We were woken 33 minutes into the day (ie at 12.33 am) by a Russian lorry driver who wanted to give us bread and water because tomorrow would be a very long and hot day with no signs of human habitation. In the morning we woke up to be greeted by two young men from Holland who were travelling by small motor bikes to Jakarta. They were collecting a playlist of songs chosen by people they had met and we added “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd and “I can’t get no satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. At the Kazakh/Uzbek border we met a young Frenchman who was driving with his wife to China and he had been this way before, although not on the Pamir Highway. Getting through the Kazakh side took three hours because there was a huge crowd of bus passengers and it was a case of everybody fighting their way to get to the front of the queue for all the windows where we had to get the necessary five stamps on a bit of paper to allow us out of the country. Surprisingly we weren’t fined for not having insurance. I suppose Kazakhstan will be another country we can’t visit once their computer gets up to date.
Getting into Uzbekistan took another 2 hours, but was comparatively easy with far fewer people. Insurance cost 12 dollars. The rest of the day was unremitting misery as we travelled possibly the worst road in the world with more pothole than road. Trying to find the road to Khiva using the non-existent road signs we gave up in despair outside the Gamburgerlari establishment which apparently sells Uzbek “gamburgers” although the pictures outside showed doner and shish kebabs and shwarmas like everywhere else.
