Storming round the Stans

The Registan - Samarkand

Friendly Uzbek Family

Within Samarkand are some fabulous buildings - remnants of what must have been an overwhelming city in the 14th century - the famous Registan with its three madrassas forming three sides of a vast square which once housed the bazaar provides the most majestic of the sites, but the old mausoleums built by Tamerlane for his closest family and friends provide some of the most ornate and beautiful tilework. At our hotel that evening we learnt that the president of Uzbekistan had been taken seriously ill and was in hospital, this combined with the restrictions on foreigners entering the country during the 5 days of the 25th anniversary celebrations of Uzbekistan's Independence caused us some concern so we headed north towards the border. Camping close to a small village in a remote rural area we were entertained by a group of local children who brought gifts of grapes and needlework and invited us to their house for tea. Despite not sharing a common language we had a  lovely time sitting in their garden being served bread, tea and freshly picked grapes. Another border crossing this time to Kazakhstan took around 4 hours so after finding and ATM, and filling with diesel we drove north through low hills and camped.


Samarkand's sprawling bazaar

Crumbling mud walls of Sauron in Kazakhstan

Kazak road into dusty flat grassland

Kazakhstan is far less densely populated, and has vast areas of uncultivated land, so we found it much easier to wild camp, the routing being to find a minor road away from a town, then look for a dirt track leading off, ideally into some hills. Using this approach we found some fabulous pitches, and even when an inquisitive local passed they were always welcoming, wanting to shake our hand and know where we were from. The southern border area of Kazakhstan has some sizeable mountains with hills running off, but heading north the land becomes completely flat grassland, with very straight roads. One signpost showed "Samara 2286 kms".


Canyon Kazakhstan

We took the opportunity to visit a couple of deserted towns where the remains of the defensive mud brick walls dominated the landscape. They were decimated by Ghengis Kahn who attacked and destroyed them after one of his emissaries was killed when visiting. Evidence of much longer human occupation dating back to the bronze age is present with ancient burial sites and lots of petroglyphs, as well as some stunning scenery. Despite some of the minor roads being in poor repair the one common feature of the trip so far is that every country we have travelled through is upgrading or building new roads at an amazing rate.

Bronze Age Petroglyphs

Three days ago we crossed into Kyrgyzstan - the fastest crossing yet at a deserted border post at the eastern end of Kyrgyzstan - and headed to Cholpon Ata where we managed to see the final day of the World Nomad Games. held on a purpose built racecourse these games celebrate Nomadic sports, which included belt wrestling, bareback horse racing - with each race lasting around 30 minutes - eagle hunting and nomadic polo. At another venue there had been bride kidnapping. It was all very intense, especially when the local national team beat the main rivals Kazakhstan in the final of the polo. The location at 5,300ft on the side of a 150kms long, 50 kms wide lake with 15,000ft mountains on either side is spectacular, and we spent three nights on the lake shore. With two weeks before we cross into China we plan to slow down, and spend some time walking amongst these stunning mountains.
 

Nomad Polo

   
   

Eagle hunting runner up