Tashkent, Uzbekistan to Shymkent, Kazakhstan - The Border Crossing.

We arrived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and a few of us were under the weather with "the shits" as the Aussie's put it as well as nauseau and vomitting. When this hits ya it really can take the fun out of things but as I've stated before, "it's an adventure, mate!"
The healthy ones dined on pizza in celebration of this being the halfway point of the trip and headed to bed early as the next day (Monday) we were heading to the border crossing to leave Uzbekistan and enter Kazakhstan. It was to be a 400 km riding day so the morning bags were to be at the troopie at 6:30, breakfast at 7:00 am in order to leave by 7:30. We hit the local gas station to fill up when Mick T. from Tasmania had a flat. I was under the weather and sat onlooking the situation which everyone seemed to have under control. By 9:30 we were off once again to the border.

The beauty of riding a motorcycle is that you can cut straight through the line and go right to the front (bypassing all the tractor trailers). Murray, Joe, Mick T, Mick MacDonald and myself were the first ones to go through the first gate as we were to only go one at a time. Since I was under the weather they were kind enough to send me in the first bunch. The four of us, minus the tour leader Mick MacDonald, went through leaving the Uzbekistan border and entering the Kazakhstan side within two hours (probably a record) but while we were leaving the Uzbek side, we saw Pat and Isaac (American and Mexican American) being pulled aside along with Leo the troopie driver. We arrived at the other side approx. 2 pm and by 5:00 pm, Joe's wife Carmen had walked through the gates to let us know that we were to go on to Shymkent, Kazakhstan where the group would hopefully meet us later. The most we knew was that Pat, Isaac and Leo had overstayed their Visas and were being detained for anywhere between three hours and three days. Unbeknownst to us though, was the tiime change making it actually 6 pm with a minimum of two hours daylight riding followed by another two hours of night riding on rough pavement. We doubted that the rest of the group would be joining us as the border closed by 9pm. Carmen had headed back to the troopie to let our tour leader know she was going with her husband Joe and by 5:30 (actually 6:30 pm) we were off to a hotel in Shyment (300 kms away)

I want to add a bit of a blurb here about Shymkent as we had already stayed at this hotel for a night before heading into Uzbekistan and it was a beautiful city to ride into at night with the sunset, all the highrise buildings with the various colours and the tien shen mountains outlining the sky in the distant background. While riding into Shymkent on the first visit, our tour leader Mick ran over an open man hole cover (that had been stolen as is custom in these countries as they can get a fair penny for them) ith his BMW 1200 GS. No damage was done yet the bike did hit it fairly hard. If it had been with one of the 650's it may have been a different story.

We left the border and the rest of the group behind as we headed to a hotel in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, I was passing a car when a sudden bout of naseau struck and I was going to be sick in my helmet. Speeding acrossing two lanes of traffic and braking suddenly alongside the road, I barely had enough time to get off the bike, crouch down with helmet raised before I began hurling next to a group of local women staring while selling watermelons. Remembering the faces of the onlooking women and wondering what they must have thought made me giggle but thankful that no one knew me. It was after dark when I hit moguls on a stretch of highway, losing control of the handlebars as they started to shake violently in what is referred to as "tank slapper". I accelerated, holding on so tightly out of fear, which seemed to pull me out from totally losing control of the bike. We reached the hotel with another rider running to the washroom and news that tomorrow we were to carry on without the group.

In the morning I was writing my entry for the Motorcycle Times when I spotted Mick MacDonald, the tour leader at the front desk. He said that he rodet in around midnight
on his motorcycle but Leo, Pat and Isaac had been arrested at the Uzbekistan border for expired Visas. There was still no word on when they would be released other than there Visas had to go back to Tashkent. We would be heading on to a homestay approx. 100 kms outside Shymkent in the direction of Almaty, Kazakhstan however Joe's tire went flat so a tire repair would delay our departure until 11:30 am. That morning Murray was hit with "the shits" along with Mick T, Mick MacDonald, Joe and myself. Carmen was the only one who was still healthy. Next stop, homestay.........