More news

Marcin just read in the internet that Polish citizens need a visa for Kyrgyzstan from July 1, 2008! Not good.. because he doesn't have one. Hopefully we can organize this tomorrow too. Lucky he had a look at the website of the Kyrgyzstan embassy, otherwise we would have noticed at the border to Kyryzstan, not being allowed to enter.

Dushanbe

We are still in Dushanbe. Tomorrow morning we'll investigate Tajik bureaucracy and try to register in this country. That is something you have to do in all ex-Soviet countries and which we haven't taken seriously so far. But in Tajikistan you should, as official fine is something around 500US$ if you don't - though I wonder if anybody has ever paid this much. Then we will request an extension of our visas and if that is granted we will hopefully quickly get the GBAO permit, which we need for the Pamir Mountains. Without this permit you are not allowed to travel to those areas.

Last night we were walking around Dushanbe, as is always advised with a camera dangling around our necks and a lot of money in our pockets through dark streets at nighttime... and at a large monument in the city center we sat and drank some juice, when a nice policeman came over and very friendly talked to us, asking if we could buy him and his colleagues some food. Maybe some bread, sausage and coke... :) And of course we did, because he was really nice, polite and even asked if we wouldn't be angry because he asked us for this. We thought it was quite funny, so we had to get him his sausage.

Someone told us about this before, that the militia in Tajikistan is quite unique in their way of nicely asking about some money, because they just don't earn very well. And really, this guy went to the shop with us and picked those few things, that cost maybe 3 US$. He didn't ask for more, nicely thanked us and walked away.

So far we have met very nice people in this country. It would be great to stay longer, and we have both decided that we want to return in the nearer future. It is definitely a great place for hiking or climbing, we feel quite safe and have not had any problems yet. Several times people invited us for food, gave us apricots, invited us to pick fruits in their orchards, gave us bread and sweets, allowed us to camp behind their house and so on. The roads are (still) a very special experience, but a little army of chinese road builders is here to change this.

Mountains, mountains and more mountains

A quick summary of what has happened the last few days: in Tashkent we fixed our motorbikes (almost) and then had to leave the city quickly, because we really didn't want to stay in a city any longer. It was hot, still around 40 degrees Celsius, and we rode towards Tajikistan. Finally... we have been looking forward to this country for quite some time. Uzbekistan is nice, but Tajikistan has mountains... a lot of mountains. Basically it consists only of mountains. So we crossed the border just before Pendshikent and on the border met an Austrian motorcyclist. He told us about a nice place called Seven Lakes, so we went there together and found the most beautiful quiet campsite between mountains on a blue lake, no people, high mountains surrounding it. Lovely... but the roads... I am having constant heart attacks. And on the way up (above 2300 meters) we found out that a computer fan is not an adequate substitute for a motorbike radiator fan... but with a few breaks Marcin's bike made it up there too. Going up is one thing, coming down another. I first dropped my bike having a little heart attack and then rode it into some rock at the side of the bend... well, nothing happened to me or the bike. It was just a little difficult to get it out of the rocks again :)
Anyway, after that we were prepared for Tajik roads... they are great. Great exercise for our motorcycling skills. Yesterday we went up to around 2800 meters on gravel roads, with all sorts of gravel. Small, big, loose, solid. The most exciting part was a tunnel. All we could see was a totally black hole, a big gravel hill in front of it, a deep water hole and as far as you could see into that tunnel you could not see the ground, only water. Lots of fumes coming out of the tunnel, very bad smell. And very loud noise too. We waited for a car to come up that tunnel, and it was about 50cm deep in that water. Some workers in front of the tunnel told us it would not be good on the motorbike, but other motorcyclists went through the tunnel before us. Since there is actually no other way to get to Duschanbe- coming from Pendshikent - we had not much choice.. and it turned out to be fun to go through a dark (but not pitch black, there were a few light bulbs hanging around) tunnel, where you cannot see how deep the water is. With hidden holes and hills. After that we camped in the garden of a nice Tajik family and today reached Dushanbe. Not the nicest city, but well... more soon! Photos in a few days!

Sunday

Our parts have arrived in Tashkent. With some luck we will get the customs procedure done tomorrow and hopefully be able to fix the bikes afterwards.

Still waiting

With some luck our spare parts arrived in Tashkent tonight. Tomorrow we will start another try to get hold of them.
And I saw a woman behind the steering wheel of a car! The first one I saw in Uzbekistan.

BMW in Tashkent

Two days ago we reached Tashkent. 20min before they closed I reached BMW Service, the only BMW garage in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Marcin didn't. 200m before we got there his motorbike turned off and didn't want to be restarted. The fan of the radiator had died a sudden death and a fuse popped... so he had to push it the last few meters. Today we will hopefully be able to pick up our spare parts from the airport, and with the help of one of the guys from BMW we will hopefully be able to take them immediately and not have to wait around for days.
As it turned out, it is impossible to get the proper oil for my suspension fork in Uzbekistan, so we (several people from BMW here and me) spent most of the day yesterday searching for an appropriate substitute. With some luck we'll be able to organize it until tomorrow and then I can fix my bike too. Hooray. Without Christian's support from Germany we would be in deep trouble here. But as things are, I am quite confident we'll fix our mechanical problems soon. Once that is done I'll upload some photos of the last few days.

Samarkand! Hot, mountains in the distance.. and we got a haircut for 75c each.

Revolution in Buchara

But only in our stomachs. No more food I haven't prepared myself. The motorbikes are still running well, apart from their suspensions. But the spare parts will arrive in Taschkent Thursday night and we will hopefully be able to fix them soon afterwards. I have heard rumors that it takes several days to get things through customs, I just hope it isn't true. Uzbekistan has amazing sights, of which I'll put a few photos online once we arrive in Taschkent. Here in Buchara it has something around 40 degrees Celsius (felt 50) and we are being boiled alive. We have asked quite a few people if it is really true that you can have several wives here... the answer is: YES, if you can afford it. In return we are always being asked if we are married. Most of the time we tell the truth, and Marcin is being offered to be helped finding a wife. Because it's really time for him with his 32 years. And I get pitiful looks, because women older than 25 have no chance of getting married any more. Too old.

Motorbikes

In Beinju in Kazakhstan, just before the border, we noticed that Marcin's motorbike has a little problem.. but since we were already so remote from any place with a chance of being able to fix it, we decided to keep going. After 170km gravel road it looked like this...

I really don't know what this is called in English, but since Marcin spread all the oil that was once inside this part on the road, he looks quite funny when he hops along the road like on a rubber ball.... (no more attenuation of his suspension)

Also he complains about some funny sounds.. but so far his bike still runs well apart from this jumping thing.

On my bike the suspension fork is leaking oil, so that has to be fixed as well.

Since we can only pick up spare parts from Taschkent, we'll keep going and hopefully with the help of Christian and the ADAC will be able to pick up some parts there. Since Taschkent is a fair bit away from here, the plan is to visit Chiva, Buchara and Samarkand on the way, then hopefully pick up the parts from Taschkent, get the bikes fixed and head down south towards Dushanbe (Tajikistan).

Nukus, where we are having a day off from riding today to check the bikes for more damages, seems to be the capital of Karakalpakstan, a somewhat independent state with, as I was told, different culture and also language from the rest of Uzbekistan. This region is the area that was most heavily hit by the consequences of the dying Aral sea (which used to be quite close but is now far away). And we did feel some consequences too, when a little sandstorm hit us one night. (Sand and salt is what stayed behind as the water retreated...) It was extremly noisy inside our tent and in the morning there was sand EVERYwhere... even between our teeth. Mniam mniam :)

I'll try to put some new photos into Picasa in a minute..

Uzbekistan

During the last few days the landscape around us has changed quite a bit and we have really entered Asia and left Europe behind. The border to Kazakhstan is just about 100km from Astrahan, so after having one lazy day in Astrahan we left Russia for now. But we'll be back... It didn't take too long cross the border to Kazakhstan. Leaving Russia was no problem, we didn't have to provide any proof of registration, and strange enought, the guys there were even really nice... and on the Kazakh side the border officers were quite friendly too and even helped with filling in the forms. The first maybe 50kms of Kazakhstan are still in the Volga delta, and the water, horses, reed and clay (?) houses made quite a nice scenery... after we left the delta behind, the landscape changed to steppe, and everything was flat, dry and the roads just straight for hundreds of kilometres. Besides a few bad parts we have so far had the best roads since Germany on this trip in Kazakhstan, contrary to what we heard before... most of them brand new. On our way through Kazakhstan we passed one city, Atrau, and it is amazing how those new cities are quickly growing out of nothing (but with money from oil and other ressources). It might not be very objective, but cruising along the countryside I got the impression that Kazakhstan has a lot more dynamics and positive atmosphere than Russia.

Also we met some nice animals along the road and crawling over our tent...

It was large! very large. Larger than my hand including fingers...

After a few nights in the steppe in Kazakhstan we spent our last night in Beinju (little place with nice Basar), where we met a German cyclist. From Beinju to the border and about 120km into Uzbekistan the road is just a gravel road. In Russia we were told there would be no proper roads in Kazakhstan, which proved to be totally wrong. In Kazakhstan we were told there would be no proper roads in Uzbekistan. Which proved to be totally wrong. After those 120km of gravel road we were again on brand new roads... and since we are back on asphalt we have found that Uzbekistan actually has a quite good network of roads. But I am not complaining about good roads... I think this will change rapidly once we get to Tajikistan.. but before we can go there we have to get over some little problems... which I will write about in the next post. To get into Uzbekistan took a few hours, but in the end people were nice and let us into their country. And here we are...

phone and photos

From tomorrow we will be back on #1 on the satellite phone. If we manage to cross the border without getting any registration in Russia..

and there are a few new photos in Picasa!

Astrahan

On our way from Rostov-na-Donu via Volgograd (we only touched the outskirts) to Astrahan we met millions of mosquitoes, sandflies and Brian, who is cycling on his own from California to Hong Kong. It's definitely worth having a look at his website http://www.briansride.net/ It was great to meet someone who speaks English. While we were talking to him at the side of a long long straight road to Volgograd (that was before we met the mosquitoes, later it was impossible to stand anywhere longer then 10 seconds, as the little nasty insects were just waiting for victims) some more people joined our roadside meeting. They were on their way back to Volgograd from a biker meeting somewhere around Rostov. We we're thinking about going to Volgograd to meet those nice guys from the photo again, but unfortunately our visas for the Central Asian countries are for a fixed period of time and will expire in the near future, so we have to get going.... and went past Volgograd. As you might see on the photo, motorcycling is not that popular with girls here. But I was told there actually are three girls in the Volgograd motorbike club.


A few more notes from here:
people are really nice when we are on our motorbikes. While walking around here in Astrahan not looking like Kosmonauts, i.e. without all the gear and the motorbike clothes, we had a really hard time yesterday trying to find internet. We actually didn't. No one wanted to help us. Not even wanted to talk to us.

The militia has been nice most of the time and so far we haven't been asked for more money. Once we had to show all documents again and wait around, but most of the time they are interested in what we are doing and let us go after a little chat or even help us to find a nice spot for camping or the right road. Two days ago a taxi driver drove for about 20kms ahead of us, leading us through a beautiful countryside back to the main road - free of charge.

So far we haven't had any problems with petrol, there is a basically a petrol station in every little village, and the motorbikes are doing well. I'll try to change the oil on my bike today, and I think we should give them a wash too and a good check up. I don't want to get stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Kazahkstan. Tomorrow we want to leave Russia and I think from now on things will start to get a little more exotic and different... and the roads will be worse...

So far food is no problem either. There are little shops in every village with essential foods and we often eat some soup or dumplings at the side of the road. Lately we have seen a lot of dried fish... but I don't want to have anything to do with it!

I am trying to get used to the fact that women are not being shaken hands here. Most people take notice of me and at least nod towards me, but some just outright ignore the person at the side THE MAN. I think this will not get better for the next few weeks :) good training for my patience. Harrrrrrrrrr.

With those absolutely crazy drivers!!!!!!! here I have already seen more car crashes on this trip than in the rest of my life. Today our taxi driver almost killed us. But that was not our first accident here. The day after the banja burnt we were staying with this really nice family in Rostov. So these nice people borrowed a car to show us the city... and yes, it happened. We caused a car crash. So first the house burns, next a car crash. We are seriously considering not staying with nice people any more.

We are using the satellite phonenumber 2 now. All good and on the way to kazakhstan