Tashkent, Uzbekistan: China seems years ago. We have been through the modern Chinese city of Urumqi, overnight to Turpan - a welcoming leafy oasis in theTalimankan Desert - and on to Kashgar. The fabled Sunday market was a highlight, amplifying the two Chinas we have seen; the ancient and the ultramodern. Electric scooters zoom past scenes that have not changed in hundreds - thousands? - of years.
Over the spectacular Torugart Pass and into Kyrgyzstan, which greeted us with a snowstorm. A puncture in heavy snow in No-Mans Land made for the quickest tyre change in history. Not sure if it was the minus 8 or the Kalashnikovs that made it so fast, but the removed wheel nuts stuck to the ice even in the eleven minutes it took to get the jack from under all our luggage and get the rear wheel into the air. Naryn is the tiny town first greeting travellers on this remote route into Kyrgyzstan. An almost tropical blue river flows through this farming town, chosen now as the site for a new University, funded by the Agha Khan!!!. Picturesque but so cold…. and on to Bishkek, the capital. Tree lined streets and trolley busses straight from the Soviet era greeted us as we waited for our Uzbekistan visas. We took time too visit the sites, admire the Communist era buildings and statues [ they love a statue] and soak up the market.
From Bishkek, on to more snow covered slippery mountain passes. Kyrgyz drivers treat ice and snow as a game - skating your Lada is regarded as heroic. So many end up in the ditches and sideways, but no one slows down. We spent half an hour trying to pull an old Audi from a snow drift, but nearly ended up stuck ourselves. We needed 4wd many times, and wonder about not carrying chains if this weather persists. Average speed in almost zero visibility and heavy snow 15kph for many many hours to get across the pass and to a bed for the night.
And on to Jalalabad, Osh and the Ferghana Valley. Only a few years ago Uzbeks and Kyrgyz were killing each other here, and the omnipresent military remind everyone at every single intersection. Sadly the weather is dreadful as we approach scenery and views described in all the guide books as spectacular and unmissable. We mised them. Endless passport checks later, we make it to Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan. The biggest city we have been in for ages, trams and traffic jams and high rise buildings!!! More soviet era architecture, square office and apartment blocks looking like they were designed using Lego!! And falling apart from disrepair.
We have however discovered the best flea market ever… Tashkent on a Sunday boasts the most eclectic collection… but how to get it all back home? From Lenin busts to ancient cameras, embroidered fabrics, ancient weapons, soviet gas masks…. the most wonderful collection of crap and junk the world has ever seen… paradise!!!
We now wait for visas for Turkmenistan and Iran before we can go to Samarkand, Bukhara, Mary in Turkmenistan and on to Teheran and then Turkey.
