Uzbekistan / Kazakhstan

One of the easiest countries we've tackled so far, Uzbekistan was a nice experience. We'd had to hammer it through Turkmenistan in order to get ourselves into a position to leave Uzbek by 8pm Monday.

Tom, Will, Felix and I set off for Samarkand from the Turkmen border at 9am and were there in good time without any problems from the police. They seemed more friendly and less corrupt than over the border. Once we'd found the centre of town, we stayed in a really nice little B&B near the Rejistan mosque. Dinner was good, beds were comfortable and the showers were very welcome. At about 9pm 6 other teams rocked up to the hostel having tackled the central route.

Tom and I were the first to set off in the morning as we had to be out of the country a day before most. The drive to Tashkent was decent, apart from a moment where we had to dip in to Kazakhstan en route (the mini atlas didn't tell us this). The guards there were fairly mercenary but we got away without having to pay them anything because of the language difficulties.

We made it to Tashkent by 5pm, drove around town for a few hours looking for a bank and then headed to the border. Smoothly passed into the country with a little help from a Kazak officer who seemed to like the English. The plan was to sleep on the other side and wait for Will and Felix to cross over in the morning. Their exhaust fell off (again) which changed things.

We found a nice bar and restaurant about a kilometre outside of the border town and tried to communicate to the staff that we'd like to sleep in their car park and have a few beers. After about 10 minutes of sign language and drawing on post it notes we were drinking and relaxing.

Then the local youths turned up. 6 lads out on the town looking for beer, girls and money from the English people that had turned up in their local. Ilia, the boxer and main beef of the operation was kind enough to offer not to hit me with a metal stick in exchange for $10. We endured their drunken torment for 2 hours, paid them nothing and met a really nice chap called Xavi who allowed us to sleep outside at his family home with the dogs and ducks. He also guided us to the road to Shymkent this morning.

We've seen a lot of other teams in the last two days and they are mostly heading in the same direction. Can't believe there are only two countries to go after Kaz! Almaty is next, probably get there tomorrow as we have taken it easy here in Shymkent.

Will update as soon as is feasibly possible, Tim x