Treadly Four in Iran

Serakhs – Mashhad 190km
Mashad – Shiraz – Train
Shiraz – muddy field – 32km
Muddy Field – another muddy field 44km
Muddy field – Ardakan 71km
Ardakan – Yasuj 50km
Yasuj – Pataveh 50km
Pataveh – Kalvari 46km
Kalvari – River by the road 49km
River – near Burugen 40km
Burugen – Zibashar 70km
Zibashar – Esfahan 50km
Esfahan – Sagzi 52km
Sagzi – Abandoned Village 60km
Abandoned Village – Mahabad 73km
Mahabad – Kashan 92km
Kashan – Maranjab Desert Caravanserai 68km
Maranjab – Aran Va Bidgol 48km
Aran Va Bidgol – Tehran 30km + Bus

Total km ridden: 6643km

Our first month in Iran has flown by. The first week was spent cycling to Mashhad where we had a beautiful Warm Showers experience with Vahid and his family. In this the second most holy city for Muslims, we spent Christmas and awaited the arrival of Het’s best friend from Australia and her partner, Perry. For the next month we cycled from Shiraz to Tehran as a merry, treadly four.

Thoroughly spent from our five-day slog through Turkmenistan we vegged out in the Doosti (friendship) Hotel in Serakhs. We had now entered the Middle East and the stocks available in small town shops had greatly improved. Whilst Central Asia is famous for many things, food is not one of them. Canned horse meat and Russian candy was replaced with shelves stocked with halva, tahini, dates and pistachios. We were in heaven.

This new region was also marked by the steep change in female dress codes. Iran is an Islamic Republic, and so with that comes Sharia law and strict Islamic dress codes. For women this means wearing hijab, directly translated as ‘veil.’ Some interpret this as a loose scarf worn half way back on the head, with hair showing as is popular in the metropolitan areas of large cities like Tehran and Esfahan. In Eastern Iran, where we started our journey, most women in public wear a chador; a body length piece of (normally) black cloth that leaves only the face uncovered. So the streetscape looked vastly different, and Het soon got accustomed to wearing hijab under her helmet.

En route home from a shop in town, a car pulled along side and the lady in the passenger seat enquired as to where we were going. We soon invited Azam for tea at the hotel where she invited us to teach a class (or three) at her English language institute that evening. Therein ensued a hilarious evening of laughing children and laughing teachers, a la Tim and Het pretending to know how to teach English. We retired to Azam’s home and had a huge feast of Persian rice cooked with sliced potatoes on the bottom of the pan that crisp up, roast chicken, stewed greens and lamb and labneh. Our first day in Iran and we’d already been welcomed into a family’s home, confirming all the rumours we’d heard about Iranian hospitality.

This hospitality extended not only from individuals, but also from officials and organisations. As the sun set on our second evening a police car pulled us over near the town of Mazdavan. The two officers first asked Tim to remind Het that she needed to wear her hijab. Customarily in Iran if a man and a woman are together, the man is addressed almost exclusively, especially in the small villages. The two police officers then insisted they come with us into town to find us a place to stay. They settled for the fire station, and we whiled away an evening drinking tea and being entertained by the firemen.

The next day we battled some of the worst headwinds we’ve ever encountered. So forceful were they that we were in our low climbing gears and being thrown onto the gravel shoulder by the gusts from passing trucks. We decided that rather than reaching Mashhad that day, it would be prudent to bed down and wait for the next day to continue. We were lucky to come across a Red Crescent office as we decided this, and spent a warm, enjoyable evening with them. The Red Crescent is the Iranian equivalent of the Red Cross but also runs a remote ambulance and emergency service throughout the country. They have been an ongoing presence in our time in Iran…

In Mashhad we spent a splendid week with Vahid Arfa in the warm embrace of his family. Here we awaited the arrival of Georgia and Perry, our treadly three and treadly four. Vahid embodied all the wonder that is Warm Showers. His beautiful mother Taher cooked us the most delectable feasts every evening, shared on the finely woven Persian carpets sitting cross-legged around the table cloth. Through Vahid we gained an invaluable insight into the complexities of Iranian culture and politics and explored his beautiful city.

We began to learn of the discord between the government and its citizens which is so palpable and yet so hidden on the outside. Iranians are by in large dismayed at their international reputation and they rightfully blame the government for this tarnished image. People were keen to dispel this image by extending untold generosity and hospitality, which is also imbedded in their ancient culture. We read in a guide book that ‘Iran is more or less split between those who support the existing system – often rural people and the urban poor – as against those wanting change’ and we certainly feel this to be true. The locals we interacted with tended to navigate toward the anti-government contingent, our perceptions no doubt skewed by the fact that hard-line believers in the current Islamic regime are perhaps a little less likely to approach foreign infidels. This topic really warrants an entire blog post (or thesis) so we’ll leave it there and get back to the road.

Georgia and Perry arrived in Mashhad the day after Christmas and we welcomed our two new team members! A last minute decision for them to come and join us made for a whirlwind reunion at the airport where public affections had to be contained to a minimum in this very religious city. Het and George spent the evening staring into each others’ eyes and talking at a thousand miles an hour as Vahid graciously welcomed the new members into his home.

Mashhad is the second most holy city for Muslims after Mecca as it is the burial place of Imam Reza, the most popular Imam in Iran and the Shia Muslim world. A huge holy shrine sits around Imam Reza’s tomb, and as one might imagine, Mashhadi people tend to be some of the most devout Muslims in Iran.

The four of us visited the holy shrine the next day with Vahid and Taher, who had lent Georgia and Het two black chadors to disguise them as Muslims. Non-muslims are often not allowed into the inner sanctum of the shrine and are given conspicuous white chadors to alert the volunteers to their presence. The shrine is architecturally, mind-blowing. The whole interior of the labyrinthine rooms leading to the shrine are adorned with tiny pieces of geometrical mirrors reflecting the lights coming from stained glass windows and the crimson carpets. The exterior is a marvel of mosaic tiles covering the immense domes, archways and courtyards of the complex. At the heart of the shrine sits Imam Reza’s tomb, a huge structure enclosed in a silver cage. Men and women (separated by a large dividing wall) crowd into the burial chamber where the tomb sits, crying and wailing as they push forward to place their hands on the silver cage, all mourning an Imam that died 1200 years ago. For us as athiests, this display of such raw emotion based on religious beliefs was striking, and we emerged from the burial chamber speechless at what we had witnessed.

The next couple of days were spent preparing for the road again, replacing chains and cassettes for Tim and Het’s 6000km milestone and reconstructing Georgia and Perry’s bikes. Vahid bade us farewell with the promise to come and visit us in Tehran, and he waved from the platform as we boarded the sleeper train with four bikes and 14 panniers en route for Shiraz!

We arrived in Shiraz on New Years Eve and spent the evening celebrating with 30 of our host’s family, who all came from a village to the north of Shiraz. Eisa and Nooshie (friends of Vahid’s) lent Georgia and Het local dresses from the village, which were a great hit at the party. The first day of the new year, a Friday, was spent at a small farm block out of the city with Isa’s relatives having a huge picnic of kebabs, freshly made bread cooked in a stone tandoor and more chai than you could ever wish for. Friday is the only “weekend” day for Iranians, and it is often spent doing things like this, almost always with family.

We woke the next day excited at the prospect of our first day on the road as treadly four! The day, however, was somewhat short lived. With four of us to account four, things were a little slower. Day one, Tim left his sunglasses behind, Het directed us to the wrong road out of Shiraz so we had to take a more circuitous (and uphill!) route North and Perry and Georgia were enjoying the thrills of “which pannier is my [insert name of bike tool or item of clothing] in???” that all cycle tourists enjoy for their initial moments on the bike. We made it a mere 32km down the road and with the winter sun hours cruelly short, we pitched our tents in a muddy field in the dark. We assured George and Pez that things were usually not this bad and that it could only get better from here!

Whilst the temperatures plummeted during the night to – 10 degrees, the days were warm and the sun reflected off the snowy hills that we rode through for the next month. Things were on the up – countless cars pulled over offering us fruit, directions, “anything we could possibly need?” and on day two, a 2kg box of dates. On the morning of day three, we were shown by a man wandering down the dirt road we’d taken to find a camp spot, how to keep ourselves warm at night. He proceeded to light a bush on fire, miraculously with no starter, kindling or petrol.

We passed through Ardakan, a lofty mountain village high in the Zagroz mountains north of Shiraz, and the snow thickened on the side of the road. At roughly 2300m and with a meter of snow in all would-be campsites we opted to sleep in a small road-side shisha bar and teahouse.

The next day the road crested over a 2600m pass that offered spectacular views of the snow covered peaks and barren desert scapes. The rewards of the cold riding were reaped as we enjoyed a 40km downhill and some beautiful wild camping in the valleys beneath. With four of us to gather sticks it made the effort to reward ratio of a campfire in fairly deserted surrounds very favorable.

After six days of riding we had a very well timed rest day about 50km north of Yasuj. We were looking for a campsite about an hour before dusk and a kind man waved to us to come and drink chai with him in his farm stock warehouse by the side of the road. One of his friends who sipped tea with us whisked us back to his home and insisted we stay as long as we liked. He didn’t speak any English but his son, Mr. Mohsen, spoke an enthusiastically loud broken English that was, after being somewhat disconcerted at first as to whether he was angry or happy, delightful to listen to.

We woke the next morning to heavy rain and were invited to spend the day in Mr. Mohsen’s luxuriously warm living room as it bucketed down outside. In the evening we played card games with the family and cousins after a huge feast. Playing cards in Iran is illegal, as it is associated with gambling and general debauchery. In Mashhad we saw street peddlers selling packs of cards surreptitiously as though they were illicit substances.

Out into the cold the next day with considerable reluctance, we pushed on. We were riding on a major road now as we neared the next big city of Esfahan and the road was busy with lots of loud trucks that delighted in saying hello with numerous horn blasts. We managed to find a quiet little camp spot by a creek where we found a huge pile of fruit tree prunings waiting for us. George and Het set to making a cracking fire, but after almost an hour of fanning pathetic flames and inhaling carcinogenic amounts of smoke they admitted defeat and let Tim take over. Soon, a small fire was crackling away cheerfully. Georgia, in a merry state, made tea for the party and sat one mug on a stone next to the fire, intending for it to keep warm until Parry was finished setting the tent. Unfortunately, as George stepped away she knocked a stick out from under the mug and sent the contents all over the small fire, promptly extinguishing it with a steamy hiss. Tim succinctly dismissed himself and Het and George stifled giggles. The fire eventually got lit and all was well.

The next evening was also not without drama. After a long day of climbing we pulled into a conveniently located Red Crescent to ask if we could sleep the night. The volunteers manning the station looked enthusiastic, and called their boss to enquire. He flatly declined so we sheepishly headed back out in to the cold, bleak 2000m high plateau. The rain had caused the ground next to the road to form a thick clay-like mud layer that caked to everything that it came into contact with. We struggled down a small sidetrack, pushing the bikes once the wheels had clogged with mud, and found a spot to bed down for the night. Or so we thought.

A curious man had stopped by just before we began cooking dinner and seemed generally alarmed at our situation, “it’s cold, there’s wolves, you don’t know what it’s like here” was the general gist of his uncomfortably close interactions with Tim and Perry. After a few minutes of placating his concern, he hopped on his bike and went home for the evening. Or so we thought.

He had actually called the police, who promptly arrived on scene with five officers and lights flashing. Therein pursued a battle where we desparately tried to stay where we were, to not have to endure the inconvenience of breaking camp in – 5 temperatures and riding to another place in the dark. Several phone calls were made to dear Vahid in Mashad to translate the whole situation back and forth. Eventually they left the scene and we were sure we’d triumphed. Again, we were proved wrong several moments later when back up returned. Two police cars, two ambulances from the nearby Red Crescent and the head of the police for the region made it quite clear that we would be moving. We all packed into the ambulances (bikes and mud included) and said hello again to the volunteers at the Red Crescent. At 11pm, in quintessential Iranian fashion we all sat down for a welcoming tea by the head of the police, the head of both Red Crescents, police officers and volunteers, triumphant in their success of moving the idiotic foreigners to safe ground.

The final night of camping before reaching Esfahan was a delightful improvement on communication fronts. We pulled into a municipal park that had a tent sign on the entrance and set up. After a while, an equally concerned citizen, Gila, enquired as to our comfort levels, and we thought we would have to endure another night like the last one. However, Gila understood that the previous six months of such behavior had prepared us well for this life style and recognized the inconvenience of moving camp. Gila appeared the next morning with the mayor of the town, some members of the local fire brigade and onlookers with three bags of fruit, mountains of bread, cream, honey and cheese. They bade us farewell with a gift from the city of Zhibashar after showing us some interesting buildings in the town.

Esfahan was an array of cultural indulgence. A city adorned with perhaps the biggest number of ancient buildings, palaces, mosques, tombs and traditional houses of the wealthy families of bygone eras when the empire was at its strongest.

We had a lovely lunch with Madjid, a young man who worked in the perfume store beneath our hostel. He insisted we join him and his family in their home for some traditional Esfahani food, a tomato and lentil dish and the famous discs of candied sugar that accompany the requisite cups of tea. Gila came to visit us and we wandered the streets with her, her daughter Faisah and family. The evening ended in a men-versus-women laser tag competition where head-scarves were askew as all full-grown adults once again found their inner child and took it far too seriously.

With legs thoroughly rested after five days in the beautiful city we headed towards Tehran where Georgia and Perry would fly from in ten days’ time. Still with lots of time, we took a detour east of Esfahan to head towards the edge of the Dasht-e-Kavir desert. We decided to throw caution to the wind and turned off the major highway down a peaceful and well-sealed road that was unmarked on both our paper and GPS maps! What a good decision this was.

Glad to be out of the city and the awful Iranian traffic famed for its lack of rules and incredible congestion, we cycled through several picturesque tiny villages before setting up camp in the wide-open space. This stretch of road cuts through two large mountains in the distance, with Na’in to our east and Ardestan ahead. Several village ruins scattered the horizon, with crumbling mud brick walls and dead fruit trees the only traces of its former habitants. We spent a night in one such ruin, which made for one of the best camps of the month, the dead fruit trees made a huge fire and the walls sheltered us from the wind.

Two long days ride brought us to Kashan, the last town we’d ride to before hopping on a bus to Tehran. Riding into Kashan we faced strong head winds again, but now being treadly four made it a lot easier as we were able to share the load! The most notable thing about the road into Kashan is the huge pile of dirt forming a wall to the East of the highway; this is to hide what lies on the other side, perhaps the most controversial industry in Iran, the Natanz nuclear plant.

We camped in a park in Kashan to the bemusement of onlookers before heading out on a final jaunt into the Maranjab desert for three days. The 140km round trip was largely on a gravel and packed sand road that lead out to a huge salt lake and a centuries-old caravanserai that once welcomed travellers and traders along the old silk route. The ancient mud brick structure appeared on the horizon like some kind of mirage and we all postulated what it would have been like being atop camels 500 years ago. Camels in fact still live in this desert and we enjoyed their curious glances as we rode by. We spent an enjoyable rest day out in the desert, Tim and Perry practicing their mad skids as we rode out to see massive sand dunes and an ancient water well.

As treadly four we were gifted one last wonder of Iranian hospitality on our way back from the desert the next day. We had almost reached Kashan when we spotted another cyclist on the adjacent road heading in the opposite direction to us. He had some panniers on the back and we all waved manically at him. He came our way and soon extended the offer of chai, food, a place to sleep and bezam berim we were off to his house! Mahdi, our kind host, owned a carpet factory, was a keen cyclist and horse rider and was part of a cycle club in Aran Va Bidgol, just outside of Kashan.

An action packed first month Iran. In Tehran we farewelled George and Perry and welcomed Sarah and Richard, Hetty’s parents from Australia. They whisked us off for a whirlwind tour of Iran for two weeks before we headed North West to Turkey. More on that soon!

The Turkmen Dash

Route Summary Farab, Uzbekistan to Seraks, Turkmenistan

Day 1: 95km
Day 2: 120km
Day 3: 125km
Day 4: 100km
Day 5: 76km

Total km ridden: 5228km

For cross continental cycle tourists, Turkmenistan is a thorn in amongst several Central Asian gems. To ride from Central Asia to Europe, crossing the desert in Turkmenistan is the shortest route to reach Iran and then Turkey. With a recent change in leadership, the Turkmenistan government looks to be liberalizing, but the country as a whole is incredibly hostile to the outside world; until very recently it was closed to accepting foreign aid or investment and it has only just become a member of the United Nations. As a tourist you are forbidden from travelling independently. So unless you want to pay a tour guide to cycle along with you (if that option even exists), you’re forced to make the 550km slog through the desert on a tight 5-day transit visa.

By now we’d met a dozen or so cycle tourists who had cycled in Turkmenistan coming from Europe, heading East. They repeatedly assured us that we’d practically be blown to Iran; they all experienced punishing desert head winds coming from the East. Buoyed by this, at the border we set off waiting for the winds to catch our panniers and give our legs a rest. This shouldn’t be so difficult, we thought.

We couldn’t have been more wrong. Winds here are seasonal, and given that our friends had crossed some three or so months earlier when the weather was scorching, the cold had now set in and with it, turned the winds almost exactly 180 degrees in our disfavor. Great. We soon changed up into our climbing gears and the battle began.

Now thoroughly working against the clock every day, we began to fully appreciate just how short the days had become. With the sun barely shining at 7am we needed an hour to eat, pack and scrape off the icy condensation on the inside of the tent and the frozen dew on the outside. This left us with only eight hours of sunlight to play with before the sun set at 5pm. With two of the five days being spent at either border our time was further chewed up, again answering inane questions about guns, drugs and porn. Our bike lights made a regular appearance in the evenings as the time constraints forced us to ride into the darkness on the shitty bitumen road.

DAY 1: We couldn’t start riding until midday as border formalities took so long. Once through we inhaled some lunch and braced ourselves for the ride ahead whilst gazing at a snake of trucks forming at the border, waiting to cross. A Chinese woman tried to sell a group of eight burly truck drivers some mysterious bag of unknown, dried plant-looking material. None of them seemed interested.

We rode along some delightfully drab detour roads around Turkmenabat, which was wholly unremarkable except for an extremely precarious bridge that moved as we rode across it. It was, quite literally, a floating bridge. Huge beams of concrete were being erected to our left to more securely transport the hordes of cross-continental Iranian and Turkish trucks. But until those were ready, the Turkmen solution was to link twenty-odd sections of buoyant, pressed steel about 10m long each with some crude hinging system. Following a truck this made for a roller-coaster-like journey across the 200m too-long contraption. As the truck broached the hinge the steel jerked and jived downward and our bikes would lurch forward until the truck cleared that section, at which time it would release, forming a bobbing uphill precipice. This was made all the more fun by the fact that the bridge was two-way, and nobody was driving on a dedicated side – so our truck periodically pretended it was in Pakistan again and drove on the left-hand side. Needless to say we survived and welcomed the pot-holed bitumen once more.

Just as we’d cleared the outskirts the cycle computer broke. Great. Basically the only time we’d need to be strictly counting kilometers and it decides to cark it. Neither of us had the energy to express our frustration. We found out some days later that the breakage was temporary; the electromagnetic radiation from Tim’s bike light was playing havoc with the computer’s electronics. 95km under the belt and it was all business; set up the tent, cook and get warm. The temperature sank to – 5.

Day 2: The wind today was a fun shoulder-tensing cross head-wind that periodically blew sand in our faces. The only reportable thing today was a fateful encounter with Evan Price (read his blog here), a South African cyclist whose first greeting after the mandatory “salam” was “I think I have it a bit better than you eh?” He was heading to the Pamirs now, meaning that he’d be in the thick of the bone-chilling 4000m plateau in January, a strong character to say the least. We swapped sim cards and lamented that the transit visa meant we couldn’t chat on.

Just before sundown we happened upon a lovely winter yurt at the only town all day. The town consisted of a newly built, characterless hotel and a soviet style building, potentially disused in its lifeless state. The warmth of the yurt was too hard to resist, so we stopped for a breather before pushing on into the night. We had a snack of fried eggs, stale bread and nescafé and refueled. We rode for an hour before we estimated we’d travelled 120km and bunked down.

DAY 3: The best thing about today was an improvement in road conditions. We cycled through the second major city for the whole transit, Mary, which boasts great new roads and not a lot else in our opinion.

We shopped for the remaining two days, spending a grand sum of US$10 on pasta, canned mushrooms and biscuits. Tim filled up the water bottles from a tap out the back surrounded by some old lead-acid truck batteries. The shop owner emphatically said “Turkmenistan, no good! Iran, GOOD!” boosting our motivation. He offered his four-year-old daughter to Het and said
“Australia.” We politely declined the generous offer and pushed on.

Today was the day we also figured out what was wrong with the cycle computer. Tim moved his light away from the computer and we measured a good 125km before camping in a wholly dissatisfying situation between thorny bushes on a goat track, as indicated by the black pellets of remains in the dirt.

DAY 4: Miraculously neither of our tyres were punctured on the off-road push to the camp site last night. It was freezing today, the sun didn’t shine at all and the sky was white and hazy. Our hands were numbed to the bones in the chilly first two hours in the morning, when fortunately a truck-stop tea house in the middle of nowhere appeared. The shop owners took pity on our wind-battered faces and shouted us two cups of steaming sugary-make-feel-good coffee. It couldn’t last; Tim dragged Het from the warmth reminding her of the distance we needed to cover and we pushed on into the fog.

A herd of camels brightened the surrounds with their curious faces, and we broke our determined faces with a smile. Not long after they were out of sight, a man on a motorbike pulled along side Tim and asked, “Camel, Camel?” We nodded gladly and he sped off. A fellow camel lover! But in the desert, life is tough. We rounded what seemed like practically the next corner and two car loads of people stood around a large, bright pink, recently skinned carcass which was unmistakably camel-shaped.

The evening improved as we found a camp-site in amongst some small shrub-like trees, many of which were dead and crisp dry. We made a fire and enjoyed the beautiful starry sky of the desert.

The gates to Seraks, rising like a beacon on the bleak horizon

DAY 5: We made good progress over the last four days and only had to make it 75km to the border. This was a good thing as the winds picked up again today. We sheltered from them once more in a roadside shop where the lovely buxom owner made us chai and her inquisitive grand daughter looked on. We spent our last manat on biscuits and calculated that over the last five days, we’d spent a grand total of $25 between the two of us. If nothing else, this transit was good for the budget, which normally sits at around $15-20 per day for the two of us.

Just before reaching customs a car pulled over and the driver hopped out. He smiled enthusiastically as he popped the boot and revealed a basketball-sized watermelon which Tim thought was too kind to refuse. With the tent taking up all the room on the top of his rear rack, Het strapped it precariously to hers and we approached the border. After x-raying each pannier the guards insisted we put the watermelon through, which promptly fell off the end, fatally bruising it. Tim was forced to play the harmonica for all the guards after having explained the use of every item in his panniers. The guards did the same thing to Het as well, resulting in an awkward explanation of the use of a menstrual cup, done in sign language.

Thoroughly relieved to have completed the slog, we sat at customs on the Iranian side and drank chai with the officers. They “trusted” us that our bags had no contraband in them and we stumbled into the Doosti Hotel, Doosti being a Persian word meaning friendship. Little did we know that this word would soon symbolize our time in Iran. More on this soon!

UZBEKISTAN: Land of Donkeys, Dressing Gowns and Blue Domes

 The cycling in Uzbekistan was a nice change in theme from neighbouring Tajikistan. The snowy peaks, yurts and yaks were replaced with grassy hills, masses of donkeys and blue-domed ancient cities. No longer rushing to escape the repressive cold and altitude, we took more time to explore a few spots off the direct route to Turkmenistan, including a bike less hitch-hike adventure to the Aral Sea. We also had the joy of riding as a four for a brief interlude with our new English friends Luke and Flora who were headed in the same direction.

It was our last day in Tajikistan and we awoke in an apricot orchard to a frosty tent on Het’s birthday. A memorable day lay ahead, featuring Uzbekistan border guards rifling through every single item in our panniers, including an irritating inspection of ‘suspicious’ photo and video files on our computer. Het’s attempt to sing herself happy birthday to the guards to lighten the mood was met with stony faces and more inane questions like; did you meet any terrorists? Do you have large knives? Guns? Drugs? Painkillers? You get the picture.

Things soon improved. We knew that the exchange rate of US dollars to Uzbekski Som was pretty inflated, but weren’t quite expecting what we found at the border. Het told Mr. Enthusiastic-change-money-with-me-or-do-not-pass that it was her birthday and applause soon broke out amongst onlookers. Amongst the celebrations a huge wad of notes as thick as her wrist was passed to her. “Wow, a present thank you sir! Very kind of you” she replied, assuming they’d jokingly handed her all the money they held as some sort of happy-birthday-just-kidding-give-it-back kind of jest. It soon dawned on us that this was not some bestowment in celebration of her quarter century milestone, but rather the due sum of money for the singular 20-dollar bill she held. The current blackmarket rate for changing money in Uzbekistan is 1USD to 5,500 Uzb Som. Whilst a 5,000-som note is available, 1,000-som notes are the most commonly used. So basically this transaction meant swapping one bill for 110. A lesson in inflation and how to fill your panniers with cash and feel like a million(billion?)aire.

Our route in Uzbekistan was pretty straightforward; ride in a northwesterly direction towards Bukhara. No longer in harsh natural environments, the road was much more populated than the routes of the past months. We shopped for fresh fruit and vegetables in markets that lined the major roads through towns and began to attract large crowds reminiscent of the hordes of onlookers in India. Temperatures had also risen considerably as we descended in altitude to near sea-level once again, this made for an easy few days’ ride.

Just as the sun was setting on our second day a smiley middle aged man in the typical Russian fur hat pulled up along side us on his locally made steel bicycle just near the small village of Ravshan. After a few brief enquiries as to our journey and homeland, he led us down a donkey path to his family’s farm atop magnificent grassy hilltops. He and his children and grandchildren lived with his brother’s family in a large mud-brick house surrounded by buildings for animal mangers and vegetable harvests. We ate potato and carrot soup with the three generations of grown on the farm and dolloped yoghurt on top, fresh from the family’s three cows.

There was discussion about a wedding in broken English and Uzbek, and we initially thought this was the common inquiry as to our marital status. It soon transpired however that it was not our wedding they were talking about, but the wedding happening that very evening just across the paddock at the neighbour’s house, to which we, of course, were invited. We traipsed across the freshly ploughed fields towards the booming music and flashes of light in the distance. Bride and groom stood somewhat awkwardly up on stage as at least a hundred or so guests gyrated awesomely below to loud Uzbek techno. After being ushered up on stage for a photo with the bride and groom, we gladly retreated to the back of the dance area for a boogie with the kids. Dread soon took over as the MC walked towards us with a reverberant microphone, quite clearly indicating that it was our turn to take the floor. Given that we’d been in the country barely three days, you can imagine how this went down. We managed a few broken words of “thank you and very good” in Uzbek and similar Russian utterances. Our hosts for the evening were keen to usher us back home, potentially for having made the worst wedding speech in Uzbek history, or otherwise concerned that we’d be swarmed by the mounting number of requests for selfies. Bizarre and fabulous.

The highs of the wedding that evening struck a stark contrast to the frustration we experienced 24 hours later in Qarshi. After a long, uninspiring hundred-kilometer ride, we were searching for a hotel. Uzbekistan isn’t the most liberal country for cycle tourists on a budget as the law states that tourists have to “register” at a hotel every three days. Right, this shouldn’t be too hard, we thought in a city of 200,000 people. Wrong. After trudging through traffic and one way streets for hours it seemed, Het lost it after the fourth receptionist of some drab soviet style empty hotel, said yet again “Niet tourist. Niet. Only Uzbekski.” The fifth and final hotel finally accepted us, and after a quick lavash – the local specialty of kebab meat, pickled cucumber and cabbage wrapped in thin bread, we promptly collapsed.

Next morning things were on the up. We’d had word that Luke and Flo, who we’d met in Dushanbe were in town and ready to ride to Bukhara! The four of us rode together in the afternoon with a kind Uzbek man, Buxrez who joined us for a time on his road bike. In the evening we camped at a large fruit and cotton farm. These large-scale farms are typical in Uzbekistan, a relic of the agricultural collectivization schemes prevalent in the former USSR. At the Kolkhoz (collective farms) peasants were forcibly required to work long hours for very little pay. Integral to collectivization was the even spread of ownership amongst labourers, but in reality the farms were owned exclusively by the government. This meant the government pocketed any profit turned by the crop. Whilst the conditions of workers has improved slightly now since independence, there are still numerous peasant farms where workers are forced to bring in the harvest, again, receiving a pittance for the hard manual labour.

We pushed the last 145kms to Bukhara in one hit, our biggest day yet. We were motivated both by the presence of our friends Luke and Flo, and by the reward of another lovely warm showers hostess we’d heard about from cyclists we’d passed in Tajikistan. Rakhima and her family welcomed us with warmth and generosity, cooking delicious manti and samsa every evening and pointing us in the direction of the beautiful sights of this ancient Silk Road city during the day. She lived in a large home housing three generations, her parents, her sister and both of their children. Mohammed Amine and Abdul, the two young cousins were killer tennis players, and we enjoyed being thrashed by them at a local court where they play every evening, without fail.

In the old city dotted amongst ancient blue domes and mud brick houses where smoke still billows out of the chimney, we were transported back in time. Much to our delight this area is yet to be tainted by the soulless package-delivered kind of tourism and all it’s plastic keyrings and tacky t-shirts. Small stalls with wooden tables are instead dispersed amongst the cobbled streets selling fur hats, woven goods, and all kinds of brightly coloured dressing gowns as if unchanged since the city’s walls were erected.

The most amusing stall for us was the gown stalls, being the dress of choice of all Uzbek men worth knowing. No longer confined to the inner sanctum of one’s home, the dressing gown in Uzbekistan is promoted as an all-purpose, all weather garment. Regularly seen worn atop a donkey being hurtled at a cruel pace along the dusty roadside it provides not only wind protection, but also padding as the Uzbek dressing gown is lined with a layer of wool sewn like a quilt. Tim spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince Luke that this traditional garb would prove very useful on the bike. This resulted in a very amusing hour or so with a keen shop attendant dressing Luke in every kind of dressing gown imaginable. Sadly no purchases were made.

We bade a temporary farewell to our bicycles and Bukhara as we left Rakhima’s house a couple of days later. We had been debating for a while whether to visit the old coastline of the Aral Sea as part of our time in Uzbekistan and had finally decided it would be an opportunity too good to pass up. The only problem was the distance involved. The easiest place to get to the old shoreline was the town of Moynaq, some 700km north of Bukhara. We would never have been able to cycle this distance with our date-specific visa restrictions, so we embarked on a different kind of journey to see-the-sea; Hitch-Hiking!

We walked through the Karvon Bazaar (a stopping point for trucks of all shapes and sizes) picking up supplies for the days ahead before going back to the highway and checking out the plethora of trucks parked nearby. We asked a few drivers where they were heading but had no luck; they were either going in the wrong direction or were too full to take us. Then, a brand new Volvo truck pulled up sporting number plates from Belgium. We walked over to it and were greeted by one of the loveliest truck drivers we could possibly have stumbled upon, Adil Khan. He leaned out of his window as we approached saying, “Assalam aleykum, sprechen sie Deutsch?” Finally, Tim’s 7 years of German language at high school would start to pay off! Adil knew exactly what we wanted to do and warmly beckoned us into his spacious and comfortable truck cabin. For anyone who hasn’t been in a truck before, it’s pretty amazing. The new truck cockpits look almost like a cross between a car cabin and an aeroplane cabin. Adil beckoned for Tim to take the empty co-driver seat while Het spread out on the bunk behind and promptly fell asleep. What followed was a lovely interaction in broken German, English and Russian learning about Adil, his job and his family. Adil was a somewhat famous Kazakh man along these roads, who worked for Rynhart International, a company that has the contract to transport “goods” from Europe for NATO forces in Afghanistan. We never found out exactly what the goods were, but given the way Adil was treated by the police at the numerous checkpoints and the diplomatic plates of his truck we gather they were pretty important.

Adil wasn’t going to Moynaq himself, but he was happy to drop us at the closest town on his route. Adil’s driving hours were restricted by some fairly rigorous workplace safety strategies, which meant that we had to stop for the evening before we reached our drop off point. With ample room in the cabin we all slept comfortably on the bunk bed and felt humbled by this gesture of kindness, which relied on mutual trust.

Thoroughly buoyed by our jaunt with Adil we approached the bewildering town, Moynaq. Formerly a seaport town with a thriving fishing industry, Moynaq is now an eerie establishment of abandoned warehouses, shipping yards and disused streets all decaying with 50 years of obsolescence. The Aral Sea was once the fourth largest sea in the world. Before 1961 it was 66,000 square kilometers and was a thriving ecosystem that the local population relied on for a living. However, the former USSR saw the rivers that fed the sea as a neat source of water to irrigate the surrounding land so it could produce cotton. Over-extraction caused the sea level to drop so dramatically that the shoreline has moved some 100-200km away from Moynaq. As of 2010 the sea covered only 12,000 square kilometres. At the former shoreline the ship carcasses speak to an environmental disaster on a massive scale, a stark reminder to us all of humanity’s impacts on natural ecosystems and the consequences of grossly mismanaged natural resources.

We pitched the tent on the soft seabed where little shells sat strangely in the middle of this huge expanse of what is now desert. The sea no longer regulates the temperatures of this area of Uzbekistan and so the land surrounding the old seabed now experiences much hotter temperatures in Summer and as we found, much colder temperatures in Winter.

Next morning we thought we would try our luck again at hitching. To our surprise we barely waited 10 minutes before an ever so slightly mad Iranian driver pulled over with his load of beverages from an Uzbek brewery. He spoke at us for a couple of hours entertaining us with loud Russian and Farsi, potentially mixed at the same time who knows? We agreed to almost everything he said, especially as he dodged potholes at break-neck speed and gesticulated to how great a driver he was. Somewhat glad to disembark we hopped in a share taxi to Khiva where we spent an indulgent two nights in a hotel and marveled at the blue domed ancient sights.

With two days left before the start date of our Turkmenistan visa we flagged down a bus back to Bukhara after waiting a few hours for a hitch to no avail. This was the beginning of a nightmare. The seats we sat in were detached from the bus itself, resting on a plank of wood and the bus ticket was decidedly not cheap. We rationed that it was probably worth it to ensure that we made the border in time, as we were a 10-hour drive from Bukhara. That would be if the bus didn’t stop for a 7 hour dinner and nap break from 9pm – 4am at a nondescript concrete tea house in the middle of nowhere, but only 60 kilometres away from the warmth of our lovely Uzbek home. That would also be if the bus dropped us in Bukhara and not an hour away on a lonesome highway turnoff as it headed for Tashkent, leaving us stranded at 5am. Needless to say we eventually made it to Bukhara, mid morning, red eyed and ready to disintegrate onto the floor and sleep until we had to ride the 100km to the border. Sleep we did, and next day we camped within earshot of the border guards to give ourselves as much time as possible to cross Turkmenistan in five days, as required by our only-possible transit visa.

Tajikistan Pt 2, The Wakhan Valley

Route Summary: Kargush – Dushanbe, Tajikistan

(Again, we didn’t record many exact distances, so this is another approximation)

Approx km ridden: ~4105 km

Typical Wakhan; sleepy villages, rough roads and turquoise blue water.

Riding through the Wakhan valley was somewhat like going back in time. The wintery struggles of the Pamirs receded and we now drifted through sleepy villages lined with poplar trees still adorned with beautiful autumnal foliage. We cycled during the day in long-sleeved t-shirts and the warmer evenings allowed us to sit under starry skies in the yawning valley, the Panj River flowing fiercely beside us. Still time conscious with our 30-day visa, we couldn’t linger as long as we’d liked in this stunning part of the world. However, we had many beautiful interactions with welcoming families and thoroughly enjoyed the change in riding conditions.

That said, the first stretch of the Wakhan Valley is along a barely used road as most road traffic bypasses the treacherous Kargush Pass and only joins the Wakhan Valley at Khorog. That meant that the first ~250km of the dirt road was littered with rocks and stones and sand at times. Slow going.

The full moon of the end of October rose stunningly over the snowy Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan on our first evening by the Panj River. Despite being warned about wolves from a few people, we had pitched our tent by some old crumbled stonewalls of a former settlement blissfully alone and peaceful and glad to be down at 2000m and much warmer.

The next day’s cycling was bumpy and demanding. The slight downhill of the road meant keeping your eyes peeled for huge sharp rocks to dodge. This was made more difficult by mesmerizing snowy peaks of the Hindu Kush framing the gaping valley that constantly tempted us to take our eyes off the road. This section of road is known for its rim shattering, fork snapping roughness, and succumbing to either of these bicycle injuries would mean skipping the Wakhan and hitching all the way to Dushanbe. The earthquake we’d felt a few days back had caused several small landslides that had mostly been cleared. One excavator had been set to work on an impossibly narrow stretch of road that teetered precariously on the side of a treacherous 100ft drop. We were grateful to be operating much narrower vehicles.

Aside from the roadwork machinery, we glimpsed a few other transport mechanisms, though these other means belonged to a very different era to the excavators and trucks. We were lucky enough to see not one, but two majestic caravans of camels and donkeys traipsing along the faint pads on the Afghan side of the valley. Beautifully adorned with colourful fabrics and laden with goods in hessian bags, these true Silk Road relics remain a contemporary means of transporting goods to the remote villages in the Afghan mountain regions. We contemplated whether the captains of these caravans were transporting food and supplies to earthquake-affected villages that weren’t accessible by road.

We descended into Layangar and the last of the snowy, rocky patches of road gave way to dusty dirt roads connecting the tiny unmarked villages that appeared every dozen or so kilometers. Our homestay that evening included the company of a very friendly cat who curled up in the bottom of our bed. Traditional bedding in Tajikistan and much of Central Asia consists of a mattress of two kurpacha, human-length cushions. The kurpacha double as futons used instead of chairs around around the foot-high sandal (table), where meals and chai are taken. The mattresses are filled with cotton or wool and are surprisingly comfortable. The doona that accompanies the mattress is made of the same filling and whilst very warm can be decidedly restrictive, its weight meaning shifting position in the night is a physical challenge. We’re not quite sure how the cat wasn’t flattened in the process of sneaking into the bed.

We continually received offers of chai throughout the following days by friendly faces who were out and about in the towns we passed. Come midday the following day we heard a 4WD approaching behind us and were startled to hear shouts of, “AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE!!!” from behind us. We turned as the car stopped and two Australians, Dave and Wills, got out and shook our hands. They had seen our salutation in a guestbook a few days previously and had been wondering when they would catch us. We sat and had an enjoyable lunch in the sunshine, and parted after Dave spent a good few minutes grinding fresh pepper into a bag for us.

That evening we asked a couple of young guys the directions to the homestay marked on our map in their village. They insisted on pushing our bikes up the un-rideably steep track. Half way up they stopped a group of young schoolgirls and asked them to explain in English that we should stay at their home instead, if we’d like. Always glad for a more authentic hosting experience we happily trundled into their congenial household where two (possibly three) families filled the walls with laughter and giggles, coming mostly from the four very confident under seven year olds running around.

We were offered more food than we could possibly stomach and surrounded by all members of the family who between them only had a few words of English to match our paltry Russian and Tajik. Most people in Tajikistan still speak Russian (and indeed it’s still taught at most schools), despite the country having gained independence 25 years ago when the USSR dissolved. Undeterred by this communication barrier the women in the family clearly gesticulated to Het that she should not leave without visiting the natural hot springs eight kilometers up the steep road, as it is known for its fertility enhancing properties. Explaining all this in sign language was amusing to say the least.

The next morning we indulged in a thorough cleansing in the spectacular Bibifatima hot spring, our first wash for eight days. For Het this meant bathing naked in the women’s section with four gracefully wrinkled Tajik women in their 70s and for Tim in the men’s section, unashamedly getting naked with our host. We delighted in this lack of prudery when we met up again and headed on our way.

The next couple of days we trundled down the (very slightly) improved dirt road as we neared Khorog, dreaming of tarmac. One sunny morning we happened upon George, a yacht captain from St Tropéz in the south of France who was driving a military grade Mercedes 4WD across Central Asia. He pulled up along side us and stated simply, “eh, bonjour, would you like un café? Un ‘ot chocolate?” He proceeded to brew two bottles of Evian water with French coffee that we sipped over delightful conversation. With liquid caffeine replacing our usual lunch break we zoomed along towards Ishkashim at an average speed we hadn’t reached since China!

At Ishkashim there is a border crossing into Afghanistan, and from here the Afghan side of the Wakhan is as equally populated as the Tajik side. The beautiful sleepy villages with mud brick walls and subsistence farm lots seemed to defiantly stand as an antithesis to the country’s war-torn reputation. That said, the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan is reputedly one of the largest drug corridors in the world, carrying opium and hashish up towards Russia and beyond and the heavy presence of Tajik border guards and soldiers served as a stark reminder of this.

From Ishkashim to Khorog the Panj river descends steeply, as does the road and on one evening we fell asleep to the sounds of the roaring rapids just outside the door of our home in Sist. It was Sunday the 1^st of November and four young boys were keen to show us a place to camp that afternoon just shy of Sist. Tired and both feeling the effects of latent illnesses contracted in the Pamirs we jumped at the suggestion that we could also sleep in one of their homes if we’d rather. A bashful and very bright 12 year old boy, Suraj, promptly led us to his nearby home, still pushing Tim’s bike. His mother, Sarafshon was just taking a fresh loaf of bread out of the oven, the smell tantalizingly filling our nostrils. Before hitting the road next morning, Sarafshon insisted we take with us an enormous jar of the homemade apricot jam that complimented the bread that evening. Tim and her son rode to school on Het’s bike, both with goofy grins on their faces.

By Khorog, the largest city in the region, we were in need of a rest day. By this stage both of us were experiencing sulphur-smelling burps, amongst other ailments (ahem), unmistakably symptomatic of giardia. We indulged in the rare delights of pizza and beer and did as little physical exercise as possible and resolved to deal with our illnesses when we reached the capital in a week or so.

Dirt-streaked, wind lashed and leathery faces pre-shower in Khorog. Yes, that is a sunglasses tan on Tim’s nose. Yes, Het teases him about it.

Two days later and with Het still quite ill we had to push on, but struggled to make much progress when we got back on the road. Hoping to pitch our tent in the yard of a small farm near the small village of Yoskandez we gestured to Sasha, a smiley man in his 50s if this was possible. In true Tajik fashion we were welcomed into his family home, a haven of warmth, fresh apples from the orchard and hot chicken soup. The main room had a beautiful pamiri dome typical of the architecture of the region. As it turned out, Sasha was actually a renowned builder of these Pamiri domes; he had built the one in his own home and had built some 55 others in his career.

Sasha and his wife fared us well the next morning with a pannier-sized bag of crisp apples and two pairs of Pamiri socks, hand-knitted by his sister in law. Women in this region are rarely seen without these colourful calf-high leg warmers. Such exceptional generosity gave us much to reflect on for the next couple of days in the saddle.

The road turned to smooth tarmac after Khalaikum and we used this opportunity to speed towards Dushanbe and rode our first 100km + day since China. With only two days left before we needed to extend our visa in Dushanbe and still 300km of road to traverse, it was dawning on us that we’d need to hitch soon.

We rode one last stretch of road that had some great downhill sweeps but also one awful uphill switch back section. This section was made all the worse by the road works and gentle rain that combined to turn the road into a blissful, slippy clay. One pedal forward, two slips back and many vociferous comments on the state of the road. We gave up and stuck our thumbs out after the herders who we passed twice already on the climb, trotted past for a third time. This time we realized they were potentially aided by a large bottle of home brew/moonshine swaying in the hand of one very jolly middle aged herder who sang merrily as he ascended the pass, sodden but buoyant in his drunken state.

That evening we had our last Tajik hosting experience that typified the hospitality that we were continually impressed by. The owner of a large magazin (shop) with workshop next door insisted that instead of pitching our tent we sleep with his family above the shop. Again the chai and food flowed all evening around the sandal and we were welcomed as honoured guests. Tim spent a large part of the evening helping the family’s 12-year-old son with maths homework, glad to able to give something back for all their generosity. The next day we had to be in Dushanbe, so we rode a little and then wrote a sign with ‘Dushanbe’ written in our best Cyrillic alphabet and held it up roadside.

Unsuccessful at hitching, a taxi delivered us to our hostel. Exhausted, wet and smelling horrendously again we tallied a total of four showers in the past month. A package from home was waiting for us at reception and in it was some new woolen underwear, a solar panel charger to replace the one now potentially sitting in a coalmine in Kyrgyzstan (see Kyrgyzstan post), a new set of tyres for Tim and best of all, a bar of peppermint soap. The feeling of washing off a month of sweat, tears and determination will stay with us for a long time.

Despite desperately wanting a sleep-in we had to arise early the next day to head to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be first in the notoriously slow line to extend our visas. We needed extra time in the capital to apply for ongoing visas for Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran. When we arrived at the visa center no guards tended the barriers and we had to knock at the soviet-style imposing front door of the Ministry itself to find someone to let us in, somewhat odd we mused. The yawning guard handed us a paper ticket stamped ‘001’ and we sat in the empty waiting room triumphant to be the first in line. After 30 minutes of waiting there was still no action behind the desks, and we thought perhaps we should double check the international time setting on the phone. Only then did we learn that for the past month we had been running on Kyrgyz time, an hour ahead of Tajik time. Guess it isn’t all that often that one can operate, completely obliviously for a whole month, in the wrong time zone. A neat symbol of our time in the Pamir Mountains and the Wakhan Valley.

Tajikistan Pt. 1 – Ultimate Highs and Ultimate Lows

Route Summary Kyrgyzstan – Kargush, Tajikistan

(We were too cold to record distances, but the total distance from the Kyrgyz border to Kargush in the Wakhan Valley was roughly 340km with 4 passes over 4000m).

Total km ridden: 3,819km

Cycling through Tajikistan has certainly been the most challenging yet rewarding part of our journey thus far, so it is with great pleasure that we begin writing this post. The three week ride from mid-October to early November was a roller-coaster in several ways; the Pamir Highway took us up and down several snowy passes of over 4000m and the temperature ranged from a bone-chilling -30^oC on the Pamirs to a balmy 20^oC in the Wakhan Valley. Our emotions oscillated from teary tantrums as we pushed our bicycles up snow-covered passes with numb extremities, to moments of euphoric joy at the stunning scenery surrounding us and the warm (figuratively and literally) hospitality of the Pamiri people. Tajikistan has pushed us to our very limits, making us seriously consider flying home at times, but has also brought us some of the most memorable moments and in the end, left us wanting more.

On the 17th of October, we climbed over the 4300m Kizil-Art Pass and descended to the Tajik border. We had our first glimpse of hospitality here, with a friendly border guard offering us both a spare room to sleep in at the border, and an offer of a place to stay on our arrival in Dushanbe. The dirt road from the border was badly corrugated making the usually rewarding downhill considerably disappointing. However, we were cheered slightly by passing two other cycle tourists in the afternoon, an indicator of how popular this road for two-wheeled travellers.

Today’s most difficult riding was over the Uybulok pass at 4232m. Although the road was in a poor state, the incline was gradual and the wind low so we didn’t have to push. At the top of the pass we were rewarded with a spectacular view of Karakul Lake and a long downhill on the now paved road. The joy was short lived however, as the winds soon picked up and we battled head winds once again. With wind-chilled faces and red noses we were glad to be welcomed by a lovely elderly couple the Sadat Homestay at Karakul, a cavernous haven of Pamiri carpet covered walls and a delightfully warm potbelly stove.

Another morning of strong head winds was ahead of us as we very slowly left Karakul after a breakfast of bread, jam and fried eggs. The winds persisted all day and meant that we covered 30km before the temperature dropped severely and it was time to shelter in our tent. At an altitude of roughly 3000m we already needed to cook dinner in the warmth of the vestibule of the tent to avoid the numbness that our hands were suffering from outside in the cold and wind.

We woke up to snow gently trickling down the sides of the tent, an exciting and rather beautiful site as we peeked out the tent door. This excitement soon faded into slight trepidation at the thought of the cycling ahead. With the addition of new tasks like breaking the thick ice blocking our access to drinking water, we could scarcely imagine what we’d find at the highest pass.

After a couple of hours riding in the eerily calm snowstorm, the road soon became thickly carpeted. Het particularly began to struggle with her smooth road tyres slipping and sliding, falling on occasion onto hard gravel. Today was also the day that we’d be tackling the highest pass on the Pamirs, Akbaital, reaching a soaring 4655m. However, with the challenge of a slippery road and smooth tyres there was no way we’d summit today, so we decided to bed down at the only water point before the pass. The river looked spectacular with undulating frozen rivulets in piercing blues and whites atop the smooth stones on the riverbed.

Just as we had closed up the tent for the night to cook dinner and retire we heard the tell tale sound of an engine stopping on the road just metres away. A few seconds later an enthusiastic “helloooo!” came from just outside the tent and a mad Russian motorcyclist greeted us. “My name is Guskov, Goooose, like the animal!” flapping his arms in a manic fashion. Gus then enthusiastically videoed us on his GoPro, commentating in very lively Russian. He wrote his contact details in our notebook, insisted that we stay with him if we ever came to Russia and hopped back on his loaded dirt bike.

That night we both woke on several occasions, our -10^oC proof sleeping bags (zipped together for warmth), silk liner, woolen thermals and down jackets not quite warm enough for a comfortable night’s sleep. We had no way of knowing for certain, but we guessed that the temperature had dropped to at least -20/25^oC (maybe more). To make matters worse, the altitude so affected Het that in the morning her face had swollen drastically, giving her a splitting migraine, a tell tale sign of altitude sickness.

We both seriously questioned whether we should actually ride on, knowing that there were still two more 4000m+ passes remaining. The tops of our sleeping bags and inside of the tent had a layer of frozen condensation that slowly melted while we waited for Het’s face to return to normal. This took until midday.

Akbaital pass was thankfully not as steep as we’d anticipated and the usually badly corrugated road had been made smoother with the layer of snow. We climbed up slowly but surely, now more used to riding in snow and not slipping so much.

The major challenge today, unusually, was on the downhill. The normally effortless coasting of downhills was replaced with a treacherous steep descent that demanded absolute concentration to spot the black ice patches on the road. If we didn’t site a patch of ice in time and made the mistake of applying our brakes at that moment, we would most definitely slide out and hit the deck. Hard. With switchbacks and steep downhills, we had to choose the snowy patches of road to brake and coast, terrifyingly, over the ice. The braking was made more difficult with the piercingly cold winds painfully numbing our hands. Thankfully, we made it down accident-free to the bottom of the pass where there was a lone farmhouse that we’d heard operated as an informal guesthouse to cyclists if you knocked on the door.

At the house, a Frenchman cycling from the opposite direction joined us, also glad to sit in front of the potbelly stove and thaw out. We shared a basic meal of fried potatoes and Pamiri bread, served in the typical Tajik fashion; the bread wrapped in a cloth that is unfolded, serving as a table in the center of long, foot-wide mats that one sits upon. Typically, the bread is pretty tough as it’s only baked every few days, so dipping it in your tea is customary. Thomas (the Frenchman) gave us one of the best things possible that really helped us get through the remainder of the Pamirs – the full audiobook series of Harry Potter, especially useful on the freezing cold nights.

Tim and Thomas the morning after before setting off in -9 degrees.

We had a big day’s cycling the next day, perhaps motivated by the fact that Murghab was a very achievable 70km down the road. Here we knew that there was a well-stocked market (our chocolate supplies ran out days ago) and a famous, very comfortable, guesthouse. Today we also left the snow behind and the road condition improved greatly. This is largely because 50kms before Murghab there is a road to China, a mere 100km to the East. This border crossing is only open to the Chinese and Tajik and is the major trade route for the large Chinese trucks.

At Murghab we spent two days resting and recovering from another mystery tummy bug that hit Tim particularly hard. We had serious discussions about whether the Pamirs would be the end of our cycling trip, and whether we’d be ready to fly home in Dushanbe. Our attitude towards this trip has always been to ride as far as we can whilst still enjoying it, and to end before we felt completely spent and fed up with the road. We both agreed that we were nearing that point in the last few days, with both of us being in tears of exhaustion at times.

Murghab, the largest town thus far in Tajikistan. 

After two days rest with good food, much warmth and a renewed supply of Snickers bars (a stalwart companion to every Pamiri cyclist) we felt much more prepared for the next leg to the Wakhan Valley. It was now the 22^nd of October and only getting colder at these lofty heights, so we pushed on conscious also that we only had a 30 day visa.

Around 40kms from Murghab is the Nayzatash pass, another 4000m+ challenge but with the reward of a guesthouse at the top. Or so we were told. Several of the guesthouses only operate in the warmer months when cyclists knock on their doors daily. As the snow had well and truly set in, somewhat earlier than usual, the doors were closed, no smoke came from the chimneys and nothing but a couple of stray dogs and a donkey greeted us. To make matters worse we’d spotted a wolf loping around the area soon before the house, so we were sure to ‘mark our territory’ around the tent.

Next day we were treated with a rare tail wind in the afternoon that blew us into the sleepy town of Alichur where the kind folk from the Marco Polo homestay fed us the national dish of sheep intestine sausages in a soupy broth (by this stage we had given up on eating vegetarian). It snowed again overnight but didn’t cover the road. This meant that the ride out of town the next day was swift, again with a tail wind and bitumen roads. Today was also the day where we would reach the turnoff for the Wakhan Valley road, a beautiful road that follows the Panj River, the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

On reaching the turnoff the road immediately turned to a 4WD sandy track that was covered in half a foot of snow. Perfectly white and meandering this pathway lead up into a mystical valley of crystal clear lakes and white peaks, which rather complimented the stories we’d been listening to about Hogwarts! There were no traces of vehicle traffic and we had the valley to ourselves. The first section of gentle uphill through the valley was beautiful and peaceful, with a lovely lunch stop perched on a large boulder in a wide section of the valley.

We’d just boiled some water to brew the last of our coffee stash when the ground began to tremble. Completely forgetting that we were still riding in the same collection of mountain ranges that continue to grow as a result of the collision of two continental plates, it didn’t immediately occur to us that this was an earthquake. Until it shook again, this time much stronger and we both sat in silence exchanging looks of astonishment. The mountain we were looking at in the distance soon had boulders tumbling down its face and we were awe struck at the power of the natural phenomenon.

“X” marks the spot where we were when the earthquake hit.

Slightly shaken but completely unharmed we pushed on up Kargush, hoping to make it down the other side of the pass so as to avoid another high-altitude camp. This plan was soon abandoned as 5 o’clock neared and we were shin-deep in snow, pushing our bikes, again. This push was made harder by the uneven condition of the road. This meant that the back wheel often slid out to the side and bikes, laden with 30kg of luggage were sometimes simply too heavy to keep upright; in summary, extremely frustrating. Yet another night camping in the snow!

We woke up on Tim’s birthday on the 27th October to azure blue skies and ivory peaks. A passing herder with his hundred odd sheep who must have some special ability to digest snow, was a notable setting for a 25^th anniversary. We descended into the Wakhan Valley in the afternoon after passing a very serious military base that reminded us that we were now riding along the border with Afghanistan. The Panj river charges through the Wakhan Valley dividing the two countries and it was the sound of its torrents that we drifted off to that evening feeling relieved at having completed the most difficult part of the Pamirs.

Kyrgyzstan – A brief foray

The beautiful thing about Kyrgyzstan is that you’re allowed to ride everywhere. We passed customs with no bag inspections, just a simple passport check and a ‘Welcome to Kyrgyzstan’ and we were soon trundling down the road. Having spent the majority of the day on a bus from China we didn’t ride for long, especially as we were now at an altitude of over 3000m and our breath was much shorter.

Our first campsite in Kyrgyzstan was atop a rolling hill just outside of Nura, a small village whose evening sounds drifted up to us as the sun set on the snowy backdrop of rocky mountains. Herds of wild horses grazed by the road, appearing as if commanded to greet newcomers to the area and remind them of their position as a national icon.

The next day we awoke to very chilly temperatures and thin layers of ice in our water bottles; a reminder that winter was not far away. Piercing blue skies warmed us as we headed up the 3200m Irkeshtam pass and we had a beautiful lunch spot on the eerily quiet road. The pass itself was fairly difficult, the road kept on plateauing to what we thought was the top, but it just kept on climbing! Distant traffic appeared as a speck on the horizon, before slowly enlarging to become full-sized trucks as they got nearer. Although only riding a short distance due to the steady climbing and altitude, we were stunned to note that we passed only one house all day. Abandoned caravans, the summer abodes of semi-nomadic Kyrgyz herders, stood eerily in golden pastures and we had the wide-open steppe to ourselves.

That evening our remote surrounds caught us out; the only water source marked on our map for roughly a hundred kilometers had virtually dried up. We camped next to a pungent green puddle where the creek was meant to be and ate a dry dinner consisting of the last of our Chinese processed foods; fruit jelly, snickers bars and biscuits. Next morning the favorable winds of the day before blew fiercely through our campsite, which along with a lighter that had stopped working due to the elevation and a wet box of matches, made the stove stubbornly refuse to ignite. With hands trembling from the freezing weather it took Tim an hour to finally get it going. Stove finally lit, the stove wind-guard, unfortunately decided at this very moment to spring into the air and be blown up the hill behind us. Sure enough, the stove promptly went out, again. We decided (amidst a good deal of swearing and ground-kicking), that it would be prudent to cook in a sheltered depression not far from the tent.

The wind Gods had clearly had their fun, and once finally back on the road at a casual 11am they kindly blew us all the way to Sary-Tash. We feasted on a steaming hot bowl of noodles at a guesthouse there and explained to the slightly confused owner that we’d be back in a few days after a quick jaunt to Osh, the second biggest city in Kyrgyzstan.

To cycle the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan a simple Tourist Visa won’t suffice. The Highway cuts through the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) and requires a specific permit usually issued by the same person who gives you your visa. The Consul in Pakistan assured us we wouldn’t need one, despite our insisting as every other cyclist we had met along the way countered this suggestion, as did all travel blogs and websites. Upon arriving in Kyrgyzstan, we realised that are only option to get this GBAO permit was in Osh, some 300km off our planned route. After some debate to whether we should cycle or hitch this distance, we were offered a lift out of the blue. So, with only mild frustration at having to make a very much avoidable trip to Osh, we piled into the taxi, again conscious of the fast approaching winter.

Delightfully, arriving in Osh was somewhat similar to our experience in Kashgar – that is, it was another ‘bottle-neck’ for trans-continental cycle tourists. The guesthouse we stayed in was replete with, somewhat alarmingly, exhausted cyclists who had just come from the Pamirs. Over glasses of criminally cheap vodka (about $1 per litre) we complained of the same woes and delighted in small joys like the availability of cheese and internet. They were kind not to alarm us; “Err, zer vas only one night I ‘ad in minus twenty, I sink” one Frenchman reassured. Right…

We met one couple who particularly inspired us, Agnes and Guido from Belgium, in their 60s and making a cracking pace across the continents. They had both retired and decided to while away the time riding across the world – their children thinking they were mad, in a refreshing role-reversal.

After paying an inflated US$100 for our GBAO permits, (normally $3 with your visa), we loaded up with chocolate and a precautionary bottle of vodka for the very chilly evenings on the Pamirs. We hitched a ride with a coal truck back to Sary-Tash which we thought was a great adventure. The drivers only had room for one extra body inside the cabin, so Tim was relegated to the rather dusty, sooty tray. Soon enough, the coal dust had covered him from head to toe. He tried laying down in the tray to avoid the dust, but caused an amount of concern from the occupants in the cabin who could no longer see him and thought that he had fallen out of the tray to his death on the bumpy road. The truck driver’s wife soon joined us in the cabin and Het was also relegated to tray passenger, thence enduring another five hours bouncing around in the back.

Glad to be out of the tray, we quickly bode farewell to our kind driver and headed to back to the guesthouse in Sary-Tash, where the surprised owner greeted us with many nods of understanding in hindsight of what we tried to explain days earlier. With two currencies operating in Central Asia, we carried both Kyrgyz Som and USD with us, and we’d slightly underestimated how much Som we had left for the last nights’ accommodation in Kyrgyzstan. Luckily, we exchanged some chocolate for a few Som with another traveller, which managed to cover the shortfall in our accommodation budget.

We set off from Sary-Tash bright and early the next day, bracing ourselves for the Pamirs. The great wall of the mountain range that we would have to ascend to enter Tajikistan and reach the Pamir plateau stretched out ahead of us, beautiful but foreboding. 20km down the road we realized that in our haste in getting off the truck the day prior; we were one solar-panel charger lighter. This would be particularly concerning for the lack of electricity in the Pamirs was severe and our access to drinking water relied on a USB-charged purification system. Tim doubled back to establish that the solar panel was definitely deep in the coalmine down the road and positively irretrievable. We crossed our fingers and hoped that our water purifier battery would last.

One beautiful campsite remained in Kyrgyzstan next to a picturesque little stream bubbling out from a natural spring, the sole water source for the Kyrgyz border guards. A friendly guard greeted us next morning and waved us into the no-mans land where the first challenge of the Pamirs hit us like a ton of bricks. Our bikes felt like they weighed just as much as we toiled up the first pass, Kizil-Art Pass at 4336m. With an elevation gain of 1300m the road soon lead to a series of switchbacks that de-seated us and had us pushing our hefty loads up the gravel road, Het driven to tears of exhaustion.

Completely spent, and with the sun threatening to disappear beyond the mountains there was little time for celebration at the top. We bowled up to the Tajik customs where we were heartily welcomed, delightfully asked for gifts from Australia and then, even though we had none, promptly offered accommodation in an un-used room with a small potbelly stove. A border guard, keen to practice his English, filled the stove with coal, no doubt from the very same mine where our solar panel now dwelled, and checked on us throughout the night.

 

What a welcome to Tajikistan!

 

Xinjiang Province, China – Land of the Uyghurs

Route Summary Sost – Kyrgyzstan

Sost – Tashkurgan 206km (by bus)
Tashkurgan – Kekyor 54km
Kekyor – Karakul Lake 50km
Karakul – Ghez 72km
Ghez – Kashgar 125km
Kashgar – Random-Rocky-Campsite-Beside-The-Road 52km
Campsite – Uluqqat 43km
Uluqqat – Kyrgyzstan Border 143km (by bus)

Total km ridden: 3363km

We entered China from Pakistan over the Khunjerab pass where there are a few freezing Chinese soldiers and an immigration checkpoint. At 4693m, Khunjerab is the highest border crossing in the world and with snow falling as early as the beginning of October, it is closed for the winter months. Unfortunately, the famously strict Chinese immigration department doesn’t allow cyclists to cross the border aboard their steeds, so we packed the bikes onto the roof of a mini van and hopped back in the saddle in Tashkurgan. In fact, in order to have the best chance of getting a Chinese tourist visa we were advised that it would be best to not even mention cycling in our application. There seems, however, to be a degree of miscommunication between the visa officials and the chaps on the border, as it didn’t seem to matter much to the border guards that we were on bikes, as long as they were safely strapped to the roof of a van.

The Karakoram Highway turns into the ‘Pak-China Friendship Highway’ on the Chinese side and is quite different to its Pakistani counterpart. From Khunjerab, the highway descends steeply before reaching the flatter steppe dotted by Kyrgyz settlements still trying to cling to the nomadic way of life they have practiced for centuries. Tim got pretty excited upon seeing his first Bactrian camel, which for those at home is a large, shaggy camel with not one but TWO humps!

After a few days rest in Tashkurgan to recover from a particularly nasty bout of food poisoning, we were on our way. The acute dramatic peaks of the Pakistani Himalayas had flattened into equally impressive rounder giants already snow covered at this early stage in the season. Lucky for us, the snow was yet to reach the ground we were cycling over and we were gifted beautiful sunny days that made for ideal cycling conditions on the smooth Chinese roads.

After two days’ ride from Tashkurgan we reached Karakul Lake; a stunning crystal clear fresh water lake filled by snow and glacier melt. The ethnically Kyrgyz and Tajik people who inhabit this area welcome tourists into their yurts, onto their camels and horses and serve up bowls of noodles with mutton or ‘dzu’ meat – an animal that is a cross between a yak and a cow.

We pitched our tent next to the gently lapping shores and awoke to the breathtaking scene of a lone horseman herding some dzu from a small island in the lake to the shore just metres from our tent. We were also greeted by Chinese tourists photographing us going about our morning rituals – apparently equally as interesting as the tourist attraction itself!

Aside from the two cities, Tashkurgan and Kashgar, we camped for the whole time we were in China. Most days we had ideal cycling conditions; blue skies, little wind and pleasant temperatures. However, things were starting to get a little chilly come nighttime, with the mercury starting to sneak below zero. One particularly cold night and morning had both of us seriously reconsidering our plan to cycle the Pamir Highway in late October/early November, knowing that this stretch of road would experience much, much colder temperatures than this part of China.

The other novelty that came with camping in China is it’s legal status – or rather lack there of. We’d heard stories of campers being forcibly moved in the middle of the night by the police, who sometimes demanded that they ride to the next town, no matter how many hours of cycling that would require. As such, we took care to hide our tent behind boulders, ditches and road works each evening, well out of sight of potential tent shifters. One evening some loud, human sized noises we heard outside the tent, which had Het shaking Tim awake,

“Tim, what was that? Did you hear that!?”

Half expecting to have a torch shine through the fabric of the tent and to be served with an eviction notice, we spent a few minutes wide-eyed before drifting off again. Come morning we realized the human sized noises were nothing more than a troupe of donkeys (mother donkey and her two foals) that had found our tent during the night.

The end of October neared as we followed the friendship highway to its intersection with the Ghez River Valley. After passing a beautiful, newly formed lake not marked on our map the road sits at the bottom of a gorge-like valley with steep rocky walls either side of us threatening to collapse their lethal boulders. Rocks not only threatened to fall on us, but we threatened to fall on them as the road soon turned to rubble. We mused to ourselves that the road on the Pakistan side was better than the Chinese side – despite the former having been built by the latter. The road here was under construction for 50kms along the Ghez River so our only option was to ride along a glorified donkey track formed by the diggings of the roadwork. Despite descending from 3500m to 1300m, it scarcely felt like downhill. We saw this, again, as a preparation for the Pamirs.

Before long we reached Kashgar, the biggest Chinese city we would pass through on our route and a common resting point for cyclists riding from Europe to Asia or vice versa. This bottle-neck effect is a much delighted-in social affair for people who are doing a seemingly rare thing! We stayed at a youth hostel famous amongst cycle tourists and sure enough upon entering its gates, there were four other bicycles in the yard with dirt-dusted frames and heavy duty racks. Countless stickers covered the walls indicating the hordes of long-distance cyclists who had passed through and during a week’s stay we met plenty of tourers with whom we swapped tips, tales and maps. We even learnt how to ride recumbent bicycles from our friends Guillaume and Martina who were touring the world on these “couches on wheels” – as a kid once put it.

Kashgar’s prominent culture is Uyghur, originally the descendants of Turkik people who migrated from Mongolia and are culturally similar to other Central Asian populations in Kygryzstan and Kazakhstan. That is, they are distinctly different to the dominating Han Chinese who recently migrated to the area – apparently sponsored by the government to encourage cultural development in a certain direction. Mosques ring out through the city and kebabs sizzle on the side of the street producing aromatic smells wafting amongst the geometric Islamic architecture.

We whiled away evenings in the night market where dozens of vendors served up never-ending pots of noodles, everything you could sizzle on a kebab stick; featuring intestines, wacky shaped mushrooms and processed sausage. Bubbling vats of sheep heads were ladled into bowls as men sat on cramped benches slurping and sucking, their matching Uyghur hats uniformly identifying them as “very un-Chinese”, as one tourist put it.

With such fabulous food, company and very comfortable living quarters, it was hard to leave Kashgar. However, the niggling reminder in the backs of our heads that it was not getting any warmer soon became too hard to suppress. The riding was short lived again as we were obliged to board yet another minibus to pass into Kyrgyzstan from Uluqqat.

Once through the tight Chinese customs who X-rayed our bags and bode us farewell gleefully thanking us for our visit (if that’s what a tight lipped nod of the head translates to) it was on to Kyrgyzstan for a short-lived romance on our way to Tajikistan to tackle the Pamirs.

The Pakistan You Don’t Hear About in the News

Route Summary: Amritsar – Sost

Amritsar (India) – Lahore (Pakistan) ~ 60km
Lahore – Gujranwala 84 km
Gujranwala – Jhelum 104km
Jhelum – Islamabad 120km
Islamabad – Murree 63km
Murree – Nathia Gali 48km
Nathia Gali – Manshera 65 km
Manshera – Gilgit 455 km (by bus)
Gilgit – Thole 70 km
Thole – Ghulmit 70 km
Ghulmit – Sost 65 km

Total km ridden: 2967 km

Crossing the border from India through the gates where the soldiers paraded in a flamboyant routine of pomp and patriotism was great; we were even given a farewell cup of chai by the Indian soldiers. The chai offerings continued on the Pakistan side with the man who we changed money with offering us a slightly less aromatic version of the Indian trademark. He told us that his stall had been moved about 1km further away from the border about 6 months ago after a suicide bomber attacked his shop, killing his uncle. We swallowed hard at hearing this, both a little apprehensive after being cautioned against going to Pakistan from almost every Indian we met.

However, the summary of this blog us thus: Pakistan was the most beautiful country to cycle through; the people welcomed us with unmatched hospitality and generosity and dispelled every stereotype, negativity and animosity we had towards this misunderstood country.

It soon became clear to us that Pakistan is well aware of its less than shining reputation abroad. We were frequently questioned about our views, and whether we have seen any terrorists en route (spoiler alert: we didn’t). After asking this, people would usually beg you to tell everyone back home that Pakistan is nothing like the media portrays. So we will take a longer-than-normal blog post to tell you about this beautiful country and its people, in order to do justice to those many encounters we had along the way.

Fresh from immigration we marvelled at the cosmopolitan city that is Lahore, with its bustling markets, centuries old tombs and splendid mosques. From there the road to Islamabad was stifling; not only from the heat, but also the hospitality along the way. As in India we had to take the obligatory two hour rest as the rays soared into the 40s during the middle of the day and Het (particularly) began to, well, loose her cool… However, we were rewarded with home stays and beautiful engagements at the end of each day.

We were resting under a tree after an 80km morning when Abubakhir, a young guy with clipped English offered for us to come and take a rest in his friends’ nursery. Tim obviously wasn’t that keen to see how Pakistani plants were grown, so Het cajoled him into taking up the offer (ha ha). We entered the cool sanctuary and were soon surrounded by the “babas” (old men), who lazed in the mottled shade drinking copious cups of chai and puffing on cigarettes. We sat for hours discussing terrorism and extremism and their hate and fear of both. We spoke on the phone to the son of one baba who was fighting in Waziristan, the border area with Afghanistan. Almost all Pakistanis are equally afraid of this small number of nationals who are tarnishing the beauty of their country.

Abubakir’s family graciously welcomed us and looked after our every need. They were so honoured to have us as guests that we were swathed in gifts upon our departure; a packed lunch of aloo parantha (potato filled flat bread), printed bed sheets made in Pakistan, a dupatta (scarf) for Het from Saudi Arabia, a bracelet and 1000rs ($25). Grateful and immensely humbled, we continued towards Islamabad.

Along the road our greatest two-legged difficulty was refusing the almost-every-kilometre-offer of tea or juice or soft drink. One such time we accepted an offer from two police officers with whom we sipped chai and posed for pictures. The police in Pakistan were so warm and helpful, always ensuring we were being looked after and felt safe. On another occasion a police car pulled up next to us when we were licking hand-made pistachio and vanilla ice cream. Before we could reach for our purse, another two ice creams appeared and our bill was settled.

120km from Islamabad near the town of Jhelum we met Jeffir, mounted on his motorbike and ready for a conversation. He was quick to offer us a bed in his family home, which we gladly accepted after 110km on the road. A school teacher, electronics horder, philosopher and devout Muslim, we had great company in his home in a bushy corner between the train line and highway. We openly discussed why we weren’t Muslim and he offered us the suggestion to read all the holy texts, which would enable us to make a more informed judgment for ourselves as to which religion was the best for us.

These homestays were also a way to have an insight into the lives of the hidden gender in Pakistan – that is, the women. On the streets outside of large cities like Islamabad and Lahore, women are scarcely seen and if so, almost always in the company of men. It was a real privilege to sit in the homes of our hosts, often in the kitchen with the women, learning how they cook and hearing their experiences. Het was taught how best to wear her headscarf, on one occasion even having her matted helmet-hair combed!

In Islamabad the hospitality continued, this time offered by Frank, a Dutchman working for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Terrorism emerged in its own form here, but this time in a complex relationship with polio eradication. Since 2011 when US spies posed as polio health workers in Abbottabad to help locate (and kill) Osama Bin Laden, there has been a push against vaccination in some parts of Pakistan. The conspiracy amongst some is that the polio vaccination is actually a ploy by the West to kill or make ill the Muslims in Pakistan. Frank was working with the foundation to help map the small villages where there is still a high polio infection rate.

Aside from how fascinating it was to hear his insight into this work, he was also very useful helping us with our maps for the North of Pakistan! We enjoyed the comforts of a very modern city, delicious food and good internet. A highlight was riding with the Critical Mass Islamabad – a cycling group working on promoting cycling and increasing cycling facilities in the city.

Set in the foothills to the Himalayas our next leg north of Islamabad was a picturesque start to the mountain regions. The climbs to Murree and Nathia Gali were punishing and a cruel awakening to the surroundings we were entering; Northern Pakistan is home to the worlds’ highest concentration of peaks above 6000m with the Himalayas dominating the Northern areas landscape. Havens for wealthy Pakistanis living in Lahore or the low land Punjab region that get excessively hot in summer, the weather cooled immediately as we climbed 2000m in only 80kms and two days! The towns themselves were made up of beautiful old wooden buildings, a relic of their former status as a popular British Raj summer vacation destination. Now, more recent buildings and hotels cramp the hill station so we decided to skip the crowds and stealth camp in the forest.

We found a peaceful pine forest to call home for the evening and cooked our lentils as the sun set gently on the horizon, the cooler air a huge relief from the sweltering days in the South. The call to prayer rang out across the valley, with each Muadhin starting his song at a slightly different time to the next, half a dozen Mosques creating an eerily beautiful reverberation of sound to welcome nightfall. The sun set and the night sky enveloped their calls, the laughter of children gently dying down as we all rested.

Descending into Abbottabad was bliss. We had around 60km with almost no pedaling and beautiful vistas of the lush green hills and farmland dominating our field of view. We trundled into town hoping to catch a bus to Gilgit, as this section falls in the Indus-Kohistan region of the KPK province and is off limits to cyclists for security reasons (*note this is also the town where the US killed Osama Bin Laden). Unfortunately we couldn’t manage to find a bus headed in our direction that afternoon and so somewhat abruptly we followed the advice of a pedestrian who suggested we go to Mansehra, 15kms further along the road.

With the heat bearing down again and excited to start riding on the real old Silk Road, we pushed on. Just before the outskirts of Mansehra we were stopped at a police checkpoint and told we could go no further. The friendly officer asked us what our ‘security plan’ was and if we had a guard with us. We sat on the stretcher bed next to an Afghani man who had no immigration papers and the conversation we had with the German cyclists we mentioned above ran through our minds, firmly telling us of this exact check point.

Feeling a little foolish for having cycled directly to the check-point we knew we could not pass, we awaited the arrival of our police escort to take us to the bus station in Mansehra. We discussed comparative immigration laws in Australia and Pakistan, and felt somewhat ashamed that a country like Pakistan, with its tainted international reputation and much weaker economy, treated illegal immigrants more kindly than our own. Actually, we suspect that in the heat of our discussions, the Afghani man might have just walked off!

A beat up ute rolled in with two armed officers and as the sun set we were transported to a funny old bus station where one officer would wait the seven hours with us, sub-machine gun in hand, until the bus left. He would follow us to the toilet and out to our bags and back to the restaurant just to be mightily sure nothing could happen to us. It might sound frightening, but there appeared to be nothing unsecure about where we were waiting and we saw this sort of action as indicative of the importance that Pakistanis place on ensuring foreigners have no chance of getting in harms way.

9 police check points and 17 hours later we arrived in dusty but beautiful Gilgit. The buses leave at 1-2am and travel in convoy, with armed guards on each bus. This strict security regime was implemented following a shooting a month back on a bus in this somewhat lawless mountainous area. It is these sorts of small regions, and rare events that appear to be the focus of international media and the root of Pakistan’s questionable reputation as a tourist destination. The real Pakistan is mostly as peaceful as any other and has some of the most incredible sights and hospitable people of anywhere we’ve been so far.

After a night recovering from the arduous bus journey we sat in our guesthouse in Gilgit pondering whether to hit the road straight away or take a full day to rest. In the end we decided on the latter, and we’re both glad we did. While walking through the bazaar that afternoon we met a young teacher named Moghul who offered to show us around after his tutorial class. A couple of hours later we were walking through Mughul’s neighbourhood on our way to one of the many hills surrounding Gilgit. The view from the top was great, an almost birds-eye view of Gilgit and the surrounding area. Later that evening we were able to repay the favour by cooking dinner for Mughul and a fellow French traveller on our hiking stove; no easy feat using cookware designed for two! Come to think of it; we also ran out of petrol while cooking too, but right at the end (luckily).

Another evening to recharge had us itching to start riding once again. The ‘real guts’ of the Karakoram Highway were ahead, which would carry us north to the border with China for the next week. Despite being a historical trade route between China and the subcontinent for many thousands of years, the road as it exists now was only finished in the 1980’s. It really is a marvel of engineering; a double lane paved road forged along the edge of the Indus and Hunza rivers as they carve their way through the Karakoram mountain range. The mountain range itself has such a high concentration of 6000m plus peaks that only the handful that have been successfully climbed have been given names. Of these, the locals only bother to remember the eight or so peaks that rise above 7000m, which jut out above the cloud line.

After a day of riding among these geological giants we found a great spot to camp by a stream at a little roadside eatery and tea stall. We were plied with sweet Pakistani chai by the old baba working at the stall and fell asleep with the sounds of the burbling stream. We awoke the next day to see Rakaposhi (an 7788m giant) towering over us, its peak shrouded in clouds and its glacier feeding the stream.

Riding through the Hunza valley the views again did an excellent of distracting us from the steadily climbing road. One of the highlights was taking a colourful Pakistani boat across Attabad Lake. This lake was created five years ago when a huge landslide blocked the Indus River, flooding a number of villages and destroying the Karakoram Highway. The road had very recently been reconstructed via a series of tunnels, but for the last five years all of the cargo being transported across the Pakistan/China border passed on the same boats we took. Now the boats carry tourists over the sapphire blue water, for obvious reasons – see below photo!

After the lake we rode to and slept at Ghulmit, a pretty little town dominated by views of the striking Passu cones; a series of jagged peaks reaching around 5 or 6000m ASL. These cones would dominate the skyline for the next day as we cycled from Ghulmit past Passu and on to Sost, somewhat putting the Cross-Cut Saw in the Victorian High Country to shame!

Between Passu and Sost we met a wonderful character, Sahangir Ali, atop his motorbike adorned with Pakistani and Chinese flags. He signaled to Tim that he had a problem with his clutch and appeared to need some pliers. Leatherman handy, they tackled the problem together with Sahangir jumping gleefully upon completion. To thank him for the help he whipped off one of his several rings, this one with ‘Love’ embossed on the low-grade alloy metal. Bestowing the ring to Het with a wonderful grin showing a number of missing teeth, he left us proclaiming, “I LOOVVEE YOUUUUUU!”

Sost was the final town along the highway, which we reached just one day before the border closed for the Muslim festival, Iid. Sost is a pretty average border town consisting mostly of customs buildings and transport hubs. We spent the night camped out the front of a crappy hotel and readied ourselves for the mandatory bus ride over the snowy Khunjerab pass at 4600m the next day (along with the delight that is Chinese customs…). We spent most of this evening suffering from the effects of some dodgy water we had drunk that day, with Tim emerging from the tent a couple of times to rid his stomach of the dodgy bugs.

One last memorable encounter at the border on the Pakistani side was the reappearance of Sahangir who wanted to introduce us to all of the Pakistani immigration officers who all seemed to be either his cousin or good friend. Judging by the looks they gave him, we weren’t so sure. He bode us farewell after buying chai for Het and gifting us a bag of apples for the journey!

A Farewell to India

Route Summary Jaipur – Amritsar

Jaipur – Anadheri 94km
Anadheri – Bharatpur 106km
Bharatpur – Agra 56km
Agra – Amritsar ~ 600km by train via New Delhi

 

A quick three days ride from Jaipur and we were gazing at the marble marvel that is the Taj Mahal. Another successful bikes-on-train-affair brought us to Amritsar, Punjab where we type this closing piece on our time in India before crossing the Wagah border into Pakistan tomorrow.

The riding from Jaipur to Agra was tough, really hot and once again on National Highway (see previous blog for a description of this!). The delightful dhabas from the more remote areas of Rajasthan were long gone, instead replaced by shiny modern buildings with too much aircon and overpriced menus to match. It isn’t surprising that this road is like it is, being one side of the common tourist trail of ‘The Golden Triangle.’

Despite the uninspiring road, we were somehow lucky enough to have a wonderful evening and homestay at our first port of call in Anadheri. This small town hosts a remarkable architectural structure, an 8^th century step well that remains in perfect condition nestled amongst tea shops, temples and houses of this 10,000 odd strong town. We rode in just before the sun was dipping below the horizon to marvel at the 60m deep abyss in peace and quiet; there were almost no other visitors to the structure and we postulated that it was perhaps overlooked by tourists keen on reaching the Taj Mahal directly from Jaipur or vice versa.

 

After gazing at the step well a kind man by the name of Suukdev enquired as to where we had planned to rest that evening. Our response, a vague answer about finding a guest house or hotel nearby lead him to insist that we stay with him in his home in the village instead. After meeting his 12 year old daughter and putting our bikes inside his modest single bedroom house, we were whisked off on the back of his motorcycle to our dinner location.

Down a single tyre track the four of us; Tim, Het, Suukdev and his daughter, bounced amongst tall crops of barley which soon gave way to a large opening presenting a grand concrete two-storey house painted a glowing purple. As the sun set we sat amongst the family members on stretcher beds sipping chai and later tucking into some dahl and chapatti. The seven daughters and one son of the household chatted away with us with gaiety and intrigue, each of us stumbling through conversation with broken English and Hindi. Het was adorned with bangles, lipstick, nailpolish and bindie and Tim was quizzed on Australian marriage practices and the rates of divorce. It soon transpired that we were being let in on a little secret; we were in fact eating at Suukdev’s second wife’s house, who was the eldest of the seven daughters. She was 8 months pregnant with his child despite her also having another husband; “the Indian village culture”, he reasoned. She was the same age as Het, which was a thought-provoking coincidence.

We slept under the stars in the peaceful surrounds of the farm to awaken to nothing less than the mother of the house milking her water buffalo and cow for the morning chai. Suukdev swiftly returned us to his home where we remounted our steeds and were on our way at 6am to ride for a few hours before the punishing heat bore down on us once again.

 

Stopping throughout the day for chai, biscuits and curry broke up the difficult cycling in the 40 plus degree heat. We had one of our longest days cycling with the computer reading 106km by the time we pulled into Bharatpur. We gleefully tucked into a huge meal of Chinese noodles at a non-descript restaurant, feeling like something a little less heavy than a typical Indian curry. We both feel that the Hindu gods were damning us that evening for digressing from traditional Indian foods as come midnight, Het awoke with violent food poisoning. It took her a full 24 hours to recover, which meant staying another day in Bharatpur. Tim took a ride around town in the afternoon and almost had the shared wallet and bike lock keys stolen by two kids passing him on a motorbike. Fortunately they weren’t able to remove the wallet or keys from his pocket, but Tim decided to give chase just to spook them. It was a close chase, but eventually the kids with their motorized transport and back streets knowledge managed to get away. Probably for the best really, as Tim wasn’t really sure what he was going to do if he caught them… The next day Het was back to fighting health, and we left Bharatpur for Agra and the Taj Mahal.

We arrived in Agra mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the day relaxing (Het had realized she hadn’t quite regained ALL of her strength just yet). Early the next morning we cycled in to town to view the Taj Mahal at sunrise; it’s quietest and most serene daylight hours. The Taj was breathtaking, and we were both glad we had taken the extra few days to come to Agra, as originally we had intended to bypass it on our way towards Pakistan.

On that note, it is worth mentioning that we spent a considerable amount of time in Jaipur debating whether or not we would proceed to Pakistan. A recent border clash between India and Pakistan had killed some 6 villagers not too far from the area we intend to cycle, which gave us some serious doubts about whether our route through Pakistan was a wise decision. We threw other options on the table; namely flying to Kazakhstan to pick up the silk road and travel along the mighty Pamir Highway and a side trip to Nepal to escape the heat. Eventually, we got some advice from several contacts in Pakistan (an ex-pat, a local and a tour company among others) that made us feel more comfortable to continue with our intended route through Pakistan.

What we have both been talking about since then is how your perception of risk is such a subjective thing; we’re both more than happy to take risk of cycling in the largely chaotic and often overwhelming traffic of India, yet are concerned about security risks in Pakistan, especially against foreigners. Realistically, the risk of injury (or worse) is much higher when you’re riding through traffic, compared to the risk of terrorism in Pakistan, which has given us both good food for thought.

So we are writing this from Amritsar in Punjab, a town 30km from the border with Pakistan, famed for the spectacular Sikh Golden Temple. We successfully caught two trains with our steeds checked into the luggage compartment about half a kilometer down the end of the train. Stopping in Delhi to change trains was a bit of a debacle; such a large train station as you might imagine has an equally large luggage/package/freight department accompanying it. We waited amongst the stench of boxed live chickens sitting in polystyrene containers equipped with a hole the size of a 10c piece for ventilation, packed boxes of cheese in 40 degree heat and delightfully, a broken box of cut flowers – the attendant of which gifted a bunch of sunflowers to Het, before re-checking the bikes in for their final trip in India.

Tonight we spent our final evening in India attending the flamboyant border closing ceremony at the Wagah/Attari border that we will pass through tomorrow morning. The soldiers on both Indian and Pakistani sides perform their military routines with high leg kicks and over-the-top salutes in a timeless play off as they face the two gates that guard the no mans land of the border. The Indian side, slightly more populous than the Pakistani side had a crowd of several thousand lively and vociferous patriots chanting “Hindustan, Hindustan, Hindustan” and pumping fists to the pomp and ceremony before them. A fitting event to close to the past six weeks and 2218km cycling in India.

Look forward to bringing you news of the first leg from Lahore to Islamabad in neighbouring Pakistan.

Namaste!

Rural Rajasthan

Route Summary: Udaipur – Jaipur

Udaipur – near Singhpur ~ 100km
Singhpur – Hamirgarh via Chitturgarh ~ 80km
Hamirgarh – Ragimuthpura ~ 90km
Ragimathpura – Malpura ~ 100km
Malpura – Jaipur ~ 90km

With momentum building we decided to push on from Udaipur without taking a rest day. The weather had been heating up so we pledged to start pedalling around 7am. In five days we covered the 460 odd kilometres between Udaipur and Jaipur. The gruelling dry heat of the road was juxtaposed by terrific tail winds which saw us swiftly pass through the less populated arid plains of central Rajasthan whose ‘wet season’ has been anything but. We had some very humbling hosting experiences, one which saw us presenting a talk on our trip to a group of Jaipur ‘Lions’ of all things!

We left Udaipur with vague intentions to make it to Chittaurgarh, an ambitious 125km away. As things transpired, after about hundred clicks in the saddle and with nightfall steadily approaching an idyllic little dhaba emerged around the corner. The owner, Dilip was delightfully confused by our hand signals motioning to a tent and our hindi utterings of “sona, khana, pani” (sleep, food, water). Seeing the beads of sweat adorning our foreheads he understood our need for water (for drinking and washing) so he accompanied us to the wash area.

This is worth detailing a little. Ever practical, the Indian roadhouses each have a large concrete trough, about the size of a small car, next to the eatery for truckers to bathe and wash clothes in. Dilip seemed amused that we too wished to use it in the same fashion, and was particularly impressed by Het’s lack of modesty (we had quickly stripped into bike shorts and crop-top). The trough was empty, but Dilip grabbed a large diameter hose used to fill the tank and turned the water on. Rather than fill the tank, he proceeded to hold the hose aimed bodily at Het, to the delight of all parties (and onlookers) involved. The hose was about two inches in diameter, and would typically fill the trough in a matter of minutes so you can imagine how much water Het (and then Tim) were blasted with!

Dilip lived with his extended family in a modest brick house adjacent to the dhaba. His business supported members of the two families who each contributed to its functioning. His sister-in-law beckoned for Het to come and drink chai with her, brewed on a coal fire in the peaceful dusk light outside, accompanied by her cow and water buffalo munching some fodder along side. She insisted on feeding us both chapatti and okra that evening which we ate in the company of many, sitting cross-legged on the rammed-earth floor beside the kitchen.

With full bellies we were paraded around the village with a gang of cheery youth, one of whom dinked Het on the back of a rattling Hero (famed Indian bicycle) to his home on the other side of town. We sipped tea with another family, this time Muslims, and our new vocabulary ‘naastic’ (agnostic) came in handy yet again, making for animated discussion (via a translator or three) with the elderly folk under a starry sky.

We bid farewell early next morning, and chai-fuelled we headed to Chittaurgarh where the ancient remains of Rajasthan’s largest fort look down on the bustling city. Climbing 200m in 4km up to the top with the heat bearing down gave us need for respite by a beautiful mad made lake beside an old palace, deserted and with few tourists and their touts. The enormous land encompassed by the walls of the fort still hosts a large population who carry on the regular affairs of Indian life which made for an interesting amalgamation of the old and new co-existing in this ancient settlement.

That evening, after a day of mostly national highway ear-drum-blasting-truck-horn assaults we gladly made camp at another dhaba near Hamirgarh. Rather than pitching our tent on the patch of grass we had suggested, the owner insisted we pitch our tent on the out-of-sight slab of concrete – that is, on the rooftop of the dhaba! He seemed to have misinterpreted our justification for the tent being for mosquito protection rather than for privacy reasons, but it was a pretty spectacular sleeping location overlooking fields of corn to the West and the evening activities of a large truck stop to the East.

Deterred from taking National Highway again, we planned a route along State Highway for the next few days that would take us into Jaipur. Whilst riding along National Highways means immaculate bitumen roads and often more direct routes, they are heavily used, almost exclusively, by the plethora of colourfully painted trucks, adorned with religious paraphernalia and either “horn please” or “sound horn”. The problem isn’t in the behavior of the truck drivers per se; they almost always give us ample room when passing, and frequently wave at us manically. However, in acts of civil obedience to the requests on the truck tailgate, this passing without fail, involves the liberal use of jacked up, multi-toned horns which are seemingly personalized to each truck. This is to indicate to the truck in front, or in our case, the rider, dwarfed by the enormous locomotive speeding towards them with great volume already, that they intend to pass. Sounds funny to you perhaps, but when you’re constantly assaulted by the noise each day it gets tiresome.

A day from Himargarh along a peaceful road through the dry plains dotted with small villages saw us arrive, well, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, with a small temple on the road side. Tired, we were ready to set up our tent on a patch of grass near the temple and were pleased to see a couple of young boys down the road whose English allowed us to explain our predicament. Seeking permission from them they insisted that rather than pitch our tent by the temple, we sleep at the nearby school grounds down the road as they thought that would be a safer option. The school belonged to a small village not marked on our GPS, called Ragimathpura with a population of “a hundred families,” our road side friends informed us.

Before long a score or so villagers had gathered to watch us erect the alien, green contraption that is our hiking tent and assemble our stove to brew some coffee. Some villagers took great delight in riding our bikes around the school grounds whilst others watched in amazement at the water boiling on the multi-fuel hiking stove. A man on a motorbike soon arrived with a pale of buffalo milk still warm from the evening’s milking. We decided to decline offers for food in the village as it was great for a change to be offering some entertainment to our hosts instead. We proceeded to prepare “Australian khana” on the stove which transpired into something reminiscent of a quaint cooking show, with both of us sitting in the middle of a circle of 50 odd people with extremely limited verbal communication happening, dripping in sweat from the body and natural heat around us.

 

Soon the food was ready, a kind of vegetarian pasta sauce with rice invention. We offered a bowl with a spoon sticking out to some of the villagers, but they all politely refused. It took a little time to realise that it was actually the spoon that was putting people off, rather than a perceived politeness in refusing what little rations we had. An animated young man, who had delightfully insisted on chopping onions and garlic for us at lightning speed, got the ball rolling when he signaled for Het to spoon some into his right hand. With all eyes on him he exclaimed something we think was pleasure. He proceeded to grab the bowl and spoon food into thirty odd hands, forcing them to try the foreigners’ strange cuisine.

After eating we were pretty ready to hit the hay. Several rounds of “goodnight” later, most of the villagers had disappeared and we had been locked into the grounds for the evening. It took some time to get to sleep, as people kindly kept on coming back past the school to check on us. Soon enough we were deeply settled into that heavy sleep that comes with a day of physical work when the same young man who had helped chop veggies and pass around our food gaily jumped the fence and offered us lassi as dessert! What a welcome.

In the morning we walked into the village with kids clambering to push our bikes for us. Luckily we had camped on a Saturday night, so the next day the village was alive with children who would have otherwise been studying at the very school we had just slept at. We had chai and chapatti with two village families, and could have spent the rest of the day drinking chai at each village house with the amount of offers thrown our way. We reminded ourselves we were on a cycling trip not a chai drinking tournament so we parted after about round six of that sweet milky goodness.

 

The next two days riding to Jaipur were pleasant and largely non-descript with a couple of cheap hotel rests along the way. One thing that would have been impossible to miss however was the walking pilgrims that were on a journey to a nearby festival in a town that we had ridden past. The festival attracts over 5 million Hindus to the small town, some walking over 100km to reach it. It’s not just a simple walk with food and water sort of affair, but rather a moving street party with tractors laden with massive sound systems, camels adorned with decorations, a plethora of food stops with temporary dance floors and just a bloody lot of people.

 

30km of this was pretty full-on, but provided great amusement and help the distance pass with ease. As we neared Jaipur and rode along the path the pilgrims had walked the day before we saw the remains of festivities, comprising of millions of used plastic cups and polystyrene bowls littered along and beside the road; a stark reminder of the insurmountable pollution problem that India’s burgeoning population is causing.

In Jaipur we spent a relaxing couple of days with Hemant Agrawal, his wife Alka and three children, who are also Warm Showers hosts. Hemant is a passionate cycle tourist and had actually cycled from Melbourne to Sydney a few years prior, passing through Bairnsdale – Tim’s hometown, which was pretty neat! He was keen to promote cycling as an alternate mode of transport and so had arranged for us to give a talk about our experiences so far to his local Lions Club members. Standing in front of a metre and a half long banner of ourselves, we talked about the different encounters we’d had cycling in India and met some very interesting Lions curious to learn more.

We were very glad to rest our tired legs after 8 straight days of riding, and Hemant’s beautiful home was the perfect place to do so. We’ll sign off here to write again soon about our final leg in India from Agra to Amritsar!