BANGKOK 6 AUGUST, 2016 I am now in Bangkok. Arrived with 55 kgs of gear- bike, tyres and parts; camping gear; a small quantity of clothing, weighty medical kit and a cardboard bike box weighing over 5 kgs. I fly onto Samarkand on Monday, 8.8, via Istanbul, an airport layover of 6 hours, then fly to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, wait 3 hours, then a train trip of about 3 hours to Samarkand, arriving on the 9.8.16. Initially I was to fly Bangkok to Samarkand on Uzbekistan Airlines, a MUCH shorter trip, but after ticket purchase the airline called saying that I would need to reduce the bike box to 3 feet square, as otherwise it wouldn't fit on the plane. Besides the obvious impossibility of reducing the bike size, even with wheels off, the
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