Uzbekistan
A 6 weeks trip in Uzbekistan and a few days in Tadjikistan
Kokand - Marghilon - Ferghana
12 juin
Last stop in the Ferghana Valley. We stay in Marghilon, from where we take the train to Tashkent, and return to Ferghana.
There are lots of vines on the road, on trellises rather than on vines. In Marghilon I see the second drinking water machine of the trip, where people come to help themselves with large cans.
In Ferghana, we saw the statue of the scholar Akmet al Fergani, who created a device for measuring the flow of the Nile (apparently still in place). In Marghilon, we’ll spend some (…)
From Kokand to Rishtom
10 juin
A very short stage today to avoid riding in the heatwave.
My first objective is to reach a bike shop marked on OSM and pick up some patches and tubes. I’ve never had so many punctures on a trip, thanks to the tyres provided by the bike shop in Toulouse 😡 The young guy serving me will provide me with some big patches that will do the trick, but he doesn’t have the tube. It’ll be fine, we don’t need to ride much more. I ask how much I owe... no, nothing !!! And as it’s not enough to have (…)
From Konibodom to Kokan
9 juin
A quiet stage marked by the border crossing with Uzbekistan. This time we didn’t escape the bag check, but it went quickly anyway.
On this side of the border too, it’s apricot harvest time, but we had enough yesterday 🙂
We take a coffee break in a small shop, where they provide us with hot water for our coffee and we buy some delicious doughnuts.
We leave the main road as we approach Kokan, and the road becomes quite shady, which helps us to cope with the rising heat.
Khujand then route to Konibodom
8 juin
For our rest day, we’re going to take a dip in the nearby lake created by the dam on the Syr-Daria. Locals call this lake ‘the little sea of Tajikistan’. It’s a huge 55km long and 25km wide. Many of the beaches are privatised and there are a lot of beautiful, wealthy houses being built... At the end of the road, there’s a quiet little spot where you can go for a swim. With another trip to the Bazaar and then back to the hotel, the walk will cover a good sixty kilometres on our day of ‘rest’ (…)
From Nau to Khujand
6 juin
A very short stage to Khujand, the country’s second largest city. An impressive bazaar that we’ll be returning to visit, a thousand-year-old mulberry tree, the Sir Daria, one of the largest rivers in Central Asia, running through it, a pleasant park right in the centre...
In a hotel a few kilometres from the centre, we’re going to spend a day resting and sightseeing here.
From Shariston to Nau
5 juin
It was supposed to be an easy stage today... but it wasn’t ! And yet we were descending by around 1000m over the 75 km planned... But right from the start we had a headwind, or almost a headwind. Then, just as we were passing through the town of Istaravshan, we hit a huge traffic jam with cars getting stuck in every direction. It was while zigzagging between the cars - no doubt with the wrong gear - that my chain got stuck in the bottom guide of the derailleur and ended up twisting it... (…)
From Ayni to Shariston via the tunnel
4 juin
We set off early today to tackle the highest point on our tour at 2720m, the Shariston Tunnel. It will take us 5 hours to reach the entrance to the tunnel. After a little hesitation, we finally decided to cross the tunnel on our bikes. We’d been told that the tunnel was dangerous and that the road was in poor condition, but in the end it wasn’t that bad. What bothered us most was the cold in the tunnel, but we let ourselves be carried downhill and it went fairly quickly. On the other side of (…)
Urmetan - Ayni
3 juin
No photo of yesterday’s meal : we had taken a photo with our host’s mum but we didn’t want the photo to be used on the internet... And the meal was spent between the men, with the women doing the cooking and washing up 🙁 ... Adam’s mum had prepared a salad with mayo, homemade samosas, fromage blanc, watermelon and to finish off, a cake... At the end a local speciality that I tried to taste but it was too much (a kind of soup with milk and herbs).
This morning we have breakfast with them (…)
Padjakent- Urmetan
2 juin
We set off this morning for a short stage. We leave the main road to take a small road that crosses the river. The good road soon turns to gravel, but what a pleasure it is to pass so close to Tajik nature, flourishing in the Zeravshan river valley. At a break in the shade of a beautiful tree, we eat blackberries. Nobody touches them here and we can eat lots of them, very good ones. We arrive at the village that was our target because we’d seen a possibility of accommodation on maps.me... (…)
Passage through Tajikistan - Pandjakent
1er juin
Early departure from Samarkand towards Tajikistan and Pandjakent. The road is fairly passable on the Uzbek side. The Tajik mountains become impressive as you approach. In the background, the Pamir with its high snow-capped peaks. Crossing the border is fairly quick. Pedestrians and bicycles pass through quickly, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for the cars and lorries that are temporarily blocked. We visit the remains of a pre-Age bronze village. Once I arrived in Padjakent, I had to (…)