WELL........THERE'S CAMELS

The devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin for a soul to steal

He was in a bind cos he was way behind

He was willing to make a deal

Charlie Daniels Band

Means to an end...hopefully not mine!

We stay five days at the Silk Way Motel in Astrakhan hoping my swollen hip and banged up shoulder would show signs of improvement. We have time in hand and it's pretty hot to travel anyway and as the forecast shows a little cooler on Saturday  we aim to set off then. I squeeze my swollen hip into my Draggin jeans and drop a couple of nurofens. Now anyone that knows me knows that I am a model for stick figures and even then they have to sharpen the pencil to get the limbs thin enough. Today I cant use my front left hand pocket as its full....of swollen leg and hip. A fun thing to do is to put stuff in there like coins and the bruising adopts the shape.....  must remember I'm a grandfather now!  Right now I've chosen to carry on, it's not particularly clever from a medical point of view,  of which my brain and busted up shoulder constantly reminds me, and I'm a shithead to be around (yep even more than before...sorry Ron)
 but.....we're off!  

So who's been sitting on their bruised bum and figured how play with and crop maps! 

Kazakhstan
We leave Astrakhan and set off for Atyrau which is a oil city in Kazakhstan  around three sixty K's away hoping for an easy run. Surprisingly the Russian side to the border was quite green and scenic compared to the other side of Astrakhan. We pass through the Russian side easily and line up a few K's later on the Kazak side clutching our new visas. People are arriving after us and legging it down the line to an office window so we follow and find a different setup to normal. We wait at the window, present our best confused smiles and find the border police helpful and friendly. Within an hour we are "kerchinged" and ready to go. Ok some money.....the money change hawker approaches us and I slip him a thousand ruble note which is about thirty Australian. He peels off five thousand in Kazakh, tells me benzine (petrol) is only one hundred and fifteen a litre (70 odd cents)  so the five thou should be plenty, and slides off to the next deal with unlit ciggy defying gravity in his smiling gob. Five thousand bucks (tenge actually) wow.....I'm gonna need twenty or thirty thou just to buy stuff.....in my wallet....and I've still got four thousand rubles...gotta get a bigger wallet! We hit the road or should I say the road hits us. I have never seen asphalt so broken, so contorted, so utterly impassable as the next three hundred K's. This is the worst piece of heavily used road I have ever seen. There were times when cars, vans, semis, whatever formed a conga line weaving from one side of the road to the other to avoid huge potholes and washouts. Vehicles drove for kilometres in the dirt alongside having given up the crazy weaving amongst trucks and semis of all sizes. Average speed for most vehicles would have been around thirty K's. The bikes did ok but there was a high percentage of huge holes just not avoidable with weaving vehicles to avoid in each direction. As for scenery  its a bit like any desert in Australia....nothin, except for the odd village of mud buildings, usually on a stream with extensive burial tombs outside and camels...big ones, little ones, one hump or two but erm no good looking ones! After bouncing around for six hours we hit Atyrau totally knackered....a clean modern city bankrolled by oil so we're told and so much different to the surrounding countryside it plays with you're head . That night we eat chicken burgers and fries in the authentic "Gun and Roses Pub Grille" bar at a flash hotel surrounded by workers including an Australian all here for oil work. The city centre has wide streets , is full of flash Toyotas, the drivers seem coolish, and everything seems calm and organised. Gotta love money!
The next day we hit a perfect highway for the four twenty K's to Beyneu. Most of the town signs along here include a picture of an oil derrick suggesting a reason for the turnaround in road conditions. The next road into Uzbekistan however is a known shocker and the border crossing long and difficult. On the day of departure it rains all night. "Wonderful". We are advised by fellow travellers who came that way the day before to wait another day in Beyneu as trucks tear up the muddy road making it dangerous. So....we wait...again.
.  

 Russia.....gettin out

Kazakhstan....And gettin in

Asphalt as art.......cmon you arty types dig it up and have an exhibition....um no digging required!

 There are these burial grounds outside most communities..some are quite extensive and appear better than people's own houses.

It's not a cow, horse..nup, sheep nup too big....call the circus there's an escaped camel! Camels are all over the place mostly near communities. They all seem to be owned as they all seemed to be tagged or marked. 

 Out if the wilderness into Atyrau, lots of Toyota's and Lexus's and modern stuff.

Yep......love lapping up anything significantly historical.... 

The hotel in Beyneu, with ensuite yurt.

I thought this was a display and headed on in taking a couple of snaps. As I left a disgruntled gentleman headed in and slammed the front skin...oops. Slamming a skin just doesn't have the same angry effect of course! 

Hows this inside, aircon, tables even a flat screen on the opposite wall. Be a bugger to pitch though.   

We met Roland with his partner Regina two up on the 350 Condor (Crazy Swiss !), and Otto on an 800 BM coming from the other way. They had done a loop from Switzerland through the Pamirs and were heading home through Russia....I think I spoilt Roland's day by knowing what his bike was....what's Swiss for smartarse

The market in Beyneu needs a bit of marketing, you know, a reason to head into the mud and slush and through the gate.... maybe a sign....?

 Cos when you do go in whoa! There's multiple rows going way back. 

Tummy upsets at great prices! 

Is it  safe to say that for every fan he sells he loses one! Aaaah rocknroll.

These UAZ vans are everywhere and super cool. They're 4wd, twin fuel tanks, go anywhere, and are used for anything and everything. The Russians call them " Bukhanka" which is Russian for loaf. (Thanks Wiki) Pretty sure they're still produced and I want one!

Show  me  a  light,  your  company,

 goes  a  little  way,  to  help  me  see

The  path  on  which  I'm  bound,

 rather  than  the  things  I've  left  behind

Cold Chisel

 Transiting Uzbekistan....oooh it's hard...too hard

The Uzbek border is a known tough one with luggage searches and written declarations of all money and goods. As with all borders, take a deep breath and work your way to that last window and "kerching" .......two and half hours later we set off into Uzbekistan into the hardest part of our trip yet. Firstly this part of Uzbek  doesn't qualify for nothingsville as nothingsville has nothing....less than that here! The landscape all the way till before Nukus is totally devoid of any form of interest....except for the plastic bottles and garbage truckies throw out the window while hammering from Europe to the stans.   After Nukus it alternates between green belts with a look not unlike Russia to sand and desert to finally, craggy hills devoid of any vegetation. Next is the money thing. As we leave the border control we are set upon by crowds of money hawkers...... which makes Ron hilariously nervous "get back, er back now, one at a time"   which seems only to encourage them. I whip my customary thousand rubles and get.......seventy five thousand som....in thousand dollar bills....about thirty bucks......where the F!@#$ am I gonna put this? At one stage a couple of days later I had nearly four hundred thou......it was in my backpack, my pockets, in my luggage, in piles on the bed... it's nuts. Next problem, there's no atm's. We went to a bank in Nukus to get some money and after over an hour of form filling, photo copying, suspicion, and passport inspecting we got around one fifty each....or three hundred and fifty thousand som......shoulda got more rubber bands! Next biggy.....petrol is really hard to get. Almost all vehicles in Uzbec run on gas and "benzine" is always in short supply.....Which leads to a huge blackmarket situation with fuel being offered out of dodgey plastic bottles at double price everywhere. We had to buy blackmarket fuel twice around Nukus just to keep moving after searching for hours in the heat . The bill for one lot was one hundred and eighty eight thousand som, try counting that in thirty eight degrees when you're knackered! Lastly the roads......in our  crap road championship Uzbekistan is the head and shoulders champ, with Russia and the Kazaks wrestling over second. The road surface constantly changes and road works are everywhere demanding constant concentration...and low average speeds......getting anywhere took forever, pounded bike and rider and took a ridiculous amount of backtracking and planning for money and fuel......everyday was a full of adventure and problem solving

 but hard, really hard!  Too hard for 'Precious' the Dr who developed a bad clutch rattle on the last day heading to Dushanbe. 

This is a long bumpy haul, the bikes and riders need a Bex and a lie down after this one!

The road from Beyneu to the Uzbek border had been chewed up in the rain the day before but was fun to ride.

These guys run between all over Europe and Turkey to the Stans over any road surface. A lot pull in at night and the truck stops are full of all nationalities and shall we say some interesting characters or is it, characters of interest...

Remember....the goal is the "Kerching" .....lots of nodding and smiling......and "aaaaarm sorry, from Australia mate....only speak English....you know...kangaroo".... "Oh oh skippy, skippy boosh kanroo".Who'd have thought that skip was an ambassador in the stans as well as remarkable marsupial crime solver.  

Is less than nothing a vacuum?

The truckstop at Jasliq Uzbekistan. Been a while since they swept the forecourt. The blue poles support  the water supply pipe, why dig a hole if you've got a welder! The counter staff sleep on the floor behind the counter and the truckies offered us vodka and other rocket fuel in plastic bags to start the day! The taxi guys had to push start the cab through the mud and crap every time they got a call...... 

A couple of days on Uzbek roads will do that to you!

This is just before Ron burst into tears after paying double for blackmarket "benzine" 

No Benzine....... not officially anyway.

 "I say Ronny old bean, sport me another three grand for a cup of coffee theres a good  chap" 

These little chaps are everywhere, more reliable than a Lada and more stylish than the  horrible gas powered white Chevy Nexus's built in Uzbekistan and seen everywhere.

This is where the travellers staple diet is purchased, snickers bars and bottled water.....

Main food we get offered is Ploff, which seems to be fried rice with a little meat or shashliks which come with a pile of onion and a beer. Da, beer is good!

We found the hotel Tortkol  after a really hot tough day around Nukus trying to get fuel and money.  Kind of an old Russian place, half renovated as always but comfy and cheap. The shashliks we had at the restaurant next door were exceptional. 

Water melons....I have never seen so many water melons. These stalls are everywhere......they need to take a hint from us Aussies and build 'The big Water Melon' for the tourists....with maybe an ATM in it!  

The bottom of Uzbekistan evolves into craggy hills totally devoid of vegetation. This is well below Qarshi before heading towards Baysun.

This road through Baysun to the border would have been great but the road was a shocker. On the last day we were stopped three times in the middle of nowhere by police at road blocks for passport and papers checks.

Just before the border we ran into market day at an unknown town. This is the main road totally blocked as people just parked up and blocked the road causing total chaos. It was about thirty eight degrees and with the clutch playing up on 'Precious' I've had better moments!

Next 'Precious' gets major surgery in Dushanbe and we hit the Pamir Highway....if she recovers! 

Reality Check
If you like your personal space these countries aren't for you. Everywhere you go, every time you stop, you will be at least stared at, have someone asking multiple questions in a strange language, will be shaking hands with a stranger, will have three or four people examining your bike or even putting your helmet on which is all very confronting, buuuut that's the way it is. People just don't seem to have places to be or agendas of any kind and you seem to become the entertainment for the day.  Flip side is if you need help and manage to communicate, their time is almost always yours
.....try that at home!