Today we were leaving Tashkent but also Uzbekistan. We have had a great time in this wonderful country. But as always there is a time of coming and going…

It would be a long day on the bike today, read on, and see why.

We had already packed our stuff the evening before. We went for breakfast around 7 am and said goodbye to the hostel. The first stop, like in Bukhara and Samarkand, was the UzGasOil station. We found even 95 octane here and at the best price we saw yet. The bike will be happy with this good fuel 🙂 We also filled our two camelbags as we heard Tajikistan would be the warmest country we would see.

After leaving the city of Tashkent on the A373 to the south, there is a checkpoint just before the road splits to the border crossing of Oybek. We had this crossing mentioned on our documents we got when we entered the country coming from Kazakstan. The police stopped us again. They asked for our documents and left in their car with our documents. We had to wait for 20 minutes or so when they came back. They said they made photocopies for us we would need at the border.

When riding to Oybek we passed a big water reservoir called the Tuyabuguz. We wanted to go for a swim but there was no time unfortunately.

We arrived early at the border of Oybek. The police were very friendly and gave us water. But then we had to check out of Uzbekistan. We remembered the check in which was not the easiest one. We now had to declare our belongings again, and also how much money we had on us, and comparing this to the check in paper, you should be able to see how much we had spent in the country. I was lazy and just filled in something like $500. Not too smart I realized afterwards as they were able to check it and confiscate the difference. The whole idea is that you don’t go to the black market. But luckily, it just took some time to get everything processed. We had a luggage inspection also. They wanted to see the contents of all our luggage. Nothing special was found, so we could finally exit the country and ride to the Tajikistan border.

At the Tajikistan border, we saw two Spanish guys we would meet later again in Murghab and Karakul. We had to show our passports, then ride through a slippery water pool and go to the next point. Apparently I rode a bit too far, and a guy started shouting to me. He said I would get a fine, but his colleague calmed him down, so there was no fine 🙂 But I had to move my bike back. More administration was being done and after half an hour or so we could finally get in Tajikistan!

We immediately noticed the high temperatures, it was like in Tashkent, around 38 degrees. We stopped in the first village called Buston to buy benzine, water and a Tcell sim card. The Ucell sim card of Uzbekistan had done its work well. Finding fuel was not a problem anymore.

We rode further towards Khujand and drove through the city. In the meantime the temperature had already risen to 42 degrees! The water in our camelbags was almost not drinkable anymore, it was hot water. The air felt really warm as well. I knew we were headed for the mountains, and the higher we would be, the cooler it would be. So I opened the gas a bit. Not too smart again, as there are quite a lot of police with speed guns in this part of the country. I was stopped again. The maximum speed on the road is mostly 60. I was a good bit above it, but luckily I only got a warning.

Soon we started to see the mountains in this beautiful country. The roads were also very good and it was a nice ride. The only thing I was wondering about was the condition of the tunnels. We arrived at a first big tunnel called the Shakristan tunnel. I stopped before the tunnel to talk to a few men I saw. They said everything is fine here. After the tunnel I stopped again to talk to the workmen.

We had to ride a few mountain passes and the first one was the Shakristan pass. It was a nice pass, but you had to be concentrated. Patches of road were missing, and the abysses were very deep. Mistakes were not tolerated here and would be unmistakably lead to death.

Our goal of the day was to camp at the Iskander kul lake where the president of Tajikistan has one of his datchas. After the mountain pass we stopped at a chaikhana to get some supplies for the night. Basically this means water for us, as we have packed some trekker meals from home and had still a few left.

It was getting darker and we still had a few miles to cover. We passed by Ayni. Here is junction with a road which leads to Penjikent and the Fan Mountains. Further this road leads to Samarkand, but as said before, this border is closed now by the Uzbeks.

We were approaching Anzob but it was not for today. At the village of Zeravshan we took an offroad road for about 20km which leads to the Iskander kul lake. At points this was not an easy road, with steep climbs and big rocks. But we managed. It was a very scenic road as well.

The sun was going down when we arrived at the lake house. We saw a bicycle and a guy. He had a nice Ukrainian flag on the bike, what a coincidence. He had two more friends and we decided to camp fogether that night. The turbaza or soviet holiday camp which was a bit further was rather expensive with 30 somonis for a tent. We decided to ride on to find a better place. It was already dark at the time and we were still riding offroad. Luckily I had a good xenon light as it was only a small dark road. On the road I even saw a scorpion like creature.

We finally arrived at the other side of the lake which appeared to be side of the presidents datcha also 🙂 We found a nice spot to camp and put up the tents. I made a little campfire and we had supper. The 3 ukrainian guys were called Andrei, Sergei and Yuri and were from Kiev and Odessa. We were all pretty exhausted and went to bed under a nice starry sky. The altitude was around 2000m but it was not too cold.