June 10th and 11th - Welcome to Uzbekistan

We left Dushanbe early to avoid the high temperature. The Uzbek border was pretty close, 80km.

The road was great and smooth. Exiting Tajikistan was easy and fast and we were quickly in Uzbekistan (500 meters after). We know the procedure very well now and today was smooth, no so many people crossing the border (we met a couple of French on bicycle going to ride the Pamir - good luck guys).

Uzbek customs checked a little bit the bike and luggage but nothing to declare, so welcome to Uzbekistan.

We know its going to be hot and bumpy, so we ride safely avoiding as more hole poles as we can. Here they all drive with propan gas, so not so many petrol station and the best you can find is SP91 which is still ok for us.

Our next destination is Samarkand, 2 days ride from Dushanbe. Around 460km, in China on the highway we were able to do it in 1 day but here with road quality, if we do 200km per day, we are lucky.

It was 6pm and we were looking for an hotel , an ATM and a petrol station. 2 bad news. Only SP 80 available and hotel was 44 dollar per night. A way too expensive for our daily budget.

For the Petrol, we stopped by a car wash shop and ask them to sell us some SP91 from the car under washing process. The young guy accepted at 1 dollar / liters and we got our 10 liters to go.

We forgot the idea about hotel (ridiculous expensive) and try to find a restaurant where we can sleep after diner. We spotted a restaurant in a small village with possibility to sleep on the table sofa.

The nightmare started ! We slept along the noisy road with another local beside us (no idea where this guy came from) and a f#$$%^& sheep attached to the table who bleated all night. On the top of that, i got sick and cannot sleep more than 1.5hours with diarrhea and vomiting everytime i was trying to put something in my stomach. One of my worst night since a long time.

So we woke up at 5.30am and get ready to ride the 200km until Samarkand.

It was probably the most difficult riding day, in addition to the hot temperature and bad roads condition, i was feeling very bad and we had to stop few times to relax…

We made it to Samarkand around noon and i went straight for a cold shower and a nap. The guest house is very nice and we will spend at least 3 days. Hopefully we can find a motorbike shop to change our oil, breaks-pad and for me to recover.

We heard its a very nice city and i hope tomorrow i will be able to leave the washroom for a bit and go for a visit with Nico.