Stuck in Shymkent

Total distance: 3137 km
Tashkent - Uzbek/Kazakh border crossing - Qazyghurt - Shymkent

Behind the border: 805 km to Almaty

Friday late afternoon we have got our Chinese visa. It is a 3-month tourist visa! This is more than we had hoped for. In Marseille or Frankfurt, the longest you can get is one month. Our initial plan was to apply for the Chinese visa in Almaty (Kazakhstan). However, Cat and Adam mentioned that it would be impossible in Almaty and advised to apply in Tashkent instead. They had got it in one single day without a letter of invitation (French people need one though) and it had been an easy procedure. We met a German guy in Tashkent Friday morning who tried to get some visas for his onward travel to Pakistan etc. but all the consulates were closed for the Uzbek independence celebration. We would have been stuck in Tashkent for several days if that was the case for the Chinese consulate as well. Luckily the Chinese consulate was open on Friday and issued our visas right away.

We left Tashkent the next morning and cycled to the Uzbek-Kazakh border that is about 25 km from the city center. On the way to the border we witnessed traffic chaos at an intersection. The traffic lights went off. Cars from all four directions approached the middle of the intersection and not surprisingly everybody got stuck. Honking didn't help but drivers did it anyway. Two police officers were watching the spectacle from 20 m distance. What did they do? They hopped on a bus and drove away. Another police officer felt pity and was brave enough to do some coordination from the middle of the intersection. Traffic moved on. 30 seconds later the officer was gone and chaos was back.

The Uzbek-Kazakh border had the size of a real border station. Nowadays it is open to pedestrians only. We were a bit worried about three missing registration slips (minimum fine 700 Euro). Normally tourists are supposed to register every night at a hotel in Uzbekistan. You get paper slips for the duration of your stay at each hotel and you are supposed to show them on demand. Well, that is not a problem for normal tourists and backpackers but on our way from Samarkand to Tashkent (330 km) there were no hotels. So we had to camp instead. We were lucky and nobody asked for the registration slips. After customs declaration and the departure stamp we rolled over to the Kazakhs. There were no problems on the Kazakh's side either. There was not even a customs declaration to be made. In total we had to show our passports seven times!

In Kazakhstan we set time one hour ahead. Immediately the temperature climbed up by 5 degrees. On our way to Shymkent it was 46°C. We knew that it was only about 19°C in Germany at the same time. What a difference! German summer suddenly sounded really nice to us ;)

We noticed that Kazakhstan must be richer when we saw the car makes. While Tajiks drive mostly Russian Lada, Uzbeks prefer for example Korean Daewoo and German Opel but many Kazakhs drive the German upper class cars, in particular Audi, that we did not see in Tajikistan and rarely in Uzbekistan. When we crossed the border into Kazakhstan only a few cars still honk. What a relief! You can't imagine how annoying and painful it is when a truck passes you and honks right next to your ear.

A relief for our wallet is also the Kazakh money. One Euro is about 187 Tenge, one USD is about 147 Tenge. We don't need plastic bags any more to go shopping.

Coffee, finally!

We arrived in Shymkent, the first bigger Kazakh city behind the border, on Sunday. The only reason why we make a stopover in Shymkent is to get registered. Foreigners are supposed to register within 5 days. The immigration office was closed on Sunday. This morning we went to the office. It was closed! The Kazakhs celebrate their 15th constitution anniversary. That means one more day of break, which isn't too bad, considering the fact that we found a nice cafe that serves real good cappuccino and cream cake :)

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From Samarkand to Tashkent

Total distance: 3008 km
Samarkand - Jizzax - Sardaba - Chinaz - Tashkent

On last Monday morning we left for Tashkent. We were happy to be back on our bikes again after one week of break. Lucky as we were, it had rained during the night and thus it had cooled down about 10°C, perfect for cycling!! When we left Samarkand, immediately a strong wind started, and of course it was headwind. So although it was flat, cycling wasn't easy. We had cycled just about 2 hours when suddenly two other cyclists were coming from behind. We stopped for a chat, decided to continue together as we were going in the same direction and stopped for a longer lunch break a short time later. Cat and Adam were going to Tajikistan via Khojand, so we had about one day cycling together before the routes parted. After being only the two of us for such a long time, it was nice cycling with some other people and we had really a good time. As they have been on the road for over a year already, they were cycling quite fast. Peter and me had to give everything to keep up with them. In the evening we found a nice camping spot, hidden in a small valley and cooked a really good dinner - rice with vegetables Chinese style. The next morning we rode through Jizzax, the biggest town on the way and had to say goodbye to Cat and Adam shortly after. Hey guys, if you read this: we hope you found the right road in the end! Was nice cycling with you!

Breakfast with Cat & Adam

Melon, melon ... more melon

The next day the fierce wind had slowed down a bit and the road was all flat. The land wasn't changing a lot during the day. We rode through many melon and cotton fields, not many villages and the land was rather dry here. Every time we stopped people came up to us and offered us melons. In the end of the day we had eaten so much melon, we had to refuse many more offers. We spent that night next to a cotton field, with Uzbek students. The students here are all sent to work on the cotton fields during the summer vacation by the government. It was quite nice, even if we could not communicate a lot, it was fun: specially trying to convince them that people speak Spanish and Portuguese in South America and not Latin as they believed (because it is called Latin America) and I'm not sure the believed us in the end.

From the cotton field it was another 140km to Tashkent and we decided to split that up in two shorter days. So we spent the next night at a roadside restaurant, before cycling into Tashkent the next morning. When cycling in or out of big cities, the traffic is always frightening. So I was really happy when we arrived at the guesthouse we had planned to stay. But when Peter went inside they told him that it was full and turned us away. I was devastated. Luckily when they saw that we had bikes they felt pity with us and let us stay in the common room on a mattress on the floor. I was happy again! Specially after having had the first shower after 4 days of cycling.

Today we applied for the Chinese visa, which we should have tonight and then we will leave Tashkent directly tomorrow morning again. The city is not very nice and above all really expensive. Then we will be heading to Almaty - Kazakhstan, which we should reach in about 12 days.

Oh, and we reached the 3000 km mark! I know we are slower than most other cyclists and 1000 km per month is not a lot, but hey, we are not trying to win the Tour de France and this is just the pace we are enjoying ourselves and the ride!

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More Samarkand impressions

Here are some more photos that we shot during our last days in Samarkand. Great city!

Hot Bukhara

On Wednesday we took the popular Sharq train from Samarkand to Bukhara. After 2.5 h in a hot wagon with a Russian action film about the Russians in Afghanistan (any airline would discard this film from its selection) we arrived in Bukhara. It was even hotter in Bukhara than in Samarkand.

Bukhara's old town and touristic hot spot is located around Lyabi-Hauz, a place with a big pool. We stayed at Mubinjon's Bukhara House. Mubinjon, a former Olympic sprinter, is a funny and eccentric guy. He doesn't 't speak any English but we did understand him anyway. His way of communication and humor is "fantastic" (he loved this word). His guesthouse is in an old Bukhara house. The decoration of the rooms is "fantastic" and we saw the same decoration later again in the Emir's Summer Palace. Unfortunately, his guesthouse does not have any shower but on the last day he took us to a public bath with 30-minute massage. "Russian madame, Moscow, massage, fantastic" was his description. It felt so good to have a shower after 2 days in hot Bukhara.

Mubinjon's Bukhara house

We met Darek from Poland in Samarkand already. He wanted to visit Bukhara at the same time. So we stayed the 3 days in Bukhara together and visited the different sights and restaurants. The medressas and monuments in Bukhara are not as huge and impressive, not as shiny and newly renovated as in Samarkand. Everything is more authentic, smaller and close together. This gives the city a different, very nice flair.

It was so hot in Bukhara that you could see only tourists in the streets in the afternoon. All locals stayed at home, enjoyed green tea and took a nap. Yesterday we came back to Samarkand and now we actually enjoy the 'cool' 39°C here in Samarkand. Tomorrow we'll be back on our bikes heading for Tashkent - the capital of Uzbekistan. You'll hear from us once we are there, which should be sometime end of the week.

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Samarkand

When we arrived at the Tajik-Uzbek border, we were surprised that it was so small. We expected something bigger, big buildings, many people and many trucks.

The border crossing itself was very easy. Firstly we had to declare our goods and money at the Tajik customs. There was a custom officer who spoke German so this task was very easy. At the customs they did notice that we had a private tourist visa (instead of a tourist visa) and advised to put our OVIR registration (that we had kept separately) into our passports. Afterwards we went to their colleagues - the border guards. They did check the OVIR registration and we were happy that we had registered in Khorog. One of the officers took us, our passports and OVIR registration to a Russian tourist group. He wanted us to explain to them that they would need an OVIR registration too. Apparently they had a private tourist visa like us, but had not registered. We were happy that we had the registration and thus no problems! Then the same procedure again on the Uzbek side. Nobody counted our money and checked our bags as we had heard from French group, Tristan and his two friends, in Dushanbe. It probably depends on the officers' mood when to check people or not. Finally we were in Uzbekistan! Yippieh!

>From now it was just another 40 km to Samarkand. As we came to lower altitude the last days, the temperature climbed again. Before reaching Samarkand our bicycle computer showed 45°C. On the way people were greeting us friendly all the time like in Tajikistan, but for the first time we met some nasty kids as well, throwing stones at us. On our way we met Harry from Austria who was on his way to Japan on his bicycle. We have the same winter plans, i.e. Southeast Asia. Maybe we will meet him again down there. 

Entering Samarkand, it did not look much different from Dushanbe: dirty roads, dusty, a lot of traffic. But then we came around a corner and were suddenly standing in front of Registan. This was really impressive! The city looked completely different in this part. A big green park with water fountains, clean and huge roads, modern supermarkets and tourist shops.

The hostel (B&B Badihor) in which we ended up staying had been recommended to us by other cyclists in Dushanbe and indeed we met many more here. It was nice to sit around in the courtyard and exchanging some cycling experiences. We felt really like 'beginners' because the others had been on the road for so much longer, had cycled so many more kilometers. But their stories were a big motivation, making us looking forward even more to what is to come in the next weeks and months!

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