I made it back to the third of the three great silk road cities in Uzbekistan - Khiva, the desert city with a dark history. It was the first of the three to be recognised with world heritage status, ahead even of Samarkand, but was for much of it's history was the slave city of Central Asia, where one could trade in human misery. I had a long list of jobs to get on with, needed some rest time after crossing the Kyzylkum desert, and wanted another look around the magnificent old town, that I had visited as a "normal" tourist 6 months ago whilst recovering from my spine injury.
In just that short space of time there have been lots of changes. Most significantly, turnstiles have been erected at the gates along the old city walls. They are not in use yet, but it can't be long before they swing into action. In contrast to my time in Uzbekistan last summer, when EVERYBODY was open, warm and genuinely welcoming, I have come across a good handful of tourist touts, and tourist pricing. It's not unfriendly, or overwhelming (yet) just the inevitable change in vibe that comes once mass tourism rolls into town. The time to visit Uzbekistan was last year, and now - it's going to change month-by-month going forward from here. I still think it's a great country to visit, and it's still very easy to escape commercial tourism, just by stepping off the tourist conveyor belt (though the 3 great cities are still must-see destinations, even if commercialism is taking hold).
I rode on from Khiva, to Manghit through the Amu Darya valley. The Amu Darya is one of the 2 main rivers that feed the Aral Sea. All the way along, the valley fields are watered from irrigation canals that criss-cross the country. It's no wonder the Aral Sea was emptied. I visited the Aral Sea last year, and it really is a shocking sight. However, it's difficult to feel any kind of anger or antipathy towards the ordinary people living along the banks of the river. They are just eking out a meagre existence growing food to feed their family. The commercial cotton crops are a different story, but food production?... it's a complex issue.
There is one basic guesthouse in Manghit, and no other options around this area. When I arrive, I'm told I can't stay. I'm not sure the exact reason (full up? closed?), but carry on to the pontoon bridge crossing of the river. It's an interesting bridge, and once I'm on the opposite side of the river it's much more sparsely populated, and I'm able to find a lovely camping spot right next to the river.
From here the river passes into Turkmenistan, whilst the main road heads further north, through the edge of the desert to Nukus. It's due to be a short days ride - perhaps even arriving before lunch, but around midday I spot 2 Swiss cyclists coming the opposite way and we stop for a chat which ends up as an extended lunch break.
Nukus has an amazing art gallery with a collection of Art from the Soviet era - both regime sanctioned and banned art (read my blog from when I was here before for more about this), but is otherwise an unremarkable place. There is a nice guesthouse - the Jipek Joli, where I stayed before. It's a little more expensive than I normally spend, but I felt it was worth having a comfortable night before heading out into the Ustyurt Desert.
On arrival back in Uzbekistan from my injury recovery in the UK, I had brought lots of spares - bike stuff, and other odds and ends that I knew would be impossible to get here, and had packaged up several kgs of stuff sending it using the very cheap domestic postal service from the opposite end of Uzbekistan, to this far-flung corner of the country. Unfortunately when I got in touch with the Guesthouse 2 days ago, I discovered that the package they had agreed to receive, had not arrived! I messaged various people involved in the delivery without success. Oh dear!
That evening my phone rang, with a non-English speaker at the other end, and after handing the phone to one of the staff to translate, the lady at the other end of the phone showed up 30 minutes later with my package - a month after it was sent! Not quite sure how that worked out to the (unspecified) day of my arrival, but anyway, I got my stuff.
Before leaving Nukus, I needed to fill up my multi-fuel stove with some fuel. There was no way I was going to get the super clean, special Colemans fuel recommended by the maker of my stove, but that's the whole point of a multifuel stove - you can throw almost any liquid fuel in it. As a non oil producer, Uzbekistan has made sensible use of their main available fuel, and converted all their cars to natural gas! Limited amounts of petrol and diesel are available, but you need a permit to fill up at one of the few petrol stations, and that's also assuming that they have supplies available, so it was not going to be straightforward.
After failing to get fuel at the only station in town with any petrol in stock, a local directed me to the local blackmarket dealer. It was a house with no marking, and when I reached the correct street, it was one of the local children who brought me to the right house. It was an unusual transaction - the fuel came in a coke bottle with a free loaf of bread.
One more Uzbek town lay a days ride to the West. Mostly farmland, but getting ever more arid, with smaller and smaller settlements along the way brought me to the dusty town of Kungrad. It is a fully functional town with some industry and a marketplace, but it's not a beautiful place! The guesthouse was simple and the local store sparse, but I got to sleep in a real bed, and stocked up for the road ahead. This was likely to be my last store and bed for some days, as ahead lay the Ustyurt Desert, the biggest challenge on the map between here and home.
And so it was that I left civilisation and trundled off into the wilderness.
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