Braking Boundaries

After cycling 6000 km across China without meeting any other cyclists on the road (except the Koons brothers who were heading home) we were starting to wonder if we were the only ones out there.

It turns out that they were all in Central Asia.

As mentioned in a previous post we met the Belgian lads in Kazakhstan.

The Belgian Lads

In Kyrgyzstan on the road from Bishkek to Osh we met 7 cyclists going East, passed Taka who was going West and had left the same day as us, and Leon who caught up with us just before Osh.

Leon soaked after an afternoon wash

Marc and Marcus. The first Irish cyclist we met

Even bikes need number plates

Taka, mentioned in a previous post painting

Geert, very tired after a long day uphill

As we entered the Fergana Valley in Uzbekistan we met 2 German cyclists. In Sommerqand the Bahordir B&B was littered with bikes including a tandem being ridden by a swiss couple. We ran into yet another 3 cyclists on the road from Sommerqand to Bukhara and finally saw another 4 cyclists while in our Lada taxi just outside of Qongorit.

The two germans going around the world

The front of Isabels Bikes

Love this guys t-shirt

Note : Since the time of writing we met our first Ameican cycle tourist Noel as he got off the ferry in Aktau. Good luck for the desert Noel.

We passed this on the way into Tbilisi the other day:

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

In todays digital age it has been extremely easy to bring you digital photos from our trip virtually as they happen, but imagine a trip where the memories you bring back are more than files on a small piece of plastic.

This is exactly what our friend Taka does.

We first met Taka in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan where he was waiting for visas to be sorted out. Taka, a soft spoken Japanese man from a small village outside of Tokyo was heading to Uzbekistan along the same road as and left for Osh the just a few hours before we did.

Taka ready to leave

We caught up with Taka the next day in the Mountains of Kyrgyzstan. He was sitting near the top of the second 3000 meter pass painting. It turns out that he paints different scenes that he sees along his bike trip.

Taka painting in Kyrgyzstan

We caught up with Taka again in Uzbekistan where I got the opportunity to look through his paintings.

The finished painting from Kyrgyzstan

Taka said that when he returns to Japan he will hold a small exhibition of his paintings.

He has been going on cycle tours all over Asia and Europe each summer for the last 10 years and returns each year to Japan for harvest season.

We wish him luck for his future travels.

It was all well and good deciding to skip the Uzbek and Kazakh deserts and the accompanying 45-degree furnace. We still had the problem of getting three cyclists, bikes and bags all the way from Bukara to the port of Aktau in Kazakhstan.

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.

Flying in the post-9/11 era has become a rather stressful experience. Security is so strict these days that it would be easier to get into prison than most airports. Retina scans and biometric passport ID are fast becoming the norm for proving that you are indeed you, and not a pale imitation. Rules are made to be followed, and there are absolutely, positively no exceptions.

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

Coming to you LIVE from the ferry terminal. An as it happens blog post with bonus video.

We are in our 9th hour of waiting for a ferry that apparently arrived today.

For a the full story read on…

I found out that the ferry had arrived after wandering in to the ticket agents office at 9am, whom BTW told us that they would ring as soon as the infamous Aktau to Baku had docked.

A few SMS texts later Tom and Katie were also at the agent ready top pay and get going just in case the ferry had already been loaded. We were initially told to be at the terminal at 2pm.

As we packed to leave a call came into the Keremet hotel stating that boarding time would now be 8pm.

Having been in Asia and the Stans now for just about 4 months we have learned that it’s better to be safe than sorry and went to the terminal at 1pm. It wasn’t more than 3 nights ago that our train scheduled for 1.20am showed up at 12.10am and within 10 minutes and people yelling at us to chuck our gear on and get in. The train then promptly left at 12.30am

So with a ferry that only comes every 3-7 days no chances would be taken.

The time however is now 9.30pm and there is not a person or official in sight that has a clue about when we will board the ferry.

The only upside to sitting in this nice air conditioned empty waiting room is the fact that they have unsecured and fast wi-fi.

Will we board the ferry tonight, who knows…….

This post contains as much information about the visa and the ferry process as possible that I promised cyclists and backpackers who are are heading from East to West along a similar route to us.

Anna, Ruben, Leon, Peter and James. I hope your travels are going well and this information makes your stay here in Aktau a little less frustrating as you too will wait for the illusive ferry.

(if anyone has Peter’s email please send a link for this post to him)

Azerbaijan Consulate in Aktau, Kazakhstan

Aktau to Baku Ferry Ticket Information

Cheap Accommodation in Aktau

Other random Aktau notes:

There is an internet cafe on the 5th District side of the road (See the lonely planet map). It costs 350 Tenge an hour and is actually fast. They are open from 9-10pm every day. Tom found another one further from the city that is 24 hours and only costs 300 Tenge. Go all the way down the main road to the roundabout and take a right. It is located at the end of the block on the left side and is called Internet King. (11th District)

There is a decent supermarket opposite the WW11 memorial which is on the main street. It is called Ardager.

We have been unable to locate any bike shops as we are lacking in tube patches due to a spate of flat tires by all 3 of us.

A lot has happened since I last wrote a post about our route. Previously we had planned to cycle the majority of Kazakhstan. This idea was put to bed after a long conversation about visas, road conditions and sightseeing with David from Stan Tours.

As you know since then we have cycled through Kyrgyzstan and into Uzbekistan through some of the most amazing scenery and ancient cities that Central Asia has to offer.

Unfortunately the timing of entering Uzbekistan meant that we were in the country at the worst time in summer with temperatures soaring well over 40 degrees Celsius.

After cycling to the city of Bukhara through the hottest weather yet a “team meeting” was called and we discussed what we want from this section of our trip.

Despite the popular notion that the 3 of us are either masochistic or slightly insane a decision was made to use other means transport for the 600km of desert before the city of Nukus. Yes, we could cycle this by getting up at 4am every morning, sleeping during the afternoon and cycling at night, but it seemed illogical to waste our limited travel time and finances on more desert after doing just that in China.

From Nukus/Qongorit we took the train to Aktau as there are little to no roads or villages through and yes, it’s more extremely hot and boring desert.

Presently that puts us in Aktau, Kazakhstan where we are currently waiting for a ferry to Baku, Azerbaijan. From here we will be heading northwest to Georgia. There is currently talk of dropping down into Armenia for a few days before going back into Georgia to cross the border of Turkey. We plan to head through central turkey to the Mediterranean Sea and the city of Izmir.

For a visual view of since entering Central Asia check out this map.

As for Europe…stay tuned

Having spent 4 days here in Bishkek at the Sakura Guesthouse I have fast learned that this seems to be the place where cycle tourists, motorcyclists and backpackers alike come to vanish into the vortex that is the Central Asian Visa process.

So far I have met a couple from Spain that have been cycling around South-East Asia and are now on the same route to Europe as us.

A British motorcyclist named Jim whom I had the pleasure of hanging out with while he too applied for a Kazak visa. He was fortunate to get his in today and has temporarily escaped the vortex for a few days around one of the lakes here.

One of my favorite quotes from chats with Jim was

“The sharpest minds are quickly dulled here in Bishkek”

Leon, a British lad, who as it turns out was also a teacher in South Korea. He started cycling last October through various countries in South-East Asia but had been sucked in to the vortex for the last month trying to get the visas he needed. He too is now heading a route similar to us through the elusive Stans.

Leon holding up a pair of underwear weathered by his cycling

Peter, an older German cycle tourist had many interesting stories to tell and also had a plethora of information that has helped make our lives in Kyrgyzstan much easier. He was also a Chef in New Zealand on Great Barrier Island. As it turns out he is also heading along the same route as us with a detour to Tajikistan first.

There was a young French couple here on the first few days. They were planning on buying a donkey, yes that’s right, a donkey. They plan on walking all around Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan before heading on to Iran and Turkey.

The Sakura Guesthouse is definitely a place for visa refugees and worth staying at but be careful not to get sucked into the vortex. At least today (July 7th) Tom, Katie and I were able to submit our visas for Kazakhstan entry visa #2 moving closer and closer to that home cooked meal in Ireland.

Hailing from a small island nation has its ups and downs. You lack the bad press that comes with being an American (unfortunate, yet true), but despite the best efforts of U2 and a legion of Irish pubs stretching from Boston to the Baltic, anonymity is often the best you can hope for.

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.