We have been on the classic trade route called the silk road for some time now, but it isn’t until recently that we have got the feeling of really traveling on it. The magnificent buildings in the ancient cities of Khiva and Bukhara made me get a feeling of being present in the orient. Marvellous mosques and madrases covered in marble and mosaicwith blue cupolas that glitter in the sunset would make anyone get the feeling of being in ”Alladinland”.

The Silk Road was the old trade route between China and Europe / North Africa and for centuries different sorts of goods was carried along it in caravans. Today the trade along the Silk Road is still going strong, but the means of transportation is no longer camels, but trucks. We see quite a lot of them along the road as we ride on and many of those trucks have come from countries far away. Every day we see trucks from our baltic neighbours (Lativa and Lithuania), Belarus and sometimes even Poland.

I admire those truck drivers who spend long time away from their families driving their trucks day after day on poor roads and across numerous country borders that I believe take a long time to get past. Everytime I see a truck from Latvia I get the feeling that the world isn’t that big at all – it feels like meeting someone from the neigbouring block when visiting a far away place.

Talking about trucks. When we sat and had our breakfast at a Chaichana (tea house) a few days ago, we saw a truck approaching. When it was close we saw that the trailer was carrying a load of a big wooden ship and none of us could understand why anyone would need a big wooden ship in the middle of the Uzbek desert. The owner of the tea house later told us they sometimes transport old ships like that from the Aral sea where it’s not needed anymore, to Tajikistan. One can wonder where in Tajikistan they would have use for old wooden ships? Maybe they use them as firewood….

The landscape between Khiva and Bukhara consists of just another great desert. It isn’t too fun to cycle on such a flat landscape that when the road disappears it is because of the Earth’s curvature and not of any hill. This time the desert wasn’t so flat and there were small hills all the time and I appreciated to not have to see how the road disappeared below the horizon far away in front of us.

The first 70-80 km out of Khiva were more interesting since we rode on a small road in an area where there is water and hence green and populated. We stopped to have water melons before leaving the green area and heading into the desert. Since we still are a loosely connected group we tie a blue scarf along the road when we have stopped somewhere to show the friends who ride more slowly where to look for us.

Eventhough there was greenery both around Khiva and Bukhara we still felt that this road was the section through the desert was the most boring road so far on this journey. The views were not interesting, the heat was intense and the road was mostly good. When the road is bad one has to concentrate on finding an ideal line and not riding into pot holes, but when the road is good one has time to sit and look at the boring landscape. I needed to muster all of my goal orientation capabilities to be able to ride this road, not because it was so hard but because it was so boring.

The weather in the desert is not only hot. One day it was very windy and the crosswind kept blowing sand into our faces and eyes. Eventhough the wind was slightly from behind it was so hard that it was difficult to cycle and when we saw a tea house after having cycled for 50 km we decided to make a long stop to wait for the wind to cease. Three hours later the wind was almost gone but when we prepared to start to cycle it started to rain. It was not a cold rain like back home and it didn’t last very long but we managed to get really wet. An amazing experience in the desert.

Chaikanas (tea houses) are small restaurants where we stop to have a break and get something to eat. We had read that there would be a section of the road of more than 100 km without any tea houses but we didn’t really know exactly where. This led us to always carry a full load of water. If anyone reads this who intend to ride between Khiva and Bukhara I can just tell you that there are tea houses every 20-40 km and there is no need to carry more water than is needed for half a day.

The tea houses are a very simple restaurant where travelers stop to drink tea and eat simple meals. The guests sit on platforms with a low table in the middle and there are platforms both inside the building and outside. It also seems that these tea houses are a popluar place for truckers to spend the night at. A couple of times we have asked if we can sleep at the tea houses and it has never been a problem. The staff just point at a platform where we can sleep. Sometimes other guests who drink vodka a few tables away have disturbed our sleep but for me that has not been a too big trouble.

One afternoon when we arrived to a tea house we saw that they had a yurt in front of it. There were a lot of trees in the area and we saw water hoses on the ground. This led us to ask if we could stay in the yurt, which we could. Normally we don’t have to pay for the accomodation at the tea houses and only pay for the food, but at the yurt we had to pay the equivalent of 40 US Cents each.

Our German friend Simon has been dreaming of staying in a yurt for 15 years and now it was going to become true, and on a very special day for him. The following day was his birthday and he would wake up in a yurt – a perfect birthday present.

Having slept in yurt before I didn’t enjoy it in any particular way. What I enjoyed most with this tea house was the water hose. I went into the little garden beside and used the hose as a shower. It felt wonderful after a day of cycling with temperatures going as far up as 45 in the shade.

Our group is soon going to split and since it was Simon’s birthday we decided to camp in the desert and he invited us to his birthday party consisting of biscuits and two big bottles of beer. Not that we got drunk but it was a nice feeling to sit in the desert watching the clear sky with thousands of stars while having a beer and interesting conversations.

Someone suggested that we should play cards and use the 1000 Som notes as stakes. Everyone laughed at the idea since the 1000 Som has very little value. Wej then suggested that we could use a glass of water as stakes instead but was immediately met with an unison ”no – that is far too expensive….”

Central asia is not known as a region famous for its cuisine and we often have discussions what we dream of eating. A pizza and a beer has been on the wish list for some time and this became a reality by accident… When riding into Bukhara Wej and I took the wrong road but we spotted an Italian restaurant so there was a big advantage in getting lost… 🙂

One of those things we really want to eat is potatoes and one evening here in Bukhara another german cyclist went out to buy some potatoes that he boiled and invited us to share with him. It was wonderful to eat plain potatoes and dip them into salt. I don’t think I have ever dreamt about eating only plain potatoes since during my survival training in the army……

Bukhara is one of the classic cities along the Uzbek part of the Silk Road. We have spent some time just walking around admiring all the old beuatiful buildings. It doesn’t feel as over-renovated as in Khiva and the city feels more lively. One day we went up to the ”Ark” which was the former government palace located on a hill. It is now a museum but only 20 % of the buildings in the 4 hectare palace area is still intact. The remaining 80% is just rubble from when the Bolsheviks bombed the area in the 1920:s.

We are now in the ancient silk road city of Khiva in Uzbekistan. From the Aktau to the town of Beyneu in Kazakstan it was 500 km cycling thorugh the desert and from Beyneu to Khiva it has been another 700 km mainly through desert.

We have passed some small town and villages on our way here. Some of them have been in the middle of the desert and with a seriously poor road leading to them and with at least 100 km to the next similar settlement.

In these villages/towns there are activities going on. Kids go to school and adults are busy doing their chores, but the contact with the surrounding world must be minimal and I wonder what they do a Saturday night in for example a little town like Shetpe. There can’t be much entertainment in town and the distance to the next town and the condition of the road makes it difficult to go there. Eventhough I grew up in a small place in Sweden I think I had way better opportunities to interact with people outside my village than the people in these towns and I every time I have visited these small desert towns I get more and more happy that my Mum and Dad didn’t bring me up in a burning hot and sandy town far far far from the rest of the world.

Beyneu was the first decent sized town we came to and even that was a town which felt far from the rest of the world, but it had something that we enjoyed highly – running water. We are so used to get as much water as we please from our taps and maybe it takes a tour through the desert and taking care of the daily hygien with less than a liter to understand how precious water really is.

We spent a day in the not very bustling city of Beyneu by taking care of things needed to be taken care of and that was washing, cleaning bikes, blogging and sleeping. We also visited the local market where we bought a footprint for our tent…. 🙂

Well, it is actually not a real footprint but an oilcloth with a pattern of ladybugs that will provide extra protection from the nasty thorns that could otherwise penetrate the floor of our tent.

From Beyneu it was about 90 km to the Uzbek border. We didn’t intend to cross the border the same day so we started a bit late. The road towards the border is gravel and full of pot holes. Knowing it would be a race once in Uzbekistan we cycled slowly and went in to one of those little desert villages to buy some cold drinks to our lunch. I must say it again – it can’t be fun to grow up in the middle of the desert and the nearest town is a town like Beyneu.

We stopped 6 km short of the border to Uzbekistan. The reason for this was that Uzbekistan has a system where foreign tourists have to register at a hotel at least every third day. It is 430 km from the border to the nearest hotel and therefore our intention was to enter early in the morning and then go as far as we could that day.

We had learned that the border passage was open 24 hours, but when we arrived at 7.30 we found out that it actually was closed for a shift change between 7-9. At around 9.30 we were let in to the border building and could start the customs procedure. When entering Uzbekistan one has to declare all currency, valuable items, vehicles (bicycles), medicines etc. before entering the country. We were six people in the group and it took until noon until we could start cycling.

Once inside Uzbekistan the condition of the road improved significantly. While it was a dirt road on the Kazak side it was a fine asphalt road on the Uzbek side. Sometimes the tarmac was a bit broken but for most of the time it was of good quality.

The road is straight to say the least. During our first day in Uzbekistan we cycled 110 km without making a single turn. It could have been boring but since we had a good tailwind we could cruise across the desert at good speed.

In thai the word for desert is translated as ”sea of sand” and I now I really understand why. The landscape was very flat and when turing around 360 degrees and seing nothing but a sandy horizon line it is not far away to call it ”sea of sand”.

Seing a truck approaching from far away was like seeing a ship. First we saw the top of it and then after a while all of it became visable and then it took a long while until we actually met it.
This vast land of nothingness is hard to understand and I can’t really tell if I like it or not. On the bad road in Kazakstan it was a struggle to move forward and all focus was on finding a line through all the pot holes and cracks, but on the good road in Uzbekistan there was more time to look around. I wouldn’t like to live in this area but I am glad to have been able to visit it. Being in a group of friends also makes it easier, but I think I could also enjoy the solitude if we would travel without our current companions.

During the second day in Uzbekistan we cycled 183 km and that is the longest I have ever cycled with a loaded touring bike. We had to make it reach Nukus in three days and decided to make use the middle day to get some extra kilometers done.

Our group is not really a group but individuals who happen to travel the same route at the same time. We cycle at different speeds and soon after we start biking we are all spread out, but we agree on where to meet around lunch and where to stop. During this long day there was a misunderstanding and half of the group went camping while our New Zealand friend and ourselves continued 2 km past the agreed camp site to a truck stop where we could enjoy a shower, food at the restaurant and sleep for free at the eating platforms outside the restaurant. After 183 km on the road it felt very good to be able to shower properly instead of doing it with 700 ml water.

The following morning we had some 35 km to ride to Kungrad and right outside Kungrad the desert ended. It was not a gradual change, it was rather like a line in the terrain. West of that line sandy desert and east of it greenery. It is the water stolen from the Aral Sea that makes it possible to create green areas in the desert.

When we cycle in these green areas we feel like when cycling in Thailand. It is hot and a lot more humid than in the desert. Apart from the cotton fields there are lots of rice paddies and fields where vegetables are grown. At the roadside people sell water melons from small stalls and the villages are close to each other and there are a lot of people everywhere. But the greenery ends just as quickly as it starts. It is so evident that where there are no irrigation canals, there will simply be a sandy desert.

Arriving at Nukus we checked in at the cheapest hotel in town. It looked good from the outside, but the interior certainly had seen better days. Everything was in desperate need of repair and the 12 dollars per night each of us paid felt like a bit to much for what we got. Personally I would have prefered to stay at place like the truck stop last night, but we had to stay at the hotel to get the registration.

Nukus has one attraction and that is Igor Savitsky’s art museum. Savitsky was an artist from Moscow who settled down in Nukus and started to collect avant garde art from all corners of the Soviet union. The Kremlin knew about this, but since it was so far off from everything they let him do it and now his museum is the place to visit if one wants to see the art from artists who didn’t follow the communist art style.

It took us two days to cycle from Nukus to the ancient silk road town of Khiva where we are right now. Khiva’s old city is just wonderful and not until we arrived here did we really get the feeling that we are traveling along the classic silk road. Take a look at the post Wej just made (in thai) and you will see some pictures of the old town in Khiva.

Tomorrow we will set out for the four day ride to Bukhara which is the next classic town on the silk road.

Ready to go
It took a lot longer time to land in Aktau then we had imagined. When we finally were in port we were all ordered to get inside the ship. Border control police and customs officers came on board and checked the passports of the crew. A few hours later we were allowed to leave the ferry escorted by a police officer. We were led to an arrival hall and told to fill out some documents and line up for the regular inspection of our passports.

Since Wej and I were going to switch our passports here it was more exiting than the usual border passage. I went before Wej and showed the officer my other passport (not the one I used to exit Azerbaijan). It went well and I got my entry stamp and took a few steps forward and was stopped by a customs officer. He wanted to see me passport and asked me if I carried any narcotics or weapons and asked me to open one of my panniers. When he had taken a brief look through he told me to empty my pockets and then he found the passport I used to exit Azerbaijan. He was confused about me having two passports and took both of them back to the border control police.

I cursed myself for keeping it at such a foolish place as my pocket, but I needed to have it easily available if there would be any questions about why I didn’t have any exit stamp from Azerbaijan. Wej was standing behind me in the line and I told her to quickly hide her other passport.

One of the russians in the National Geographic photo team who were on the ship with us spoke excellent english and I asked him and the russian speaking german to come over to assist. They told the officer that it is very common in western countries to have two passports and explained that it was necessary if wanting to visit both arab countries and Israel.

After a while the border police officer came with my passports and said it was alright but that I shouldn’t show to anyone that I have two passports. Well – I actually didn’t show anyone, it was the customs officer who asked to see what I had in my pockets. What should I have done if I had hidden it in my sleeping bag and he had asked to see my sleeping bag?
The passport problem is anyway gone now since the next passport switch will be at the Thai border and then we are on our home turf and can explain in the right language if there should be any questions.

In many of the former soviet republics of central asia the demand for foreigners to register at the migration police is still in use. Since we were going to be in Kazakstan for more than 5 days we had to go and register. It took us about 3 hours to get a little extra stamp at our arrival cards.

After having registered it was time to go and buy some supplies for the coming five days ride through the desert. We found a well stocked supermarket and we all bought lots of pasta and canned fish, meat as well as nutella and jam. Only high carbohydrate stuff….

After getting our supplies we had a short discussion outside the supermarket which way to go from Aktau towards the town of Shetpe. There are two routes, one to the north and one to the south and after weighing for and against we decided to opt for the southern route.

Landscape
This part of Kazakstan is very flat and dry. I thought it should be a steppe but it turned out to be more of a desert. The ground is sandy or consists of hard burnt and cracked dirt with very little vegetation. The plants that grow are not higher than 20 cm and some of them have nasty thorns that are able to penetrate the floor in our tent. To avoid that we try to put our tent on bald areas and if there are any thorny little bushes we simply pull them up to make room for our tent. We also put our foam mattresses under the tent floor for extra protection.

We have seen small scorpions living in the cracks on the ground and we are very careful when moving around and we have got a habit of turning shoes upside down and shake clothes before putting them on.

Apart from the scorpions we have seen lots of small desert rats that run quickly from one hole to the other. I don’t know what these little animals eat, but I bet the snake one of our friends saw feed on those rats.

Camels and dromedaries are a common sight both in the desert and in the villages and towns. Some of them seem to have a marking indicating that they have an owner, while other seem to move around completely as they like. They walk on the road, beside the road and cars need to honk their horns to get them to move out of the way. Yesterday we saw a dromedary eating from the tree outside the hotel here in central Beyneu so they are just as common sight here as a pigeon in the park back home.

What we didn’t expect to see in the desert was horses. Large groups of up to 30 animals roam around in the areas where there is a little grass. I haven’t seen any markings on them and I don’t know if they are wild or have any owner. A camel must be of much more use in this kind of environment than a horse and maybe the horses are kept just for their meet.

Weather
The desert is hot. Actually it is extremely hot with temperatures going above 40 degrees. With no trees there is very little shade to find and our strategy has been to wake up at 5 AM and start cycling at 6.15 and continue until the heat is unbearable. Then we take a break somewhere where there is shade and continue to cycle for 2-3 more hours before looking for somewhere to camp.

The second night in the desert we camped just below a small mountain ridge. We saw heavy clouds on the horizon and they came closer. When it was time to go to bed it actually started to rain. Not a heavy rain, but still a rain. When we woke up at 5 AM in the morning it was very windy and it had started to rain again so we decided to sleep one more hour before starting to cycle. At 9 AM the sky was clear and the sun was shining and it was hard to believe that the weather had been so nasty only 3 hours earlier.

When riding in the desert we need to protect ourselves from the merciless sunshine. I pull down my cap and use a buff to cover my neck and ears.

When dressed like this it is easy to start to think about how it was when we were caught in the blizzard in Hungary some three months ago.

Meetings in the desert
Eventhough it is a remote road there is some traffic on it. A lot of the traffic seems to be trucks going in both directions. The condition of the road surface very often made the trucks go very slowly and sometimes we cycled faster than they drive. One thing we noted was that the truck traffic was more intense during night time than during the day. I don’t know why it is like this and I think it is a real challange to navigate a truck on that really bad road during night time.

The truck drivers have been our friends on the road and we have had a couple of interesting meetings that are worth mentioning.

On day 3 we made a little detour from the road to ride into a village to buy more water and when we exited the town it was already time to start to look for somewhere to stay. When we came back to the main road we found a ”chaichana” (tea house) that also was a hotel. I went in to ask if we could stay there but the place was so lousy so we prefered to stay in our tents.

Truck drivers seem to like the tea houses and outside this one there were two large trucks from the American defense contractor Halliburton and a trailer with a RIB-boat with two large Evinrude engines. We must admit that we were confused about why someone would want such a boat in the middle of a desert.

We saw the Hallibruton trucks a couple of more times and one time they parked outside another tea house where we were resting and waiting for our two friends who cycled behind us. The drivers started to ask the usual questions where we come from and where we were going. We had no common language and after 20 minutes of talking we thought that they would give up. Then they started to order vodka and got a bit drunk and very pushy. When our two friends arrived after an hour we felt relieved and thought that they could take care of the drivers for a while.

Just like us our friends were asked where they come from and when the truckers heard that he is German the truckers got mad and accused our friend for nazism and made gestures refering to Hitler. It developed into a situation when one of the drivers threw a bottle at our German friend and we decided to back off and go camping somewhere out of sight from the tea house.
The following day we saw the Halliburton trucks a couple of times as they drove past us. We overtook them again when they had parked at a tea house and it seemed that these two truckers don’t go any further each day than we do on our bikes. I wonder what their bosses at Halliburton thinks about that.

On our the 4th day we were riding through a part of the road that was under re-construction. It was exceptionally dusty and we often had to wade through knee high piles of dust that was just as soft as powder. The sun was very hot and we were completely dusty when two trucks stopped in front of us and asked what we were doing.

The drivers were turkish and told us they were on their way back from Bishkek to Istanbul. We told them we had been to Turkey and enjoyed it. Being turkish, the drivers asked if we needed anything like food or water and asked if we wanted some tea. I pointed towards the sun and said that I would prefer a cold coke and then one of the drivers ran back to his car and came back with a bottle of ice cold lemonade. Wonderful – and it reminded us once again of the hospitality we received in Turkey.

One night when we had set up our camp and shared what was left in a 0.2 liter bottle of vodka, our german friend said that he was sure that all the passing truck drivers had some vodka. He got up on his bike and rode towards the big road a couple of hundred meters away. After a while he came back followed by two large trucks that stopped just beside our camp. The drivers came from Dagestan in Russia and being close to the Caucasian mountain range they were wine drinkers. We spent some 15-20 minutes together and then they handed over a 5 liter bottle of home made red wine.

The wine tasted good, but since it was biking time at 6 AM the following morning I thought one single glass would be enough. Some of our friends had some more wine and I bet it can’t have been fun to bike through the desert with a hammering hangover.

Challanges
The lack of water became evident as soon as we entered the desert. We know where there are villages and tea houses where we can buy water but we still need to carry a lot and it makes the bikes heavy. The most water I have carried so far is 11 liters and that makes it hard when the road becomes sandy. The water also becomes more and more expensive the further into the desert we travel and our spendings on water makes up a large part of our expenses for the last few days.

We need water to drink and cook food, but we also need to maintain some level of personal hygien. I allow myself somewhere between 0.5 to 1 liter of water for the daily shower. I wouldn’t say that it makes me clean like a baby, but it is enough to stay healthy.

Being together with six other people on very flat area with absolutely no trees and a clear view of 360 degrees means that one can’t be shy. If one wants to be without sight when going to the bathroom to shower or do other things, one will have to walk very very far. Shyness is not for the ones traveling together across the flat desert.

Arriving in Beyneu
There around some 30.000 people living in Beyneu so it is not a very large town at all. There are small shops along the main streets and there is a bazar. The town is located at a railway junction and the highway from Uzbekistan to Russia passes through as well as a number of pipelines. There seem to be a fair amount of professionals who come here to work with maintaining this infrastructure which means there are a few hotels in town. We decided long ago that we wanted to stay at one of the better ones and after almost a week in the hot and dusty desert with less than a liter of water for the daily hygien, it was great to be able to take a shower. Not only we needed a shower though, we washed all our clothes in the shower and cleaned the drive trains of the bikes as well.

Now we are prepared for the next section of this ride through the desert and we dont’t expect to be able to get online until Sunday when we expect to arrive in Nukus in Uzbekistan.

Toothpaste
In the grocery store next to the hotel they do sell Sensodyne toothpaste. We thought it could be a good idea to pick up some, but since that would add extra weight to our luggage and we still have toothpaste left, we decided to not buy here. I don’t know why I write this, but I think some of you might want to know…