Jinji Sadan

Usually I like to write on places that you, my friends, would like to be and to feel but in this post I have to write about a place that I don’t think that anyone want to be, a place so boring that it start to be special.

The desert from Kazakhstan to west Uzbekistan(qaralapakistan desert) is not a place for a wick heart people or women in pregnant…

1000 km of almost nothing with more camels then people and they (the camels) look like they are lost.

There are many deferent’s between cyclists that on a travel and cyclist on a journey and one of them are this kind of places. Only guys that say that they are cycling all the time with no short cuts or buses and train will cycle in this places, guys that understand and accept that in order to be in a special place(physically and mentally) you need to cross nowhere.

The boat to cross the Caspian Sea was funny because we were 10 tourists with stories to share (5 motorcyclist and 5 cyclists) and when we landed we say good bye and wish for each other the luck that we need on the road.

We started 5 cyclist together in Kazakhstan (I didn’t had the time to celebrate my starting in central Asia because I had a crazy desert to cross but to celebrating I can do it anytime), one cyclist knew already that he don’t want to tackle the desert so he took a long train and after 4 long days also the amazing couple ,katia and mirco, said enough is enough (do to broken bike trailer) so we were only me and young Chris from Sweden to test our limits in the big stretch of nothing.

Mid June is not the best time to cycle here its can be very hot but also the locals (the few of them) and the camels (I am sure…) thought that 57 degrees in mid day is a little too much…

Because of this crazy heat we had really long days:

5 am-woke up before sunrise eat something and go.

7.30 am- the sun start to show how strong she can be so it’s time to put sun cream.

10 am- we need to find a shelter for hid from the heat.

4 pm- start to move again

7.30 –find a place to camp (no problem here) and eat something.

8.45- sunset and good night (no light good night)

There is no much water in this place so we needed to carry with us 7 liters of water and when a truck came we asked them for water so we didn’t had problems with that truckers were very happy to help us and they can drive only with vodka so they don’t need water…

One trucker told me something that sound familiar to me from my Russian friends in the army but some words I didn’t understand so his friend explain me in English-

“FUCK WHAT DO YOU DO HER IN THIS CRAZY PLACE ON A BICYCLE YOU CRAZY MOTHER FUCKER!?”

(WHAT DO YOU DO HER IN THIS CRAZY PLACE ON a BICYCLE- was the part that I didn’t understand in the beginning…).

The border crossing was also funny and the guards thought that they can money from me just because I am a tourist but after they look and smell (in 10 days only one shower with 1 liter of water) me they knew that its waste of time. They check our bags and ask me if I am a terrorist from Israel and ask Chris if he have drugs in the bags and tasted the salt if its heroin and check our veins to see if we don’t have needles marks.

“If I will take drags here I could not cycle “I explain him with my hands.

“If you take drugs here it will be much more easer for you to cross it” he explain me with broken English and hands and we laugh.

After the border we said hello to Uzbekistan with a 180 km of no place to eat or a shade from the sun (no tries here) but we were ready for it and had enough food to the road.

The road was bad most of the time with bad gravel and sand but it was good for me to be focused on the road and not on the horizon.

The most boring horizon that I have ever seen 360 degrees of nothing only flat and plain desert.

So boring that I needed to count camels just to pass my time on the paddles.

200km before the city of nukus Chris got stomach problem (common in these places) and he could not go on like this so he took a truck to the city and will wait for me there.

So there I was alone again in the desert (really like it) but with also a bad stomach and I was really wick after vomiting hard.

After 10 long days in the desert I got to nukus the capital of nowhere in west Uzbekistan.

I lost 5 kg in these days and my body and mind needs to recover.

“In the desert you can forget your name”

Roei “jinji” sadan

Nukus

Uzbekistan

Asia

The world

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 3rd, 2010 at 08:02 and is filed under Asia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.