A couple of interesting observations on Uzbekistan before we go any further. The first is that officially they now use the latin alphabet. Many sigs are still in Cyrillic, some are old, but many are those for businesses that want to cling to the Cyrillic. Then there is an occasional sign that seems to be a mixture of both alphabets, that makes things interesting. The most popular fuel in Uzbekistan and we also encountered it in other Central Asian countries is...

Episode 7A few observations to begin this episode.On all our previous visits to Russia my lot have noticed that the wearing of helmets on motorbikes was a thing that rarely happened amongst the local population. If we saw a rider wearing a helmut and leathers too, then it was almost certainly a foreign visitors. This year however, it seemed that the majority of riders were wearing helmets and some even good boots and leathers. Most of those not wearing helmets we...

Episode 12 After collecting their passports complete with Mongolian visa from the embassy we at last headed out of Almaty. D has noticed a very curious thing about the traffic system in the city. There are a number of quite good 4 lane roads that circle the city, not really a ring road system but along those lines. The odd thing is that at most of the big new overpasses, many still under construction you can't seem to make a left hand turn; that’s equivale...

Episode 11 I've ridden on crowded busses and walked miles over the last couple of days, all to see the sights of Almati. Thank goodness there are plenty of large shady trees along all the streets otherwise I would be a very wilted stuffed toy. I did enjoy sitting of busses and I even made a friend today, his name is Bugsy,( a purple blow up bugs bunny), we sat next to each other on the long journey back to our hotel. I’m mighty glad I don’t have his ...

Episode 10 What a boring bloody trip that was. I had got used to trees and trucks, but now I had flat open treeless steppe and not quite so many trucks. Before we finally left Astana we went to look at the ''pyramid of Peace and Accord". It sits in several acres of unkempt parkland with many tarmac footpaths and plenty of scraggy looking shrubs. The parkland leads down to the river beyond which is some of the new government building and many of the large new c...