The Twilight Zone

Hello from Mashad, Iran!

I thought while l had some time on my hands l would enlighten you all with stories from the deserts of Central Asia and now officially, the Middle East. The last time l wrote we were taking a short rest in the city of Khojand, Northern Tajikistan before moving onto and back into Uzbekistan. It is difficult to criticise, judge or whatever when talking about a country as you are essentially a guest but everyone else always asks, 'what was your favourite place' etc, so you always end up doing it and we do it naturally anyway! I will judge Western Uzbekistan then. It was not a patch on Eastern Uzbekistan and the Farg'ona valley. I do not know if it is because the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand are essentially made up of Tajiks instead of Uzbeks or if it is because they are full of tourists but whatever it is, the welcome is so different and much more based around the money in your wallet than genuine warmth. We did however have many good experiences especially with our kind hosts in Samarkand. This was particularly special for Dorothee as we arrived the day before her birthday and Samarkand was a city that she had been looking forward to see, since even before we left Canada. I therefore had an afternoon to prepare the chocolate fest arranged for her!

Samarkand and Bukhara are full of beautiful monuments but sometimes they are made altogether sterile as life is banished from them and only the richer tourists frequent them instead of the locals who used to have markets in the squares surrounding them. Somehow, in my view the President has got it wrong but l don't really think he cares. Revenue is more important and the bus-loads of tourists from France and Germany perhaps do not care if these sights feel like a museum. They are in all cases worth seeing though especially on a late night walk when all is quiet and no-one is trying to sell you something just because you look like Captain America. I do have this problem that everyone in Central Asia thought l was from the U.S.A. A very disquieting and annoying thing but l just had to accept it.

Entering back into Uzbekistan after leaving Khojand was totally different from the simple exercise than before Andijon when we were the only clients. All bags off the bikes and through a scanning machine. A right pain in the bum. The very brusque woman in charge who was ranting in Russian to almost everyone gave me a direct insult. The cheek. 'I'm just a simple tourist' was having no affect on her at all. She said in total irony, "well aren't you a clever boy then?", when l filled just one customs form instead of in duplicate. If they wanted two copies then they should have had that clever paper to make copies without me having to write everything twice. Maybe l was just tired with the sun but l was very happy to leave before any more problems. Some of the guards were a bit drunk as well and not in the least helpful. It was a busy border but even with that, it didn't need to be slow and such a painful experience. We camped in the cottonfields that night as it had been getting late at the border and we had no other choice. These are the famous fields that are irrigated from the southern rivers of Abu Darya and Syr Darya that are drained into the very thirsty cottonfields instead of into the rapidly disappearing Aral sea. That is probably the biggest environmental man-made disaster in our history and no-one talks about it anymore. I wish more than most things, that blown research money should be directed to situations like this instead of the world's favourite topic, climatic change. Or even the starving in Africa.

While we were on the road towards Jizzax via Bekobod we continued to be welcomed by everyone with cars slowing down talking to us and constant waving. We were invited onto a farm for lunch where l was shown around while Dorothee was left in the house preparing lunch! It is still a very male-orientated society where gender specific activities are not crossed. I went out to see the children picking cotton as it was time to bring them lunch of bread and soft drinks.We stopped on the way to deposit two bottles of vodka to a group of men who were, in the midday sun boiling up a huge cauldron of lamb on a fire that could have been for the kids to go with their bread but l am not entirely certain of this! I think they treat them quite well but it could have equally have just been for their masters who would soon get busy drinking under the strong temperatures. I coulden't do it and infact the following day before arriving exhausted in Jizzax l suffered acute heat stroke with terrible bowel movements and cold sweats. An awful feeling. It lasted a couple of days as well. Their lamb was really good though! Haute cuisine in the cottonfields. Perhaps the worse thing about this was that our hotel in Jizzax had no water. I guessed the worst when lined up along the wall of the very simple bathroom were 6 old mineral water bottles full with water. The long and short of it was that it was going to take me a lot more than six bottles to get me through a night of my frequent toilet visits! Luckily we acquired some large buckets later. During this heat stroke period we had to do a quick return journey to Tashkent by share-taxi to begin the Turkmenistan visa process that would take ten days. Been driven at a zillion million miles an hour by an Uzbek taxi feels like hell when ur ill and then the whole, 'being treated like a bear behind a cage detail at the Turkmenistan embassy really pushed my good humour. Share-taxi drivers in Central Asia are the biggest ever, sharks and you have to bargain like hell with them or they'll take you for a ride far too easily. To get back to our famous hotel in Jizzax, where we had left our bikes while in Tashkent led to an interesting episode. It was dark when we arrived from Tashkent, so when we were dropped in the centre of Jizzax in a different place to where we had left, we were totally disorientated with only the knowledge of the bus number that passed in front of the hotel. We found the right bus but sadly the wrong direction as the bus driver didn't know our hotel. We ended up doing a tour of  Jizzax not knowing where the hell we were going. It took a group of drunken Uzbeks to get in and help us out and it was massive celebrations all round when we finally got there. The whole bus was cheering the discovery of this hotel. When the driver tried to charge us double for our little tour we and our drunken friends were having none of it which led to more cheers! The ridiculous thing was that our hotel had been two minutes walking distance from where we had first got off the bus from Tashkent! We survived though and were soon back on the road to Samarkand feeling quite a bit better. If all went well after visiting Samarkand we would be able to come back yet again to Taskent to claim both our Turkmen and Iranian visa's in one glorious couple of days. You can see how complicated the whole process of travelling in this part of the world is but still worthwhile definetly. Something easily obtained can never be ultimately satisfying. One of those ridiculous things in our nature.

The road to Samarkand was without incident and our time before we took a bus back to Tashkent pleasant enough especially Dorothee's birthday. I love B+B Bahodir, my personal favourite place to stay so far on the journey and it is a very beautiful city as we found out visiting all the sights. Leaving the bikes again to head back to Tashkent we took the bus and although it was an old bus from France with us three the last to be packed on, it wasn't bad at all and we didn't have the added stress of finding somewhere to put bikes, traliers etc. We decided to go and stay in a a backpacker place in the big smoke but it wasn't really. One of the cheapest places to stay in Tashkent but it was still around $30, that being the minimum price in the capital. It was clean and quiet, not what you would expect of a hostel type place. We wanted noise and action as Oceanne loves to play with other travellers. They are her favourite places to stay. Play is a big thing for her now and we see that it really is time for her to spend most of her time at kindergarten so that she can play with children instead of with adults. There are always times when she plays with children in parks but it is not enough. We were so dissapointed with the funeral atmosphere at Gulnara guesthouse that the next day after visit No.1 to the Iranian embassy we went to see Ali's B+B that was reputed to be slightly more wild. It was wild definetly but closed down by the police for reasons we do not know, perhaps because Ali is just too eccentric. We had a fantastic afternoon drinking vodka and eating and then there was dancing with Ali and his friends + family! All male l might add. It was fun but there was no chance to stay there due to the fact that you need to register all your nights while in Uzbekistan with all the hotels that you stay in. We camped a few nights so it was even more important. The fact that we never got asked for our hotel slips exiting the country doesen't make us feel any better but then others that we know, were.

Luckily Gulnara changed completely the next night as Mike, another Canadian cyclist who we had met in Samarkand arrived swiftly followed by Dino and Simone, two Italian guys cycling from Venice to India with Simone who was on the back and infact, partially sighted along with some other travellers including Darren from Sheffield. It was really great to spend time with these people during this particular visa hunt. It took us three visits to the Iranian embassy to get our visa as Dorothee's application had to be verified as it had been first rejected, before been accepted under appeal from our agent. I am pretty certain now, after reading some literature that it is because she is a Canadian woman as since 2003 when a Canadian woman journalist died mysteriously in a Tehran jail, diplomatic relations and therefore visa's have been particularly difficult for Canadians to obtain and maybe even more so for women. Anyway after checking this with the foreign ministry in Tehran we got our visa the next morning followed by our Turkmen visa in the evening after more waiting behind the big green gates. The same day, at the Turkmenistan embassy infact, we had met a French family with three children travelling in a campervan across and around Asia and so that afternoon we had tea in their van. I had already realised that this type of transport would be for our next big trip and it's good to see that we could see how well it works. This may be happening for us quite soon infact. Perhaps North Cape to Cape Town if the wife agrees! In the evening we went out for dinner with our three cyclist friends followed by large amounts of the reputed, even if they sell it in plastic bottles, Sarbast Original. I rate it as a decent beer! It was a really good night. I will add a special note for Dino and Simone who on the same day decided to call it quits on their trip due to personal differences and too much stress and effort for their upcoming visa battles and the fact that Simone relied so heavily on Dino for everything due to his illness. They were flying back to Venice and so Dino gave me his technical biking shirt which l was very happy with, even though it's not giving us much luck at the moment. More of that later. Dino was a great guy and l wish him all the best for his next trip. They were both typically passionate Italians and it was like watching a TV drama watching the split happen before our eyes.

Off we then went to Bukhara after picking up our bikes in Samarkand. It was a bus to Sarmarkand and one more night at B+B Bahodir before the Sharq 'express' train to Bukhara. It was again a right deal to get our stuff on the train as everyone else just had one bag so we weren't very subtle. I had to work with two guards as one guy said, "no bikes" even though at the ticket office it had not been a problem. You can never be sure with our mountain of stuff, that l can assure you. The plan in Bukhara was to get our money out of the bank before we left Uzbekistan for our whole trip through Turkmenistan and Iran. Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan is the only option in that country to get money and as we were not going there, we had to do it here. Normally it shoulden't have been a problem, maybe we were tired and not thinking clearly but the thing was we arrived on a Friday evening and had to leave on the Monday morning before our Uzbek visa expired. It had to be Monday morning at the bank then. Big problem though, Tashkent had sent the city no currency. It was a very stressful morning charging around the city on my bike trying to find some money knowing that we had to get on our bikes as soon as possible. The best l could do was 130$ at a four star hotel. This was not good enough for all Iran obviously and there was no time to wait till tomorrow, go to Tashkent etc. Looking back we should have got organised a week before but with the visa issues and also carrying around that amount of cash, we didn't think we needed to. The thing is, other travellers we have since met had little problem getting their money for Iran in Bukhara so l feel really hard done by. Just another hurdle to cross yet again. It's certainly far from plain sailing at the moment and with winter fast approaching we're not very happy again. We really believed we had no more logistical problems to overcome. We are in Mashad, Iran and still the question of money is not solved. Visa and Mastercard do not exist for cash advances here because of the boycott against the U.S.

Before all that we had to race across the desert that is Turkmenistan. 480 km's in a little over four days. It was barrenly beautiful but obviously very rushed with early morning starts to get around the fact that it was dark by 6.30 p.m. We did have contact with the enthusiastic Turkmen's on the road and also when we camped on the grounds of a farming family outside the city of Mary. They were very curious and we enjoyed our time with them especially in the evening when they all came to the tent and when we had breakfast with them in the morning. We were invited to sleep at a police checkpoint the night before that, right in the middle of the most barren desert stretch so we camped down on their office floor. That was after being given a huge watermelon that of course we coulden't finish. It was mammoth. We had to get a lift right at the end of our traverse with an Iranian trucker about 80km's from the border of Iran as the border closed at the end of the afternoon and as we had got sent 70 km's the wrong way by another Iranian trucker the evening before, we ended up not being able to get to the border ourselves. He balanced our bikes underneath the trailer and jammed all our bags above the wheels. The trailer's went behind the cabin between the truck and trailer. Most things were not attached so we were concerned but it turned out alright apart from me standing on my sunglasses. An Iranian trucker helped us get out of an Iranian trucker's mistake. We were actually standing at the right intersection at the time of asking the original Iranian truker which way to go but he obviously didn't know that road, which all cyclotourists have taken but maybe it is simply not allowed for the trucks. Who knows. It might have been a blessing in disguise actually as if we had taken the right road we hadn't originally planned to arrive at the border till 5 p.m as we had read that is when the border closed. This is not true at all as in effect we arrived at 4.27 p.m and it was closed. Our trucker friend told it would be closed at 4 p.m but we chose not to panic and put our bikes back together in a calm atmosphere even though it was after 4. We chose not to believe it. Our worst fears were confirmed when all the truckers on our sprint to the border were showing their hands in a cross formation to note us of our fate. We continued to ignore this! Our 5 day visa was up so we had no choice but to get out of the country. The Turkmenistan customs gates were locked on arrival so that was that then! We had to plead, obviously, and luckily as Iran was one and a half hours behind Turkmenistan, if we could just get through this side of customs, then Iran would be still open. That is how it happened. We were let through the gates, shuffled very quickly through customs, a quick stamp on our passports and then out through into no-mans land. Dorothee had to get her scarf and trousers on, in preparation for Iran but apart from it getting dark at 4.30 p.m in Iran now and a bit of a wait while they checked us out in passport control, we were in Iran.Yeah! We were exhausted and luckily it didn't take long to find a hotel on the outskirts of Sarahks on the road to Mashad.

After crossing more desert to Mashad and having another Iranian trucker give me his sunglasses during a lunch time desert stop with tea included of course; we are now staying with Vali and his family in his homestay. Every cyclist we had met had said to stay here and had given us his card. A cyclist that we met near Turkmenabad after crossing into Turkmenistan had insisted that instead of taking the train to Ashgabat, we should cycle through Turkmenistan which indeed we had originally wanted to do before the Bukhara bad luck and get our money with Vali. A carpet salesman, he had a brother in Canada so we could easily transfer money between our account and his brother's and then Vali could then forward us the money. The short version is that yes, this should have been simple but indeed it is not. Vali's brother is not accustomed to online banking being 65 years old and used to visiting his branch. He needs to be, in order to accept our transfer as there is no other way to do it from a distance. We are trying but we want to get moving. We were exhausted when we arrived here with very hard and intense biking but mentally because of this story, we have not rested at all. It is a big shame because so far l love Iran and Mashad's holy shrine was very moving with all the emotional pilgrims surrounding us during prayer. Dorothee is finding it hard to adapt because for women it is obviously a lot different but l think she is now adapting more. Maybe we will leave soon but l think in all cases the trip has progressed into the period where it is reaching it's conclusion and biking is not going to be the number one priority anymore. The direct route to Turkey through that border might be more likely instead of the detour through Armenia and Georgia but we will wait and see how much visa time we have left and how this years early winter will be like. Also when we can get our money! It's my birthday tomorrow so maybe that we be an ideal present.

All my thoughts to you all, Rupert.