A long road, maybe the wrong road and it’s the road to fuck knows where.

30/05/09

We are driving on the bumpiest road in the world. ‘Road’ is being kind. It’s on the map but it’s more of a dirt track wagons drive down. Think ‘desert road truckers’ and your there. Its hot, tempers are short (a lot of people had a rough time of it in the rain) and some Azerbaijan dude sold Tim dodgy diesel. We are headed for Biayou and then onto the Kazakh/Uzbek border to cross into Uzbekistan tomorrow and get back on track.

However the road/track means we are averaging about 25mph and the dodgy diesel has already cost Tim 3 fuel filters. Plus constantly draining the Engine has got air into the system so the Truck keeps grinding to a halt every so often.

Eventually we don’t get more than a few hundred metres without the Truck clunking to a halt. We can see town, just, so Cheryl decides to hitchhike in to try and sort accommodation and help for the truck. She needs accompanying (no women alone) so I go with her and get to play crew member for the afternoon.

Its cool and the most fun I’ve had all day. We flag down a car, which luckily turns out to have Police officers in it, and get a lift into town. We then manage to communicate via the cunning use of diagrams and the point it book (Thanks once again Gaz and Sophie) exactly what we need.

We haggle with 2 different hotel owners, check rooms, organise a tow truck and get a sim card all via hand gestures and pointing. I got a feel for what Cheryl does day in day out and how difficult it can be. We weren’t planning on coming here and we don’t speak the language yet we managed to sort hotel rooms for 24 people and a truck with a tow rope. Brilliant.

Later on Alan and I managed to organise dinner for 18 in the most backwater of backwater towns I’ve ever been to. We got 2 eggs apiece for everyone and some chicken with bread and tea from 2 women in the Kazakh equivalent of a greasy spoon café. Sounds easy. It wasn’t.