Cultural Learnings from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for Make Benefit Glorious Kingdom United

The ferry had one air conditioned common room, however the portholes were large, and could be opened wide, allowing a good breeze for sleeping. We cooked on our stoves on the top deck, in front of the setting sun and clusters of oil rigs- some of which had yellow flares piercing the purple hue.

To kill the time, we invented a game on the deck rather akin to boule, but with far more rules and played with Azeri coins. It was rather good!

As Kazakhstan came into view at 10 am the following morning, we all got rather excited at the idea of hopping onto our bikes and heading into the desert that afternoon. We headed very close in, and just as I had gone below to pack up my stuff, I heard the loud and familiar noise (having lived on a boat) of the anchor chain being lowered. There was absolutely no public announcement other than the rumour mill, but the ship was to anchor off the shore for another 22 hours.

When we finally docked, the Kazakh customs officer came aboard and started telling tourists that no meat products, including tins of tuna, could be brought into the Glorious Nation. It was extraordinart how East Asian he, and all the other Kazakh officials looked. If one had been told they were from Vietnam, it would have been believed.

Customs was an irritation as all our bags (I have 6) had to be humped from one room to another, while our bikes stayed onboard, to be collected later. Once through the first truly Soviet border formalities I have yet encountered, we were cycling into town when Azret, a local cyclist pulled up beside us (me, Greg, Tom and Blaise), and started chatting to the others. I heard his voice and thought it was Tom doing a Borat impression!

He was a very kind chap who was very generous with his time. He showed us where we could get food, sim cards, sunscreen, and lunch. He cycled with us for a little period after lunch. I had to stifle a snigger when he mentioned the Borat film "Who is this idiot talking bullshit about Kazakhstan?!" Of course the film does not bear any real reality - it is far better suited to Georgia and Azerbaijan (sorry to my Georgian and Azeri friends- you guys don't count!) The English accent Borat uses is however pretty accurate and the dislike for "A**holes Uzbekistan" is right on the money. It is very rare to find anyone from Kazakhstan who will not warn you about problems in Uzbekistan.

Actau had a lovely looking quiet beach- unfortunately with the absence of a fresh water shower I abstained from a dip in the Caspian.

We headed out of town on lovely tarmac, and found a great place to camp on the Steppe just before sunset. The steppe is technically not desert, but as far as I can make out, it is pretty much the same thing, but with hard, dried mud instead of sand. You can stop wherever you like and set up camp which makes life easy. It was very exciting to have seen our first camels in the Steppe- both single hump dromedaries and double hump bactrians. A pack (what is the collective noun?!) of horses seemed a little interested in our camping, but went away with some shouting. I put my inner tent up, but the others just slept in the open air and were bitten to hell. It never got very cold that night- we were below sea level- and we were all sleeping in pools of sweat.

The following morning, we got up at 5am but we were very disorganised and were not cycling until about 7. The steppe is so aggressively hot (about 45 degrees c) that it is totally necessary to shelter from the sun from about 11am to 4 or 5pm. We sheltered that day in a passage under the road that was full of dry camel poo. Most days however we built shelters by tying tarpaulins onto our bikes and crawling underneath for a few hours to melt away into a pool of sweat. There were plenty of tornadoes around the steppe- they looked just like water spouts going right up into the clouds. On a couple of occasions these were quite close to where we were sheltering. I don't know how strong these were, but being the steppe they could not have been very dangerous due to the total lack of debris.

That afternoon, the tarmac ran out and the road became a "way" covered in moon-style dust. This was not great for cycling through and feet would disappear down into it. The next time we would see Tarmac would be Beyneu, 5 days later, and then it would disappear again until we were well into Uzbekistan. Here would begin 10 utterly gruelling days!

On the Steppe, the dry heat parches the mouth, throat and sinuses and the wind is almost worse as it speeds up this process- it is so hot that it is not actually cooling. If you have ever been in a sauna and blown onto your skin (can be painful) you will know what I mean. Sometimes the wind blows in your favour (usually evening), sometimes the wind blows against you (usually morning). It seems to change quite a lot.

The roads are usually straight, however the wise cyclist will regularly change positioning on the road to pick the smoothest places. I found that the best place to cycle was on the right verge. There were very few shops or teahouses- perhaps one a day. It is extraordinary how much you can look forward to a cold drink, and also how hot your water bottles can get! Tom came up with the ingenious idea of brewing tea in his sun-warmed water bottles, and before long we were all doing it. There was a train line that followed the way (purposefully not calling it a road) and you could see the telegraph poles heading in a straight line before disappearing into the distance. This is rather disheartening!

In Kazakhstan, the tea house owners were the most miserable bunch of people I have met on this trip. When you ordered something from them, they usually appeared genuinely sad that they had to actually do some work, rather than happy that they had some business. They also have utterly awful mathematical skills (which is a lot coming from me)- very basic sums (100 tengi plus 100 tengi, for example) are a true struggle. Most of the locals that we did meet in the little towns we went through were however very friendly and interested in us. One chap had met Isabel a week earlier, and pestered me for hours for her phone number!

During the time in the Kazakh Steppe, we didn't see any of the famed deadly Black Widow spiders, but we did come accross 3 scorpions. One was at a teahouse, the other was under something I picked up in the morning when I was packing up camp (and properly flattened), and Blaise found one too. I have been tapping my shoes in the morning ever since (good idea, Major Boulter!)

In Europe I never had to cook more than once in any given day, however on the Steppe, it was necessary to cook three times a day- the lack of teahouses made this obligatory. Rice pudding made with powdered milk is a favourite brekkie treat. Powdered borsch or schie and rice or pasta does well for lunch or supper. On the occasions where a chaihana (teahouse) is found, the offering is usually fried eggs and bread, although some places will offer lagman (noodle soup) or borsch.

The steppe is flat, but there are a few gruelling hills onto new plains to deal with. These are a challenge, especially in the heat. At the top of one of them a teahouse came into view at the very last minute, which was a real boon!

Reaching Beyneu on the 6th day was a fantastic feeling, not least for the tarmac that surrounds the town. It is little more than a large rail transport hub, and most useful things such as shops crowd round the station. It is dusty, and the buildings are mostly bungalow style with no upstairs. We found a cheap little hotel near the station (surprise surprise) which was sandwiched between the main line and a branch line. I didn't mind this as it felt like we were sleeping pretty much on the tracks. The action taking place around us was a pleasant change from the Steppe! We all crammed into one room (4 of us), and they kindly let us bring our bikes in too.

A shower had to be paid for extra, but was well worth it after 5 days sweating in 45 degree heat, slapping sunscreen on each day, and going to bed each night utterly filthy before more sunscreen on salt crystally skin the following day. Cleaning my clothes was also a succulent treat- they were not as you can imagine not clover fresh. You can see the veiny streaks of salt crystals in the fabric. I have been known to take a rehydration solution to replace body salts lost through sweat.

The following day we only cycled in the afternoon, and spent the morning trying to find an internet cafe which was alas closed. It took a long time to find it- Greg and I nearly walked into a school by mistake on our quest. It was amusing to note a multi coloured nodding-donket oil pump in the playground (a climbing frame?) and - best of all - a 20' section of railway. I suppose this is how the clildren learn to play on the railway tracks. Beyneu did have a lively bazaar with a lot of very jolly and friendly ladies selling fruit and nuts.

On the way out of Beyneu, we saw an enormous hulk of USSR Steam Engine rusting on a siding. Like children, we ditched our bikes and clambered all over them. It was fascinating to see that there was still some coal left in the storage hold, and to note a plaque that seemed to indicate that the train was built in the 1950s.

The following day (another camp on the steppe, like every night), we reached the Uzbek border. It was quite extraordinary because the road was an untreated dirt track without much traffic, and the border appeared, on the Kazakh side, to be equally deserted. There was, unsurprisingly, no indication as to where to go, but we eventually arrived in no-man's-land.

We were pretty worried about corrupt Uzbek officials after some horror stories on the grapevine. Immigration was no problem, and they were very friendly. We then had to fill in customs declaration forms in Russian, so it took rather a long time! They wanted you to delare pretty much everything you carry, including all cash. Conventional wisdom is to use discretion. We were not searched at all, which saved some time. Most or all cars were searched with a fine comb.

We safely moved through the border 3 hours later, past the policeman who cannot control the local children who run past the barriers into no-man's-land to sell parched border crossers a drink. We were immediately greeted by a host of friendly money changers, and purchased Sum for dollars on the black market. The black market is the only sensible way to change money in Uzbekistan- the government enforces an official rate of about 1450 to the dollar in official banks but the street rate is between 1800 and 1900. The largest not is worth about 50 US cents, so a hundred dollar bill translates into 180 notes, which all need to be carefully counted. This takes time and is very frustrating when you have a ten year old tugging at your t-shirt trying to sell you a drink when you are on 12o-something. Reminds me of stock takes!

There was initially some tarmac in Uzbekistan, however this was not an awful lot of use as it was mainly molten. This is great for noise pollution (not that it's an issue on the steppe) as I saw road workers ploughing up the road rather than having to use pneumatic drills! We were soon greeted by our usual rocky track.

Teahouses in the Uzbek steppe became even more seldom (sometimes 160km between each one) meaning it was necessary to carry 16-18 litres of water on the bike. The bikes were hideously heavy. Far from being true to the Kazakh warnings, the Uzbek teahouses seemed immediately more cheerful and pleasant to be in. In the first one we found a friendly onlooker bought us a watermelon. It had been the first teahouse for about 150 km and the accompanying coke and fried mutton were most welcome.

The Uzbeks are very similar to the Turkish (well, they are technically turks) in their culture of hostpitality looking after travellers. Teahouses have raised tables with beds around the side so you can recline Roman-style when you eat, and then have a snooze when you have finished your meal. It was preferable to tarp shelters, when we could find one. The food in Uzbek teahouses is a little more varied, with shashlyk (skewered and BBQed mutton) or laghman (noodle soup) usually on offer.

The second stretch of Steppe, from Beyneu to Nukus in Uzbekistan was not much different to the first. Just as gruelling, but with nicer teahouses. Aside from scorpions, we also saw large hairy white spiders the size of your palms. Lovely.

Nearing Kungrad, a town near Nukus, there was a drop in the road by about 100 foot, and in this time the landscape turned from Steppe into lush green farmland with canals and heavy irrigation. The air became humid. On the downward hill, just still in the steppe, we cycled upto what looked like a bustling city with little houses everywhere and a large sapphire domed mosque on the highest point. I thought this must have been Kungrad, however when we got closer it eerily became apparent that this was not a town at all, but a cemetery in the wilderness!

In Kungrad we visited the market to get some tomatoes and melons for supper from the, and we were completely mobbed by a deluge of questions by the fascinated residents. As always, the market traders were very friendly, and I had a personal assistant who led me through the market, helped me pay for things, handed me back things I dropped, and held my bike steady while I loaded the produce into my panniers.

Now we were out of the desert/steppe, we couldn't just camp anywhere we liked because all the land was being used for something. We cycled down a side street and asked an old chap in a car if we could camp. The gobsmacked gent said that of course we could, and so we set up camp. 20 minutes later, he turned up and said that we couldn't camp there- and showed us a better place, further from the ubiquitous mozzies. 5 minutes later, he was back again, and invited the four of us to camp in his garden, which was ideal. His pretty daughters wanted pictures with all of us (steady, Greg!) and we slept very well aside from a hostile dog that he kindly scared off in the middle of the night. Uzbek homes have many of their facilities outside. The sitting room is a large raised bed on the porch area, and the basin was also outside. Not to mention the loo...

The following day, we finally made it to Nukus, having been treated to another free watermelon at a teahouse/yurt en route. It was great to be in civilisation once more, and the hotel had a friendly Georgian-family-run teahouse next door. I am not sure whether it was the soft scoop ice cream or the pretty daughter who operated the ice cream machine who kept me going back.

In Nukus there is an important art museum, full of art from artists who had been persecuted under communism. There were also ancient Uzbek artifacts. Many paintings depicted the misery of life in the cotton fields, and it was surprising to note quite a lot of Lowry-style paintings and Russian cubism.

It was in Nukus that I tasted my first cup of green tea- which has become the norm. For 100 sum you get a large pot, the equivalent of about 4p. Samsas have also become a cheap staple food- similar to the samosas of India to the south, these are usually triangular pastries and filled with chopped onions and mutton meat. They are very tasty, especially when you shake a bit of dill-enfused clear vinegar on top of them.

Still could not find internet that worked in Nukus, but I did find one place with computers, and no connection. As I waited in vain for the connection to start, chatted to the pretty Kazakh girl on the computer next to me, Bagilla. Rather like the former Yugoslav countries, there are many different nationalities living next to eachother in these Central Asian countries. Just because Bagilla has an Uzbek passport does not mean she is Uzbek- her family speak Kazakh and she is a Kazakh. The same is for the Karakalpaks (Nukus is the capital of Karakalpakstan) She is off to Almaty for university next year. She informed me that she works in her father’s “fragrance store” in the bazaar and she drew me a little map of how to get there.

I ventured into the bazaar to change money later with Tom and Blaise, and by chance went into her chemist shop to buy some sun cream. I was greeted by a cheerful “hello!” – I like to think Tom and Blaise were impressed at my speed in chatting up the local girls.

The rate in Nukus was much better, but when I produced a $100 note that was not the most recent series, the guy said the rate had to change from 1870 to 1800! I protested that dollars are dollars, and got the original rate although the chap wasn’t happy about it. “This is not bank! This is bazaar!” the chap complained. It certainly was bizarre. Dealing in 100 dollar bills felt like swapping football stickers at prep school- a 2006 series (Man-U striker) is clearly worth more than a 1999 series (Blackburn defender).

Into the steppe again for a couple of days, and then split from Greg who wanted to head straight for Buchara, I then cycled to Khiva. Khiva is an extremely well preserved walled city and former khanate on the Turkmen border. It feels rather like Carcassonne in France- arguably not a “real” town anymore, but very beautiful architecture. The people suddenly became – extraordinary as I am going East – Turkish or Azeri looking rather than East Asian or Mongolian features. Many of the girls are absolutely beautiful. I stayed in a lovely guesthouse with a superb breakfast – about $10 a night. The air con didn’t work brilliantly, but it was a miracle it still worked at all since it was built in the “CCCP!”

After Khiva, I headed into the Kyzulkum desert- this time a real sandy desert – for 4 tough days before reaching Buchara. This was easier going than the Steppe because there was tarmac all the way, and usually teahouses every 20km- so no need to cook. On the first night I bought a honeydew melon which was the sweetest I have ever tasted. A whole watermelon can be bought for as little as 20p.

The final day was truly grueling, and I was very tired. It was difficult to motivate myself, and I cycled pretty slowly, getting to Buchara at sunset. I decreed that as I was tired, a rest is in order, and I have spent three days in this wonderful city. I met Greg on arrival who led me to a charming little guesthouse he has found ($9 a night)- it is run by a lovely Uzbek family who also live there (Madina and Ilyos). It is also rather unusual- the shower is in the kitchen (!) and Ilyos rather infuriatingly has a little hole in the window large enough for him to poke a screwdriver to turn off the USSR air conditioner when he thinks you are asleep. They do serve a wonderful breakfast of egg, fried aubergine, potato, frankfurter, cake, melon, cream/yoghurt, and green tea, which varies a bit each day. There are a couple of resident kittens, to the delight of the guests.

The town’s Islamic architecture is truly breathtaking- soaring medressas dripping with blue tiles, domed bazaars, a fortified palace, a soaring minaret- and plenty of store traders to fill in every space. I nearly feel that a genie is about to appear and grant me three wishes. I bought a great “four skin” (!!!!) hat yesterday, made from sheep fur, with a flap that can either be tied up, down, or back. It will come in handy in the Pamir mountains. The lady who sold it to me had been befriended by Greg, and on mentioning his name, she became even friendlier than she was already. Her family make the hats at home, and she called her son on the phone so I could speak to him in English. I sat with her for a while sipping tea, and she made sure I ate some sweets – boiled on the outside, fondant on the inside. She insisted I accept some old Sovier banknotes and coins as a gift souvenir. They are from the 60s to 1991 – with Lenin’s head winking out of them. Later I sat and chatted to a 19 year old persian carpet seller who was bored “come and sit on my magic carpet for a while!” His boss regularly goes to Iran on carpet-buying missions. As usual in these parts, he has no desire at all to visit a foreigh country. He was shocked when I pointed out on a map how close Turkmenistan is to Buchara, and he said he doesn’t want to go to Tajikistan.

“Why?! Why don’t you want to go to Tajikistan? It is supposed to be very beautiful and you Uzbeks don’t need a visa!”

“Tajikistan – Prob-lem!”
“Really?”

“OK, maybe….maybe no prob-lem. I just…I just don’t want to go!”

The town has also been swamped by largely fresh-faced Mongol Ralliers. It has been great to seem some other English guys, and it is rather satisfying when they balk with disbelief that I have cycled here from England.

Heading up to Samarkand tomorrow, which is 3 days’ cycle away, and Samarkand is half a day from the Tajikistan border. I am very excited about Tajikistan and the Pamir Highway, having heard so much about it’s beauty. It is going to be a challenge, with many mountain passes higher than 5000m that are going to be as tough as they are glorious…

The Steppe and Desert were very tough, but they are beautiful wildernesses. It is thrilling to see the land on the steppe as flat as the sea, with the sun setting and rising at exactly the time it should. The dunes of the desert were equally fascinating- although pushing the bike through them to a camping spot required motivation. By cycling through them I have understood (dear God) truly what a desert is- rather than in the protective bubble of a car. It is amusing to hear Mongol ralliers complaining about their 3 days- they should try 2 weeks! This sort of travel is not supposed to be plain sailing all the way, and when you emerge at the other end, the satisfaction at having “earned” to be here in Bukhara is immense. When we were doing it, we didn’t think it was all that hard- we were far too busy - it is only from the comfort of an armchair and hindsight that you realise that it was actually really hard work! This doesn’t mean that I didn’t constantly yearn for the hospitality I would have been receiving from the legendarily generous people of Iran, had I taken that route. Another time.

Anyone who wants to talk to me can call me on +998 9137 03491.