Stan Madness

I think it’s fair to say the Mission Oz team landed on their feet in Baku. The legend that is Andy Bliss kindly lent us his gaff for the duration while he was on leave back at home. This allowed us to have a base in which our winter clothes from home were to be sent out and necessary visas for the next part of the trip were to be collected. The next few weeks would see some of the much missed home comforts return to us. Hot showers, a TV to watch endless movies on, a spring mattress and a fridge full of food to name a few of life’s truly unappreciated luxuries. But best of all were the people we met there who were surprisingly un-phased to be seen with five hairy lads with Harold Shipman esq beards. We owe endless thanks to Andy and Linda Bliss, Paul and Maria McIntyre, Jimmy who took the boys out on the wild side of Baku, Alan the Haverton Hill hero, DJ Dave the rave Lawson who is an avid West Ham fan but still danced in our Boro shirts (video evidence) and donated £1270 to our charities through his golf club, top man! Terry and the lads from fountains bar for their outrageously generous donations to the charities, and the rest of the lads who treated us when we were there.

So with our time in Baku at an end it was time to make our way across the Caspian Sea to Aktau in Kazakhstan via ferry. A quick blast across the English channel from Dover to Calais in a good old P&O ferry are about the limit of our expertise at sea. The ferry, or should I say cargo ship across the Caspian was somewhat of an experience. Stories of the ferry lasting between 18 and 96 hours, no food served on board and bed comfort that the scruffiest of tramps would turn their nose up at made us expect the worst. And worst we got. Arriving in our cabins the bunks came in the form of a wooden plank with a dirty pillow and a rug to go over the top. A quick inspection under the rug proved to be like opening a fisherman’s bait box. White maggots squirming about everywhere were to be our bed mates for the next three nights. 66 hours later and after anchoring three times due to high winds Aktau was finally in sight.
Cycling out onto the Kazakh steppe with our panniers stuffed with winter kit and an added weight towing two trailers hit the team like a baseball bat to the groin. Jamie and Luke ‘hit the wall’ on the first day (which for you non-sporty people out there is when all energy is depleted and merely the act of turning the pedals round is a giant effort). Sam gladly provided Jamie with an energy gel which gave him some much needed ammunition as previous experiences on the bike have rewarded him with the name ‘Samuel Sphinkt-out’…. we’ll let you decide what that means. The Kazakh Steppe can not quite be described as desert but it’s just about there. The tarmac road ended not long after Aktau which marked the start of our mechanical nightmare. A day into this rocky, bumpy, uneven, orc-like beast of a road Ste’s rear derailleur decided to nose dive into his rear wheel spokes destroying the full thing. A few head scratches later we had Ste rigged up derailleur-less with a single-speed bike. To put this into context, in a head wind it was like churning out Chris Hoy’s track bike gear in treacle… and if we were ever lucky enough to get a tail wind (which we were not)it was like riding a little kids BMX bike down a 30% gradient. We could write a book titled ‘Mein Mechanical’ about this mishap but to cut a long story short the stats were as followed- 39 stoppages to put the chain back on, 27 snapped chains, 1 fixed buckle, 6 ‘rig ups’ to make the chain stay on including 2 toothbrush’s, 17 tie wraps, 10 metres of gaffa tape and last but not least, a suicidal Stephen Overty! Nevertheless the quote “Perseverando”- Thomas Conyers (1590), distilled in us from our secondary school days was highly appropriate for this situation.

The unpaved Kazakh road had hit the team hard, but one evening on our arrival at a local Cay house we thought our luck might have changed. We were greeted by Boris, the owner, who after what can only be said to have had a ‘skin full’ offered us a ‘free’ place to stay for the night. After a good helping of Chicken and with Boris demanding more vodka of his clearly angry wife and son we had a couple of tipples with him. Our problems started when it was time for bed. Apparently this Boris character had no jurisdiction in the cay house due to his constant drunkenness and so his son was demanding cash off us to sleep. Not being able to pay his prices we had to re-pannier the bikes, but not before the Rhino sized guard dog was to break off it’s lead and come hurtling towards Stephen and Luke while the young lad was getting pulled behind it trying to control the beast. Meanwhile Boris, being completely oblivious to what was going on around him, just swayed around in the minus temperatures. It seems that in this part of the world where there isn’t anything for miles around, many of the older men just drink all day and it is not uncommon to be stopped by a legless local. The moral that we took from this story was to not trust a drunken Cay house owner.

We had heard that the Kazakhstan – Uzbekistan border could be a nightmare at times. As we approached we could make out what looked like a huge train waiting at the border. As we got closer we realised that they were all wagons, waiting for what must be days to cross into Uzbekistan. There must have been over 300 wagons spanning well over a mile down the road. Fortunately we didn’t have to wait in this which is a good job as we would still be there now! Whilst filling out the obligatory declaration forms, we were approached by one of the chief guards, who was ironically drunk. He had studied in England and wondered if we were carrying any Ecstasy that he could have! We all looked at each other half laughing half shocked as he seemed disappointed and let us on our way. The currency in Uzbekistan is ‘Cym’ pronounced ‘Sum’ and the highest note value they have is a 1000 which is only 25p! For some reason the official rate is extremely low $1 to 2000 Cym, where as the black market rate is much higher 1$ to 2700 sum. Changing dollars left us with wads and wads of cash. It wasn’t long before the Robert DeNiro in Goodfellas impressions came about, tipping each other 25p into the non-existent ‘top pocket’ followed by the macho phrase “Treat yaself”.

The scenery didn’t really change through the Uzbek Steppe, it’s all the same just split through two countries. Coming off the Steppe for the first time was celebrated with Ste’s birthday. A skin full of vodka and some strange injuries the next morning was the sign that we had a good night. The majority of Uzbekistan is vast dessert so we were glad to arrive in Bukhara, a truly historic city on the Silk Road route. Genghis Kahn came here and as rumour has it, whilst tilting his head upwards to look at the Bukhara tower his helmet fell off. For some reason that was enough for him to leave the tower alone whist destroying other things in the city. Again we were helped massively by the locals, big thanks to the Pulatov Brothers who invited us in for their mothers fantastic Plov (traditional Uzbek meal) and put us up in a hotel for the evening. We couldn’t have got around Bukhara without their help, looking for ATM’s that are as scarce as an England world cup win.
After leaving Bukhara we headed to Samarkand, the next major city of Uzbekistan. That night we rode in the dark to find ourselves another warm Cay house to sleep in. The next morning treated us with a site that ten years ago would send us hurtling down the stairs, inhaling some breakfast down and getting geared up for a day of sledging, snowball fights and maybe in the silly adolescent years, a Blazin’ Squad size gang of toe rags launching a huge offensive on some innocent persons house that happens to provide a perfect getaway to a bombardment of snowballs. So the nightmare that was three inches of snow completely covering the road, with miles to tick off we geared up for a day on the piste, ski goggles and the lot! Riding like troopers over the mountains into Jizzakh the day was closing in quick. Worry began to set in when we realised we had no food left, a blizzard had engulfed us and no town was in sight. A more than sketchy descent and a deck out from Tom later, a tiny flicker in the distance marked a Cay house which wiped any thoughts of camping in two feet of snow with numb feet and no food out of our heads.

Arriving in Tashkent the process of getting the Chinese Visa was the first port of call. Ste, Jamie and Luke went straight off to book our flights to Beijing whilst Sam and Tom booked our Hotel for Beijing. Foreign travel to the Xingjiang province in China is widely forbidden therefore in order to obtain a visa we had to trick the embassy into thinking we were travelling to Beijing by plane! After successfully getting all the info we needed including five proof of employment letters (yes we are all site surveyor’s for ‘Rock Developments’) we set about finding somewhere to stay in Tashkent. Arriving at ‘Gelikon Vest Hotel’ the registration ball ache began so to cut a very long, nightmare of a story short don’t come to Uzbekistan without reading the small print which apparently requires you to register with a Hotel for every 72 hours of your stay. After being offered to stay in a 5* deluxe hotel with 75% discount it seemed too good to be true…it was! Good old registration ruined our day and I think it was safe to say morale was at an all time low having viewed the prospective Bedrooms, Sauna and Swimming pool ourselves arms behind back giving the satisfied nod of approval. After much help from our Uzbek Saints Rustam and Kholida, and many a phone call later we found ourselves in a very nice 4 * Hotel. Miraculously our registration problems had vanished with only a bribe of a slap up dinner in one of Tashkent’s fine diners for our helpful friend.
Sat here in the lobby of Hotel Uzbekistan after ten days of well appreciated luxury we are ready to tackle the hardest part of the trip yet. All we can say is temperatures will go below -25, altitudes will go above 3700 metres and layers of clothing will go above ten! We also have to mention the Hotel Concierge sitting behind us on his desk who oblivious to our knowledge spends a colossal amount of work hours searching through X-rated material, go on son!

New Years Day will mark 6 months on the road for the team and with a little under £10,000 raised, it’s fair to say we are well on our way to achieving the £20,000 target so thank you to all who have donated and supported us.
Thanks again,

The Team