Quick Phone Update.
We got in on a truck last night.
Thanks to the gracious support and assistance provided by the crews of Car 84 and Car 3 we have welded up our steering arm and are back on the road this morning.
Day 24
Turkmenabat to Ashgabad.
We were 200 km from Turkmenabat and we stopped in a town and realised we had broken a steering arm, so Penny is on the back of a truck going to Ashgabad. We are both in the front seat of the truck and I am recovering from heat stroke and presently have a bout of diarrhoea. Not the best day for us today, but we’ve both had a nap in the truck and in a few hours we will arrive in Ashgabad and try to find a workshop and get welding and fixing Penny so we can drive across the border into Iran tomorrow. (Julie is loading this blog enrty) It looks like it is going to be a long night, but hopefully we can get the steering arm welded and we can get on the road again.
Day 23
Tashkent to Turkmenbat
We had the hottest day of our trip so far and at the border crossing between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan I didn’t have enough to drink and ended up with heat stroke. I went off to the docs and everything was ok and he said I had heat stroke, and I just had to keep drinking lots. We decided to keep the hood on tomorrow to keep us in the shade.
Day 21 and 22
Day 21
This was one of the shortest day for the trip. We left Tashkent at 9.00 for a mostly motorway drive to arrive in Samarkand at 2.00.
The whole way was farming. with 1000’s of acres of cotton that is all hand picked.
Tashkent was a viberant modern city with lots of cars and the apperance of wealth. Rural Uzbekistan is very poor with the the main form of transport donkey and cart.
After lunch we arrived at Samarkand for another rest day. This city is so different you would think its in a different country. No high rise, less gardens and parks and not as much colour in the buliding.
The money in Uzbekistan is called a som and the exchange rate is $1 to 1600 som, and the largest note is 1000 som so you end up with pockets full of money. Yesterday when we bought fuel the 110 litres cost 160,000 som so I hande over a wad about 2cm thick and the attendend fed it in to a note counter and gave me back the litte bit of excess.
Cay 22
A rest day infor people to work on and service the cars.
Carl did the greasing while I fitted new packing to the water pump. it was all finished at lunch so we went for an interesting tour around some local sites and markets.
No pics today as the internet is to slow to upload photos sorry.
Today is our last rest day as its now 15 days on the road to reach Paris for the 16th.
This was one of the shortest day for the trip. We left Tashkent at 9.00 for a mostly motorway drive to arrive in Samarkand at 2.00.
The whole way was farming. with 1000’s of acres of cotton that is all hand picked.
Tashkent was a viberant modern city with lots of cars and the apperance of wealth. Rural Uzbekistan is very poor with the the main form of transport donkey and cart.
After lunch we arrived at Samarkand for another rest day. This city is so different you would think its in a different country. No high rise, less gardens and parks and not as much colour in the buliding.
The money in Uzbekistan is called a som and the exchange rate is $1 to 1600 som, and the largest note is 1000 som so you end up with pockets full of money. Yesterday when we bought fuel the 110 litres cost 160,000 som so I hande over a wad about 2cm thick and the attendend fed it in to a note counter and gave me back the litte bit of excess.
Cay 22
A rest day infor people to work on and service the cars.
Carl did the greasing while I fitted new packing to the water pump. it was all finished at lunch so we went for an interesting tour around some local sites and markets.
No pics today as the internet is to slow to upload photos sorry.
Today is our last rest day as its now 15 days on the road to reach Paris for the 16th.