Dutchgit wrote:Early night in the bridal suite :laugh:
It was weird indeed. I decided that although Paul is a handsome guy, I'll stick to the females.
Which reminds me of a little thing we had going Paul. Was your favourite Miss January? "MILFS of Customs" was it
I'd forgotten about the "MiLFs of Customs". Miss January, the Russian minx in charge of photocopying in the Irkutsk customs office, set a very high standard that was not often matched. In fact, I think that office provided the first six months of the calendar and we only got to October during the whole trip and that with an 'honourary' award. We were so bored there.
Sadly I've been through all of my photos and don't have one pervy shot. This means only one thing, I'll need to go back and get some. Hopefully get the final update done this weekend.
The crossing into Kazakhstan in the morning was uneventful, actually quite pleasant apart from some nasty looking customs Alsatian dogs, but we were not meant to be dog food. We'd heard bad things about the corrupt policemen here, so the minute we crossed the border we stopped for insurance. It's a joke trying to show our V5s and explain what's what but we got there in the end, I think. It was about $5 each for 14 days and we even had a fancy certificate to show for it.
It was a fast 3 day blitz across the country in order to get to our destination by the Friday so I'm sad to say that it was all highway, service stations and dodgy hotels. Stopping only to shelter from the sun and even sometimes the rain as Paul very smugly enjoyed when he'd just put all his rain kit on and I proclaimed we'd not get rained on
The days were quite tedious and boring to be honest, but we kept going. One of the hotels we stayed at was obviously once quite a lavish place but now run down. Our "suite" was quite bizarre but at least we had a place around the back for the bikes.
We found a great little restaurant that evening too, tucked away. We did the now normal thing which was to say "Anything" and it was like a lucky dip. I believe one evening we got fantastic dumplings.
Anyhow, due to the boring roads, I'm sad to say that I hardly took any photos. Apart from this stop where Paul was proudly showing off his sausage
The road, while boring, was ok, however the last 100km into Almaty was chaos. They were redoing the road, so it was perfect tarmac for 5km, then dirt for 5km, repeat this 20 times with awful awful traffic and you get the idea. In fact if you've seen the new Mad Max movie where they're going along about 10 abreast down the desert, this wasn't far off. Horrible and blood boiling at times too. Thankfully we evaded the police, who twice made a lunge as they saw us coming, but couldn't get to us due to the traffic.
We arrived in Almaty and, praise the Lord for GPS, we found the hotel. Paul treated us to a Holiday Inn, proper posh like! I also had eating utensils, a napkin and english speaking people, it was bliss.
I had pizza!
An apt sign across the road from the hotel.
We had made it. The next day was a "short" ride to the border, then across into Kyrgyzstan and then into the capital, Bishkek. I couldn't wait to have a shower and get to bed.
Our final couple of days. The morning was a relaxing lie in and after breakfast we slowly packed the bikes. We were in no rush as the ride to the border would only be a few hours, then a few hours the other side into Bishkek.
The ride towards the border was ok, nothing special. Police in a few places ready to pounce on unsuspecting motorists but we made it past them ok even if the speed limits were ludicrous. We stopped for coke and a rest and were given some apples as a present from a young kid on the roadside. Paul was also the subject of this ladies affection and she showed him where to fill up his water bottle from a well.
The water however was cloudier than bleach! So although a lovely kind gesture, Paul ditched it later, we didn't want any more upset stomachs, it was bad enough as it was. We also bumped into some fellow motorcyclists from Germany. They were going the other way, 3 of them all on R80GS's (I think) A nice bunch. They explained that one of them was a BMW Mechanic and it was a blessing as he'd sheared the driveshaft on his bike! For some random reason they were carrying a spare. He'd never seen it happen before but wasn't surprised as his bike had over 200,000km on it!
They also warned us of police up ahead through a valley where they hid high up on the rocks with cameras. Sneaky things! They'd been stopped for speeding and after some aggressive discussion got away with it, threatening to call the Embassy. Needless to say, we stuck to the speed limit.
Once again, no picture, but we stopped for more refreshments at the side of the road from a little hut. The girl behind the counter was very cute. Paul and I laughed as she had to stand on a little stool to get the crisps from the top shelf for us and showed off her bum. We're convinced she did it on purpose. The most amusing thing though was when she smiled and had half a dozen gold teeth on show!
We arrived at the border at around midday, and without going into too much detail it was a nightmare. Paul eventually, after hours, got annoyed, threw his weight around and we were "processed" The other side wasn't much better with Paul barging into the little passport office after they took our passports. They are known to deface your passport photo and then ask for a bribe. Paul was wise to this and stopped it before it happened.
Obviously the locals were impressed with this as a young girl gave Paul her number, in case he needed "Anything at all" Yeah Paul, I bet you didn't tell you wife about her In all honestly she meant well with SIM cards, currency etc. Once again she was good looking. I don't know how he does it!
Anyhow, 4 or so hours later we were in Kyrgyzstan and the final 50km to Bishkek. As a final kick in the teeth on the final leg, there were major roadworks again and diversions coming into Bishkek but we made it!
We had booked into a nice hotel for 2 nights. The next day we had to drop off our bikes and then a day to kill in Bishkek till midnight when we needed to head to the airport.
The hotel was great, we found a lovely restaurant too for Sushi. Life was good and we slept like logs.
The place to drop off the bikes was only a mile away and we arrived at 11am in the morning. A bunch of Italians were picking up their bikes, all 1200GS straight of the catalogue. They were taking 2 weeks to ride them back to Italy, that's going to be a long slog. Mostly older people with one of them being 75 or 80 I think! Kudos!
More 1200s!
We dropped our bikes off, miss them!
A walk back to the hotel and a walk around Bishkek in the blazing heat. Damn it's hot. More Sushi for dinner and an early night as taxi would be collecting us at midnight for the airport.
Bishkek was quite nice.
12 hours later I was travelling up the M1 on my way home. The trip over.
