Blogs from The Silk Road of Asia, Turkmenistan, Asia

MARY to GOAT SH.. CAMP 21 AUGUST 2016. My stage 7 TDA stage 80 Distance: 127 Kms SubT. Kms 818.3 kms Road Condition: 80% bitumen. Weather: 40c blue sky, strong afternoon head wind. Time in Saddle: 6 hrs Av Speed: av. 21.5 kph. Av Cadence. 64 Rpm Elevation: 300 m up; 180 m down Calories burned : >5000 We were expecting bad roads for today and through to the capital, Ashgabat. The road in the morning was newly paved dual highway making the riding enjoyable. Just when I was settling in, the conditions changed back to rough surface making the cycling slower. The scenery was desert, scrubby thorn bush, rocky soil. Not many redeeming features. Must be good melon conditions, as again saw many melon road stalls. After lunch, the bread is so hard its like ... read more

The 11th October started out like any other day, except we were leaving Uzbekistan and crossing into Turkmenistan. Things seemed a bit dire when I told everyone to make sure they had their Uzbekistan Customs Declaration forms ready to present at the border, and found out that 2 people didn't even have a form (both copies were mistakenly taken off them at Tashkent Airport). There was nothing we could do about it. Firstly we got them to offload as much currency as possible to other group members, but this still left them with around US$1470 total. Nothing for it. We knew a lot depended on the official we got, which could prove to be a costly exercise for the clients. Worst came to worst, we would have to pay a bribe. In addition, 1 client had ... read more