Central Asia has been great. I was originally going to miss out on this whole region at the start due to potential visa hassles and that would have been a mistake. Although saying that I have my first potential trouble coming up as my Tajikistan visa expires on Monday and my Turkmenistan transit visa is still not ready. They said to come back on Monday and if it is not ready I will then have to extend my Tajikistan visa. This takes a week which will then give me 3 days to ride the 600 km to the Turkmenistan border as the dates for the transit visa are fixed. It should be OK if the visa is ready on Monday but if it isn't things could get a bit problematic. I have had it fairly smooth with regards to visas so far and this is the last one I will have to get. There is one cyclist here, Paul from the UK, who has been stuck in central asia for 8 weeks as his Iranian visa has been delayed.
So as I have been going along I have been putting together the videos for each country which are below. I got quite excited when I entered Kazakhstan due to the wide array of chocolate that they had and the fact that the kebab shops had chips !!! Such small things do make me happy these days. I had the seat post snap in Kazakhstan which meant I had to ride 300 km into Almaty to find a bike shop with a very low saddle position. I hadn't originally planned on going into Almaty and rode the longest yet for a 237 km day.
Central Asia Part One - Kazakhstan
From Kazakhstan it was onto Kyrgyzstan which is the only country out of all of the 'stans', which is visa free on arrival. It was a great country and I had to take a week here in Bishkek to get my Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Iranian visas which all went pretty smooth. From Bishkek it was into the mountains which were great and it was also good to escape from the blistering heat for a while. I really enjoyed Kyrgyzstan, it was cheap, the people were friendly, the roads were good, shops were fairly regular and the scenery amazing.
Central Asia Part Two - Kyrgyzstan
On the way into Almaty I met Hannah from the UK who had just come from the Pamir mountains in Tajikistan. This is a very famous cycle route but I hadn't originally planned on riding it on this trip. she convinced me it was worth doing so from Kyrgyzstan it was into Tajikistan to ride along the M41 otherwise known as the Pamir highway. This is without a a shadow of doubt some of the best scenery of the whole trip so far. I had to cross 6 passes over 4000m including the worlds second highest road at 4655m. In parts the roads were really bad and always at the top of the passes which meant for some tough but visually rewarding cycling. I also passed 20,000 km for the trip along this route. I also met loads of cyclists along the way mostly heading east so hello to all. The video below only takes you up to half way through Tajikistan so there may be a part two.
Central Asia Part Three - Tajikistan
So hopefully on Monday I will be of to cycle the 1100 km across the deserts of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to finish of the central Asia section of the trip. Its going to be hot! From there it will be into the middle east of Iran and Turkey. In the last blog I mentioned how I have started to try and raise some money for the Birmingham Childrens hospital charity. A lot of people have said they would donate but not many people have. If you have a spare few quid it would be good if you could make a donation. Thanks.
As of tomorrow I have to pay attention to what day it is as the premiership starts :-)
Anyway, hope all is well with everyone back in the UK and around the world.
Cheers, Neil
