Central Asia

So after leaving Bec in Tehran I had 900km of desert to get to Mashad, one of the Holiest cities of Islam. Not a distance I look forward to riding again in a single day again!

The big draw card for Muslims in Mashad is the  massive mausoleum complex of Haram-e Razavi in the centre of town. The pious make a pilgrimage at least once a lifetime in order to wrestle and clamor like wild animals a mosh pit to get close enough to touch the tomb of Iman Reza who was martyred in AD 818. Even the women, who are generally pretty reserved were ripping into each other in order to step up to pole position. Pure chaos!

Then there was the unreserved out poring of grief with people of both sexes literally bawling their eyes out as they held their hands palm upwards in supplication towards the tomb….remembering the poor Iman and his poisoned grapes and pomegranate juice. Definitely one of the stranger places ive been too.

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan visas in hand I headed for the border and the promise of a beer in Ashgabat. Turkmenistan really is an odd place. Calling itself a democracy it couldn’t be further from the truth, with a shocking human rights record, blanket govt control of the media and cops/army absolutely everywhere it doesn’t seem to be trying to hard to show that’s its not  a police state. The Capital Ashgabat has a  strange sense of sterility and the feeling that’s the Govt is trying a bit too hard to make the place into a utopian paradise, resulting in a feeling that everything is artificial and fake…a very soulless city.

TM has reserves of gas and oil in the Caspian and its from the receipts of these that the govt has built their white marble Disneyland. Apparently they are not big on proprietorship with the govt owning all the property, leasing it out at a nominal fee to the people. One guy told me that the average rent for an apt is about 10$ a month! 

Natural gas is free…so people don’t bother to turn off their burners, and petrol is heavily subsidized by the govt down to about 30 or 40 c a ltr. In order to keep their National stock of women, Turkmenistan girls cant marry outside of their country….another guy was telling me a story that one guy he knew was in love with a local girl so he went to plead with the govt to let them marry. Their response: he was deported out of the country and not allowed to return for 15 years and she had her passport revoked for 5 years. Probably not the answer they were looking for!

Next stop 550km to the north for me was Konye Ugrench an old Korezm capital that was raised to the ground by Ghengis Khan ( along with just about everything else in Central asia predating the 13^th C) but keeping a few of its ancient monuments. On the way to the UZ border anyway I was glad to didn’t detour too much as there aint much there. Plus it seems that the govt leaders decided to spend all there money in the capital seeming to forget about the rest of the country giving the place a real desolate wasteland feel. Barren and dusty desert in the centre and an air of depression and resignation that your country has forgotten you exist in the north mixed with far too much vodka make this a place easy to leave…

Eager to move on after much jumping up and down that I didn’t have a mech passport for the bike (whatever that may be) I left poor TM behind and crossed to Uzbekistan, making a beeline the famous Silk road city of Khiva. Chocked with ancient  monuments etc it’s a great place if you love History and architecture (which I do) and the same goes for the cities of Samarkand and Bukharra. The only problem with these places is that their packed with European pensioners on package tours! The last place I wld have imagined them to be. Maybe it was fellow countryman Marco Polo travels that inspired the bus loads of Italians to sally forth..but whatever the reason I was very glad to have the motorbike and the ability to get away from the epicenters of these toursist bonanzas.

After a few days in Khiva I headed north to a place known as Elliq-qala, or 50 fortresses. In the middle of the desert maybe 150km north of Khiva its dotted with the remnants of a very different time, when the climate was very different and the empire of Khorezm one of the strongest in the region. Very dilapidated ruins of several massive castles and a few settlements are all that remain, but the fact that they are well over 2000 years old is pretty impressive. The only problem with ruins that old however is because of the adobe mud bricks used for construction, they tend to almost melt away into the ground, requiring a lot of imagination to get a feel how glorious they would have been in their day.

Regardless getting the heavy boxes off the bike and screaming about these ruins in the middle of the desert and then hunkering down for the night in yurt was pretty cool and wont be forgotten soon.

So now after riding from one side of UZ to the other im sitting in the Capital Tashkent after being here for a whole week(!!) getting my Kyrgyzstan visa. Not a lot to see here but its damm good to be back in a western sytle city with all the mod cons, real coffee (not Nescafe) internet and decent bars/clubs. Im sucking it up while I can cause from tmrw its back to the bike and life on the road

We have been out of touch...

It is great to finally update our site with our latest video and let you know what's been happening.  We have been out of touch due to the Internet blockages in Iran, making it impossible to access certain bank accounts, FB (of course), even Blogger.  These incomprehensible differences between countries is a great reminder that even though we are all human beings of the same earth we are in fact world's apart.  This became even more apparent as we journeyed deeper into ancient Persia.

Being a woman, the daily frustration of the essential need to keep myself well covered was intolerable.  The Iranian Desert heat is no ideal environment to be covered from head to toe, what can I say, I am Aussie gal who is use to having fun in the sun.  Additionally, my right to speak freely and be treated as an equal is something I will never again take for granted.  It is rare for an Islamic man to shake the hand of a woman or even touch in gesture any other than his wife, and general conversations are very male dominated with a woman standing quietly on the side lines.  My initial need to have my say was soon diminished as downward glances put me in my place, allowing Aj to take his manly role.

As I look back on my time in this ancient land be assured that these irritations seem somewhat minimal when I evaluate the magnificence of this beautiful culture as a whole.  Our frequent, lengthy rides through the desolate Iranian desert allowed our imaginations to escape to a magical time when the exotic and extravagant ruled the sand. 

The breathtaking cities of Yazd, Shiraz and Isfahan filled with secret passageways, bazaars overflowing with gold, underground tea houses and the scent of sheesha seem to take you deeper into ancient Persia, the daily call to pray being a serenading hypnosis.

I have now left Aj while he takes an extremely aggressive loop through Central Asia following the old Silk Road route till returning to Tehran, Iran where we shall once again be reunited and continue our journey into Armenia, Georgia, Turkey and Europe.  Please watch our latest video that I had great trouble uploading, The Big Ride Part Two (Pakistan and Iran), just above.