Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Khiva (Uzbekistan) to Bukhara (Uzbekistan)
Poor Alex and Anne if they didn't have bad luck they'd have no luck at all. If you remember Anne broke her ankle in a small "off" in Turkey, then a couple of days ago Alex had his card cloned and had $10,000 of false charges debited from it. Today the Aerostitch number plate bag fell off the bike with $8000 in it. American Express has cancelled their card so they're left with no money at all - that's quite a run of bad luck. They're both gutted about being separated and had to go through the depressing task of dividing up they're belongings before Anne leaves from Samarkand however being bikers and therefore used to adversity they of course took these events in their stride and drank a bottle of vodka together, following which, as far as I could see, they felt a whole lot better.
The ride through the Karicom was as impressive as ever, the pot holes are the same as last year but this time the temperature was a balmy 22 degrees C - very nice. During the ride we met a couple of French bikers who had just come of the Palmyra highway, would you believe it on 125cc Varederos, they reckon they were short on power but otherwise perfect for the job - I snapped a couple of pictures so take a look. The news on the highway however was not so good they reckoned at one point they were averaging 600metres per hour. Apparently the rivers are in full flood and there are mud and ruts all over the place, they reckoned the roads looked like they'd been bombed by the Americans, on a good day, with water up to seat height in the rivers. The Major and the Traveller were extremely unimpressed with the whole situation and, following much "Harumping", are intent on hiring a China bound truck, as soon as possible. The major would actually prefer a Range Rover, like the one at home - leather seats, air con etc, but hasn't yet figured out how to get two big fat 1200GS's in the back - well I guess we'll see.
We managed to get lost on the last section into Bukhara which, to cut a long story short, ended with us riding 6 bikes through the middle of the main covered market. The locals, including the police, seemed a little nonplussed as we tried to avoid leaving tyre tracks on their "very best, very cheap, hand-stitched only by virgins Persian" carpets. Unreasonably, I thought, the crew attempted to blame me for the chaos that ensued, they didn't seem at all impressed that not only had I managed to deliver them to the correct street, all be it on the wrong side of the city, but also I'd given them an adventure in the process - some people are just plain ungrateful. Ah well! time to grab the usual "din dins" around the pond and off to bed to contemplate the vagaries of human nature.
- comments