Russia Route (Third visit!)

It’s hard to believe it was only 4 days ago that I posted our Kazakhstan route, bemoaning the difficulties we were having with DHL – feels like weeks ago.

On Wednesday we were finally able to collect Brian from the DHL office – hooray!!! There was sadly only time for a brief celebration as we had to hit the road to reach the Russian border that same day. It was a pretty grim drive due to the weather but we finally crossed into Russia at 10:30pm. Once in Russia the next few days were all about getting to Georgia; battling over-zealous/corrupt soldiers at every checkpoint, icy roads, snow storms and rain to finally cross into Georgia this morning.

We’re now booked into a guesthouse in Tibilsi, having spent a very pleasant, blue-skied day driving south through the Georgian mountains. After the monastacism of Uzbekistan, the bleak remoteness of Western Kazakhstan and the blur of Russia, it’s like being in heaven. Seemingly every second shop is full to the brim withĀ bottles of wine and the restaurants serve salad!

I can’t live without my radio

Many thanks to BBC Somerset for broadcasting the fruits of the other day’s interviewing labours. After hearing my own voice droning on, I can now safely say that I will never speak again for the rest of my life! Clare, on the other hand, chatted away and managed to make us sound moderately interesting.

Here’s the audio recording for your listening pleasure…. just turn your ears off whenever I’m speaking.

Thanks again to Charlie and Jack at BBC Somerset!

Kazakhstan Route (second visit)

It wasn’t meant to turn out this way, but we’ve now been stationary for 5 days. The long and short of it is that DHL have let us down in a big way and failed to deliver Brian on time. He was meant to be ready for us to collect on Monday, then they said Tuesday, now they’ve promised tomorrow. Given that our Russian visa says we have to cross the border tomorrow, I’m not sure what we’ll do if they let us down again….

On a more positive note we’ve been staying in a lovely (but expensive) apartment with proper, fast internet and free laundry. So, we’ve been loading up on TV shows to keep us amused during the long cold nights in the car. We’ve also been eating lots of pizza.

The statisticians amongst you will be excited to hear that whilst we haven’t beaten our maximum elevation record, we have smashed our minimum elevation record on this leg achieving -49m!!

Oh the Hardships

Though I’m enjoying this trip immensely there are undoubtedly some hardships that one has to suffer. The most obvious ones: defecating in dug out holes, wild camping on windswept nights, living out of the back of a car – aren’t really much of an issue to be honest. Rather it’s been things I wasn’t completely anticipating that have turned out to be the biggest hardships.

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Uzbekistan: Aral Sea Photos

The Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, or rather, where the Aral Sea used to be. A rather poignant place made even more depressing by the fact it’s here where we found out that Trump had won the Presidency. šŸ™

The photos show the remnants of the fishing fleet at Moynak. Once located at the sea shore, Moynak now lies 100km from what remains of the sea.

IMG_3857

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Uzbekistan Route

I’m currently typing this from the city of Atyrau in Kazakhstan having crossed the border from Uzbekistan a few days ago. The entry and exit procedures from Uzbekistan border on the ridiculous with our exit taking over 4 hours. The border guards had a very thorough rummage through literally everything – including a good sniff of Clare’s baking powder.

Our time in Uzbekistan was, by necessity, short and we stuck to the sights, which meant many more nights spent in city hostels than normal. It was an interesting experiment but I think I’m happier when it’s just us and the car out in the countryside.

The next milestone will be our happy reunion with Brian (our drone) at the DHL office on Monday morning – drones are banned in Uzbekistan so we had to post ours from Tajikistan to Kazakhstan. With Brian safely back on board we’ll enter Russia on Wednesday and make a mad dash for Georgia over the next few days in accordance with the strict timetable dictated by our transit visa. We’re both excited to see Georgia šŸ™‚

Utterings on UzbekistanĀ 

#1 Practically every car is a white Chevrolet……and that really is no exaggeration

#2 Hardly any petrol or diesel. Most of the cars have been converted to run on gas. In Bukhara we had to queue for 1 1/2 hours to fill up šŸ™

#3 Many of the buildings are painted creams, magnolias – think too of Angel Delight butterscotch

#4 Many farmers are forced to grow cotton (a legacy from the Soviet Union days) even though the climate and soil conditions don’t really lend themselves to the crop.

#5 All tourists exchange dollars on the black market – the exchange rate is practically twice as good as the official exchange rate

#6 The men, especially the older generation, wear long dark blue padded coats that look a bit like dressing gowns

#7 There is endless flat desert in Uzbekistan stretching east from Bukhara all the way to the Caspian Sea

#8 There are some very friendly cats

#9 There are quite a few housing estates where the houses are all identical – think Edward Scissorhands….and yes…they’re all magnolia

#10 Some stunning, if over renovated, old buildings in Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva (see my blog Building with Botox!)

Uzbekistan: Khiva Photos

Another day and another stop on our tourism-optimised drive through Uzbekistan. Today we are in Khiva – a city in possesion of an ancient mud-walled citadel stuffed to the brim with madressas, mosques and minarets.

It’s all very interesting, but at the same time a little bit weird. Clare sums it up in thisĀ blogĀ post.

Khiva
Khiva

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Building with Botox

We’ve spent the last week travelling to the classic tourist sights in Uzbekistan: Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. To be honest it’s hard to do anything other than that as the road literally leads you from one place to the next with little chance to detour. Whilst the immense desert doesn’t help, you also get the feeling that the powers that be just want you to stick to the tourist trail too.

Kalon Mosque Bhukara
Kalon Mosque
Bhukara

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