Friday, July 18, 2014 Another big driving day north along the M6 and then the M4. The scenery definitively improved with massive sunflower fields and the occasional pine forest. It really felt like we were returning to Europe. And while…
Thursday, July 17, 2014 We woke up to find that we still had a front license plate. It had not been stolen during the night! Big day of driving as we head North to Moscow. This was the first day…
Tuesday, July 15, 2014 After the whole police episode was over, we drove south from Astrakhan towards the Volga Delta. Our original plan was to wing it and find someone with a boat. The receptionist at our hotel had given…
Monday, July 14, 2014 The drive from the Kazakhstan border to Astrakhan was pleasant enough. As we drove through the Volga Delta area we could already see many more birds along the roadside. Turned out that there were two ways…
Monday, July 14, 2014 Had a leisurely breakfast and departed to the Russian border with expectations of good roads. We were very disappointed to find we had shocking roads the entire way. The boring desert scenery combined with the relentless…
Saturday, July 12, 2014 Once we crossed the border, we still had 85kms of classic Kazakhstan roads to negotiate before we got to Beyneu. And by “classic” we mean terrible. At one point we had to stop and fill up…
Saturday, July 12, 2014 Crossed into Kazakhstan. Very long day and several hours spent at the border. Uzbekistan turned out to be one of the unexpected highlights of our trip. Now we were on our way through Kazakhstan and onto…
Friday, July 11, 2014 The drive to Nukus was quite uneventful. We made the journey in just over 3 hours. The fuel we picked up in Khiva was working, but, Sterlin was grumbling a little under heavy acceleration. So, we…
Wednesday, July 9, 2014 The drive from Bukhara to Khiva was 430 kms through the Kyzylkum Desert, a journey that ‘the one that went before us’ took 10 hours to complete. So we woke up early, had a massive breakfast…
Monday, July 7, 2014 Pleasant enough drive to Bukhara, except the cop who leapt out of the bushes to pull us over. Apparently we were speeding, although we had no idea that we were. The chat was friendly enough, and…
Saturday, July 5, 2014 The drive to Samarkand was along good roads and we made excellent time. We didn’t even get stopped by the Police. Although we had a little trouble getting to our hotel, as someone had constructed a…
Thursday, July 3, 2014 Despite setting our alarm at 7am we still only got away around 9:30am for the 320km drive to Tashkent. Not that far, but we didn’t know what road conditions to expect, and, we also wanted to…
Wednesday, July 2, 2014 This day we crossed out of Kyrgyzstan and into Uzbekistan. The border crossing took a couple of hours, but everything was very correct and proper. Just a lot of paperwork to be completed. Click the links…
Sunday, June 29, 2014 We arrived in Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second city, around 2:30pm. The previous night we had no Internet and did not have any hotels in mind. So our plan was to head to a coffee shop, get some…
I figured this event merited its own entry 🙂 Never in my 50 years had I envisioned being in Kyrgyzstan on this day! Let alone in ‘Hotel Turist’ in Kara-Köl, halfway between Bishkek and Osh, on the Eve of my…
