Ka Pai Kiwis

Nice ride today but we have entered the hot lands again. The first 170km were awesome, nice smooth roads. We pulled into a roadside cafe for a cold bottle of water and to enter our now routine wet t shirt competition. This routine is a lifesaver, literally. Lovely lady supplied us with really cold water. She washed a glass for me to use. Pulled out a seat for me to sit on . ( Robyn) So looking forward to the next 130 km to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan on nice smooth roads. How wrong was I! Most if the way felt like we 2 up on a Pogo stick. Absolute rubbish road, I would have thought the capital would have had good roads. We have had our first fill of 80 Octane petrol. I added a good slug of octane boost and the Tiger is running well. So sign of "pinking" which is a relief. It has taken us almost 6 hours for 300km, very hard to get anywhere quickly here. Storks nesting on top of lighting, powerlines, anything high up. The temperature is in the 40...

It has been a big day. We got away just after 7, filled up with with 91 octane, hooray. Headed south to Tajikistan border. There are two borders within about 80 km of each other and the southern most one looked the shorter route and maps.me concurred that this was the best route for us.  We passed the first crossing point and about 20km later stopped for a cold drink and to use the bathroom. The usual banter began with a few locals and soon there was a bit of concern coming from them. After a couple of phone calls and a game of charades we figured out the border crossing we were heading to was pedestrian only!  So the way we showed our appreciation was applying copious ladles of water to each other from a tub by the entrance. They fell about laughing when I pulled Robyn’s t shirt at the neck and poured a huge ladle of water down her front. So we backtracked 20km and had a fairly straightforward border crossing. Who knew laminating could be so powerful. I don’t unders...