Uzbeki Sun 3

Sunny Side Up

Shit. I'm fucking toast.

I've had one of the most strenuous days in my riding career, made so much more challenging by an unrelenting, blistering heat.

Today I climbed about 1600m over 75km, although the first 20km or so were relatively flat.

It was stiflingly hot even when I started at 10am, and there was no relief until about 5pm, when I was finally shaded by mountains. I got here at 6, and have been pottering around doing things, and will be horizontal soon.

I had another great sleep last night. It's one of the benefits of having all day workouts. I've been crashing out relatively early at night, ie. say, 10 or 11pm, which is rather unlike me.

I headed north out of Kokand.

Central Asia is also known as Turkestan, or Turkistan, which was traditionally a region which stretched all the way from northwest China westwards to the Caspian Sea, and included the whole nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, as well as northern Afghanistan.

More Stans than an Aussie bingo hall.

Looks tempting and dangerous at the same time, as there was pretty heavy traffic most of the time.

Protecting her melons

First glimpse of the hills, after already riding for an hour and a half

I listened, but there was no pop

First time I've seen a sign advertising alcohol since I've been in the country. It hasn't been on sale anywhere.

Beautiful rugs and fabrics for sitting on

I've seen very few dogs here, and only been chased by a handful

Just as I exited the outskirts of Kokand, there were a huge number of bread shops and snack stores, so travellers could stock up on their way to Tashkent, the capital.

These guys were delivering breads to cars, fresh out of the oven. Of course I bought one.

Loads of dried fruit stalls

The hot hot road

I stopped for lunch

I skulled a whole litre of Pepsi. You know my body's stressed when I do things like that.

The only thing on the menu was jiz. I'm not joking. I ate it, I was famished.

But left the unrecognisable bits.

Unrelenting up, unrelenting sun, unrelenting traffic, unrelenting thirst, even an unrelenting sentence.

See how close those trucks are to my exclusive cycle zone?

Just for statistical purposes I'll have you know that today I drank 4 litres of water, a litre of pear juice, a litre of Pepsi, a litre of cold fruit tea, and a pot of green tea. And that's before I arrived here.

Since I've been here I've been guzzling litres of water non stop.

It's not me, it's another Olish

Dam olish means rest, ie., damolish your tiredness

Joy bor means "there is a place." Boring. I was hoping for something more exotic.

More jizzing

The truckie in the truck carrying the bricks spent five minutes trying to convince me to hang on to a thin nylon string hanging off the side of his truck, so he could pull me up the hill.

I mean, so nice to offer, but shit man, have you not seen the other trucks around here?!? It's way too fucking dangerous, what are you thinking?

Then his friend in the water truck pulled up and tried to do the same thing.

So dangerously sweet.

Looking back

This woman is the first person I've met in the country who speaks fluent English. She was so sweet.

Looking back, again. I've pretty much had no downhills all bloody day.

I shudder to think of what happened to the driver. And the cyclist he was towing.

I eventually found a place to stay right on the side of the road. The family were so sweet, but were very apologetic because they'd already eaten, and had no food.

They let me use their cooker though

It's time to reveal a deep secret. I'm not as naturally tall as you think I am. I've fitted sticks at the bottom of my real legs so I can be taller, you can really see it in this photo. Social media has made me unhappy about how I really am. I'm pole-ish in more ways than you could imagine.

Yeah, I know it's sad, but I wasn't carrying much

Dinner #1

Right after I finished it a man turned up with Dinner #2. Amazing. He's just passing through with his family and delivered this to my door.

Unbelievable hospitality.

Built like a brick shithouse. I won't post a shot of the inside, as you'd never be able to un-see it. Suffice it to say that it was an absolute shitstorm in there.

Noisy night by the highway. But I was so trashed I didn't hear a thing.

http://buymeacoffee.com/krolesh9

Go to Part 4