuts from the mulberry tree – and the obligatory cups of local vodka. Looking at the amount of food, I expect this to be for the family as well – but no: they’ve eaten already, and prepared it only for us. Once again, the word ‘hospitality’ is taken to a new level. (I’m fairly aware of the basic way of life outside the big cities here – and large plates full of tomatoes and particularly fried eggs are certainly a little bit of luxury).

Over the course of the evening, Sulya translates between us and her family, and we have an incredible time filled with laughter and lots of smiles. As the full moon comes up behind the trees, I sink into bed under the open sky, knowing that this has certainly been one of my most memorable evenings in Central Asia so far.

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Tajikistan - First impressions

I've been buzy cutting a little 6m video of our first 2 days in Tajikistan. Thanks to Justyna from EnduroStany , who kindly provided all the footage she filmed during those 2 days.

So instead of trying to write about the awesome landscapes and people we encountered, I thought it'd be better to post this video onto youtube. A big thank you also to our mate Trevor here in Dushanbe, who kindly took us up in his family home, where we had a great & relaxing time before we will hit the Pamir Mountains, and good internet access (for the first time since leaving Iran!) to upload this video.

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Tajik Bureaucracy

Like most other former Soviet Republics, Tajikistan still has some rather annoying & unnecessary bureaucracy in place, an example of which is that every visitor has to register with the local authorities (the ‘OVIR’, a modern version of the ‘KGB’) within 5 days of entering the country. Considering the awful road conditions, I’m glad we actually made it to Dushanbe in time.

So, off to the OVIR office, queue up & fight off the locals who’re trying to jump the queue, show our passports, pay the registration fee & be happy, right? Wrong! Tourists are not allowed to register themselves personally. Instead, they have to go through one of the local tourist agencies – off course, for yet another fee!

So thanks to yet another prime example of Soviet bureaucracy (and an exercise in madness), what should have taken 10-15 minutes ended up taking 3 full days. On day three, after several hours of waiting in the tourist agency’s front garden (we were told to come at 4pm), we finally get our passports & registration certificate back, 7pm.

(Note: In theory one should register again upon entering Tajikistan’s autonomous region of Gorno-Badakshan, in either Murghab or Khorog. We didn’t do this, and had no problems when exiting Tajikistan. The only thing they asked for at the border was the initial registration paperwork. If you’re coming from Kyrgyzstan you’ll probably do the registration in Murghab – take a photocopy of your passport with you, as Murghab has limited electricity & the local OVIR office can’t do photocopies).

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Leaving Uzbekistan for Tajikistan

After 4 weeks of following the Silk Route in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, we are getting increasingly tired of hot and boring desert rides and so are very much looking forward to a change of landscape.

On the 2nd of August we leave Samarkand and make our way towards the Tajikistan border, some 40km away. From what I’ve heard and seen, Tajikistan has some of the most stunning landscapes in Central Asia: the Pamir mountains, stretching just North of the Afghan border.

Just a few km east of Samarkand, outside the main silk route trail, the tonws and villages already look a little more remote and less developed. Petrol stations are closed because of a power-cut, but a few km before the border we finally find a little garage where we convert our remaining local currency into some bottled, overprized & low-octane petrol.

As we rock up to the Uzbek border, the bikes once again get the full attention of the border guards. One of the guards takes particular interest in the bike’s GPS, pressing all the buttons he can. After a quick hand-shake & greeting, I decide to take his new little toy off the bike – the result being a sulky border official. Without any sense of humour, he points at every single piece of luggage: “Open! – Check!”…. great – well done, Bjorn! Maybe not the best idea to provoke a border guard. But then again: I don’t take his mobile phone & start messing around with it, do I?

2 hours later, we can finally leave Uzbekistan and make our way down a 100m track towards the Tajik border post. Another hour or so and we should be stamped into the country. Well… not quite: as it turns out, our visa starts running on the 4th of August. So we’re a full 2 days early. Great trip-planning, isn’t it? Back in London, I had spent a fair time mapping out the route and dates in my calendar. And yet I still managed to mess up one of the most basic & essential things… well done, once again!

A little glimpse of hope comes up when one of the border posts hands me over his mobile. An English-speaking voice with a decidedly Russian accent tells me exactly what I was thinking: that it should be possible to resolve the situation with a bribe. We decide that a $10 ‘contribution’ should be enough – but it soon becomes clear that ten bucks isn’t anywhere near worth a negotiation. Disillusioned we go back to the bikes, and with 2l of water, 3 apples & some bread in the pockets we prepare ourselves for 2 jolly nights of camping in Noman’s Land, between the two borders.

The best place for our campsite is about 50m away from a small farm-house, behind a few trees next to a river. The river water is so dirty, I’m sure I could use it to process my films if I wasn’t using a digital camera. Luckily, Len manages to score some tap-water from the border house, which is clean enough to boil & make some tea. Later in the evening we get a visit from Makhmut, one of the Tajik border guards we had met earlier, and another local guy. It’s the end of Makhmut’s shift and they’re here to check if we’re doing alright, and if we need anything. “We’re OK for water, but something to go with the bread would be nice.” 10 minutes later, we’ve got tomatoes, cucumbers and a bottle of vodka in front of us. Happy days!

Border crossing – Day 2: Although the trees cast some shade on the tent, it’s soon getting too hot in the tent. 9 o’clock marks the early end of my attempt for a nice lie-in. It’s not long before the first travellers make it across the border, all of who donate some food and clean water towards our ‘Stupid Motorcyclists Survival Fund’: over the course of the day we get spoilt with water mellons, energy bars, nuts, crackers and even some pot noodles from England. According to one of the tour agents who come through, we are THE topic of conversation at the border – everyone knows about us. Nice.

With nowhere to go, a full day between borders can get pretty dull at times, the only entertainment being to find a new spot in the shade every few hours, as the sun makes its way across the horizon. As I’m sitting underneath one of the few trees staring towards the Uzbek border post in complete boredom, all at once I see a huge red rectangular object, which from the distance looks like a bit like a British telephone box, slowly making its way across the border. I close my eyes, and when I open them again the red thing is still there & getting closer: what appears to be a UK telephone box, IS in fact a UK telephone box with an old lime-green/black bonnet “Mr Bean” Mini underneath. Crikey!

The two guys inside the car introduce themselves: Ben and Lewis from team ‘A Very British Adventure’ are part of the Mongol Rally, which takes them overland from London to Mongolia in aid of charity. Shortly afterwards, their female counterpart “Heels on Wheels” arrives: a pink Citroen with 2 high heels as a mascot. It’s getting later in the day now, and the heat is a bit more bearable. We start to fill our water bottles through the water filter & prepare for tomorrow’s ride into Tajikistan. We could cross the border at midnight but don’t want to ride in the night & instead aim to get up as early as possible in the morning.

But things soon change again – this time in our favour: A group of five people on 3 motorcycles from Poland comes past and they stop for a quick chat. I was on my way to the Tajik border guards anyway, and so I accompany the others up to the border post. If possible, Len and I would like to do all the bike & customs paperwork now, so we can ride off as soon as we get up. Luckily the polish bikers speak fluent Russian and explain my inquiry to Makhmut (the guard who supplied us with some food the day before). A brief discussion between them, and the following translation puts a big smile on my face: Makhmut wants us to remember him and Tajikistan in good spirit, and since it’s only another 5 hours to go until midnight, he’ll let us pass through the border now so we can travel with our new friends from Poland.

Getting into Tajikistan takes less than 30 minutes, and about 20km into the country we soon find a suitable campsite for the night: the locals point us towards a safe spot near the river where there’s enough space for all the bikes & tents. Food & a well-deserved beer in the panniers, we rock up to the river. Happy days, it seems… if it wasn’t for my first ‘off’: trying to cross a little muddy stream on the way to the camp, I loose control of the bike and the pannier corner falls straight on my left foot – a mere 15m away from happiness.

The pain soon diminishes and I’m humping along trying to set up the tent for the night. Thanks to Justyna, a trained vet from our EnduroStany friends, I get the appropriate treatment, followed by some ber and vodka. 2h later I’m alright to hit the sleeping bag for a good night’s kip.

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