Almaty Almaty is the largest city in central Asia (or maybe Tashkent is, depending on who you believe). We are here for three days to do bike maintenance and get organized for entry to China. That will be my last border crossing. We will have one day to look around in Almaty. Almaty has some spectacular mountains to the south and lots of tree lined streets. It is pretty typical of a relatively large city pretty much anywhere in the world. ... read more

Tashkent Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, is different from the other places we have been in Uzbekistan. It is a large city with a diverse population. It has a lot of Russian influence. We did some walking around and visited the steam engine museum. We found lots of hole in the wall places to eat with good local food. ... read more

Samarkand At last we arrived in Samarkand, the Queen city of the Silk Road. This stop is my primary interest on this trip. Tomorrow we have a day off to explore Samarkand. Uzbekistan has been a great place to travel. The people are happy and industrious. Even in the countryside they are very well dressed. Donkey carts are everywhere, carrying large loads down the highway. The drivers are minimally aggressive and excited to see us. This place is so much better than Turkmenistan.... read more

Khiva After hours of useless bureaucracy and searches to get out of Turkmenistan, we got to Uzbekistan, my primary reason to take this trip. Crossing the border led to an amazing change. All of a sudden there were people along the road, farmers working their fields, kids on bicycles, and lots of traffic, much of it donkey carts hauling produce. Uzbekistan is much poorer than Turkmenistan, but the people seem much happier. We got to Khiva, one of the main Silk Road cities, fairly late. Much of the town is contained inside the old wall. Some things have been rebuilt, but lots of old mud brick houses are still occupied, and many have deteriorated into piles of rubble. Khiva has a huge open air market with lots of food and just about any thing else you ... read more

Ashgabat The drive from Turkmenbashi to Ashgabat was two hundred miles of really bad road, and one hundred sixty of pretty good road. The temperature was above 100 F most of the day. The country side looked more like the Mojave Desert than I could believe. It has the same hills and vegetation. I bottomed out the suspension a few times, scraped the center stand once, and shook the mirrors loose. The main attraction of Turkmenistan is the price of fuel, about 31 cents/liter ($1.20/gallon). We had to pay a foreigner fuel tax on entry, but it is still cheap. Getting yo our hotel was a real problem that started with the planned route blocked for construction, followed by a bunch of street closures because the president was on his way to his palace. Unfortunately. the ... read more