A motorbike trip "Across the Caspian Sea — to the Pamir Mountains!" Part 3. Tajikistan-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan

We didn't have a chance to get acquainted with Baku closely. The first impression it made
was a beautiful, modern, up-and-coming city with skyscrapers made of glass and concrete like Moscow City, fountains and luxury hotels. There is definitely something to see and have a good time.

In the afternoon we checked in a fine new hotel in the centre of the capital. I never cease to be surprised by the people who we meet on our way. One of them was Rasul, the hotel manager. The following day he became both our tour guide and gracious host at the same time. Absolutely selflessly he helped us to solve various problems, gave us a lift around the city, presented a new SIM card and arranged a wonderful lunch in an authentic restaurant with local cuisine. This is a real example of oriental hospitality!

From Baku we took a ferry across the Caspian Sea to Aktau (it used to have the name Shevchenko), which is in Kazakhstan. It was a day of traveling by sea with a chain of trucks and in the company of cheerful truck drivers. It had taken us six hours of waiting at the port before we went and three hours after the arrival.

However, we have met interesting people from Italy, France and Germany. Two of them were riding aged Honda motorbikes and went across the Pamir Mountains and Altai to Mongolia. Some others may have chosen even a further destination. What amazing people travelers are! And so optimistic! It must be very difficult for them to communicate with bureaucracy establishment representatives at the customs offices without knowledge of the language! As for us, we seemed to understand almost everything there, but still had to run back and forth for several hours while filling in the papers.

Mangyshlak Peninsula is a desert land. It is just a steppe that has no end or edge. But some places here are outstandingly beautiful! Our route was laid through one of such places, which was called Bozjyra.
We have overcome a little more than 200 kilometers from Aktau, half of which were along off-road, and now we are going down a winding rocky ground road, which is replete with descents, ditches and turns into an endless valley. We see black outlines of mountains and two huge minarets around us. At first we were quite surprised to spot a mosque in the desert. But when we got closer, we realized that these were actually huge rocks, soaring like two giant pillars.

At night I got out of the tent and was stunned by the gorgeous sky above!!! The Milky Way is seen like a path, meteorites are falling and everything is silent… But the most interesting thing happened in the morning, when the sun began to appear from behind the mountains. Firstly, the sunrise itself was unrealistically beautiful. The rays of the sun painted half the sky like in a laser show! And then they poured pink paint on the mountains, rocks… and all around! The photographs would not convey even a tenth of this fantastic spectacle, but still here you are some.

In case one makes a movie about a trip to a distant alien planet, the scenery is already prepared here. You only need to launch some starships into this fantastic valley. And that will be the space!

The roads of Kazakhstan are diverse. There are excellent highways as well as the completely broken roads with remnants of asphalt and the ones like in the video below. Here we're going to Beineu.

300 km from the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan we keep going across a gloomy endless steppe. There is not even a single tree to stop and hide in its shade. And it is hot. Very hot. The road turned into a broken asphalt without a single turn and a single twist. It felt as if Comrade Stalin (or the one who was in charge of this) had taken a ruler and drew a perfect straight line from Beineu to Kungrad on the map.

There is no chance to find gasoline here. None at all. At the border we asked the drivers of the passing cars for having three or five litres drained directly from their gas tank. The price was over-the-top, it cost us 10,000 soums per litre (about one hundred roubles). There is no gasoline at petrol stations in Uzbekistan. Nowhere. You can refuel only with a help of people. The underground trade is flourishing, so you just need to know where to find it. The octane number of the proposed fuel is unknown and it is not common to clarify this fact.

By the evening we had arrived in Nukus, the capital of the Karakalpak Autonomous Republic. It is a decent city, which has everything one may need: there is even a great local historical museum, which we visited as well. The people are kind and easy-going. The service here is excellent. We were even delivered the gasoline in plastic five-litre bottles from under the water right to our hotel! And we also have it poured into the gas tanks! Therefore, we reached Khiva without any problem!

Khiva is like an eastern Suzdal, a city-museum with a historical background dating back several millennia. You can simply walk along the narrow streets, absorbing the spirit of those times or just sit down under a shady canopy in a teahouse, watching the lives of the locals.

They indeed live in these ancient clay houses! In numerous workshops with their doors open to the street, craftsmen work: they weave carpets, cut wood or make dishes from copper. We were lucky to come across the oriental dance festival. The whole city was full of music and performers wearing national clothes, which was very colourful and beautiful! I didn't want to leave this place.

The Uzbeks are such easy-going and friendly people! Maybe a bit curious, but really polite and modest.

They will surely ask for permission to take a photo with my motorbike. And these people are always ready to help. For instance, yesterday I asked a guy where I could buy a local SIM card and he was giving me a lift around the city by his car for three hours long. We bought a SIM card, exchanged money, found where to buy gasoline and he even negotiated on a professional guide for us. And all this he did for a sincere and modest reward (according to our standards), of course!

The Uzbek women are quite pretty and men are well-built and tall.
The majority of them speak Russian well, and whoever you ask, you will find out that almost everyone either lived in Russia or worked there. Mostly, in Moscow and the Moscow region.
By and large, I feel very comfortable in Uzbekistan. Much more comfortable than in Moscow.

Khiva → Bukhara → Samarkand. We are following the Great Silk Road. The situation with gasoline is no better than in old distant times. Maybe I should exchange my motorbike for a camel? By the way, I have already been made such an offer!
In Bukhara we stayed overnight in a small private hotel in the centre of the old city, which used to be a Madrasa. There was a small courtyard with a well in the middle, compact rooms and a canopy, protecting from the sun and made of reeds. Everything was very authentic!
We tasted the famous Bukhara pilaf, saw the city and even went to a workshop where women manually weave silk carpets, which may cost several thousand dollars apiece.

And of course, we had an overview of mosques, minarets and bazaars. Everything was so interesting!

We dedicated one day to a visit to Samarkand. I really wanted to explore this wonderful city more! Samarkand is the living history of our civilization! Alexander the Great, Timur, Genghis Khan, Ulugbek… All these historic personalities have left their mark there, though not always it was a positive one. And the city is really beautiful!

Each of us used to read fairy tales in our childhood. And everyone used to dream of finding themselves, at least for a moment, in that fabulous world, where good always wins over evil and beautiful fairies would make our wishes come true with a wave of a magic wand. As adults, we have stopped reading fairy tales. And many people, unfortunately, have stopped even dreaming of them, so it is like they have bricked up the door that leads to wonderland with their "knowledge".
However, it does really exist! Yes, one may find this hole into which Alice fell, while she was catching up with the Rabbit! And behind the fireplace painted on canvas there is indeed a passage to a fairyland! And all this exists not somewhere far away, but just here, very close to us!

One day a motorbike has become for me such a portal to another world full of adventures, fantastic landscapes and unexpected meetings with incredibly interesting, kind people.
When, heading for another trip, I press the starter button, squeeze out the clutch and take the 1st gear, everything that has seemed very important before remains behind, and only a fabulous film series waits ahead, where I will be a producer, director, cameraman and main character at the same time.

For example, today was exactly such a day. September 10, 2017. Isn't it a miracle to wake up in the beautiful Samarkand city, which like comes from an old oriental fairy tale itself, and then fly by an iron horse across the desert, being scorched by a hot headwind for several hundred kilometers?

In a few hours you would turn up in another country, where all the people you meet greet you with smiles and waves of their hands. There you would make a stop at a fruit seller by the road to buy one watermelon, but instead you would get two as a result. And just for free! Just like that, as a gift. At the checkpoint I got acquainted with a policeman, who accurately identified all the countries and cities, which I had been to, because of the stickers and flags on my motorbike trunk. Then he kindly offered to chew some naswar with him. I continued my way and stopped at a foot of a steep cliff and paid a visit to the wonderful people who lived in clay houses stuck to the rocks. They gave me a package of delicious apricots. After this I got out from the desert and proceeded to the beautiful green valley along the river.

Then I climbed a serpentine to a high pass, got frozen because of the cold wind blowing into the open zippers of my jacket and became stunned by amazing views of the gorge with a stormy river below and some fantastic landscapes with the orange, burgundy, black and yellow mountains in the background… And at the end of the day, having made this beautiful way, you would find yourself on the shore of the beautiful high-altitude lake Iskanderkul!
Isn't it a miracle?

Lake Iskanderkul is named after Alexander the Great ("Iskander" corresponds to "Alexander", and kul means lake). According to the legend, he and his army happened to be here as a part of a military campaign and Alexander's faithful horse, whose name was Bucephalus, unfortunately drowned in this beautiful pond.

The lake is located at an altitude of 2200 m and surrounded by the cliffs. Its depth is more than 70 m and there is the purest mountain water in it. To a certain extent, it may look similar to Lake Ritsa, which is in Abkhazia. Splendid!

And if you climb the rocky steep serpentine even higher, up to the point of 2600 m, there you will come across a village, where people live in clay houses, cows and sheep graze, donkeys walk along narrow crooked streets and children run around cheerfully. They stared at my motorbike with their eyes and mouths wide open. Furthermore, a little bit higher, there is still some snow on the slopes left! I wonder how they survive here in winter…

Video

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