Yesterday we were up and on the road by 8am. Finally I am allowed to drive again! After a hour of driving at 50kph I sped up, only to be pulled over. Fintan jumped out with the documentation to sort it out. The officer claimed we were speeding, Fintan asked to see the camera, and it showed us travelling at 67kph in what the officer said was a 50 zone. I couldn't believe it - after all that time driving at 50, I was sure I hadn't been speeding! The fine was a ma...

Tashkent wasn't all that much to write home about, so I'm not… We left for the border, only to be turned around and told to go to Chinoz and cross there - the Tashkent border has not been open for 4 years! Would've been handy if anyone had mentioned that, but never mind… 70 km later we arrived in the middle of the lunch break. Sandwiched between 5 Mongol Rally teams. This was both good and bad. Firstly the good - one of the team members spoke Russian and he...

The sudden upset of our plans has sent us reeling! We tracked down the overlanders we'd seen previously - to see what they had heard and inform them if they didn't know already... To be honest, they were not really very friendly/talkative... Hmmm...Not like the overlanders we know! We set about with the new plans: Plan C: We cut short our time in Kyrgyzstan (much to my despair - I had been really looking forward to exploring here where we don't need to register...

Bukhara! The city that hosted one of the most infamous days of the Great Game - the capture, imprisonment and beheadings of Connelly and Stoddart! The new city is largely built around the old city, and the main buildings have been preserved to some degree. Its very beautiful. We arrived at our hotel and at first drove passed it, it doesn't look like a hotel from the outside. We found the entrance, a small wooden side door with a bell as you open it. It opens int...

We left Nukus at about midday and drove southeast towards Khiva. The road was not very good, but we did see a fuel station with a queue of trucks! Diesel!! Or Diez-Top as its called here. After our drive to Moynaq we had used three quarters of our main tank but had our sub-tank full. It was decision time - do we fill up here and dilute it a bit if it's dodgy, or continue and hope to find somewhere else... more reputable (!?) After meeting another group who said ...