SuzyBlue goes east 2019: Uzbekistan part 2: awesome historic cities and culture: 18.-26.06.

Khiva is the one of the three famous cities that could preserve its unique and original buildings the most. The old town is still surrended completely through a huge townwall. Accordingly  it was quite difficult to find the hotel. My navigator stopped right in front of the southgate " you reached your destiantion"...hmmmmm..... but the hotel was in the middleof the old town. So no really helpful direction. But fortunately the Uzbeks are really helpful and a couple of men explained to me how to find my hotel with the motorbike (5 men, 5 different explanations!!). It still took me a moment as there are sooooo many tiny labyrinthine little streets which you feel like driving through the inhabitants living rooms. But hey, I found the hotel and the place was perfect to explore the old town.
Khiva was founded the 6th century AC and was until the end of the 18th century the most important place for the slave market!!!
The old town is really impressive and I enjoy strolling around, exploring the old buildings and watching the local market sellers although it is extremly hot. The many stands with all sorts of goods show clearly the history with the "Khans" and Russians. There are not that many tourists although Khiva meanwhile is also part of the most "Uzbek-travels" but they spend more time with the two famous cities Bukhara and Samarkand. I spend two relaxing days in Khiva and enjoy as well the great local food - it is that cheap that I eat more than once far too much.

 

  

washing the hands is normal here before enter the restaurant...

Thursday I travel on to Bukhara. It is a 420km long stretch. Normally I don't ride that far in one day; not with this high temperatures anyway but there is absolutely NOTHING in between than endless desert and steppe. 100km straight, a slight bend to the left and another 100km straight. The whole way to Bukhara like that. Meanwhile I'm even happy having quite some potholes again otherwise it could have happen that I fell asleep while driving ;-)

In Bukhara I stay again in a "homestay hostel". The family has furnished 2,3 rooms for tourists; kitchen and lounge we all use together. Hardly got off the bike I have to sit down and eat dinner, the traditional "Plov". While eating they ask me many questions about Switzerland as I'm their first tourist coming from there. It's funny to realize that they as well know the name of the capital town. It seems that is part of a touristic basic knowledge they get. 

The hostel has a perfect location, I can explore the old town easily by walking.

Shortly before sunset I start to my first sightseeing. Normally I don't go out when it's dark in foreign cities (being alone) but here I feel absolutely safe - at least something good concerning the total surveillance through the state.

The next day I continue my sightseeing tour but this time in daylight.

Bukhara was already in the 9th century the religious and cultural main city of the Samanids. Throughout the different conquerers like Dschingis Khan, the Persians and the Bolschewiks the city got the look it still has nowadays: 

Almost countless Medresses, mosques, minaretts, bazaars and the huge fortress invite to be explored. The 47 meters high Kalon-Minarett alone is worth a visit. It is said that Dschingis Khan was that impressed by the artful building that he orderd not to destroy it like almost the whole rest of the city. 

 

The many caravanseries are asbolutely fabulous although they are huge markets nowadays for the tourists. But like in Khiva the sellers are quite decent and just advise you in case you seem to be interested in any of their goods. Like that it's a pleasure to walk through. 

  

And of course I enjoy - as always - to sit somehwere, drink a iced coffee and watch the people..... 

On Saturday I ride to Samarkand, an unspectular ride through the countryside with lots of harvesting and cows. And no potholes to keep me awake. Good that it's only 250km to drive. In Samarkand I booked a room in a relatively new hostel. The owner is with 57 already retired (woman with 55, men with 57) and she changed their building together with her kids  into a hostel. Accordingly the atmosphere is really familiar and I'm sort of adopted immediately as her "little sister" .... and of course first I have to eat something :-)

 

Samarkand was founded already the 8th century BC and had it's peak as an  important part of the Silk Road during the reign of Timur (Tamerlan) around 1370. He ordered the construction of many buildings and got the cultural and economical life moving. From that time origine the most famous buildings like: Registan, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, Ulugbek Medressa....and many more.  A Medressa by the way was something like a college where students could study the Islamic religion but also mathematics, physics, asteorology and live there the same time.  Most of the time the praying room and the teaching rooms had been on the first floor and the living rooms (3 students shared one room) on the second floor.  During the 18th century a couple of massive earthquakes destroyed or damaged many of these buildings. It was not until the Russian governement that they started to restore them. Meanwhile all theses buildings are part of the Unesco world heritage and some stand still under restoration.

Sunday I engage the youngest son of my hostel owner as a guide through the city. After he graduated he specialised as a tourist guide. During 6 hours he tells me a lot about the history, culture and religion of Samarkand. It is absolutely fascinating and gives me a deeper understanding of the buildings and of the way of living during  the ancient times. I can hardly record all the information together with the amazing colours and forms of the buildings. But have a look on your own:

Monday morning Lula, the hostel owner says goodby with a heavy heart. In two days I drive to Andijon, which is only 45km away from the border to Kyrgystan. The road leads me over a pass of 2000m down into the Fergana valley which is called to be the "breadbasket" of Uzbekistan. And after all these days I can see mountains again.... what a joy ;-) The Pamir-Alay-mountainrange is already quite near.

Andijon is not really an interesting city but I take the chance to have a guided tour through a silk factory - since I'm still on the Silk Road ;-) 

The Yodgorlik silk factory is an old family owned business which employs about 200 people - some of them handicapped - and most of the work is still done by hand in the traditional ways. There is a beautiful 150 year old mulberry tree in the yard which was used for the breeding of the silkwoms. Nowadays that part is of course done in breeding stations. A nice young girl explaines me all the steps from the silkworm (the poor little worms who have to die for that), to the dyeing and the weaving into the finest materials for fabics and carpets. It is incredible what all these women create in month lasting projetcs. There are only women weaving nowadays as the young men don't have the passion and patience anymore that are absolutely necessary for that work (original quote of the guide). The tour through the factory is for free and you can see that these people are really proud of their handcraft.

I enjoied it as well and it is a perfect finish for that country which surprised me in many ways.

up is a picture and underneath is a handwoven carpet!!!

Tomorrow now I'll cross the border to Osh, Kyrgystan. 

Another chapter of my travel will open up......

PS: 

I'm often asked by locals spontanously whether they can make a picture with me: at the fuel station, in front of the bank or the store. The people are enthusiastic about my way of traveling and mainly about the motorcycle. They cannot imagine how somebody can travel THAT long and THAT far to visit their country. 

Very rarely the men shake hands as it would be indecent to "touch" a woman. But they show me their respect by slightly bowing or nodding and putting their right hand on their heart.  And they smile at me with their golden teeth - something that is still strange for me and sometimes I really have to restrain not to grin. 

SuzyBlue goes east 2019: Kasachstan/Uzbekistan part 1: endless desert and not much more....; 12.-18.06.

... soon after we wake up we can see the main land already......yeppeaaa; but no rush with packing as it will still take a couple of hours until we reach Aktau. But shortly before lunch time there is the captain's message that we will disembark soon. Hääää? For a couple of weeks the ferry does not disembark in Aktau anymore but in Kuryk, some 90 kilometers south of Aktau. A fact we could not have known. Well, that sounds nice. But again no hurry; enough time to have lunch before leaving the boat. Even landed it will take some time until we can drive off. 

The customs officer come directly onto the ferry to stamp the passports and give us the necessary vehicle documents to go on at the customs checkpoint. After another 1-2 hours we finally can leave the ferry and drive directly to the shiny new customs building. As we do not exactly know what to do I just walk to any of the officers behind a desk waving with my passport. He friendly shows me where to start the procedure. I was fast enough to miss the other officer who directed my friends to a huge scanner. They had to unpack the tank bags, the small personal items and the tent rolls. Luckily they just forgot about me ;-) After paying the fee for having used the port's facilities (?) I could go on the the customs officer. There is quite a line of truck drivers waiting. But I'm waved through right to the start of the line. Hmmm... poor truck drivers. But they don't seem to care about it. Probably not the first time they experienced tourists being priviliged. The rest is quick and easy. Only to drive out of the port we have to wait again as the same officers that had come onto the ferry have to check the bikes and open the gate. After another couple of minutes they let us through.... and now we are officially in Kazachztan. woohoooo....

STOP!!! Not that fast. Shortly after the customs checkpoint there are some guys waiting who want to sell us an insurance for the bikes. It is not officially mandatory but in case of an accident  or getting into a police control we might have problems. As the insurance costs just about US$5 for 15 days and the Kazach police is famous for ripping off tourists (for nothing) we buy the insurance. After that it's a 90km drive to Aktau. The scenery has changed completely: steppe, desert, endless vastness.... and some (real) camels;-)

The temperature rises hour for hour. We are happy to find a decent hotel straight away. The next day just relaxing, walking to the city to buy a SIM-card and for a walk at the Caspian Sea. We expect quite "hard" days as the roads might be not that good and we have to cover long distances before reaching Uzbekistan. Straight roads for hours....that means you have to find ideas to prevent falling off the bike sleeping ;-) except for the parts where the potholes keep you awake. The first leg leads us to Beineu. We split it in two parts, as it is 470km and there is cave monasterie to explore and the scenery should be quite interesting as well.
The road to Beineu is really nice except the part to the cave monastery: loose gravel, some huge rocks and lots of sand.....phhhh.... not what I like with my fully loaded SuzyBlue but I guess I better get used to it as it won't be the last time that I'll have to drive such "bad" roads the next months ;-) actually the gravel road and the scenery (so-called "valley of the round stones") is worth the effort. Not the cave monastery which finally is just one little room hidden in the sandy rock.

Again we find a nice little hotel in Beineu and prepare everything for the border crossing to Uzbekistan the next day. I check SuzyBlue a bit more accurate than usual and find that the exhaust is not holding to the frame anymore. WOW.... that's bad as we know that the road will be really bumpy for at least some hundred kilometres.
On the app "IOverlander" I find a mechanic and bring SuzyBlue there. With the picture I've taken and the word "problema"  - as I don't speak any Russian - he immediately understands what's to do. He directs me to his neighbour who apparantely is the specialist for welding in the village. Checking my "problem" he starts to fix it without saying a word. Just a couple of minutes later he's finished the repair. I'm quite curious how long that will last with the expected bad roads laying ahead. But it looks good - as far as I can judge it - and costs me only $ 5. With all the luggage SuzyBlue defenitely has sometimes to "suffer" more than is good for her. 

                               

Jürgen and I start early in the morning; Ruben and Katja- the German couple - stay another day. The road to the border (about 80km) is under construction right now: deep sand passages give me a hard time. Not only because my skills in driving in sand are not good but with the oncoming traffic there's loads of dust and I see absolutely nothing. Worse than in thick mist as I should drive as fast as possible in the sand to keep me and SuzyBlue upright. It's really scary but I give my best. It'slike "shut your eyes and just drive".... after that sandy section we look like after a sandstorm - but I'm a bit proud that I managed to get through :-)

Reaching the border we have to pass the waiting people again. Something I had already read in many blogs. Well, nothing we can do about it and to be honest, I'm quite happy that we don't have to wait for hours as the others.
Checking out of Kazachstan is quick and easy and we drive on to the Uzbekistan side.
We are quite sure that this will take defenitely longer now as there are bad stories about the Uzbekistan customs: unpacking the complete luggage, controlling of all drugs, etc.
It is a bit chaotic as we are redirected to different officers again and again but otherwise no stress at all. They are really friendly - we hear "welcome to Uzbekistan" a couple of times - and they always find an officer who speaks at least some words English. Typing the vehicles datas into the system takes quite some time as the systems seems to run really slow. Finally we have just to open one side bag and the drug dog runs around our bikes one time. That's it, we can leave. But stop. We need the papers that proofe that we legally imported the bikes and that we are registered. But no matter who I ask for it, they all tell me: no, no, not necessary. An officer is able to tell us in a few words that the system is not able to print something right now. Wow, that's not good. I don't want to think about how the checking out of Uzbekistan will be. But waiting is not possible, they sort of "force" us out of the customs area.
I had thought that the road on the Kazachstan side was bad. But what we have to endure the next 350km is just horrible: the first 100km gravel and again lots of sand - and of course oncoming traffic and after we finally reach tarmac again it's full of potholes as big as half a car.  Full concentration all the time. Well, at least we don't miss anything spectacular: flat, endless desert and steppe again.

While we're having a breakfast break two German biker stop by and we have a nice chat and a cup of coffee together. We'll meet them a couple of times the next days. 

There is not only nothing special to see but there is also no fuel station until the next village. Distances over 400km without a fuel station is quite common here. There are gas stations as most of the Uzbekian cars run with gas but there is almost no fuel or diesel available in Uzbekistan. So you fill up, including the reserve canister whenever you find a station or fuel from the black market. No matter which one the quality is quite bad  - 80 octan is standard- and it is too expensive in comparison to the other countries. I'm happy that I have mounted a special filter at the tank that filters the fuel right while filling it in. I'm not always sure about the quality of the fuel we get.

We reach the first city Kungard really tired and decide to stay at the hotel for two days as we want to visit the famous "ship graveyard" at the former south-end of lake Aral the next day. 

There are just some boat wrecks left and everything is prepared for the tourists. Therefor it is not possible anymore to "park" directly in front of the rusty boats. Would have been a nice photo spot ;-)
But anyway. Really "impressing" to see "live" how much this former 66'000skm huge lake has shrunked within 30 years. In 2010 there was just 12'000skm left and the shore is going back about 200meters every year. It is not one huge lake anymore but it's parted in some smaller leftovers. 10'000s have lost their jobs and their basis for living as there used to be a prospering fish industry and boatyards. But it is not only the changing of the climate that causes that terrible lost of water but also the Uzbekistan agriculture: huge cotton and rice monocultures - where the people is even forced to help harvesting it - use more water than the sources can produce. They start to think about maybe change to other, less water intensive products but I guess that will take too long to save lake Aral.

As Jürgen wants to ride another direction we both travel solo again. But there are quite some bikers on the road right now so I guess I'll meet sooner or later somebody to have a nice chat or ride a day or two together. The next couple of days my "programm" is already fixed: I will visit the famous historic cities Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand before riding the last long loop to Osh in Kyrgystan.
But more to that in my next blog :-)