From Sary-Tash to Chinese border and beyond -

Left Sary Tash for China border early at 6am, all of us are getting quite used to the speed of getting ready first thing in the morning. Eggs were served for breakfast and black tea. Extremely crisp and cold outside where we were staying, but because it had snowed in the night, our surrounds changed dramatically.
Packing the bags on the top was finger numbing and precarious getting on the roof of the car with all the ice on it.

Our first port of call, about 70 km drive through the Irkeshtam Pass – one road through Irkeshtam to the Chinese border. During this short journey we reached temperature of – 5 degree C and a height of 12,440 feet – amazing !
Very rugged harsh terrain, saved a lot of travelling time because of the quality of the road we were on.

Had to go through several checkpoints before reaching the Kyrgyzstan side of border control. They were pretty good, now to the Chinese side.

As we approached the official Chinese border crossing, again by passing about 25 large trucks, we could see officials coming out. One by one, all smartly dressed came to greet us. There were six of them. Asked for passports as usual, but also told us they officially have to inspect the whole vehicle including our luggage. They were friendly but official. I stayed with the vehicle, whilst they removed the items from within. It was freezing outside and the officials were extremely thorough. Peter, Kirit and Manvir were led inside to passport control, always a bit of a niggly feeling when you get separated like this.

The car inspection was pretty efficient, although we will probably have to repack the back of the vehicle – we don’t have a boot. I rejoined the guys and thankfully before I did, I left my ruck – sack in the car. I am glad I did this, because the customs guys were still checking the ruck – sack contents and in particular the thousands of photos on Kirit’s iPad. It would have been another two hour wait if he wanted to go through my iPad – he didn’t ask me and we all quietly slipped through.

It’s amazing that after nearly 7 months of planning, this particular date for entry into China was quite specific, since we had planned to meet our Chinese guide today, more impressive if you also factor in, almost 6500 miles of travelling we have already covered to date.
Fortunately, we were successful in meeting our guide at the first of the two Chinese border controls we had to navigate, he had all our paperwork relating to our car. We then drove to the second customs point – getting through this, we all felt would be the last of the major border crossings we would encounter for the remainder of our trip. Easier said then done, the one and a half hours it took to reach, especially on the superb road we were still travelling on, was the comfortable part. On reaching our second destination the waiting was horrendous. They completed most of the formalities including passport control and rechecking our baggage, but took an absolute age to conclude, the vehicle documentation. When they informed us we couldn’t take and tomatoes and cucumbers, which were going to be our previous nights meal, through with us – all three of us started frantically eating it in the customs area, this was our lunch. Because I have been caught (I maintain, quiet innocent on my part) taking photos of previous border controls. With the Chinese I wasn’t going to take any chances and produce photographic evidence of us eating vegetables in customs for the blog, at the risk of being dragged away. Temptation was too great, managed a few snaps!

It’s also funny, actually not really funny for me, but we are eating very lightly at present and definitely in the last week or so the main meal is, for the present NO MORE. Peter loves this eating format, he can live on vegetables and sparkling water forever. But in fairness, out of the three of us, he is the only one it seems who has not put on any weight on the trip!!

The Final destination for the day, after crossing this second bit of the Chinese border was Kashgar. The scenery between the two border checkpoints was again exceptional – vast and endless.
We were finally given clear by Chinese customs – alleluia! Just could not understand why this much time was taken. Very much Chinese inefficiency on border control. However, even after 12 hours of traveling, we all had great satisfaction in having achieved a little personal milestone – we have driven all the way to China – it’s a great feeling.

Reached Kashgar pretty late, another two hour drive from border control. Have lost another couple of hours, we are now 7 hours behind UK. Again smooth roads, any potholes we encounter in China especially to major destinations will be frowned upon, especially when the Chinese are well know for their construction. Initial appearance of the roads, very well signposted.
I wonder, starting this part of the trip will break some myths about China and Chinese people: methodical, disciplined, perhaps oppressed, not very interactive – we will see.
Met our actual guide Bing, who will be our guide for the entire China trip.
Nice guy, I’m sure he will save us a lot of time and effort.

31st day Mon 12th May

Left Osh for Sary – Tash, onward to the last leg before we enter China. Our scenery changed spectacularly, previously we saw the snow at a distance, now we were in the thick of it. From 30 degrees C to 1 degree C and we were all in our shorts still!
Great road surface, even though very mountainous. Climbed to an elevation of over 11,000 feet, absolutely breathtaking views.
Managed to find accommodation, again just by chance and conversation with a tour guide who was with a touring party. Sary Tash is a tiny place in the mountains and we did well to get a place for the night – otherwise it would have been the tent, sleeping in sub zero temperatures. Stayed with a young family, one room with four people sleeping in it – I think we have been here before. Guess what, yes the toilets were 100 yards outside the house and yes it was similar with regards to facilities as the one we went to in the borders of Uzbekistan – basic. Thoughts of wanting to go to the loo in the middle of the night immediately came to mind.

Fairly comfortable nights sleep, having manoeuvred getting into my sleeping bag.

Manvir took over the helm after breakfast at a local restaurant. The breakfast was Kebab Roll and some Roast Chicken, full English not anywhere to be seen still.

Unfortunately, he was stopped for a minor speeding violation, pulled over and questioned about.The tactic about shrugging your shoulders and giving a blank look to the police officer does help. He was the only guy on duty and you are wearing him down because he is missing out on pulling up other drivers doing the same thing. We acknowledged, in part what had occurred and he acknowledged and accepted something from us, which brought this matter to a timely conclusion, we got back in our cars and were on our way.

Stopped over at the Sulaiman – the sacred mountain in Kyrgyzstan. It dominates the Fergana valley and forms the backdrop to the city of Osh.

Osh being an important route on the Central Asian Silk roads. The sacred mountain is the only world heritage site in the country of Kyrgystan.

 
Photos: Great views from the top – Of Osh.
Photos: Peter and his newly adopted family!

Sulaiman (Soloman) is a prophet in the Quran, and the mountain contains a shrine that marks his grave. Stairs leading to the highest peak where there stands a small mosque originally built by Babur in 1510 – it’s our old First Indian Mogul friend again!

 
Good day, we will be heading for China in the next couple of days.
Tomorrow we go to Sary Tash.

Thankfully no other disturbances, the tent did its job and we were up at 8am – packed everything up .Yesterday’s washing of cutlery, plates etc was done by the river. I must admit, it was quite interesting completing this task!

The guy who let us use his land to make the camp for the evening also made honey, I took a selfy with him, must be a first for him.

We made our way back to Osh. Because of our unexpected early entry into Kyrgyzstan we had a spare day in Osh.

I drove first, because I hadn’t driven on the mountainous terrain on the previous day. I wanted to appreciate the drive in the Land Cruiser on this type of terrain – its great fun. It certainly is a beast and handled difficult sections of the road with consummate ease.

One hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear stick, it’s the only way, especially with the frequency of the gear changes you are making on these roads.

After Ozgon we decided to drive further into the mountainous area – breathtaking views mixed in with farmers on horse back, herding goats, cattle and cows.

Then we made a random decision- we were almost in the middle of nowhere, as indicated also with no phone signal and decided we were going to camp outside tonight.

Picking the spot was quite challenging but managed to find the ideal tent site, with a fast flowing river running past us and we were surrounded by mountains.

Second challenge – pitching the tent. After some skilfully manoeuvring and a couple of retakes, Kirit and myself got it sorted. Then bedlam struck…………the quiet spot that we had chosen suddenly turned into Piccadilly Circus!!

Our Camping Disaster CLICK HERE TO WATCH
It seemed like all the hundreds of animals we had previously passed were now gathering at OUR camping site! All very friendly but a bit chaotic and we had to move our tents because : 1) the farm animals were going to stay here for the night and 2) they were starting to be inconsiderate by dumping everywhere

We carried our tents still ‘intact’ a hundred yards to a slightly more secluded spot and tried to settle down for the evening – dinner still needed to be prepared.

With the vast lighting available on the land cruiser it wasn’t too difficult to get started. In the surrounding darkness you soon felt the vastness turning to isolation. Started to rain, which didn’t help much. I used as a canopy a plastic sheet, for seating on the grass, which I had picked up at the UK Olympics arena – little did I think then that something we had used to sit our backsides on, would some day be used as a rain-protector, somewhere in the wilderness in some inhabited region of Kyrgyzstan !

The ready prepared meals worked a treat, hot and satisfying. For deserts we had ready made masala tea- a treat.

Time to go to the loo – where, what, how, all challenging questions with one touch in hand. In the end you manage, you have to some how! The morning was good because it had a river setting.

It was a bit unsettling when on a couple of occasions we had an unexpected visitor – anything could happen and no one would really know the truth – well, ok I’m getting a bit carried away there. However, during the commotion earlier, Peter had lent some spanners to someone having a problem with his car. That guy came to return them at 12 that evening, whilst we were all tucked in. This was a bit scary – he was ok though, just wanted to thank us and return the spanner set. Kirit with his hearing aids out, didn’t hear anything and Manvir chose to sleep in the car and didn’t hear anything too. So it would have been down to Peter and me !

‘The Pharmacy News’ of the trip : Pharmaplus and Manichem have just made their first pharmacy purchase in Central Asia after agreeing a joint venture and expansion plans in this area. DayLewis’s offer to join in this superb investment opportunity, was rejected, by the two, at this stage. Daylewis, when asked declined to comment but inside sources, are said to be disappointed.

Photograph shows the first member of staff on the team in the recently acquired pharmacy!

We saw an extremely large statue of Lenin – probably the first one since Volgodrad in Russia and a selfy with the great man himself.

Initial thoughts of Osh – perhaps a bit more poverty here. No breakfast because too knackered from events of yesterday. Brunch at a very local restaurant, nice spaghetti. They make a great use of containers – as retail outlets!

The countryside looks like Cornwall at times, then the Lake District then Switzerland …

More of a Chinese feel here, also more of Islamic presence.

Ozgon village – had a very local atmosphere to it, mingled with the locals, who were friendly and engaging. Met an old army guy – who was still in uniform, bit eccentric but harmless.

A lady seamlessly cutting thin slices of mangos, whilst confidently not looking at her knife engaging with the mango.

From Tashkant
28th day Fri 9th May 2014

Went to local market to pick up lunch for our journey – fruit and veg, some cheese and some ham – food items for our picnic/lunch, which has now become a fixed slot when we are on the road.

Off to Kokand, south east of Tashkent. May not be able to make it to Fergana by the end of the day. At the start of the day, we were unaware, that today we will have the pleasure of seeing some superb, snow covered mountain scenery. We reached a hight of over 7,000 feet and it was an experience – mixture of views from Switzerland and Kashmir.
The three happy snappers are Peter, Kirit and myself. I love to take hundreds of photos, Kirit happy to stop car and Peter now more relaxed about this.

 
I did a bit of driving – Manvir happy to drive, he’s not into mad photo taking. Peter gave me a lesson on clutch wear and tear – most of it went over my head, because I couldn’t prove or disprove what he said.

The picnic stop is drivers choice and Kirit picked a gem – right by a river.
Very scenic indeed.

Bollywood saved the day! On our way we were stopped again, this time at a security check point, somewhere in the mountains, this check point was manned by the Uzbeckistan army. Was I taking sneaky photos – they love going through our documentation, passports etc and once again went through, almost all the photos I have taken on this trip and beyond i.e. from my previous holidays. To be honest, although they were all heavily armed, they were not aggressive at all. But here’s the thing, after they revisited our Indian background (the 3 of us) the five or six army guys around the land cruiser were rolling out names of Bollywood actors and films – me acknowledging them and with Manvir’s help adding a few more names, things got really friendly, even had a few hand shakes thrown in, recognising our common interest or basic knowledge on my part.

Realised that in most of the East European countries, which we have travelled through including, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakstan and Uzbeckistan – all the people we have talked with have had a great affection for and knowledge of Bollywood.

 
Reached Kokand with the view of now, just to relax. Kokand looks like a boutique town, everything nicely manicured and pedicured. Checked into the hotel to be told we would be unable to stay because our visas expire mid night tonight. We knew this but thought it would slip under the radar – but it didn’t. So we had to hurriedly and unceremoniously leave to try to get to the border crossing and try to get into Kyrgyzstan. We did make it to the border crossing – absolutely no one there, but some how managed to attract attention for a number of officials to come to the gate and let us go through Uzbeckistan border control. It was 12 pm by now and after a thorough check of all our baggage and car, bearing in mind we were the only vehicle there, we were finally allowed into the ‘no man’s territory’ i.e. on this occasion it was the 100 yard crossing to the Kyrgyzstan side.Now this was the fun bit – although we were allowed through there was no one to greet us at the gates. Quite eery and a bit spooky, however, probably the safest place to be if suddenly there was any conflict between Uzbeckistan and Kyrgyzstan!

 
Realising we may have to sleep in the car, we also had to eat! Time for the ready packed curry meals we had brought with us, all we needed was some boiling water – the vast resources of the Land Cruiser came in handy, we had on board a gas cooker and importantly some gas. Got started and this neat outcome seemed like something positive was coming out of a mini ‘unexpected’ situation. As we were getting into it, a lone border petrol guy from Kyrgyzstan side came to the gate – understood our situation and after checking our documents, let us through to the next phase of immigration – had to frantically pack away all the bits for cooking – the meal had been cooked and was perilously sitting on a plate on Manvir’s lap.

Crossing into Kyrgyzstan from their side was absolutely no problem and as soon as we had done this, with a 100 yards into the country, we stopped the car and finally, with a cold beer in hand (we also have a fridge at the back of the vehicle), had our meal at 2 am and made our way to our hotel which we had frantically book, last minute in Kokand.
Extremely satisfying day.

It took an age to find our accommodation, even the tried and tested method of one of us jumping in the Taxi and following it to our destination look longer – finally finding that it was in some remote place. Kirit’s random running around methodology to find the solution, almost got himself run over, because he forgot his left from his right.

Unable to see much of Tashkant, but I have given a bit more background below, about this historic city. Noticed the ‘Salvar Chameez’ prominently worn by ladies in Bukhara not seen as much here in Tashkant. Again very clean and pretty modern looking place.

The second highlight of the day was, after reaching our accommodation, we decided we were going to cook chicken curry tonight. Manvir and I got cracking, purchased one whole chicken from the local market, gathered all the spices and spare utensils we had in our vehicle and got cooking. It turned out great! Seriously delicious, and not because we hadn’t had a curry for almost a month – this was good. With the salad, rice and ice cold beer – it was, job done for the second highlight of the day.
Kirit loved the cooking so much he did all the washing after wards – possibly the third highlight – no I wouldn’t be so mean!