MONGO RALLY WEEK SIXBeing treated like royalty by Uzbek locals adds a welcome respite to five-hour border checks, writes Guy Craigie
AS I write, David is having a hand, a toe and a knee strapped up after falling down a hidden drain on the side of the road and getting some particularly nasty cuts along the way. Dr Ben is administering antiseptic, plasters and painkillers. It's been a bumpy week.
We arrived at the Turkmenistan border last Wednesday evening to find the border crossing closed. With nowhere to camp, we were forced to stay in a government-owned hotel, with possibly the most unfriendly people we have come across so far.
Getting into the country was quite an ordeal and I was left to deal with the importation of Boggy on my own being the registered owner. As the guys sauntered off to lunch at the border café, I was forced to endure two hours of bureaucracy.
We arrived in Turkmenistan's capital Ashgabat with few expectations, but were enthralled by the trophy city before us. Marble-fronted buildings, gold statues and waterfalls abound, yet there are few people, few cars and an apparent curfew after 11.00pm.
The next couple of days consisted of eight hours of driving a day as we made our way towards Turkmenabat. We were keen to catch up with some of the other Mongol Rally teams - the last one we saw was in Istanbul.
The food in Turkmenistan turned out to be utterly inedible. On one occasion we stopped in the middle of hicksville at a typical roadside cafe. We were greeted by a mad old bat who sat us down with four bowls of broth.
In this broth was an indistinguishable meat that included an ear, a couple of toes, kidneys and other bits of anatomy that I would rather not discuss. We ate it, partly out of respect, partly because we were starving. Cheekily, the old hag then tried to charge us $20, at least 10 times more than it was worth.
We hot-footed it out of Turkmenistan thinking that the border delays couldn't get any worse. We were wrong.
The Uzbekistan border was a mess and took us five hours to pass through. Three of these were spent enduring a barrage of questions as to why we were entering the country - this despite the fact that at least 100 other Mongol rally teams had already passed through. Grumpy and tired, we hunted for a place to camp that night and found ourselves in a small village.
All of a sudden a number of women appeared who, refusing to allow us to camp, insisted we sleep in their home (later we were embarrassed to find out that they had given up their own bedroom and had slept outside). We were fed, watered and treated like royalty, everyone fascinated by our presence.
The village turned out to be a settlement of one entire family - at least 40 people - who took pleasure in entertaining us, colouring in Boggy and asking us for autographs. In return, we took and gave them Polaroids of themselves, showed them our photos to date and the latest Angelina Jolie movie on the laptop.
Currently we are in Tashkent and are entering Kazakhstan today - Borat territory! We will make our way to Almaty, the capital and from there we will enter Russia and then Mongolia in just over a week.
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