Date: May 25th, 2016
Distance: 130 km
Song of the Day: The Mountain - Heartless Bastards

Yesterday and today were very similar. I started climbing in the morning and kept going through most of the afternoon. The one big difference is that my chain is dead. I could still ride along okay in my highest gears, but the chain would skip if I tried using the lowest gears. The next two were also pretty iffy. Unfortunately, these are the ones I really, really wanted for the steep sections. I could stomp along up hills with a grade of up to 8%, but anything steeper than that and I was walking. I think I walked up two kilometers today. Super frustrating. I know it is all my fault, too, I was trying to push my chain to the limit. I was hoping to get four more days out of it, but I only got three. I have all the parts to fix it up right, though. I've been carrying a spare chain and cassette since Portugal and my new chainrings arrived in the package I received in Tashkent. This was going to be a big overhaul, though, and I didn't want to waste time trying to change everything on the side of the road. So I cursed, and pushed my bike some more.

The upside is that it gave me lots of time to appreciate the scenery. I mean, holy crap, what a place. I know I have mentioned cliffs and mountains towering overhead before, but I don't know if anywhere has been like this. The cliffs on either side looked to be a thousand meters above me, and the mountains behind them were at least a thousand meters above that. Even the rocks themselves were gorgeous. They ran the spectrum from a dull tan, to orange, to a bright brick red. These were interspersed with green trees. Some of the mountains were covered in grass, as well. They looked like a bright swath of green amid the other colors. I don't even know if the pictures do the place justice. It's hard to feel so small and so overwhelmed with the beauty of the natural world at the same time.

I finally made it to the summit mid-afternoon. There was one tunnel that really faked me out. I had been looking for the top of the pass and I thought the tunnel was it. It wasn't. Instead, the real summit was another kilometer up the road. Sigh.

The tunnel itself was another long one, five kilometers. It was long and dark like the one from yesterday. At least the blowers here were working, so it wasn't as filled with smog. This one also had a secondary tunnel next to it, but that one isn't finished yet. The connections between the two had open storm drains. These drains extended out into the tunnel that I was in. So, every few hundred meters I had to dodge an open pit in my path. In the dark. Exciting.

I was glad to be out of the tunnel. On the other side I found a place similar to yesterday. (Notice a pattern here?) It was another steep valley. This time, the cruise down the hill wasn't as scary. The road condition was better and the drivers were a bit better behaved. The really steep section only lasted ten kilometers.

From then on, it was a nice easy downhill cruse into Dushanbe. The river that had created the valley was running high, there were more cliffs and mountains around. As I got closer to the capital, little resort towns started dotting the river. There were cute little hotels and fancy restaurants. It looked like this was the place that locals go to get away from the hectic life in the big city.

It wasn't too long before I was in the city. I have made it to Dushanbe. This was an almost mystical place for me when I was growing up. It was on the other side of the earth, inside the Soviet Union, crammed between the steppes of Central Asia and the mountains of India and Afghanistan. To me it was synonymous with a place that you could never reach, like Timbuktu or Shangri-La. But I am here, and I did it all with a bicycle. This was another of my big goals for this trip. I am so excited.



-Dravis

Date: May 24th, 2016
Distance: 97 km
Song of the Day: High Enough - Damn Yankees

Well, that was a hell of a day. I wanted to leave Istaravshan early, but that plan failed pretty much right away. I needed to e-mail my host in Dushanbe and check in. I also wanted to get in touch with my family back home, since it's been over a week since I last let them know I was okay. They worry about me. It took a while of wandering around to find a place that had internet. The first place I tried wasn't working. The second place was locked up, but the guy running it was just down the street. Another guy saw me trying the door and went to get the owner. My business only took fifteen minutes once I had a connection, but getting to that point took an hour. Life on the road huh? So to all my readers out there, if I haven't posted in a while, don't worry. I'm fine, just having a hard time getting connected to the internet in this part of the world.

Things didn't get much faster leaving Istaravshan. The road was uphill and it didn't stop. That was pretty much my day, slowly cranking up into the mountains. And mountains for sure, not hills. Straight ahead was a line of mountains stretching all the way along the horizon. The green hills I was riding in were giving way to dark blue and white peaks. It was very pretty, but the heat and the effort didn't put me in the mood to really appreciate it. When I see a wall of mountains ahead of me, I tend to look for the gaps. Roads don't usually go over the highest peak, engineers design them to go over the lowest and easiest pass in the area. I look for the valleys and the line of road above me. This one wasn't all that steep, but it did go on and on.

By the afternoon I was really starting to feel the altitude. I am not sure how high I was, but it wasn't insignificant. If I remember correctly, when I was planning this trip the pass here was at almost 3,000 meters.

At the summit, the road disappeared into a tunnel. I was so ready for that. The tunnel was crazy, I think it's one of the longest I have been through on this trip. It went on for five and a half kilometers. I have no idea how much elevation this saved me, but I'm guessing it must have been significant, since otherwise there wouldn't have been a reason to built such a massive thing. Unfortunately, the tunnel was a bit of a rat-hole. I don't mean this because it had rats living in it (though it did). These are tunnels where the exhaust gasses from the traffic collect inside. There were blowers set into the ceiling to help this along, but they weren't working for some reason. I could see the yellow smog clogging the tunnel. Between that and the altitude, the tunnel was taking a toll on me. I had to do something. About the halfway point I switched over to a second, smaller tunnel. I had seen it from the outside, but there was a large gate preventing anyone from going in. There were, however, several connections between the two tunnels, and all of those were open. The second tunnel was great. No traffic, no exhaust fumes. Just what I needed. The rest of the trip through was easy.

Once I got to the other side, I went into one of the scariest descents I have ever been on. I must have dropped two thousand meters into the valley below in a very short amount of distance. I had to stop three different times to let my brakes cool off. Not that I minded, it was a good chance to enjoy the view. Plus, it helped me calm my nerves. The road condition wasn't the best. I was dodging pot holes at 50 kph. If that weren't bad enough, trucks and cars would pass each other around curves, often leaving me with no space. I had a couple of close calls, not exactly what I wanted. The view was so amazing, though. The valley was all green, and red, and orange. The mountains ahead were white and purple. Just outstanding.

I spent the last hour before sunset riding through a beautiful red rock canyon. This day was just amazing in terms of beautiful landscapes. I could have spent hours here, poking around and taking pictures. I didn't have hours, though. The sun was going down and I really needed to find a place to sleep. I got just out of the town of Ayni when the road started going up again. I tried putting the bike into a higher gear and ended up throwing my chain into my spokes. That took a minute to sort out. While I was doing that, a guy came along and stopped to help. I had the problem worked out, but I asked if he had a place to sleep. He invited me to come and stay at his place. It was only a kilometer away, so why not? It turns out that the guy, Bakha, ran a little truck stop cafe. I got a place to sleep and even dinner. It's amazing, all the people who are willing to help out travelers along the way.



-Dravis

Date: May 23rd, 2016
Distance: 113 km
Song of the Day: The Immortals - Kings of Leon

It was still raining when I woke up in the morning, so I tried to wait it out. I finished off the rest of the cherries and some bread for breakfast in my tent, hoping things would let up. They didn't. So I had to pack up my tent in the rain. The sand was getting into everything. Just annoying.

Now that I was out of food, I had to get to the next big town. I didn't have any local currency yet, which was going to be a big problem and soon. At least the rain finally started to let up as I reached Khujand. In town I met some people who gave me samples of what they were cooking. They had some rice and beans that were wrapped in bread and fried. Mmmmm. Even better with some spicy local tomato sauce.

I was also invited to visit a home "museum" by Amir, a local university student. The museum was in his home and dedicated to his grandfather, who had fought in WWII. I wasn't sure that it was going to be all that interesting, but it turns out that Amir's grandfather had been captured by the Germans during the war. Then he escaped with the help of a French prisoner and joined the French Resistance. I guess he spent something like three years fighting in France. What strange circumstances, to have lead a guy all the way from Tajikistan to fight with the French underground.

While I was in Khujand, I was able to get some local currency and get some staples like water, bread, and, yeah, a coke. The rest of the day was slow and steady. I was climbing again and, even though I was going the opposite way, heading back into the wind. Tajikistan has already been more hilly than all of Uzbekistan. I know the next couple of days are going to be challenging, and I'm expecting mountain passes taller than any I have done before. Should be fun.



-Dravis

Date: May 22nd, 2016
Distance: 140 km
Song of the Day: Overdue - The Get Up Kids

I finally got my lazy butt out of Tashkent today. It felt good to be back on the road. The sun was shining, and that was probably my biggest problem. The day started warm and just got hotter from there. I went through a couple of liters of water during the day. By the afternoon the water was so hot it was almost undrinkable. And the scenery wasn't helping much. After passing through the suburbs of Tashkent it was just field after field. Sometimes trees would provide a bit of shade, but with the sun right overhead that wasn't very often.

I picked up a bag of fresh cherries. It's the season for them, so they're cheap. I hung the bag from my handlebars and they were a cool, refreshing snack all afternoon. Plus, it was fun to spit out cherry seeds as I rode along.

By the time I hit the border I was overheated and exhausted. Too much time resting has made me weak. I spent the last of my Uzbek money buying cool water, which I proceeded to drink about a liter of immediately. That didn't really help things as much as I wanted. Instead I just felt bloated and tired.

The border itself wasn't hard. It was helpful to pretend I didn't speak Russian, though. When coming in to Uzbekistan I had to make two copies of a declaration form, one for me and one for them to keep. When I got to the customs office they were actually surprised I still had the first declaration form. They wanted me to fill out a new declaration, so I guess the first one didn't really matter. They checked my bags a little bit, even had a drug dog sniff over them. Tourists are also supposed to register every night they are in Uzbekistan. Usually this means staying in a hotel, but I certainly didn't stay in a hotel every night. At immigration they asked me for my registration. I gave them the registration from the first hotel I was at. The guy looked at me and asked for registration, so I told him that he had my registration. I think he wanted to explain that I needed more, but it would be hard to do in English, so he gave up without any further fuss.

The Tajik side of the border was easy too. They didn't even search my stuff. They tried to get me to show some paperwork for the bicycle, but I said that I didn't need any because it wasn't a motorcycle. The guy looked over my bike as if he only just realized it was not a motorcycle. I think this is a scam that gets pulled to earn them a bit of extra money if you aren't careful.

After that I was in Tajikistan. Country number 17, and the third of the 'Stans I will be visiting. Here is the Doctors Without Borders page for the country.

Not a whole lot was different past the border, though. Still open farm fields. Oh boy! I was going a bit slower, too. The road was climbing gradually and I was heading into the wind. That and all the water I drank just made everything a slog.

An hour before sunset it began to rain. I have yet to visit a country where it has not rained on me. Normally I would welcome a cool, refreshing rain, but here it was just slowing me down more. Why couldn't it have rained a few hours earlier? I found a place on the side of the road to pull over and make camp. I fell asleep to the sound of rain on my tent and chirping frogs in the creek.



-Dravis

Date: May 21st, 2016
Distance: Rest day

Today my host, Matt, took me and two of his other guests on a little tour of Tashkent. It was pretty laid back. We went through the old part of town then over to the main bazaar. For dinner we met up with a bunch of people. Of the ten people at the table, eight of them spoke French. Thankfully, I'm used to not be able to quite understand the conversation.



-Dravis

Date: May 20th, 2016
Distance: Rest day

I spent more time today working on my bike. I changed out my tires, I did some sewing to make a place to carry a spare tire with me. Not exciting, but necessary. I also don't believe that a touring bike is ever really finished. I'm always making slight changes, finding better places to put things and more efficient ways to carry stuff. Change and adapt.



-Dravis

Date: May 19th, 2016
Distance: Rest day

I didn't do anything all day. I was hoping to find an internet cafe, but nothing was working. Instead, I just did more work sorting out all my files. Nothing exciting.



-Dravis

Date: May 18th, 2016
Distance: Rest day
Song of the Day: Human - The Killers

I picked up a package that my family had sent me. Yay, I am so excited about it. I have two new tires and a couple of new chainrings. Yes! Plus, my sister sent me six pounds of peanut butter. Oh yeah. I love peanut butter.

On the way back from getting my box, I found a neat little train museum. You remember I like trains, right? It was fun to look at the Soviet designs for trains. It's shocking how similar they are to Western locomotives.



-Dravis

Date: May 17th, 2016
Distance: Rest day

This really was my rest day. I slept in all morning. Oh, that felt so good. The afternoon I spent organizing all my pictures and videos. Exciting to read about, huh?

This is also where Arthur and I split up. He wants to go to China. Good luck, man, and good travels.

-Dravis

Date: May 16th, 2016
Distance: Rest day

My goal for today was to was to get my Tajik visa. It wasn't difficult, but the process took all day. I got to the embassy at 9:00. It was raining and there were lots of people standing about. The security guard told me that the computer wasn't working, so I joined the group staning outside in the rain.

After more than an hour, they told me to go across the street. There was a basement room, and all the people who had been standing outside were now in this room, crammed around two small tables. It was hot and smelly. I joined in this as well, sidling up to one of the tables. I wasn't sure what I was doing, but I started cramming around hoping to figure out what was going on. I saw some other tourists get their passports copied at the left table, so I started there. It was not a fast process. Once I had that done, the people showed me where to put my passport and the copy on the other table. It was in a stack with a few hundred others. Oh boy, more waiting. This took another few hours. Finally, they called me to get my passport, though they just called me "American". I had to fill out a form, then they had me write out another form that said "I want to go to Tajikistan. Give me a tourist visa," then sign everything. The guys stapled it all together and told me to go back across the street.

They were, of course, on lunch or something. It was 2:30 in the afternoon. The guards told me to come back at 3:00. I got some lunch and came back after half an hour. They took my passport and $100 and told me to come back in one more hour. Great, more waiting. I came back at 4:00 and everything was ready. I realized that I didn't get a receipt for the visa, though. So the "price" for my visa may have been less. (My French friend Arthur would get one a few days later and only pay $50. I still don't know if I payed more because I am an American, or because the guy at the embassy pocketed the extra $50.) Well, at least I have my visa.



-Dravis