Today was another of those slightly surreal days
Someone: “What did you do today?”
Me: “Went for a ride on my bike”
Someone: “Cool, where’d you go?”
Me: “Oh you know, Uzbekistan”
On ‘paper’ today looked a pretty easy day, with the only real possibility of issues the border crossing, but in the end all went smoothly for me at least.
Stage 70 route notes
The location of the hotel in Dushanbe was really good, but the breakfast certainly wasn’t up to much so it was a pretty quick affair and not long before I was on the road.
Despite our relatively late (for us) 0600 start town was still pretty quite so getting out of the city was straight forward and once onto the highway it became clear that the good pavement was going to last.
For a pleasant change we even had a tail wind which meant that I was zipping along at an average of 30.5 km/h which got me to lunch in just over two hours having caught up with Grant about 10km out.
I had a few Tajik Somoni left over which I wanted to change into Uzbek Som and had been told that the border was the place to do it, and that the best rate is on the black market (I was reminded of changing money at the campsite in Vic Falls) so when a couple of locals approached us offering to change money I took them up on the offer which resulted in a significant stack of Som.
125,000 Uzbek Som – I’m rich!
Then the formalities began – Ivan, Grant and I set off together to negotiate what seemed to be an endless number of Tajik buildings some of which we just completely bypassed, others of which we went into and mostly got waved along the way. Our passport details were recorded in a giant book in one building (why??? and to what end???) and then finally a man actually scanned my passport and put an exit stamp in – farewell Tajikistan.
Next stop was a very friendly Uzbek solider at the first gate and then into a very hot and humid immigration building in which there was already quite a group of local people waiting to proceed. Thankfully we were treated to special attention and another very friendly solider took our passports away and told us to ‘wait there’. After not too long waiting, during which time we had a nice chat with the Russian military attache to Afghanistan who was on his way back to Afghanistan which he does via Uzbekistan because the area of Afghanistan bordering Tajikistan is ‘not a great place right now’, we were handed our passports back and told to continue.
I went back outside to my bike and was going to head through the vehicle exit but was sent back inside, with my bike!! to go through the foot passenger route.
Next up was form filling which I got done, only to be sent back to fill in a second copy with the same details. From there everything I was carrying with me on my bike was inspected closely, including having to unlock my phone so that the custom official could check through all my photos and inspect the contents of my wallet.
Once that was done, and everything was repacked it was downhill (literally) to the exit and into Uzbekistan. At this point I was the first one through and given how long it took me on my own it was going to take the vehicles quite a bit longer, so I plugged the Denau into my Garmin and said ‘take me there’.
The road in Uzbekistan wasn’t quite as flash as in Tajikistan, and the wind had turned back to the traditional headwind so progress was slower but I was still making good time.
On many of our border crossings the change from one country to another has been dramatic, but on this occasion little changed in terms of the physical environment as we were still in the same valley making our way through agricultural land. Two changes I did immediately notice were that the people were much more outwardly friendly, and the majority of the vehicles are older and smaller!
Into town and at that point the route notes, which had been totally crap in Uzbekistan anyway ended at the junction. I found myself a cold drink and an ice-cream and proceeded to wait for the arrival of others. Ivan came by and headed off up the road to see if he could find the hotel, returning a short while later to say he’d been successful. After we’d done ice-creams and cold drinks Grant and I also headed up there and we began the process of registering ourselves and waiting for the vehicles to arrive.
Pretty much all of the riders were at the hotel before the white van made it into town. Turns out that they’d had to take very bag out, have it scanned, and in most cases take everything out to be inspected – hence the delay in getting there!
Since then I’ve been to the flashest supermarket in Central Asia (no kidding, it’s incredibly nice), had a shower and a beer and am about to go for a wander to see if there’s anything else worth seeing in the town.
Later: There’s not much to see in town it turns out, but if you need to change USD to Som, then the butcher’s your man – I now have an even bigger stack of notes shoved in the end of my bag than the picture above.
Dinner was at a local restaurant and was excellent – it was really nice to be at a local establishment and be able to have local food without the hassle of trying to work out what it was.
As we were heading out there was a wedding reception, complete with crazy musicians, happening in the building upstairs
After a while Michael and I wandered off for a final ice cream for the day before returning to the hotel where I discovered that I was locked out as Grant had gone off for a wander with some locals he’d met taking the key with him!
Riding data
For reasons which will become clear in two posts time, the riding data below, and for the next three days, has all come from Michael’s Garmin. While the route and distances are correct for all but the last day of this four day week my times were different.
View from my tent
Forgot to take a photo from the hotel, but it wasn’t that exciting to be honest.
