Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan Like all borders, getting through here is problematic too. Arriving overland from Kazakhstan, we discover we'll have to wait at least a day to cross. In our group we find that one of us doesn't have a visa in his passport, and not feeling like leaving him there on his own, we all stay, hoping to sort out the problem the next day. So we pitch our tents in the dust, just three metres from the border fence, if we can call it that, since it's laid flat on the ground and you can easily cross it into no man's land. Standing in line there are also quite a few buses and trucks with these Kazakhs who patiently wait for hours and hours for the customs officers to deign to do their job, which they make no effort at all to do.

The next morning we discover that our friend has no hope of crossing, and until his visa arrives from Italy by courier he'll be forced to stay at the border police station, also because he can no longer go back into Kazakhstan since his visa has expired. We already dislike Uzbekistan. He's not discouraged and takes it philosophically; he says goodbye as we set off and we leave him a satellite phone to communicate with us and with those who have to bring him the visa from Italy. Here in fact, out on the Siberian steppe, mobile phones don't work. Anyway the visa will arrive three days later and he'll catch up with us at Bukhara, where we stop for a day to visit this city of art. My motorbike works perfectly. It's August and incredibly hot, especially at midday when it hits 40 degrees every day, and I assure you it's not pleasant to ride in a T-shirt with the airbag, the helmet etc.

Drowsiness hits you especially after lunch. Here a particular episode happens to me too. I'm stopped after a short break to regroup the caravan of six motorbikes and five cars, and for the first time I set off last, and here I see that a whirling twister of wind and dust is approaching me as I sit stopped on my Yamaha 600 Tenere. I hurry to start it up to set off and avoid being hit full-on, but I can't manage it. The result was that, stationary, the whirlwind flung me to the ground, and that the cord of my airbag, tightening as I rolled on the ground, triggered the safety valve, letting the air inflate the airbag. I got a fright; I suddenly became fat. But the problem now was lifting the bike, which with a full 22 litres of petrol is very heavy and I can't manage it on my own. So I stood in the middle of the road and stopped a car of Uzbeks to give me a hand to lift it.

Here too backwardness reigns; like the neighbouring countries, 90% of the inhabitants live badly, indeed they survive. The cars too are few and beat-up, except in the cities. Now I understand that when earthquakes come to these places, most of the houses collapse. Here they don't even know who an architect is. You see many donkeys, and watermelons to eat too. Tashkent is the capital and we arrive there to sleep a night. Here another participant joins us on a motorbike, who has arrived by air, just to do the second part of our Italy-Beijing trip. He's an official BMW rider; in fact the bike isn't his. At Tashkent we all fill up and carry on with the adventure. The road is good for a long stretch but then it turns full of holes again, and the pass pleases us motorcyclists a lot, a bit less the cars.

Samarkand welcomes us with a sign on the mountain top; this city of two and a half million inhabitants is a very important cultural centre. Here we visit very ancient buildings, covered in coloured tiles, one of which, found on the ground, has ended up in my display case. We carry on towards the border with Kyrgyzstan. Bye bye