From London to Everest base camp, part two.
We left Richard Barr in Turkmenistan – did he make it to Everest base camp?
Crossing into Uzbekistan, it immediately felt more open, the people more welcoming and engaging than the at times stifling Turkmenistan. Currency exchange in Uzbekistan was fun with approximately 10,000 Som to the pound. The bill for one team meal (admittedly, we are a big team of riders) came to a hefty 3.5 million Som, (about £350), paid for with a very large block of new Uzbek notes.
We rode through Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand, spending a day in each. These progressively larger and more significant cities along the ancient Silk Route all had an impressive range of mosques and madrasahs. Their construction appeared to have been as much about establishing the position and legacy of wealthy noblemen as it was about homage to Allah and the Islamic religion. In Khiva, three of us rode off to find a jet wash to clean our bikes, and found a place run by a
local family. They also ran a restaurant, and treated us to a wonderful spread of local foods whilst our motorcycles were blasted to cleanliness. I am still in contact with this family through social media, which is relatively open in Uzbekistan.
The ride from Khiva to Bukhara was some 250 miles across the Qimiraqqum Desert (Red Desert), with temperatures of up to 35 degrees C. For a while the road was excellent, concrete dual carriageway sweeping across endless desert; then suddenly it ended and it was dust and rubble for over a third of the journey.
Another ’Stan
On Day 37 we entered Tajikistan, a country of spectacular mountains, but largely barren. It appeared to be much poorer than its neighbour Uzbekistan, but as we were coming to expect, the people were very welcoming. Many put their right hand on their heart as they acknowledged you, and I found this simple, warm, personal action very moving.
Young and old were very interested in us – a small girl sat on my GS to have her picture taken, and went away with a Tom Mouse sticker. A policeman allowed me to sit on his bike.
The next stop was Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. In order to get there we had to go through the neatly named ‘Tunnel of Death’. It’s an apt name. The tunnel is a three-mile fume-filled two-lane passageway whose lighting ends after the first few hundred metres. It was snowing when we entered the tunnel and when we finally popped out the other side the next challenge was a long downhill stretch. Clearly challenging too for the large lorries, one of which was on its side in a ditch.
Running alongside the Panj river which forms part of the border with Afghanistan, we shared the rough road with large articulated trucks and speeding 4x4s. This border is truly fascinating given its recent history, and has fantastic scenery thrown in. Snow-peaked mountains reached over 5000m in height. Afghan people on the track (on their side of the border) occasionally reciprocated our enthusiastic waves from the Tajikistan side.
We faced more challenging roads including deep sand and gravel in the amazing Wakhan Valley and parts of the notorious Pamir Highway, surrounded by the spectacular Pamir Mountains. Highlights included Yamchun Fort, a home stay at Layangar, endless amazing scenery, travelling alongside the Chinese border and, of course, the welcoming and friendly people of Tajikistan. It's a country of big mountains, big skies, and people with big hearts.
It was Day 44 as we headed over yet another high mountain pass, the 4655m Akbaytal Pass, with predictably poor roads, and entered our penultimate
’Stan – Kyrgyzstan. A country of rolling green, leading to stark, barren snowcapped mountains, with horses a new feature alongside with the ever-present goats, donkeys, sheep and cattle.
We crossed into Kazakhstan, the 18th country of our adventure, and actually the ninth largest nation in the world, yet with a population of less than 19 million. Almaty is its biggest city, with a population of over 1.7 million. It has a very modern feel, and a new underground system modelled on Moscow's iconic Metro. The scale is a bit smaller though, with only a single line and some nine stations.
We crossed over the border again back into Kyrgyzstan, skirting the magnificent Issyk Kul Lake (the world’s tenth largest lake by volume and at over 2000 feet the seventh deepest), and on to the border town of Narin to prepare for our crossing into China.
Security Conscious
The mountain road linking Kyrgyzstan to China’s autonomous region of Xinjiang was the most beautiful and spectacular approach I have ever experienced from one country to another. It also presented us with flurries of snow and freezing temperatures, adding to the dramatic entry. It was also the final country of our trip, maybe the most significant and certainly not the easiest to get into.
Arrival at the Chinese border in the mountains started a three-day process. It wasn't always clear what was happening, but it was extremely thorough, underlining that this fast developing country is highly sensitive. We sat on our bikes as we were sprayed with a disinfectant. Then the bikes – all of them at one go – were X-rayed in a machine designed for trucks. We were allowed to stay in a hotel in the regional capital of Kashgar, some 40 miles from the border, whilst our entry requests were being processed.
A few days later we were finally each equipped with a Chinese driving licence and a new numberplate, (although this only needed to be carried, not fixed to the bike). A mistake had been made with my Chinese driving licence, declaring that I was a woman. There was no time to correct it and I hoped it wouldn’t cause any issues or require my having surgery in central China.
Unlike many of the ’Stans, where security was evident but relatively covert, entry into western China