Last night I held Aladdin's lamp And so I wished that I could stay

The morning of our departure to Bukhara we had been warned that as we got closer to the center of town the road probably would seem less of a road but that we should keep going.  And sure enough road turned to alley turned to pathway turned to very small space between between two cement barricades opening up to grand central bazaar across the street from our hotel.  It had also been suggested that Bukhara was the place that still most retained the spirit of the old Silk Road and I think we truly did experience what it may have been like way back in the day.

Rest day in Bukhara.  Walking tour of the old city in the morning seeing only a fraction of the internationally recognized architectural wonders that are here.  We lucked out as we found ourselves in the middle of the annual Silk and Spices festival.  There was a parade in the morning right by our hotel (which really was in the middle of it all) and everywhere you went all day was another musical and dancing troupe.  The colors and noise were glorious and the streets were packed well into the night.

I've been buying small things along the way, always conscious that I am on a motorcycle and have a long way to go but in Bukhara I broke open the piggy bank. I walked away with silk scarves, hand forged cutlery and even a 100-year old carpet.  Thank goodness for Federal Express.

And I even managed to catch up on my post card commitments.

A short ride across southern Uzbekistan to Samarkand followed by another rest day - I know hard to believve but this international travel is a lot of hard work.  City tour in the morning as we visited Tourmaline's mosque and mausoleum as well as the 16th century Registan.  All had been significantly rebuild during the Soviet period and even though the refurbishment continues they are still in need of a lot of attention.  

There was a great local market around the corner from the hotel.  Everything from the exotic to the mundane was for sale.

Great lunch at the home of a local family.  Apparently that's a thing in both Bukhara and Samarkand where not only are private homes used as B&B's but also tourist restaurants.  In the afternoon I decided it was time for a haircut and a shave.   And I think it just might have been the best haircut and straight razor shave I have ever had as it came with a full facial and scalp massage.  My exuberant recommendation to the rest of the group saw a line at the door for the rest of the afternoon. 

And the Brian train keeps chugging along.

Center Of It All

One of the highlights for me was to ride through Merv, the ancient center that probably saw most of the Silk Road trade pass by its gates.  It was to be the one of the few opportunities we would have to say unequivocally that we were actually on the Silk Road.  There is not much there and hasn't been since Gengis Khan sacked the place in 1221 AD.  There is probably a case to be made that the destruction of Merv was the start of the end of the Silk Road as a commercial trade route - a decline that would take centuries to complete.

Another hot ride with a border crossing thrown into the mix as we left Turkmenistan and crossed into Uzbekistan.  There is a no-mans land area  between the two border points with a succession of check points along the way.  At the last Turkmenistan checkpoint the guard reached over, started my bike and raced the engine a few times.  He then insisted I pop a wheelie over the line into Uzbekistan.  The best I could do was to roost him with a face full of dirt.  This got me a smile and a thumbs up from the guards at the first Uzbekistan check point.  The entry into Uzbekistan was a long drawn out affair with multiple stops and offices to pass through and get papers stamped and processed.  The last office was the worst bottleneck as a disgruntled uniformed border officer single finger typed all of our bike and passport information individually into a computer which at one point crashed, of course.  Once through the border it was onto Bukhara - an magical place.

The City In White (and Police Blue and Military Green)

Ashkabat Turkmenistan is a strange place.  Built as what one can only assume is a singular vision from the first president of Turkmenistan after independence; there are wide beautifully landscaped and well maintained boulevards lined with huge white government, commercial and residential edifices with plenty of space in between each but yet no people.  There are men in uniform at every corner and got very agitated when dumb North American tourists approached anything with their cameras drawn ready to take pictures.  One of our group received a full police escort back to the hotel after riding too close (actually he might have been a bit lost) to the parliament buildings or presidential palace.

Its been described as the Dubai or Las Vegas of Central Asia but Bizarro World would be more appropriate.

We did get an opportunity to spend some time at a horse ranch where we saw up close some fine examples of the the ancient and famous Turkmenistan Akhal-Teke breed.

On the way back to town a quick stop at the "Great and Generous" First President's mausoleum and mosque.  In most mosques there are quotes from the Quran and those attributed to Mohammed, but not in this mosque.  All the quotes in there were from the man himself - Turkmenbashi.

He also had a little 12 meter high gold statue in his likeness made and placed atop a 75 meter tall tripod spanning a boulevard.  And of course the statue rotates to always face the sun.

Iran

Iran was an interesting experience.  The bar had been set pretty high in the build up to the border crossing from Azerbaijan.  After somewheres around 7-hours we finally were let out the gate and into the streets of Astara where we were hardily welcomed with shouts and honks and all manner of greetings.  And it was immediately apparent we had entered a different world.  Most of our route ran along the Caspian Sea with a brief detour South to Tehran for a couple of days.  Along the way we had mid-day stop at Masouleh, a village built into the sides of a steep valley hillside with the roof of the buildings below being the street of the buildings above.

We were also introduced to what would be the norm for the next few days where we would attract huge boisterous crowds of people where ever we stopped.  "Where you from?", "Where you go?", "What's Your Name?" would be our soundtrack that continued after leaving Iran.  And inevitably everyone wanted their picture taken with the motorcycles.

As we road South to Tehran the lush and verdant landscape along the Caspian changed to the arid desert of the interior.  As the climate heated up so did the aggressiveness of the drivers and we all had plenty of stories to tell of battles won and lost on the road at dinner that night.   The next day being Friday there was not much open so a bus tour of various museums and sites had been arranged.

 Surprisingly Tehran as a major city is not actually all that old especially when compared to where we have been and where we are going.  It is a huge sprawling place that for the most part exudes a very modern confidence.  I'm not sure if it was exactly a highlight but we did do a drive by of the old American embassy with a brief stop for pictures - from inside the bus.

For our return North to the Caspian coast a small number of the group decided to depart at the crack of dawn having been thoroughly unimpressed with the traffic and the heat on the way into the city. The rest of us found a fairly easy ride out at the normal time.   I had brought with me a small video camera to record I'm. It really sure what on this trip.  I had captured a few things along the way and thought the Tehran traffic as we departed the city might be fun.  The traffic was a disappointment and when I stopped for gas found that the camera had bounced out of its mount.  Hopefully some kid will find it in a ditch and go on to become a disruptive force in Iran and the rest of the world as a great film maker.

A great send off from Iran on our last day.  First part of the ride was fairly unimpressive through a high desert valley.  When I pulled into the gas station at Quchan where we were to head north towards the border my clutch cable broke.  As I already had a spare routed onto the bike beside the original it was an fairly effortless 10-minute swap and I was ready to go.  As we rode through town and stopped for tea the crowds that swarmed around us were by far the largest we had seen while in Iran.  And everyone was smiling and yelling and high-fiving and hand shaking and practicing English.  It was a blast.  And the final section of Iranian road was great, a twisty 2-lane secondary highway that snaked its way up a canyon to the mountain pass where the border crossing was .  The exit process out of Iran took almost as much time as the entry process with all that was involved by us was to sit around and wait.  Eventually we got through again with a lot of handshakes and assurances that no indeed there are no terrorists in Iran to the men in suits who where at the border to see us off.  Getting into Turkmenistan was another exercise in bureaucracy run amock as we lined up at office after office after office where one at a time we collected our paper work, entry stamps and suspicious stares.  After all had gotten through the final check with not a hint of contraband to be found in any piece of luggage we convoyed through the first 35km of Turkmenistan, a stunningly beautiful mountain pass and canyon that was a no stopping and no photography militarized zone.  As we entered Ashgabat I think we were all taken but the scope and scale of the city.   At the hotel bar that night there was much rejoicing.

Admittedly I was unimpressed with Iran the place initially but it has grown on me.  I don’t think I need to come back but wouldn’t say no if offered another opportunity.  It’s mostly the people that make this place so great and I think the sooner Iran is reintegrated back into the rest of the world the better off the rest of the world will be.

GlobeRiders Journal Page.

There is a journal page on the GlobeRiders web site for the Silk Road Adventure tour where some of the other participants have posted pictures and stories.

http://www.globeriders.com/live!journal_pages/gsr15_live!journal/gsr15_main.shtml