Broken down in Uzbekistan

With the five of us (Sam, Lukas, Bento, Rik and I) crossing together into Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan the border took a good while longer, but it’s far more enjoyable as you at least have some company and the banter that goes with it. After officially entering the country, there was no respite from the heat or the pot holes and we pushed on through the vast nothingness, occasionally passing a camel or two. At one point three local ladies waved us down. They were walking (God knows where) and needed a water top up. The youngest one indicated she wanted to get on the back of my bike, but I pointed out the impossibility of it with all my luggage. I was astounded that they were even attempting to walk in the middle of nowhere and indeed what the circumstances were that lead to it. I wasn’t concerned though, as there was enough traffic on this road should they really need help.

We pulled into a guesthouse on the edge of Jasliq for an overnight stay. The bed and meals were good enough and Lukas suggested we get up at 6am to beat the heat. I thought what is this madness? I was more used to going to bed at 6am than getting up then. Of course, come alarm time, Sam was the only one to get up so we certainly gave Lukas plenty after that and felt more reassured that rising time with the group would be at a more civilised hour in the future. During our short stay we met an elderly man waiting for his car to be fixed. He offered us tea, bread and some of his honey. By offered, I mean insisted as is the way in these parts. Through my poor Russian we came to understand that he had been stationed in Germany as part of the Soviet army and even had the opportunity to visit Venice perhaps during a few days off. (I can’t imagine it was during WWII, but perhaps in the subsequent years after the fall of the Iron Curtain. It was difficult to tell his age.) It was quite mind blowing to think that this humble man of simple means here in the middle of nowhere had been to the heart of tourism in Europe. We exchanged numbers and farewelled each other. He was a very kind soul and a nice ambassador for Uzbekistan I thought.

The boys were keen to see the ships on the sand where the Aral Sea once glistened and I didn’t mind at all. It was a fair distance out of the way and I was glad to be in the group because I knew if I was flying solo, I would have been “express pacing” it through that desert wth no chance of any detours! We got in mid afternoon and the guesthouse was more than comfortable. So, we stripped down to shorts and flip flops and rode on over to the only tourist item in the town – the famed ships. Yes, I’d say it was pretty cool and we enjoyed a little frolic on the bikes in the sand, but after that half hour, you’ve basically done all you could do in this town, but it was enough.

Unfortunately, the first of many troubles were about to beset us. Sam got stuck in the sand with no clutch. The expression of concern on his face indicated this was more than your average little incident. In a most peculiar fashion, the clutch had not as you might have suspected, burnt out, but rather, well, how should one put it… stayed completely engaged! No matter what Sam did with gear changing, clutch in, clutch out, the engine simply didn’t register as being in gear. So we first pushed the bike out of the sand and then towed Sam back to the guesthouse. Sam’s concern was warranted. A problem like that in a place like this was the worst combination. But Sam and Bento got to work googling and then managed to find a solution involving shortening or lengthening the clutch cable (can’t recall which) and miracle of miracles the bike was fine. Technology is amazing. Bento had been messaging a guy in South Africa who had the same problem and it turns out others had too. Just a highly unusual quirk with what is otherwise an incredible bike. Could you imagine an Africa Twin being allergic to sand? It was then I decided it should be named the Autobahn Twin (given there is a lot of sand in Africa!). I’d already dubbed Rik’s Honda Transalp the Trans-suburban given his woeful fuel range, but my jokes would soon come back to haunt me.

We finally got to Khiva and started to see the kinds of cities Uzbekistan is famous for. Smack bang in the middle of the ancient Silk Road you could feel the history all around you. What’s more is that this would be the beginning of seeing many overlanders and backpackers again and again. Given there is a kind of “route” along the Silk Road, not only would you meet people, but you were highly likely to run into them again. People on motorbikes and in cars, four wheel drives and trucks, Mongol Rally competitors and of course, craziest of crazies, cyclists!

Note: It still blows my mind how many cyclists undertake the Silk Road and beyond. The environment is the harshest of harsh with little to see for days on end and all the time they must camp… often in the middle of the day when it is too hot to ride. Once crazy Frenchman was drinking beer with us at 1:30am and planned to leave at 5am for his next leg! I asked him how on earth he was able to carry enough water. He said he couldn’t. Whenever he ran out, he would simply stand next to the highway holding one of his empty bottles and indicate and without fail the very next car or truck to come by would stop and refill him. Talk about great faith in humanity!

 

 

I could also enjoy something I hadn’t done much of previously – hostels. In Europe I’d been wary of security with all my gear and so stayed a lot in AirBnB or cheap hotels, but in this part of the world travelers (in my humble opinion) are all kindred spirits, plus with a group, hostel stay becomes a lot more fun. Of course, five guys in a room makes for a lot snoring and farting at night, but there are worse things to endure in Central Asia. Our next stop was Bukhara. We cruised along with desert on one side of us and the river separating us from Turkmenistan on the other. It was here I noticed my cracked navigation tower. It was sagging and bouncing wildly, so a Dutch Army zip tie from Rik did the job, but I started to get concerned about how I might find a more permanent solution.

At one fuel stop, my bike didn’t want to start. I thought that seemed a bit unusual, but grabbed a local to push me and I was off without giving it another thought. Later on I stopped with Bento for one reason or another and the same thing happened. I thought “this can’t be good”, but again with a little nudge from Bento I was on my way. By this time we’d lost the other guys so we express paced it into Bukhara. By now I was really struggling with the bike. I had to rev like crazy in low gears just to keep the engine going and with 800m to go until our hostel I had to push the bike the rest of the way. We all agreed we should be a bit better at sticking together and I was glad to have Bento with me during my troubles.

And so the diagnosis process began in earnest, ruling things out one after the other. Sending out SOS’s to contacts around the world and pulling the bike to bits. Fortunately, my mate in Australia, Rob Wallace came up with the goods again. He immediately suspected compression. And so we checked the compression (by sticking our fingers in where the spark plug goes) and sure enough there would have been more puff in a candy cigarette. This was not a good sign. In the meantime, Lukas had done some googling and he managed to get a hold of a guy who knew a mechanic in Bukhara. He then gave us the mechanic’s mate’s number because he spoke English and would interpret and that afternoon we had them all around at the hostel inspecting the bike. Talk about service! The mechanic’s name was Firuz and over the next week or so he was to become without a doubt my best friend! Sam and I pushed my bike the kilometre and a half to his humble workshop and requested he get busy investigating further. The next day came with no real progress as Firuz was quite keen to check fuel pump pressure. Dismayed at the lack of progress, I implored him emphatically to get cracking on the engine as we knew it DEFINITELY had a problem whereas the chances of both my fuel pumps not working were slim. He got to work that night (his preference due to the daytime heat) and reported back the next day with the very bad news I’d been anticipating. Annihilated piston rings. Nevertheless, he believed the cylinder and piston were in good condition and so I felt a small glimmer of hope that I’d be on the road soon as surely piston rings would be in stock somewhere in Europe.

The boys having kindly stayed with me during the whole process now set off for Samarkand. They too had schedules and we all hoped we’d be reunited soon. Frantically, I began searching everywhere for piston rings. I reached out to all my old and new contacts scattered around Europe and Russia, but nothing. Not a single place had them in stock! It was then I decided I’d go with the English language option and spoke to Nick at a KTM dealership in London and got him to order the bits. In the meantime, Lukas had reached out to his uncle who is a semi-famous Austrian moto adventure documentary maker who had great contacts with the KTM factory. I decided ordering from both would be the smartest bet and then see which arrived first.

My luck was to get even better. Thanks to Joe, Lukas’ uncle, I not only got the piston rings, but a piston and cylinder from the KTM factory for FREE! I was blown away and excited to be getting a top end rebuild (which the bike was probably due for) for the small fee of express post from Europe plus some cheap Uzbekistan labour. With the goods en route, I decided to make the most of my downtime and joined a couple of young travelers, Bastien (Swiss) and Anthony (Canadian) in a share taxi to Samarkand.

Samarkand is a city steeped in history and some of its architecture is stunning. It’s quintessentially Silk Road in every respect and was home to the brutal Turco-Mongol conqueror, Timur, of the 14th century. The mausoleum complex housing he and his various family members is a major tourist attraction in its own right. The city had a number of large parks and there was no shortage of trees and grass, most welcome to the senses after the aridity of recent locales.

 

 

Bastien, Anthony and I took in a horse ride up a mountain which from all appearances was something of a holy location with locals making the pilgrimage by foot to the top where a small mosque was located. I also got to hang out with some other new found friends, Caspar (English) and a couple from Ireland – Pavel (Polish) and his wife Lucia (Mexican). With hostels now being the preferred venue, there was no shortage of travelers to meet, the most fascinating of which to me were the cyclists. I never lost interest in asking why on earth they were doing such trips!

 

I stayed on the move and made my way by train to the capital, Tashkent. My initial impressions were very positive. It was an enormous city and I was still in awe of the fact that Uzbekistan has a population of 34 million. (I couldn’t actually work out where everyone was dispersed around the country given so much of it was desolate.) Like most former Soviet cities, there’s a certain grandeur to the centre of the city, but then that quickly dissipates as you head further into the suburbs. What does seem to be consistent in most of these cities (even in Iran I recall) is that the parks and squares are really well used by locals. Perhaps it is because there are less green spaces or perhaps it’s to do with the culture and coming out in the evenings for a pleasant stroll when the heat of the day has passed, but either way, it is a pleasant site seeing families, couples and the elderly enjoying Mother Nature.

I’d been keenly tracking my DHL package from Austria and noticed it had arrived in Tashkent in only three days! Even though its final destination was Bukhara, I thought perhaps with some luck I might be able to intercept it. And so on the Friday afternoon I made a call to the local office. I’m sure I created huge confusion so I abandoned that and decided to drop in. I found a DHL branch at the train station and was greeted by a smart young man named Ahmad. His English was excellent and he exuded a cool, calm confidence and told me not to worry, he can get my part for me. And so after a phone call to customs (to speed things up a bit) and a few tidy up tasks before closing the branch for the weekend, we headed over to the head office. Within five minutes Ahmad had produced my box and I was stoked to finally have in my hands the keys to my freedom! He then invited me out for dinner with he and his girlfriend and we had a good time learning about each other’s countries.

Meanwhile, one of my riding buddies, Rik, had broken down in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The four boys were heading south when Rik’s rear shock absorber died and he had to limp back to the city the next day. The group was becoming more splintered. Bento would end up sick and laid up in Khorog for a few days, whilst Sam would get multiple flat tyres in a single day, but he and Lucas managed to push on together. Rik had arranged for parts to be sent to Uzbekistan and I would personally courier them to Tajikistan. (This was because DHL didn’t exist in Tajikistan.) I quickly called Rik telling him to get the part delivered to Tashkent and I would ride up there and collect it. What I was able to ascertain was that I’d saved myself five days by intercepting the parts and hopefully we could do the same for Rik.

I jumped on a flight back to Bukhara the next day and was adamant with airport security that I wanted to take my parts as carry on luggage. I shouldn’t have worried too much. I think there was only one flight out of the domestic airport that day and it was mine. The chances of losing luggage seemed minuscule at best, but I wasn’t taking any chances. What was most hilarious is that whilst we were debating my parts going on as carry on, no one seemed to notice that as my bag was going through the x-ray machine, there was a large rear sprocket in my backpack! I had completely forgotten it was there. It’s the equivalent of a ninja star on steroids and I can’t imagine what kind of DEFCON 5 alert would have been raised had this been a western airport.

Back in Bukhara, I made the trek to the mechanic’s workshop and waited for him with parts in hand. Pretty soon he arrived and after an inspection of said parts, he was in business. I was keen to observe and learn until I discovered he would be working on the bike at night again. And so I headed back to the hostel (my home away from home by now) and had a chat with some travelers including fellow Aussie motorcyclist, Barry. Ready to settle in for some evening beers after my spare parts coup, I was informed by Bek the hostel owner and all round nice guy that he was inviting me to some nightclub. It was Saturday night after all so I happily obliged and before too long found myself in amongst the Uzbek cool crowd. The nightclub was something like a restaurant that then turns into a dancing venue. Bek was an MC of sorts, getting the crowd pumped up and making various announcements throughout the evening. There were also some prize draws. I was hoping I wasn’t going to be a winner as I didn’t want the draw to look rigged, but sure enough, I did. I then got to spin a wheel to determine my prize and lo and behold I ended up with a bottle of Bailey’s in my hand. Bek, who already thought I was the luckiest man on the planet due to my free motorbike spare parts windfall had now even more ammunition for his claims. I reminded him that I had a pretty major breakdown to begin with so it wasn’t all good luck, but overall I was certainly not complaining about the events that had unfolded since that time.

 

 

And so with a bottle of Baileys to consume and some dancing to be done, we partied on into the early hours of the morning. There were a group of Russian women there too who from all accounts were in Bukhara for cosmetic surgery if I understood the conversation correctly. One woman who’d I guess was about my age or thereabouts was shocked that I was both single and childless. In fact, in Central Asia and I’d say largely Russia too, this was pretty much the common reaction. People don’t seem to understand how anyone could be single at my age and they often look at you like there’s something wrong with you. Of course, they ask why every time and I roll out the usual stock standard response (which to this day I believe to be true): “Haven’t met the right one yet”. It never satisfies of course, but it does provide for a small smile on the inside when I anticipate and then see the reaction each time.

Sunday brought good news. The bike was finally ready. I headed over to Firuz’s workshop in the afternoon and arranged for a taxi to drop off some oil from the local distributor for an oil change. In the process, one of the bolts for an oil cap stripped the thread so we loctited it down and hoped for the best. I finally got back to the hostel late that evening and was stoked to now be on my way. As I headed off the next morning a minor disaster struck. At first I wasn’t sure what was happening. All I knew was that I was sliding the back wheel around the corners and my rear brakes were gone. Seconds later a taxi is beeping frantically at me pointing to my bike. I look down and was horrified to see oil squirting everywhere! Immediately I knew what had happened. My oil filter cap simply wasn’t held tight enough by a single bolt and loctite, so I quickly headed over to Firuz’s workshop leaving an oil slick in my wake.

 

Fortunately, I found a slightly larger bolt in my spares and Firuz and his colleague carefully re-tapped the thread. It was now rock solid tight and most of my spare oil was used up to replenish what was now on the streets of Bukhara. Departure Take #2 was now in progress and I was immensely relieved that my oil spill occurred in town and not somewhere on the highway! I would retrace my steps to Samarkand and Tashkent before finally meeting Ahmad again to collect Rik’s shock absorber. Along the way, I was stopped for speeding, but did my best Russian “I’m Australian!” greeting with a big smile and with so much commotion from all the other drivers pulled over I convinced the police to let me ride on. Upon arrival in Tashkent and with parts secured, Ahmad, his mate and I all went out for dinner and the next day I was finally leaving Uzbekistan. And not a moment too soon. My visa was due to expire the very next day and I’d heard extensions were hard to come by. Uzbekistan certainly wasn’t the experience I was expecting, but after the highs and the lows, I was pretty thankful to be motoring along again.