From Saturday’s News Letter:

Jared and Katie seem to have had the lion’s share of adventure. Since leaving Turkey they have, amongst other things, survived being swept out to sea by floods, discussed communism a caravan in Kosovo, had tea in an Albanian bunker, conquered the mighty Alps (three 2,000-metre passes in two days), and edured miserable weather across France before arriving in London on the 15th.

I feel a bit boring by comparison. Following my solo sprint across Europe and England, I got home on the 4th and have been readjusting to life indoors over the last fortnight. After so many nights in fields and forests, sleeping in an actual bed seems almost too comfortable. Home cooking, on the other hand, is being eaten with great joy and requests for seconds.

Expect lots of stories over the coming weeks, filling in the blanks and keeping you enthralled. For those who lack patience, photos are already available on our Facebook pages.

The guys are flying/driving over to Northern Ireland next week for a catch-up session (I’ve been instructed by Ruth not to say “debriefing” as it sounds too formal and technical. In fact, I was only using it to avoid saying “piss-up”.).

In response to (semi)popular demand, here’s a tenative itinerary for the week:

Mon: ride from Dover-London
Tue: day off
Wed &Thur: ride up to Liverpool
Fri: ferry from Liverpool-Belfast

I plan to catch the Norfolklines Friday daytime ferry from Liverpool-Belfast
It arrives at 6pm in the evening (will have to check that). Beers and grub to follow.

Any of you who are in the Belfast vicinity are welcome to join. If you’re not in the area, no probs. I’ll be at home until the 26th and will try to catch up with everyone during that time.

I’ll pick up a phone SIM card tomorrow and will publish the number so I can be contacted easily.

Continued best wishes to my fellow teamies who are going to conquer the mighty Alps this week.

A full update of what I’ve been up to over the last 3 weeks will follow soon; as soon as I sit down with a nice Internet conection and a laptop, that is. Eat, ride, sleep and repeat. That’s the gist of it, but there was plenty of madness and mayhem too.

This point in our journey will see us take some different roads, kinda fitting for a millennia-old crossroads. Due to differing travel tastes, we’ve decided to choose two separate paths from here to London. Europe offers such rich scenic choices that it would be a shame to miss the ones that most tickle our collective fancies.

I will be making a beeline, albeit a fairly scenic one, for London and Belfast. Beginning in Bulgaria, I plan to travel through Serbia and Hungary to Budapest before following the mighty Danube River upstream through parts of Austria (yes, IAESTE-folks, that does include a rest stop in Vienna) and Germany, finishing off with a sprint across Luxembourg and Belgium to the French port of Calais. Flat, fast and furious. Think of it as the cycling equivalent of blitzkrieg…minus the Luftwaffe.

Jared and Katie will be on a parallel course somewhere to my southwest. Their route will take them across northern Greece (Spartans, anyone?) and the Balkans to Dubrovnik, where they will cross the Adriatic to Italy before hopping over the Swiss Alps into France.

It’s a fairly clear-cut case of “You take the high road, and I’ll take the low road.” The difference in mileage is not massive, though crossing a few 2000m passes in the Alps clearly beats the Danube in terms of bragging rights. We’re hoping that we will be able to meet up on the road to London, schedules permitting. If not, there will be a nice bottle of Bushmills waiting at my house for anyone who cares to continue.

We hope that you, loyal readers, will continue to follow us through the last stage of the big adventure and stay tuned to the latest mishaps and goings-on (Youtube video clips will be back on the menu when we leave Turkey, where the site is blocked) here on the website. In fact, you really ought to be grateful we’ve opted to take different paths- this means two European holidays’-worth of photos and blog updates for the price of one [What do you mean we aren't charging them?].

Leon rode with us from Osh, Kyrgyzstan to Bukhara Kazakhstan and decided there to continue through the seering heat.

Here is his latest entry which is well worth the read:

After not a bad nights sleep, considering, I was packed up and on the road by six. Today, what had been crosswind, became a headwind of increasing severity as the day progressed. It took six hours on the bike to do 70kms.

It was a little frustrating and I really envied Jared and the gangs train journey – although I suspect that was fraught with its own hassels. Anyway, ‘resting’ (it was over 40c with no shade) at the side of the road, thoroughly dejected, a lorry stopped and the driver’s mate asked “You have a problem?” Rather than being the verbal precursor to unarmed combat that it would be in sunny England, the guy was actually genuinely inquiring if I needed any help. I was touched. I assured him I was okay, and this positive little episode gave the inspiration to continue riding ponderously into the wind.

There was nothing to see other than desert. A couple of times I passed a lone guy sitting at the side of the road. They made a noise and indicated for me to stop, but I wasn’t tempted. They always looked rather dodgy and I had trouble imagining where they came from and what the hell they were doing in the middle of nowhere. I mean, there was nothing as far as the eye could see. I just waved and carried on. With water and energy running low, plus no shelter in sight, I had my own problems and absolutley no desire to engage in the same conversation I’ve had a million times before:

Them: “Kouda” (where from?)
Me: “Anglia” (England)
Them: “India?” (India?)
Me: “Niet. F*****g ENGLAND!” (swearing only started after the 350,000th time)
Them: “Oh, Anglia”
Me: “Da”
Them: “Beckham, Rooney, Man United” (various names related to English football)
Me: Eyes glaze over, make my excuses and leave.

When a chaikhana eventually appeared it was like a mirage, hovering on the horizon but never getting any closer. The most frustrating thing was not knowing whether it was a chaikhana or just a derelict building that would offer no refreshment. Thankfully it was and I could get the coke (a-cola) injection I’d been craving. I then vegetated for a couple of hours waiting for the accursed sun to sink. The people at the Chaikhana were very good and honest. Whilst comfort had gone out of the window since leaving Burkara, good old Uzbek honesty was back on the cards, with the rip-off merchants staying at the tourist hot-spots.

Leaving the place I passed a police checkpoint, and as usual the police were incredibly friendly and genial. I have heard so many horror stories about the police here, but have personally found them to be nothing but gentlemen – certainly a cut above the constabularies of Kyrgyza and Kazahkstan.

Hoping for a decrease in wind as night fell, I was sorely disappointed. In fact, it got worse, and was like riding into two industrial strength fans pumping hot air in my face. After an hour or so I gave up on night riding and went to camp in the desert. This time, my broken door allowed a million mosquitos to make their home in my tent. Too hot to wear a sleeping bag, or any clothes in excess of underwear, I was deprived sleep whilst being eaten alive instead.

Source : http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?page_id=122728

To read more about Leons adventures see his blog Go West

It’s only a straight line distance, but it means we’re getting there.

In this part of the world at least, the machinations of getting from A to B are never simple. It took 48 hours, two minibuses, a hundred mile edge of the seat ride in a Lada taxi with the bikes strapped to the roof, two trains, and a final 20km dash on the bikes to get here, all to be told we’d just missed the boat.

Such is life.

Here are a selection of photos and happenings from the marathon journey.

(I)
We left Bukara on Wednesday morning, catching a minibus to some nameless town whose name I never caught, and then transferring to another bus bound for Nukus.

The barren desert landscapes being served up only strengthened our belief that we’d been right to skip out this stretch of Uzbekistan.

In the second minibus, a modified Ford Transit, I spent 200km in a rearward-facing seat, looking back at this:

That jumble you see is three bikes tied precariously to the back seat with bungee cords and braced with my feet.

(II)
In Nukus we couldn’t find a minivan for the next stage of the journey, so we had to settle for a Lada taxi. How many bikes can you fit on a Lada? I heard a lot of Lada jokes when I was a kid, though this was not one of them.

Anyhow, here’s the answer:

I’ve never seen a driver so keen to get a fare. He was absolutely determined to pack us and our belongings into the little car, throwing our bikes around with reckless abandon and no regard for the damage being inflicted upon chains, dérailleurs and spokes.

The car was rust-speckled and of evident vintage. The front seatbelts were tired around the handbrake. Whether this was for neatness or to keep it in place, I couldn’t be sure. The speedometer didn’t work. Just as well, since the driver didn’t seem to give much regard to such trifling matters as speed limits. Perhaps to reassure Jared and myself or make us feel more at home, he spent much of the trip on the left side of the road, only swerving back to avoid oncoming traffic.

We coasted over potholed roads with a suspension seemingly made from used slinky springs. The uneven road surface, if nothing else, kept us a a semi-rational speed. I spent the entire journey with my eye glued to the road. I felt that at least one of the car’s occupants ought to be doing so, having lost confidence in the driver when he began counting the money Jared had given him while driving through the city.

(III)
Our train wasn’t due to depart from Kongrad until the following morning, so we had to camp outside the town. Finding a campsite is difficult enough in daylight, even more so in the dark, and we ended up next to a patch of mosquito-infested swampland. We threw our tents up in mere minutes, but it wasn’t enough to avoid being eaten alive by the little buggers. They even got into Katie’s and Jared’s tents. The next hour was interspersed with the sight of headlamp beams panning around tents and the occasional swatting sound that marked a successful kill.

(IV)

The train from Kungrad to Beinau was hot and crowded. We managed to grab some half-decent seats, and even snagged a bunk which we were able to use on a rotational basis.

Our bikes were crammed into a crawlspace between the carriages. I winced a little at the continued pummling being inflicted upon them over the course of the journey.

A constant stream of vendors roamed through the carriages, peddling their wares. There were so many hawkers, sellers, and money changers that it seemed as though only half the people on the train were actually passengers. Jared made a video of the action, which you can see elsewhere on the website soon.

(V)
We arrived in Beinau late Thursday evening, but had to wait several hours for the night train to Aktau. We grabbed a bite to eat in a nearby cafe, and settled . A dust storm was blowing through the town, and we sheltered from the billowing dust as best we could.

(VI)

After all that traveling, we finally made it to Aktau on Friday morning, over 48 hours after leaving Bukara. We were somewhat startled to learn that the train station was over 20km from the city and port.

The last 20km by bike was slowed by headwinds and, in my case, a not-so-slowly deflating tyre which needed to be pumped several times along the way. Some days you just ought to stay in bed.

We arrived at the port only to be told that there was a ferry, but that it was preparing to leave. Even if we had been in possession of our Azeri visas, which we weren’t, we wouldn’t have been allowed to enter. There simply wouldn’t have been time to grab tickets, clear customs, and roll up the gangway.

With no actual schedule of posted sailings, it was always going to be a stab in the dark. Still, knowing we’d missed the ferry by such a close margin was a little disheartening, especially after doing everything possible to get to Aktau in record time.

It was with this thought in mind that I sat uneasily in the aviakasse (ticket office) of the small airport at Osh.

The problem was this: we were in Osh, but our passports were in the Kazakh embassy in Bishkek, leaving us with only a stamped photocopy each as proof of identity. Had this been Belfast or anywhere in the west, such a flimsy excuse, true though it was, would never have been accepted. In fact, we’d have been laughed out of the airport. After all, anyone with a printer and a copy of Photoshop can rustle up a few fake passport images in about five minutes flat.

Of course, if you’re flying from an airport where it still seems to be the 1970s, the rules are a little different. After 30 seconds of looking at our papers and conferring with a policeman who had luckily been seated in the very same office, it was agreed that we would be allowed to fly.

Despite the apparent nod of approval, we were still feeling a bit of trepidation, and it was only after our papers were accepted a second time at the security check-in that we finally relaxed.

Our airplane was an old Russian one, an Antonov-24. After the flight, I looked on Wikipedia, and discovered that they stopped manufacturing this particular model in 1978. Hmm, it’s always comforting to fly on an airplane which is older than you are. The NATO codename for this particular aircraft was “Coke,” rather appropriate given the gallons of the stuff drunk by us so far on the trip.

Katie, I’m sure, was glad not to have been informed of this fact prior to the flight. She would have been slightly happier had I discovered this particular nugget of information AFTER our return flight to Osh.

Flying from a tiny airfield meant that we had no waiting time to obtain take-off clearance. The flight was relatively smooth, except for a few pockets of turbulence, and this was only to be expected in such a small aircraft. Our pilot had evidently once been in the air force, such was the steepness with which he banked the airplane into each turn. Perfectly safe, but perhaps a little unnerving for those used to more gentle turning.

The plane itself was sturdy but showing its vintage. The seats had a permanent degree of recline, even in the fully upright position. The once-white plastic of the overhead air vents was cracking and yellowed with age. The one above my head had actually been repaired with blue insulation tape.

Halfway through the flight, as we soared over the mountains of central Kyrgyzstan, the vents began to ice over a little from collected condensation. Glancing around, I noted that no one was screaming or running up and down the aisle [which would have been a rather short sprint, I suppose], and decided that this must be a fairly normal occurrence. I also decided that my definition of normal must have become rather hazy since embarking on this trip.

Our flight path took us over sections of the route we’d traveled by bike. It was very cool being able to pick out towns or mountain passes that we’d crossed only days before, and look down at the snowcapped peaks we’d previously craned our necks to look up at.

Landing at Manas airport, we were greeted by the sight of half a dozen lumbering refueling tankers belonging to the US Air Force, all lined up on the parking apron. The Americans pay the Kyrgyz government quite handsomely (about $200 million a year) for the privilege of stationing jets there as part of the war in Afhganstan. This newfound bling-bling went some way towards explaining the contrast in standards between the shiny new international airport facilities at Manas and the more antiquated offerings at Osh. Thank you, American taxpayers.

[Since writing this article, the BB team has successfully flown back to Osh with the same airline, ice-free this time]

Flights: 2250-2500 KGS one way
Taxis: Osh → Osh airport: 200 KGS, Manas airport → Bishkek: 400 KGS

Having said that, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the level of name recognition generated by my fair and native land when mentioned here in the ‘Stans. Many of the people I talk to are, at the very least, familiar with its existence; definitely more so than the locals were in China. Well, they occasionally think I’m saying Iran, but I’ve learned to say Ir-lan-di-ya slowly enough for the message to get through. And the reaction is generally a positive one, which warms the heart a little.

However, some of the general knowledge could use a little polishing. Waiting at the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border, I was asked my nationality by some passing customs officers.
“Ireland. Ah, yes. Glasgow.”
Not quite, but right group of islands.
The next one was similarly enthusiastic but just as inaccurate.
“Da. Da.. Ireland – Rangers, Celtic. Very good”
Hmm, I was detecting a theme: football – popular; geography – not so much.

Being Irish can be an advantage, though sometimes in unexpected ways. On the way back to the guesthouse in Bishkek one lunchtime, Katie and I were followed from the corner shop by a fairly dodgy-looking gent. Katie said, a little too loudly, that she didn’t like the look of him.

“I AM FROM BISHKEK” he announced a few seconds later, rather more forcefully than the statement merited.
I was a little unsure where his line of debate was going, and expected at the very least a few comments on how tourists should keep their opinions to themselves.
“Where you from? Amerikanski?”
“Eh, no,” I ventured, hoping for the love of God that he had neither heard nor understood her comment.“Irlandia.”
“Irlandia? Ah, IrLANdia!” he beamed. “Da, da. Terror-isme,” he continued, pointing imaginary guns at my face and making bang-bang gestures with them.

The knowledge that I was from a country with a sufficiently dodgy pedigree seemed to satisfy him, and he sauntered off happily. I guess maybe there is no such thing as bad publicity after all.

Sakura had a lot in common with the song Hotel California [/ You can check in any time you like / But you can never leave/] in that many of the residents of our humble abode had been stuck there for quite some time. Several were present for both of our periods of stay. Nearly everyone, it seemed, was having visa issues of some sort or other.

Jim, an English motorcyclist/veteran guest, described Bishkek as the bureaucratic purgatory of Central Asia. When we met him, he’d been hanging around the city for almost two weeks, shuttling back and forth between various consulates, trying to obtain several of the mythical pieces of paper we like to call Tourist Visas. These were harder to find than hens’ teeth, and less seen than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Still, he took it all in good humour. At lunch one day, we were commenting on the delicious smells of lunch wafting from the little kitchen area.
“Hmmph,” he snorted. “The only things I smell are the faint haze of cigarette smoke – Embassy, appropriately enough – and the stale odour of despair.”

We were rather fortunate in the company we kept. During our first visit, Sakura had taken on the appearance of a refugee camp for wayward cyclists; such were the numbers in residence. There were seven bikes in the garage at one point, belonging to a German, two Spaniards, one Englishman, one Japanese, and two of us (poor Katie still being stuck 20km across the border at the time). Some were going west; others east. It made for unmissable opportunity to gain valuable travel tips about the road ahead. Who needs the Lonely Planet when you can have first-hand, up-to-the-minute info straight from the horse’s mouth?

Of course, you’re all dying to see photos of the ‘Stans, and you’d never let us live it down if we skipped an entire region just to save the awful torture of sitting on our collective arses in a succession of nice hostels while embassies and consulates push paper from one side of a desk to the other.

These forced breaks have been very beneficial – allowing each of us a decent chance to rest, recuperate and refuel. This may be more of a good thing than I’d care to admit. Jared ‘tactfully’ compared my post- food poisoning, post-China ribcage to that of a concentration camp escapee. He even beat me up a hill once last week.

In Almaty and Bishkek I’ve been wolfing down as much hearty food as possible to replenish my diminishing reserves. Mr Mitchell, by the way, is doing rather well with his personal weight-loss plan, dropping 8-10kg during our Chinese expedition. Katie, despite eating less than either of us, still frets that she might put on weight during this trip. It must be a girl thing: 7 or 8 hours on the bike is apparently counteracted by the very thought of food, which in itself creates “virtual calories” that weigh upon the mind of the female cyclist.

Anyhow, back to the point of the story. We’re looking forward to the day when we rock up to the Georgian border and get the first of many on-the-spot visas. After that glorious day, the trip will become a case of no more waiting, which may make us a little bit thinner, but also a lot happier .

…especially when it’s 35 degrees by 9:30 and over 40 in the afternoons. We love the people of Uzbekistan, but not its summer climate. Thank God for Chai-kanas (teahouses).

There’s canned horsemeat or fresh ; smoked ham style; even the choice of some beautifully vacuum-wrapped horse penis should one want something a little more exotic. I’ve decided not to include a photo of the latter item as it might disturb some readers (i.e. our mothers), and because the shopworkers might have wondered what kind of perverts we were if we’d been wandering round the local Tesco-ski, gleefully snapping pics of chopped-off horse genitalia.

Instead, here’s a lovely pic of some garden-variety equine activity in Bishkek.

DISCLAIMER: No horses or hedge-rows were harmed during the writing of this article.

* P.S. don’t get me wrong: I’m not slagging the Kazakhs off for this. The French eat horse, and far weirder things; Koreans dine on dog; and the Chinese, as we’ve previously seen, think nothing of throwing whole rabbits and chickens – heads, feet and all – into their stews. Everyone has their own idea of culinary acceptability. It’s just unusual to me, and I like to write about the unusual.

He spotted this sign:

several times and, quite logically, took it to be a street name. He was bamboozled to see it again and again as we criss-crossed the city, and wondered how we could still be on the same street after taking several turns.

After about 20 minutes and some head-scratching, he thought to actually read the sign and spelled out the letters (Having spent over a week immersed in the ‘Stans, we’d picked up the Cyrillic alphabet fairly well, and can read the characters without much problem) .

S – T – O – P.

In his hungry, dehydrated state he’d been mistakenly navigating by stop signs. This explained a lot.