Taldyk Pass

Camp near Murdas to Sary-Tash
September 16th
84km (2,193m vertical)

Short day but it was all uphill and included the toughest climb of the trip (so far anyway). Averaged a pathetic 11.9km/h, which reflects the fact that I spent almost all day in my granny gear.

The first 50km into lunch followed a creek in between the mountains. We passed through a handful of small villages en route, where locals came rushing out to greet us. Most yelled “Hello" or “What is your name?" as we went past them. They only had time to get one question in, so I laughed when someone yelled “How old are you?” The funniest was the person who chose“Good morning teacher"...perhaps the only thing he remembered from a previous English course.

At the 60km mark, the road curved sharply upward for 10km. There were a dozen switchbacks, and almost a 10% average grade before the top of the pass at 3,615m. The road had been torn apart by trucks, so every hairpin turn deteriorated into several inches of fine sand. Tough to keep your balance on that stuff when you are moving so slowly. Several of the riders chose to walk their bikes up the climb, and several others ended up falling at some point. The trucks went groaning past us the whole way, belching black smoke in our faces. Emissions standards in this part of the world are not very restrictive.

The large elevation gain made for some big temperature swings. It was 51F as we left camp this morning. Once the sun was on us, it rose to 89F, before dropping down to 48F at the top of the pass.

Tonight we are sleeping in traditional Kyrgy yurts. They've got carpeted floors and come with blankets to sleep on. Its a bit tight with 9 guys in my yurt, but hopefully that keeps us all warm.

I realize that with all my complaints about the tour company, I've never mentioned what a great cook Miles is. Without exception, the dinners he has made for us on the road have been fantastic. Tonight, we had corn on the cob, mashed potatoes with cheese and beef with veggies in sauce. Delicious.

Morning sun hits the mountains:
Empty landscape:
Looking down on a small town from an early climb:
I really thought this scenery was interesting:

View from the top of the pass. Look at the one, long, windy road below: Tonight's accomodation - a yurt:

Into the Hills

Osh to Camp near Murdas
September 15th
103km (1,707m vertical)

Leaving Osh, we climbed out of the Ferghana Valley, into the Alaj Mountains, and towards the Chinese border. Nothing steep today though. Just a gradual ascent until lunch at 60km. Still, after days of flat road, it was strange to see the average speed plummet to 15.8km/h today. That is partly due to the great scenery, which had us constantly stopping for photos.

The Kyrgs were historically a nomadic people, and this area is famous for its large, strong horses. We met dozens of horsemen, herding their flocks of sheep, goats, cows, and horses along the road. There were also horsemen up on the grassy hilltops that looked they might swoop down and ambush us at any moment.

After lunch, the road repairs began and the road surface deteriorated into a fine dirt peppered with gravel, large rocks and potholes. What should have been a long, steep, thrilling downhill was ruined by the washboard ruts in the road and my constant need to grip the brakes to maintain control. My hands ached from the braking and the vibrations. Max, Joan and Ben all LOVED this downhill on their front-suspension mountain bikes. This was the first day of the trip that I would have preferred one of their bikes instead of my own.

Unfortunately, the rough roads are expected to continue for the next 3 days! Everyone was pulling out their thick, knobby tires tonight in camp to prepare. Tomorrow's ride is supposed to have lots of climbing. Last year there was a blizzard at the top of the 3,600m mountain pass! I've put some extra layers of clothes into my trunk bag for tomorrow, just in case. I'm generally more comfortable riding in cold than in heat though, so I'm not too worried.

Total distance since Le Havre is now 7,809km, making this the longest bike trip I have ever taken. Cycling across Canada was 7,777km.

A Kyrgy horseman and his cattle:

Another horseman and his sheep:

Clive avoids some large horns:

Looking down the bumpy road...I was not a fan:

This is where we camped tonight. You can see a few tiny tents by tree on the right:

No Net

Rest Day in Osh
September 14th
0km

No laundry service in the hotel, so Nicole and I had to explore. Found a local student that understood English. He led us through the old soviet housing projects, and onto a busy main street that looked like Toronto's Chinatown. Vendors lined the crowded, messy sidewalks selling meats, produce and all kinds of knick-knacks. Eventually we got to a dry cleaners, who washed everything for US$12. (When we mimed “How much” he wrote "15" on a scrap of paper...then crossed it out and wrote "12"...as if he were quoting a special price just for us.)

Spent the afternoon looking for internet. Only found one place open on Sunday, but it was really slow and had no USB port to import my pre-typed blogs. Will have to wait for China to update the blog.

Grabbed some deep-fried pastries at a street vendor for lunch. Not my first choice, given my touchy stomach, but it was the pretty much the only option...and it was yummy.

We'll be doing a lot of climbing in the next 6 day stretch and it might get pretty cold up in the mountains. Need to do some re-packing tonight to prepare.

A photo of the laundry place that I took in case I had trouble finding it again when I went to pick up my clothes:

These types of kebobs are the most popular food around here:

Local vendors line the streets:

Cycling clothing hanging to dry beside our hotel. (Look at the garbage everywhere.)

Taxi liscences are apparently very easy to obtain in Osh:

Ahead by a Century

Qo'Qon (Uzbekistan) to Osh (Kyrgyzstan)
September 13th
180km (606m vertical)


Longest ride of the trip so far, and our first “century ride” (i.e. more than 100 miles). We didn't get tailwinds like last year, but we made good time on the flat roads of the Ferghana Valley. This is the most lush and densely populated region of Uzbestan, but it was not really much to look at – for the most part, the valley is too wide to see the mountains.

At the 160km mark, Nicole and I congratulated each other...and Nic promptly got flat tire – her first since she started in Paris!

Crossed the Uzbek-Kyrg border at 175km without any problem. Much smoother than the crossings from the last two days. We were through in less than an hour.

Arrived at the hotel at 6:30pm local time (Kyrgyzstan is 1 hour ahead of Uzbekistan). After 11 hours on the road we were tired, hungry and ready for a shower. Ridiculously, the tour van decided to wait in Uzbekistan until the last rider crossed...and the van had all of our bags! Terrible planning! (We had a support vehicle on both sides of the border, so the van should have gone straight to the hotel.) It didn't arrive until 8:30pm, when it was completely dark. Until then, everyone sat around in their sweaty cycling clothes with nothing to do but curse the tour company. Nick sat there for 5 hours! By the time we got our bags and showered, the local restaurants had closed so we couldn't get real food. There were little markets open, so we bought snacks and drinks, but it was very satisfying after a long ride. A little rotisserie chicken from a street vendor was my saving grace.

The hotel we're in is a dump of Velotreki proportions. It is under repair, so the tour van got stuck in the driveway for 30 minutes when it finally arrived and the construction woke me up at 7:30am the next morning. Our room does not lock from the outside, the bathroom door doesn't close, the toilet has no seat, the beds have no sheets, there is no A/C, and the power went out in the building as we ate “dinner” in our room last night. The area surrounding the hotel seems poor, with garbage on the dirt rds and dozens of old soviet apartment complexes that are falling apart.

This guy might consider buying a truck:


There were dozens of these tiny oil derricks in the hills today.

The view as I changed Nicole's flat tire:

A closer look at the Kyrg mountains that we will be riding through:

Lost

Chugand (Tajikistan) to Qo'Qon (Uzbekistan)
September 12th
149km (445m vertical)

Our first morning in Tajikistan and we are already leaving. We were supposed to enter a few days ago and ride fewer days in Uzbekistan, but the road we would have used is under construction. It was also under construction last year – which says a lot about the speed that things get done in this part of the world.

We rode 90km to the border, and enjoyed a slight tailwind for most of it. After lunch at the border, we started to make our way across. Left Tajikistan easily, but got stopped entering Uzbekistan. They weren't letting anyone in when we arrived, so we sat under a tree chatting with some friendly guards. They eventually started letting people through – 1 person every 15 minutes. We stood in the hot sun, pushing and shoving with all the local ladies that were sneaking into the line in front of us. All told, it took 2 hours to get through everything and back on the road. Strange to spend 6 hours trying to enter and exit a country, and only 24 hours inside.

Got lost trying to find the home stay tonight. We weren't given directions, and had to rely on flagging tape to show us the route. Unfortunately, some local kids must have taken down the tape, because Nicole and I missed it and ended up lost. As we tried to call for directions, Fred joined us. A few minutes later, Trine, Louise, and Stewart showed up. We got a taxi to lead us to our street...but that just got us more lost. Eventually we all sat by a huge statue and waited for the local support guy to come and lead us to the home stay...8km away.

"Fully loaded" cycling means something different in this part of the world:

Ladies picking cotton in the fields. This was the primary crop mandated by Moscow for the region:

A small roadside stand to buy cold drinks and snacks:

Nicole and Louise getting swarmed by children as we wait for the local support to show us where the home stay is:

Border Pains

Zafar (Uzbekistan) to Chugand (Tajikistan)
September 11th
80km (478m vertical)

First of three consecutive border crossing days. We got through the Uzbek exit process easily, walked over to the Tajikistan, and were told that the border was closed. "Come back tomorrow." After a few phone calls, we figured out that the Tajik president had been in the area, so they closed the border. We just had to wait a few hours for it to re-open. We arrived at the Uzbek side at 7:30am and left the Tajik side around 11:30am.

The whole process was a joke –we filled out numerous forms in duplicate that are then stamped and initialed and signed and stamped again...and then put into a pile where no one will ever look at them again. One rider had lost an“essential exit card" and the officer just shrugged it off and let him through anyways. They stamped our passports in bulk, without comparing the people to the passport photos. (That kind of defeats the point, doesn't it?) Similarly, the Tajik medical check cost $3 each...but the doctor only met with Miles. Our big van filled with rider bags was not looked in at all.

Leaving the border, the sun and heat hit us. It got up to 102F on the road, as the landscape quickly returned to the desert conditions that we had seen in Turkmenistan. I thought we were done with this heat! We got our first taste of the tailwind that we're counting on to carry us the 175km into Osh. It was great to cruise along at 50km/h for much of the afternoon.

Nicole was feeling a lot better today, but I felt a lot worse. I've started another round of anti-biotics and I'm also trying some pro-biotics as well. (Dr. Joan tells me that these two don't counteract each other.) We did a poll at dinner and found that only 2 people on the trip had managed to avoid stomach problems so far. One was a nurse, with a healthy immune system, and the other is a sectional rider that joined in Azerbaijan. Even Ben, the tour leader, got really sick the other day and couldn't ride. And after dinner, the nurse got sick!

Staying in a home stay tonight, sleeping on the floor with 4 other guys. There's only 2 toilets for the entire group, which might be a problem. Dinner was a feast though, and we have air conditioning in my room, so its not so bad. Long day tomorrow. Hope I sleep well and feel better soon.

First look at Tajikistan:


A small town in the middle of nowhere:

Riding through the desert again...at least the road surface is good:

Tajik feast on the floor of the homestay:

Sneaky Stalin

Bo'ston to Zafar
September 10th
127km (99m vertical)

I felt sluggish today, although it wasn't especially tough. Poor Nicole was feeling really sick, and struggled. A small boy threw a stone at her as she cycled past, a big dog chased her down the street, and she found a thorn stuck under her glove, Not her lucky day.

We are riding through fields of corn, wheat, and apple trees that remind me of home. There was even a huge, soviet-looking power plant, with plenty of electrical towers to remind me of Niagara Falls...which produces a lot of hydroelectric power.

The next 3 days are going to be tough - 80km, 145km and 175km! Since we're bush camping (i.e. we can stop anywhere) it seems silly to have such an uneven schedule. The tour company assures us that they had tailwinds on the 175km day last year. Seems sily to plan a route counting on tailwinds, but my fingers are crossed. It will be almost impossible with a headwind. We also cross a border each day for three days - from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan, back to Uzbekistan, and then into Kyrgyzstan - which will slow us down.

The rapid-fire border crossings are courtesy of Stalin, who divided central Asia into oddly shaped regions in order to exert control over them. Ethnic groups were divided and separated from their historical centers of influence. For example, the city of Osh is the heartland of Uzbekistan, where the purest dialect of Uzbek is spoken...but it is part of Kyrgyzstan. (There was ethnic conflict here between these groups in 1990.) The jigsaw of regional boundaries also intentionally cut across major roads, railways, and waterways. The main road and railway from Samarkand to Tashkent, the two largest cities in Uzbekistan, ran through Kazakhstan. What a mess.

A big factory in the middle of the fields: