Tajikistan – The Pamir Highway part 2

At Khorog we stayed a few nights at the Pamir Lodge. This is the go-to place for cycle tourists, partly for its cheap rates, and partly for the social aspect of meeting fellow Pamir travellers to share tips and info on the road ahead. It also has a reputation for poor hygiene and people falling ill, so we didn’t dally too long… Just enough time to stock up on porridge and biscuits and give the bikes a cursory look over. We thought to kit ourselves out in winter clothing for the coming cold, but only succeeded in finding some fetching red rubber gloves and a nice pair of fluffy socks. Khorog is short on technical outdoor clothing shops.

Tajikistan – The Pamir Highway part 1

Dushanbe to Khorog:

The Tajiks seemed a lot less excited by our presence than the Uzbek car-horn enthusiasts, which was actually a welcome relief. Uzbekistan had been loud in almost every way, while the Uzbeks are exceptionally friendly, their volume controls seem to have been tossed out the window; almost every transaction between people is carried out as if the whole world has gone deaf. The Tajiks on the other hand waved and smiled, occasionally approaching us but overall tended to leave us to our own devices.

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan passed mostly by train: over a thousand kilometres from the border to Samarkand took a couple of days rather than weeks, as we took up residence in the cattle class sleeper. We would have gone for the more comfortable carriage, but we were short by about 40 grand. While it sounds like a lot, it’s actually only about ten British quid, the Uzbek Som being nearly worthless. The government however refuses to acknowledge this, and won’t print bills larger than 1000 – meaning that Uzbekistan seems like a nation of gangsters, with big wads of notes piled high in shops and peeking out of jacket pockets.

Excitement at my Uzbek lottery win - enough to buy a cup of tea and a biscuit

Kazakhstan

We made it to Kazakhstan!

Docking in Actau port, we tumbled out of the cargo ferry and were ushered officiously through customs, bleary eyed and disorientated, after a rather epic 37 hour adventure at sea. Piling the panniers back on to our bikes and, feeling and looking like 5 cycling zombies, we set off in search of the elusive train station. Amid the linguistic  drama of trying to converse in broken Russian with tickets sellers, we were approached by Mukash – a gleamingly gold-grilled local who very kindly invited us all to stay at his house for the night before catching trains the next day. Being knackered after our queasy and somewhat hair-raising sea voyage, we took him up on his offer without hesitation.

Caspian Sea by cargo ship

Boarding our vessel alongside a couple of trains

The Caspian Sea “ferry” is an interesting experience, and not one for those of a delicate nature (or stomach). These old Russian freight liners were not built for luxury or comfort, and they certainly haven’t been upgraded since they plied soviet trade routes.

Azerbaijan

Sceptical of the paranoid military entry to Azerbaijan

In Azerbaijan we only cycled for a single day before catching the night train to Baku on the Caspian Sea coast. Nevertheless, we still noticed a marked change in the people compared with neighbouring Georgia. Much more Turkic in appearance and manner, we enjoyed the friendlier smiles and chai-drinking once again.

Last post til China!

Due to lack of internet, there’s no chance we’ll be able to update our blog properly, so here’s a quick summary of what we’ve been up to recently:

Georgia

Wheeling down the hills into Georgia, the contrast with Turkey was immediately evident: the Turks would smile, shout and wave us over constantly but here in Georgia people stared vacantly and few people smiled back; women were no longer covered up and the buildings became dilapidated old soviet edifices. A persistent grey cloud seemed to be hanging over Georgia’s spirit. Moreover, the drivers seemed keen to splatter us! People have told us that Turkish drivers are bad; these people have clearly never been to Georgia. Much of the country is a poor, dismal place, so much so that I fear a large proportion of the population is depressed to the point of suicide. Unfortunately the method of choice for ending it all seems to be by road accident; hence everyone drives as fast as their vehicle will go, rounding corners on the wrong side of the road and passing slower vehicles whenever they are encountered, regardless of obstacles or traffic in the other direction. Double and triple overtaking on a busy two-lane road, with a steady stream of traffic coming the other way… We were forced to dive off the road more than once to avoid head-on collisions with trucks and cars.

Turkey (West)

As we wheeled into Turkey, we immediately noticed the number of stray dogs hanging around the border post; there were more dogs than guards. This did not bode well for trouble-free cycling, and raised my – mostly unfounded – apprehensions about being chased by salivating, demonic dogs. Dogs get really riled by bicycles it’s true, but as it turned out, we needn’t have worried – despite scare stories from other cyclists of aggressive shepherds’ dogs that are trained to “bite first, think later”, we encountered few dogs that wouldn’t slink off timidly at the sight of us. I went as far as to buy some pepper spray in Istanbul, and although I’m not convinced that it would have done much more than enrage an already pissed-off dog, I still felt armed and ready for battle when cruising past packs of aggravated stray hounds.

Armed and ready to pepper!

Quick update – visas in hand, back on the road!

We’ve been in Turkey for a month and a half now, visiting Istanbul, Ankara, Cappadoccia and the Black Sea. We’ll get around to writing more about these before long, but for now we thought to write a quick post about our current situation.

Turkey has been a mixture – beautiful architecture in Istanbul, stunning scenery in Cappadoccia, and soul-destroying battles with bureaucracy in Ankara. Turkey’s capital city (not Istanbul, note for pub quizzes!) is a dull, dusty administrative centre, and what it lacks in character it unfortunately makes up for in embassies. Hence we have had to spend nearly two weeks over four separate visits to Ankara mostly traipsing to and from consulates – including an extra trip back to Istanbul to collect our golden ticket aka a letter from the British consulate confirming our identity “necessary” for our Chinese visa.

Our dogged perseverance has paid off, however, and we have now completed our visa jigsaw! Georgia and Azerbaijan next; then across the Caspian Sea by leaky Soviet cargo ship; zip through the desertous ‘Stans; hopefully in time to cycle the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan; whereupon China awaits. It all seems very close now!

On the downside, our delays in Turkey have severely compressed our available time to travel these countries, if we are to make it over the passes into China before the snows really set in. We could have avoided this by flying to Tajikistan, for example, but this contravenes our main ethic with this trip: to travel overland (or over sea) if at all possible. So we will be taking a fair amount of public transport, including trains, buses and trucks. We’re naturally conflicted about this, having wanted to cycle as much as possible, but have decided there’s no other option. Waiting another 8 months until the snows clear from the passes is not on the cards.

We are writing this having just left Ankara on a train bound for the Georgian border. We’ve got under a month to travel through five countries. The race is ON!

The road ahead...