Stans ✅
Current Location: Almaty, Kazakhstan
Bike Days/Total Days: 88/99
Total Miles: 5,584
Tent Nights: 45
Total Spent: $5,850
Not ABNB
It happened again, another Uzbek man waived me down and I slept in his house. This time, I was given the luxury of the master bedroom. He brought me out to dinner and had me shake hands with half the town. He woke me up at 5am to take pictures of him with a cardboard sign and at 6am I went to a breakfast service with 75 other men. There was no english spoken, no translator used. I grunted and made up my own sign language.
Hooves > Wheels
I was laying in my tent, tucked into my bag in the Kyrgyzstan mountains when all of a sudden a man riding a horse was peering down at me. Turns out he just wanted to say hi and have me take a pic on the horse.
Few Miscellaneous Items
Desert Storm: I was caught tenting in the desert in lightning. I had no choice but to leave my stuff and make a run for the shelter by the road. I stopped in a shop with a group of truckers, the power went out and they all took a picture with me as the other truckers held up their phones for light.
Life on the Road is Grimy: The hardest thing to find outside a major city is floss (shockingly most adults here have gold teeth). I went a few days reusing floss.
Land Border Dystopia: Land borders in this part of the world are my personal hell. There is no order. It’s a mob of people pushing to the customs official stamping passports. It’s sweaty, dusty, and dimly lit.
Stay Out The Tunnels
Some tunnels aren’t made for bikes. Four miles of almost pitch dark with just my iphone light. The next tunnel I hitched a ride with some truckers.
Up next the bike is heading south to the heat and monsoons of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
