Kyrgyzstan Pt. 1

Kyrgyzstan. A new world?

And suddenly we were there. We arrived at the border post to be promptly ignored. Unfortunately we'd been preceded by a couple of trucks waiting to cross from the other direction, so the border personnel were busy processing these. Of course they weren't busy as such. This wasn't the M1 we were travelling on after all. I guessed that more than one vehicle per day was seen as heavy workload by the border personnel. With Bjorn and I sat chatting and filling our time by discussing the possibility of Dog 'dazing' one of the growling brutes roaming around the border post, I then noticed the truck drivers had finally climbed up into their cabs to organise themselves. They'd evidently been processed and were therefore no longer taking up any more of the border officials precious time. A few minutes thinking and reacting time later, and the nearest guard eventually opened the barrier and waved us through.

We're in! It was always with mixed feelings I crossed into another country and this border crossing was no different to any of the others in that regard. It was nice to see a bit more colour in the landscape once more, but Tajikistan had a kind of stark beauty that grew on you. The people too had been very open, and warmly hospitable too. It had not been an easy country to travel across because of the often appalling state of the roads, but it was nevertheless Tajikistan was one of the most rewarding countries I'd visited to date. And here we'd crossed into the realms of one of the other major Central Asian tribes. The Kyrgyz'. The odd but distinctly shaped hat was now the commonest chapeau to seen as we passed a plateau dotted with yurts. One other important feature of crossing into Kyrgyzstan was that there were horses. Not just one or two, but in some cases we were to pass herds either grazing or being driven along. In spotting any horses on the move it would call for more caution in passing them, as they were far more mobile than cows, goats or yaks. Things happened mostly in slow motion with cows and yaks, and the goats stuck together like glue as well as being able to flit out of the way of the front wheel with ease. But I didn't fancy being bulldozed by a panicking stallion too much, so crept by slowly watching any skittish individuals closely. Some of the bigger stallions could become aggressive too, but not having a Horse-dazer preferred to give them a wide-berth.

And from past writing you'll be aware that changes of road condition was of considerable interest for us too.

So what did the roads in Kyrgystan present us with then? And the short answer was ... a few nasty surprises. When traversing the higher passes I didn't really expect too much, but was hopeful that as we made our way towards some of the main centres of civilisation and the dots on the map became spots then eventually surrounded by brown smudges to indicate something more urbane, the quality and consistency of the roads would improve. Huh! Sad, over-optimistic, soft, soppy and ultimately spoiled Westerner that I am, was to be severely disappointed.

An hour inside the country and we were making our way across a plateau in the early afternoon sunshine. To my eyes it looked quite pretty after days in the The Pamirs rock-world. I for one had that spring in my step ... or whatever the motorbike riding equivalent is. And was looking forward to seeing what Kyrgyzstan was going to bring to our travel experiences. The only dark cloud, was for getting into and through China after the blow in finding about the Torgurat Pass closure, but at this moment didn't need to worry about that particular conundrum. In drifting down from the higher parts of the mountains the roads did indeed get better. So much so that I was able to ride along for quite some distance in top gear, which was something I'd not managed very often in Tajikistan. It was that 'new country' buzz that did it. That feeling of being in a new land where things were 'better'. Or the optimism that changing or doing something different can frequently bring.

There we were riding along an arrow-straight road with relatively few pot-holes, and because of it's improved condition were managing to sustain a speed of something like 50 Kms/hr ... an almost unheard of speed where we'd just come from. Most certainly when riding the GBAO roads away from the main centres of civilisation we found that it was simply not possible to average much more than 25Kms/hr ... even less at times, with us not able to get out of either 1st or 2nd gear for long stretches.

According to our map and with these improved speeds, we were only an hour or so away from the next town-sized habitation. To be able to make that sort of progress out here was very encouraging I thought. We continued onwards and in looking well ahead and with good visibility had plenty of warning for the few big holes in the road surface. We even got into what could be construed as a rhythm for weaving in between these pot-holes. Admittedly I missed the right line a few times, but the suspension handled things without too big a jolt as the front-wheel went down into the occasional rut. When I look back now what I was doing was beginning to throw caution to the wind, as I was on a 'high' at being able to achieve such good speed. After doing the map-check and guess-timating travel times relative to a European ride, was keen to keep this speed going for as long as I could. 'Ooh look, the next town's 50 Kms away. And I'm doing 50 Kms/hr, so it's only going to take an hour to get there'. It means we could look even further ahead, such as ... We're gonna make Osh in one day, then one more day to Bishkek, and so on, and so forth ...

With my mind fantasising us halfway through China I suddenly came across a series of potholes, with no obvious line through. I managed to miss the first one, tried to select a small one to ride over ... and Bang! in went the front-wheel ... missed the next. Ooh sh*t, that was a big 'un ... and Oops ... Bang! into another deeper one this time. I was going too fast to use the brakes in anger as well as to steer around the suspension-breaking crevices, so had to take a 'hit' and go into more and deeper pot-holes than would normally be advisable with such a heavily loaded bike. It was over in a few seconds, but those jolts that were jarring enough to loosen tooth-fillings had the affect of slowing things down instantly, as well as waking me up to the fact that 50 Kms/hr was just too fast for this road.

I scanned ahead and it appeared from a distance to be good roads as far as the eye could see once again. But in trying to learn my lesson eased off the throttle, to drop down to 40 Kms/hr or less. Not quite such an agreeable speed, but could just about keep it in top-gear. More importantly though it was far safer and reduced the chance of going into more pot-holes. With this reduced speed Bjorn slipped ahead, and I was glad of it as he could then act as pot-hole look-out for a while. Because of that my life suddenly became easier. In following someone else's riding line rather than having to continually concentrate to avoid every flaw in the road myself, things took on a much more relaxed feel.

But as always am not content to follow other peoples lead for too long. Or in this case tyre tracks ... and so gradually started looking ahead part of the time myself once again. Some of the time I'd play 'Follow the Leader' but on occasions would seek out another route, especially if I noticed Bjorn getting caught out and taking a hit himself, when passing a series of pot-holes as I had done earlier. This tactic goes really well for a while and am inwardly smug as my ride's now as smooth and jolt-free as it gets. I can almost hear my bike's suspension breathing a big sigh of relief underneath ...

At one point I note that Bjorn had taken a wide-line to the left but he still managed to find a few divots, and not wanting to disturb my billiard table smooth ride moved across to the middle, with thoughts of taking my own wide-line to the right when ... Oh Sh*********t! And immediately have to swing back left to avoid a truck sized ... and here the word pot-hole doesn't really apply, as it was a sink-hole of enormous proportions into which most of that side of the road had collapsed. With the road elevated up from the plateau to ensure it was kept free of floods or snow drifts, that hole must have been at the same level as the surrounding land or perhaps lower. Maybe it was the site of an underground stream or other running water feature, but whatever it was when I went screaming past it's lip, I didn't see the bottom. This was one of those holes of Enduro legend, that like 'Jaws' would swallow you whole!

Needless to say that after that I followed Bjorn's lead, pot-holes and all!