The Ultimate Overland

Examination of the route suggested a 2 hour drive only. Being international rallyists of some renown, we decided it would be embarrassing to spend only two hours driving on our journey to Singapore. We peered at the map a bit harder and wondered, if we took that detour, which looked fine, and which eencompassed several mountain passes and added many many hours to our day, we would have a fine rally day after all? We slept on the plan and in the morning we discovered the hotel had filled with Kyrgy tourists in 4x4s, with guides. It took us no time to establish a connection with the chief guide, through an interpreter. He agreed it would be possible to run our proposed route but it would be very remote with no mobile signal and unmade roads. Perfect! We said.  Within a few miles, it was apparent that this was going to be a good drive. For those of you who have heard us drone on about Mongolia: ‘the most amazing scenery imaginable’ and all that, I apologise, you are now going to hear ...

  A short drive was in prospect for today, so we decided to add a bit of culture into the mix and visit Burana Tower which had been recommended by our friends Shona and Njck, who travelled these parts only a couple of weeks ago. As has become customary, we lost each other almost as soon as we left the hotel. Bishkek, remember, has some truly terrible traffic and to add to this many roads are blocked for repair, which confuses Waze no end. Various sneaky manoeuvres were observed and conducted and we arrived at Burana Tower separately. The Vauxhall was first, naturally. We waited for the others to arrive and checked Find My Friends to see how far they were. The Rolls arrived from a completely unexpected direction and after quite a delay Nigel made it. But where were Ham and David? FMF reported them as not leaving the hotel. This confused us. Several theories were developed, chewed upon, adjusted, worried, gnawed at, rejected and started again. Possibilities included: abducted by alie...

  Not a lot to report on the driving front, except Chris found a garage with a power hose to clean his car, which now gleams like the Grand Old Queen that she is.   Speaking of queens, Nigel produced liar dice for us to play this evening (Nigel not being the queen, you’ll understand, but the dice….oh forget it). This artful game of, well, lying, was something most of us played in our youth, when lying may have seemed an option, and was quickly remembered, though there were some squabbles about format, and whether cheating was in fact just an adjunct to lying. Happily, no fisticuffs were seen and the rightful winner prevailed.  Some of us started the day with car fiddling followed by a wonder to the wine shop Nellie and Nigel spotted yesterday. We will spend the next two nights in discomfort and a splash of French and Italian wine is what we desire to remind us of home and loved ones left behind (get on with it, you are not Siegfried Sassoon you know, Ed).  Meanwhile,...

  There are amongst the readership some who prefer their morning digest to be more precise, tauter, even a little restricted. This lack of appreciation of the art of writing coincides with an imperative faced by your correspondent; there is so much to write about but there is little time.   So, a synopsis now and normal service returns tomorrow, for it is a rest day tomorrow and time then will be aplenty.  Yesterday: set off at 7am, after some last minute discussions whether the safe route wasn’t just adding miles and time to an already long day; safe route chosen; got lost on way to border which allowed observation of authentic Uzbekistan rural life, including villages, markets, animals etc; border not all bad (we think the ‘contacts’ had sent word ahead of our arrival); money changing scams; spectacular scenery; Google maps sending us off the main road onto dirt tracks which were sublime but slow; Nigel’s indefatigable spirit when faced with a no entry sign; more specta...

  We are alive but exhausted. ​A fuller description will be posted after we get to Bishkek later today.

  After our little sojourn to the UK, catching up family old and new (shout out to Caspar, possibly his first) we gathered, once again, in Tashkent, collected the cars from the warehouse and set off, not for Namangen as previously planned but to Andijen. Why? you clamour. Well, there was a little comms break down and hotels were not booked and, for reasons that are not obvious to us, every hotel room in a city housing 3/4 million people was fully booked. So Andijen it has become. In fact, this is not as bad as you all fear (I know), because we have discovered the border we were heading for doesn’t cater for international travellers. What, you might ask, is a person who crosses a border between two countries, if not an international traveller? We have a brutal day in prospect tomorrow. 484km plus a border. I think it will be a long one because we have to go to Osh and then double back to virtually where we start but over the border. We go through a place called Jelal-Abad and head f...

We had no plan to visit Tashkent until a conversation with our delightful fixers, Aziza and husband Anwar, gave us a thought. I explained that we needed somewhere in Osh (in Kyrgyzstan, for those who didn’t pay attention to their Geography/History/Politics teacher) to securely house the cars for a week, as we have every intention of utilising the planned Flex Time for a quick dash home and to say hello to old and new family members.  “Tashkent!” Anwar exclaimed. “We have warehouse in Tashkent. The best” We have since come to learn that everything uttered by Anwar is enthusiastically positive about absolutely everything to do with Uzbekistan, sort of Trumpian in its delivery.  Minds whirred. Schedules, long poured over, were brought to our short term memory. Was it possible? Well, if we did this, which caused that and added the other here, then maybe the result would be…..Ureka! A new plan was quickly formulated (how else can a plan be brought to life, if not formulated?) Inevi...