Saturday May 5th Instead of sitting around in Tashkent until the following Wednesday for the Chinese embassy to open I decided to cycle tto Andijon close to Osh and then take a taxi back to Tashkent to pick up a visa and then return to Andijon. The first leg was to Angren and old soviet coal mining town. Unable to find a hotel I was cycling slowly when a guy gave me the peace sign so I stopped. He invited me to stay with him and his girl friend. They were very kind to me and took me on a tour [View Full Entry]

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Monday April 30. The uzbeck people are some of the nicest of the trip so far. Everywhere I stop they offer me tea and other treats. It is often difficult to pay for breakfast and they have an excellent sense of humour. The one negative side is their terrible driving. Perhaps it is only the third generation of drivers who are sane. I frequently see crashes but even after a crash they seem detached as to why it has happened. I try to tuck myself in behind a slow moving Russian truck and I depend very much on my mirror. [View Full Entry]

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Monday April 23 and Tuesday April 24. Finally got away from Ashgabat with my adjusted visa and a new guide, Eier and her friend who did the driving. We had 2 days to make the border so cycling was out of the question. We stopped in Merv to visit the ruins of this once famous city smashed by Ghengis Khan who had all the inhabitants mudered. The Hitler of his day he put to the sword nearly one third of the population of central asia in the early 13th century. Wednesday April 25. I was driven to the border where [View Full Entry]

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Thursday April 12. We arrived in Turkmenbashi at 4.30 am. It was to be 8 hours before I competed all the procedures; welcome to Turkmenistan the wierdest country in Asia. In the guide book it is called a Stalinist Dysneyland but I felt it had a large dose of Hollywood. My agent/guide arrived, Oleg, and dealt with the endless paperwork. That night we stayed in a good hotel to the north of Turkmenbashi. Friday April 13. Oleg took me and the bike in his Toyota Surf back to the city and over the mountains behind before I began cycling. As [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday April 4 I woke up to the sound of heavy rain but it had stopped by the time I emerged into the street. I said goodbye to the family and off I went on good flat roads and I was soon making 25-30 kms/hr. I stopped frequently for tea and was even asked inside one of the police stations at the side of the road for a cup of tea. I arrived in Ganca, pronounced Ganja, at 1pm and checked into a typical soviet era hotel. They could put a man in space but never achieved the feat of building [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday April 4. I said a fond farewell to Irena and rode the 2 kms into the centre to the telephone building. In the process I had two cars literally drive at me and when I remonstrated they just looked blank. But I am driving a clapped out rust bucket and I am higher up the food chain than you so why are you complaining? These drivers have not taken any driving test and frequently hit each other. The government has a major task on its hands to cut down on drunken driving. It rained hard all day. The border [View Full Entry]

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I spent a week in Tibilisi at Irena's homestay and this was the highlight of my time in Georgia. The rest was a disappointment. The country is very much an ex-soviet nation. The older people are still in a kind of shock. The younger generation and the old communists, who managed to grab all they could lay their hands on, are in transition to capitalism, specifically the second hand Mercedes for the less well off and the new 4x4 for the ex-communists and hangers-on. They drive their cars at pedestrians with horns blaring. Indeed for these rather fat unshaven men [View Full Entry]

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March 10 - March 14 I had 5 days in Istanbul cleaning the bike, doing the blog and generally catching up with washing clothes etc. I spent one day visiting the sights and taking pictures. It is 45 years since I was last in Istanbul and the city has changed enormously. I visited Santa Sophia and speculated if it could have been different if 1453 had not happened. North Africa, much of the Middle East, Anatolia and Southern Europe went into a cul-de-sac for 400 years. In the five areas: social, cultural, political, technological and economic history stood still for [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday March 15. As I had planned I took the bus to Gerade to miss out the heavy traffic. It was a good decision as the traffic is scary along this stretch. The memory of Dave Cook underlines that choice. I set off cycling at 1 pm and made good progress as I climbed higher into the mountains. It got very cold and started to snow. The snow was driven by a strong wind and visibility was reduced. Lorries were seeing me too late but the main problem was the cold and the possibility of hyperthermia. I was seriously cold. [View Full Entry]

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Saturday March 17. I left Merzifon at 8 am. The road is flat at first but then become hilly. Some of the hills are very long. I pushed my bike for at least two hours up these hills. I stopped along the way for tea and bananas. I do enjoy their tea houses. Eventually I reached the top and it was a dramatic downhill to Samsun and sunshine! I booked into a good hotel, Otel Fuar. I had dinner at a fish restaurant and watched Bolton lose to Man United. They know much more about the Premiership than I do. [View Full Entry]

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