Uzbekistan Pt 6

Kiva's big truncated tower. It was evidently intended to end up much taller, but guess they run out of money

Kiva and the Ride from Kiva to Bukhara

So yeah, the Lonely Planet has some nice things to say about the walled town of old Kiva, though does criticise it for being over-renovated to the point of being sterile. I didn't find it quite so, and thought it was rather 'quaint' (whatever that means?), because of its mud and straw buildings. But to be honest it did lack any kind of 'buzz' that's sometimes to be found in many places on the traditional travellers route along the Silk Route. So it does in part bear out the LP's comments to some extent. The site of the original town has been kept pretty low key with most of the old city buildings, and along with its market fairly small scale. To cater for us Touro's there are a handful of modest hotels, in one of which we score a room for an apparent bargain of $25/night. Because ... luxury of luxuries, it had air conditioning! And what a relief that was, as we'd arrived very hot and very tired.


Come to think of it, we always arrive hot a tired. I can't think of one bloody ride where I've arrived anywhere fresh and cool. Usually we usually rock-up wild-eyed, half-dead and dehydrated, and ... I've got a theory that the worse we look when we ride into town at the end of a day, the better the rate at the hotel. Dressed like storm-troopers with body armour and helmets, maybe they think we're a right-rough 'lot' who'd slit their throats if they tried charging us too much. This is complete bloody nonsense of course, as my encounters to date have shown that most hotel and guest house owners are direct descendants of Genghis Khan, who's favourite pastime is sharpening people-length spikes ready for insertion. Hang on a minute ... That was the Hun'ish practice of Attilla. Genghis had a preference for separating people into four bits using horse power ...

But I digress ...



Kiva is in fact a bit of a showcase town from the hey-day of the Silk-route. No doubt it'd be a good back-drop for period films. But try as I might cannot remember anything that jumped out at me to lift it out of the greyness of being just another ordinary tourist spot. There was no thriving market that I could detect (the one I saw while well peopled, was a poor clone of many others I'd seen). The towers and ornamental arches weren't bad and indeed were brilliant examples of that particular style of religious architecture. For some this will be good enough, but I was beginning to feel a bit hollow about the whole Silk-route experience by this time. I'd seen camels, but no camel trains (of course). I'd seen markets, but they sold mostly 'tat', and local produce which was obtainable in the UK all year round. It made me feel like what I probably was, in that I was a spoiled western tourist looking for some more 'substance' to my life. Whatever it was that wasn't ringing my bell, could find no 'wow' factor in Kiva to make it stand out from anywhere it else I'd visited in the region. You could aways use your imagination to fill the searingly hot cobbled streets with snake charmers, camels and other animals, traders of spices, silks or rare oils. Let's add in a few sellers of herbals and remedials for good measure ... Then fill the alleys with smoke, the stalls with unidentifiable food items and the air heavy with exotic scents and some smells not so perfumed. This is the cross-over from the land of Ali-Baba to countries from the deep East, who's traders came bearing strange gifts from off the map of the charted world. Fill your fantasy with whatever you will, but a sad and hollow facsimile will await you when you wake up back in the reality of today's Kiva. My main recollection of that place is walking around with an almost duty bound sense of taking some photographs ...


In truth I'm being unkind and sure that anyone beamed in from planet Europe would view it as an exotic destination. It did however stand out for one thing to me, in that we completed the ride to get there in darkness.

It'd long since been agreed, that after leaving Europe, night-riding of any kind was an ill-advised thing to do. Our recent adventure to Moynaq, which produced 'Ride from Hell III' confirmed that. And here we were doing it again on the road into Kiva. But before finding that scary section of road in the dark, we had to cross the Amudarya once again. However I might, add that having travelled some few hundred Kilometres south and east from our first encounter with this river, were now way 'down-stream' and henceforth found it with water in it. Unlike the 'wadi' we'd got stuck in, on the way to Moynaq, here it was wide and shallow, and chugged along nicely at a pace that would've made for a difficult fording had it been necessary. But the map showed a bridge, so all would be well of course.

So what's your idea of a road-bridge then? Yeah probably the same as me, in that the only way a road-bridge becomes of any significance, is if it's a civil engineering Wonder like the original Severn crossing, or maybe smaller with some interesting history like Brunel's Clifton suspension bridge. There are others ... Tower bridge in London. Or you might have your own personal favourites locally made from concrete or steel, or perhaps monumental landmarks like Sydney harbour spring to mind. But when it comes to the 'span' that takes you from the main north to south (& east) road and connects you to the road that will eventually take you to Kiva in Uzbekistan, you can forget those!

Trundling along the main highway, which serves to connect far-flung different regions of the country, we managed to find the Kiva road branching off through a small town noteworthy by me, for forgetting it's name. I was however pleased to see that the surface condition was fairly reasonable overall. Moving along this new road we encountered a couple of 90° bends, which kept us on our toes and served to remind us we were some way from the home straight. But then without warning the road became narrower and we were filtered into a checkpoint, where a handful of burly looking uniformed police stood guarding the barrier. Their leader fancied he'd have a go on my bike and gestured to that affect. But after handing over my passport, one of their number gave it cursory glance and handed it back in short-order. Now this was a good thing, as the failing light had given me a sense of urgency and the feeling that I wanted to press on and get to Kiva. With my passport safely back in my pocket, it gave me the option of trying to bulldoze my way past and carry on. Getting a sense that the main guy wasn't above heavy-handed tactics, took a chance and tried to make it obvious that I was going to move on as soon as I'd completed the start up routine. Avoiding eye-contact snicked the bike into gear and moved gently forward. Part of me expected this guy to start shouting or making some issue to stop my progress, but he moved aside just enough to show he was going to be compliant. Time to give him and the others a big smile and a nice confident sounding “Thank you, thank you ... and goodbye!” and away we went. Inner-talk man told me that would be the last hurdle, and some 30 or 40 minutes from then we'd be in Kiva. Wrong! 200 metres along the road, hidden by another bend and some shrubbery was the Amudarya bridge! Once we spied this odd river crossing we simply rode up to it, but didn't venture to cross immediately. I actually stopped for a few moments to take it in, as it didn't entirely compute into any known brain-cells. What I was looking at was a pontoon bridge, not that unusual in times of war or following natural disasters I'd guess. But what the heck, we're in Central Asia where anything goes.
Me walking back and getting ready for the crossing. It looked okay at first glance

One clue that told us the bridge was under continual renovation was a guy hidden behind a welding mask. A kind of 'bridge-doctor', relentlessly patching and gluing bits back in place as they fell off. Watching for a moment or two to see how other vehicles on the bridge were faring, it allowed us to make an assessment for what to expect when it came to our turn. Judging by its condition, this bridge had been here for some time and it's limitations of being 'fit for purpose' were evidenced by the slow progress of the single vehicle we could see going across. In watching, the car 'meandered', steering from one side of the bridge to the other. From where I was there was no obvious reason for the car to take such as tortuous route. Until that is that I proceeded to cross myself. The ramp onto the first pontoon gave a clear warning that it wouldn't pay to pick the wrong line. Sheet steel had been welded together and the countless vehicles driving over it had buckled it into a rather large 'Pringle'. So okay ... take things slowly and apart from bouncing around a little it was no big drama. First pontoon to second pontoon and the next obstacle presented itself. There was a difference in height that again meant some thought needed towards taking a good line. I'd guess at its worst, I was looking at a 2/3 inch gap. Once again, nothing too serious, but wouldn't do the front tyre a lot of good if it was negotiated at speed. But when we came to make the crossing from pontoon no. 3 to 4 there was an even bigger height differential between barges. This could be a show-stopper, if you missed seeing it. Not that anyone was likely to miss seeing it, unless they were foolish enough to try driving across with their eyes-closed. I'd guess the height for this 'step' was something just over an imperial 'foot'. A 300mm mini cliff-face, that was pretty much unclimbable with a bike loaded down with luggage. In truth it was little problem for us, as all it needed was for us to move across to the other side, where the step reduced to a couple of inches. So this explained the rather odd course of the car we'd been watching earlier.

The Bridge across the Amudarya. You could be forgiven if you think this looks okay to cross in the daylight with the sun shining. But it'd be a different story altogether on a dark and rainy night ...

Take it slow, a bit of bump ... and up onto the next pontoon. The weather was dry and there was still plenty enough light to illuminate these obstacles. With little traffic, this river/bridge crossing was of interest as an oddity, rather than something really difficult to halt our days riding. But add a mix of darkness, increase traffic and throw some water onto the smooth metal surface after rain, so it reduces the coefficient of friciton between the tyre rubber and bridge, and then you'd have something infinitely harder to contend with ...

Locals walking across. They'd got the right idea ...

The light continued to fade, so we pressed on in an attempt to get to Kiva and miss another night-ride. We failed ... The last stretch of road to Kiva, is a good road. It was 'arrow-straight' for one. And being wide with some street-lighting on the first section, should for the most part have been a 'walk in the park'. But due to the other road 'users', it was right up there on the top ten list of scary rides of the trip so far.

I had a good head-light that illuminated some way ahead, and so had some warning of hazards as they appeared. Even so was it was tough going ... After a Kilometre past the last town, the meagre street-lighting stopped. It then became something akin to what many people pay good money for at fair-grounds, in the name of fun. The 'ride' was called 'Miss hitting the Hazard'. With a good and smooth road surface the temptation was to keep up a decent speed, which was going to get us to our destination ASAP. And to help put things into context, that speed was around the 40 mph mark ... so not exactly fast! But the hazards were manyfold and various, which meant that in reality this was way to fast. Hazards included cars without lights, buses without lights, trucks without lights. Then came the animals similiarly unlit. There were donkeys without lights, donkey-carts without lights, people without lights ... I think you'd get the idea, that nearly all the other road users had, or refused to use their bloody lights. Then to make it better fun, were the few cars/trucks/buses etc. that did have their lights on. But they were either permanantly full-beam, or maladjusted to shine directly into our eyes. Here on the road to Kiva, I discovered were some people who I can only guess, must've spontaneously developed infra-red vision. These gifted individuals sped their way right down the middle of the road. They must have been able to see in the dark. If not, the only other explanation, and one that might strike fear into the faint-hearted, would have been that they were gambling and simply hoping there nothing was in their way ...

My one 'big' scare was a donkey that wandered obliquely out into my path. After gradually reducing my speed more and more this near-miss told me, that what I thought was a moderate speed, was in fact still 'speeding'. Had I even side-swiped said donkey, it could've seen me and the bike sprawled along the highway and broken. As well as, to likely give the mad moke a few bruises too. Later that night, Bjorn related his own close-encounter with a donkey-cart. The cart in doing less than 10 mph, meant that his 40 mph would have been a 30 mph impact. He'd evidently only seen that hazard only metres before, and only a combined swerve/emergeny braking prevented them hitting each other.

The best tactic I found was riding close to the crown of the road. This gave me more tarmac either side in order to avoid these unpredicatable and mobile obstacles. But in doing so, had to keep a weather eye in my mirrors for the night-vision drivers bull-dozing their own central line and trying for all their worth to go through me. Albeit widely spaced and low in candle-power, we eventually came to some more streetlights, which indiated we'd arrived at Kiva's suburbs.



In titling this ... Kiva and the ride to Bhukara, had better complete this section with that ride too. At the risk of turning this BLOG into a series of scary-rides, will try to keep this bit concise.

The main surprise was that the one single 'spine' road, highway or whatever you want to call it, was the only way to get from one part of Uzbekistan to the other. There were railways, but couldn't imagine these would be models of speed or efficiency. My Western naivety told me that due to the importance of this road it would be big, well serviced and in top condition. A simple and polite description for what we encountered is 'variable'. Overall we could keep up a reasonable average speed, but pot-holes were common on some stretches, as were sections of road-renovation that would bring us down to a relative crawl of 20/30 Km/hr or less. One noteable thing was that the road carved its way across quite a big stretch of desert, and while not quite the same extreme heat of Turkmenistan, took us well into the discomfort zone. If anything though, the one brief stretch that saw desert sands encroaching onto the road, stood as testamant to the ongoing task the Uzbek's had, in keeping this roadway open. A 'Bharkan' had wandered it's way onto the tarmac, and one lonely motorised road-scraper had it's work cut out trying to clear the soft sand from the road surface. At the time we were passing I was happy to find a tyre-width line of clear asphalt, that led me safely through my newly discovered phobia of soft-sand. If you've been following the journey up to date through reading previous BLOG posts, you'd know that sand dunes, a heavily laden bike and me, do not mix well!