Bishkek
Bishkek
Osh, KYR
Osh
Tashkent
Tashkent
Samarkand
Samarkand
Bukhara
Bukhara
UZB
UZB
Dashoguz
TM border
Border
Asgabat second night
Flat Tires and the Kindness of Strangers
Okay, so we finished camping and headed off for Aktau, Kazakhstan at around 7am, sure we would make up great time and get there with plenty of time to go and maybe continue to the border. Within an hour we had driven about 10-15 km and had a flat tire. Our first casualty of the rally! We quickly changed the tire (we had a spare that was not a donut) and proceeded on. Around 1pm, you guessed it - another flat tire! We had no tires left!!! So we handled who would hitch hike and find the nearest town (about 50 km away - so about 3 hours) in the most democratic way possible, you guessed it paper, rock scissors! I lost, so I waved down a lorry and asked if I could get a ride in my broken Kazakh...he did one better and had the equipment to fix the tire on the spot. Extremely nice guy (we have met many on this trip) from Turkmenistan, could have ignored us but didn't - killer move...We (actaully I) was relieved and we continued on....by about 3pm we FINALLY hit smooth roads and continued on to Aktau, speeding through the city we were 6 km from the center and the hotel when, you guessed another flat tire! That's three in one day, gotta be some kind of MR record!>!??!?! We pumped up the tire and trodded along until we found a service station on the way that fixed both tires in about 15 minutes and cost us like $10, sweeeeet! Now relaxing after the longest 36 hours of my life (i think i lost about 3 years off my life from that drive!)
WTF (Kazakh style)
Okay so the beginning of our drive from the border was amazingly fluid with few issues - roads were amazing, and we made great time. Then we decided to take a detour from the changed plans and head south into Turkmenistan from the north (next to Caspian Sea). The road essentially ended and we began a very long drive at about 20 clicks per hour. Thinking we would make it to Aktau (500 km away), we left around 1pm....by 9pm when we stopped we were still something like 300 km away! We set up camp in the desert just off the "road" and camped out - spectacular scenery and weather was perfect!
