Day 2 of sleeping in my own tent, and it is surprisingly okay. The only discomfort was last night’s heat, with it staying at ~27 degrees until late into the evening. I slept with just the inner tent on, and left the outer tent (which was sealing in all the heat) off.

There was no one around, so it was fine. I’ve learned that I can also use my folded towel as a makeshift pillow…so the camping experience has gone from unpleasant, to not too bad (about a 6/10 in my books once you account for the beautiful night sky and the view.)

Morning coffee. Life is always good with coffee.

I awoke this morning to a fierce sun, it was already boiling by 7AM, and as soon as my eye mask was off, I was properly awake. I spent the morning slowly preparing my coffee, eating breakfast, and packing things up. By 9AM, I was ready to go.

All packed and ready to go

Today’s route in blue

Today’s route was rather long, tracing the Uzbek border at the Fergana Valley the long way around. The scenery is primarily agricultural fields with a smattering of hills and valleys, and less interesting than yesterday, but the roads are decent in some areas (although other areas have deep tyre ruts left by commercial traffic). I spent most of my time on the road, keeping stops short and to a minimum.

Quick roadside snap

Bumpy mountains

At a fuel stop, the auto-cutoff did not work at one point, and spilled petrol everywhere (second time this happened). This was not an old station / pump, so a word of caution to fellow riders out there that happen to read this blog.

The road traced bodies of water (I believe hydroelectric dams), with the water an almost deep blue green colour, contrasting against the colour of the rock.

Is this colour…teal? It looked like the colour they dyed Jumeirah Lake Towers’ water (if you know you know)

Oasis feel, by the reservoir

By ~2PM I had reached Osh, and stopped at a cafe to try the Sea Buckthorn tea that is unique to Kyrgyzstan. It’s a fruity tea, with a nice taste, although served hot on a 40 degree day, it may not have been the perfect drink for the occasion.

Then followed a few hours of me trying to make use of the afternoon to “see the sights” of Osh in the baking heat. My attempts were as follows:

• Lenin Monument: demolished
• Some UNESCO Heritage site that is a hill with history: closed
• A bazaar by the river: too hard to get to / i gave up. In the end I simply gave up and went back to the cafe to try the different lemonades that they had, and sort out my route for the remainder of my trip.

Where Lenin’s statue used to be

I’ve been trying to figure out the last leg, from Dunshabe back to Almaty. My original route had planned to go via Samarkand, Tashkent, and then via Taraz to Almaty, however I’m a bit concerned that this route will be too hot (apparently a 70 degree day was recorded there recently, but I find that a bit hard to believe) /boring so I’ve been searching for alternatives that fit within the same timeframe.

As I searched, I struck a conversation with the table next to me, who turned out to be Kyrgyz lawyers. They helped me call their contact at the border, to check if a certain crossing i was eyeing was open - and alas, it was not.

Napkin scribbles from Emil the Kyrgyz lawyer

So there remains two remaining options:

1. Ride the Pamir highway again, back to Osh, and trace my current route back to Almaty (this is likely a bit demanding, because it requires 10-15 hours of riding a day with no breaks to get back without losing time).
2. Ride via Khujand (i.e skip Samarkand), cross into Tashkent and continue the original route from there. I am still undecided, and I guess I will see how I feel once I start crossing the Pamirs.

When I returned to the hotel, I was ready to make tomorrows coffee and settle in for the evening. Right as I was heading upstairs I was asked by the receptionist: “do you have some time? Could you do some speaking?”

I was very confused, and thought she needed my help translating something. Me and two other guests were led to an adjoining building, where a roomful of locals had gathered for a movie night. There was a business theme of sorts, so we were paraded up to the front of the room to be their guests for the evening. It was quite the turn of events!

Unexpected surprise…

In the end it was quite nice to share to a roomful of curious ears my travels to date, my background (i was asked if i was Muslim…because I look Kyrgyz apparently) and career. My fellow guests had much more interesting experiences and advice than mine; they had full lives and careers; Greg was a former portfolio manager on Wall Street that traded junk bonds, and Constantine was a Russian maths professor (my guess based on his Russian introduction).

Greg and Constantine (Greg in blue)

Tomorrow I’ll be heading to the border with Tajikistan, and will look to camp in a similar place to where Greg and Constantine end up.

Some stats:

• 375 KMs travelled
• 15.6L fuel added
• 4 unique interactions
• 30g coffee consumed

Route to date

Altitude map of today’s ride