Finally we set out from Bishkek, again: We had been offered a ride to Osh in an old Mercedes the boys had nicknamed 'goldilocks' because of the gold colour. It wasn't in good mechanical condition according to David, the clutch was slipping badly and the shock absorbers were past their use by date so we had our fingers crossed that it would get us to Osh. We weren't optimistic about it getting the boys through the Pamir without giving them problems. I had qu...

Episode 10It was a lovely sunny day when we set off from Bishkek.firstly we headed east towards Izzy Kol, the large lake to the east. we weren’t going as far as the lake though, having visited that on our last visit here and not being particularly impressed by it we were only going as far as the Burana tower. This tower dates from around the 11th century but is mostly a reconstruction from the Soviet era. It stands where there was once quite an important po...

Episode 9Well, as usual nothing went smoothly.My lot got most of their money back from DHL but not easily or without hassle. Lost about 3 Euros but by that stage both of my lot had had enough of arguing so settled for that. The moral of this story is not to deal with DHL again, at least not in Kazakhstan. In Kyzylorda there was no other option, however, there are other couriers into and out of Almaty.We set off out of Kyzylorda in the late afternoon with a cloud ...

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...