In the afternoon I, slightly embarrassingly, boarded a “cruise” to Helsinki. I’m not generally the cruise sort, and it hardly seems the backpacking spirit, but I had a good excuse. Scandinavia is absurdly expensive – £6 for a sandwich is common and hostels start at £20/night – but for some reason a two-night cruise to Helsinki costs just £40 (actually £40 gets you a cabin for up to four people). Suddenly I don’t look like such a lunatic.

Helsinki

The cruise left me in Helsinki for just over seven hours, enough time to have a look around and get a decent impression. The place surprised me. I had anticipated ultra-modern steel, glass, and wood buildings, efficient public transport and cafés full of latte-sipping architects. Instead my first impression was of a slightly Russified city. Bland streets, antiquated trams and dour residents.

I’m not the first person to notice the Finn’s are a little gloomy and who can blame them, given the long, dark winters. I got my haircut there by an Albanian woman who enjoyed having someone she could moan about the place to. “No one talks here. Maybe at the weekend, when they drink too much, they shout, but other days they are silent.” In Riga I had met a British PhD student studying in Helsinki and he told a story to illustrate the national psyche:

A tourist is invited by a Finnish man to come and drink vodka with him. The tourist accepts, not wanting to miss out on a cultural experience, and as they raise their glasses he proposes a toast. “To Finland” he says politely. The Finnish man turns and looks at him disdainfully. “Are we talking or are we drinking?”

If this all sounds a bit depressing then I’ve got good news. Things took a turn for the better. I found some spectacular architecture, worthy of Helsinki’s claim to be a design capital, and most importantly the sun came out and with it so did the smiles. The Finn’s really know how to embrace good weather. Soon heavy metal was blaring out from some distant venue, a folk concert kicked off in the market square and the cafés became heaving with coffee and vodka drinkers. You’ve never seen so many sunbathers in fourteen degree temperatures! There was also some fantastic street food on offer in the harbour – mostly too expensive to buy but I sampled everything from Lapland salmon to Russian venison.

Finland is not somewhere I would like to live. The long, dark winters just sound too depressing. However I hadn’t appreciated what an interesting place it makes to visit. The culture is some sort of intersection of Russia and European with that unique Nordic twist. It’s definitely very different to Norway or Sweden. And when the sun’s out Helsinki is just plain nice. Certainly a place to go back to.

We pass an old-fashioned sailing boat as we leave Stockholm.

Two seagulls fly over our ship.

Looking ahead through the bridge.

Helsinki Olympic Stadium - dating from the 1952 olympics.

A modern cross outside Temppeliaukio Church.

The inside of Temppeliaukio Church was spectacular. It is carved down into the rock with a huge domed copper roof over it. There was a piano concert going on when I visited, taking advantage of the excellent acoustics.

The impressive Lutheran Cathedral looming over market square.

A free concert in market square. That's what all the people on the Cathedral steps were watching.

My cruise ship waiting in the harbour.

Lapland salmon soup for sale.

A nearly-midnight sunset from the boat.

Writing this very blog post at sunset.

I flew into Riga and spent a few days there before heading to the nearby beach at Jurmala. Unfortunately the weather turned just after I arrived and I had to give up on the idea of lazy days on the sand.

The beach in Jurmala.

A bird chills out in the Baltic.

A church tower.

Fishing in Jurmala.

Instead I carried on down to Vilnius, the only Baltic capital I had yet to see. Vilnius is pretty nice with a large old town and lots of nice cafés and restaurants. It’s also amazingly green, something you only really notice if you look from above. I watched Eurovision in Vilnius with a couple of Lithuanians which was fun but slightly embarrassing. I had a choice between claiming to be Irish and being associated with Jedward or claiming to be British and coming next to last.

Vilnius Cathedral with its belfry.

St Casimir’s Chapel inside Vilnius Cathedral.

'Stebuklas' ('Miracle') Tile - This marks one end of the 2-million strong human chain that was formed in 1989 between Vilnius and Tallinn to protest the Soviet occupation.

Art on the side of a street.

A slightly gruesome, but very cool, pre-1840 preserved head in Vilnius University.

Looking up St. John's bell tower.

A Foucault pendulum in St. John'€™s Bell Tower, demonstrating the earth's rotation.

The view towards Vilnius Cathedral.

Vilnius seen from St. John'€™s bell tower, showing how green much of the city is.

Looking down into Vilnius University's Grand Courtyard.

The Belarus Press Photo competition. It relies on a certain amount of press freedom so has to be hosted in Lithuania.

Talking of Belarus I hadn't quite realised how close Vilnius is. Here's a sign to Minsk.

A slightly crazy roof.

A crumbling street outside the tourist centre.

Having only really visited the Baltic capitals, which are hard to pull yourself away from because they are so nice, I thought it was time to take in a different city. I took a bus west to Klaipeda on the coast. It’s a pleasant enough city but a bit less done-up and slightly lacking in life after 10 p.m. on a weekday.

A ship moored in Klaipeda.

A theatre's balcony from which Hitler announced the annexation of the city.

Graffiti. Klaipeda's a little less done-up than Vilnius.

The Lithuanian flag flies from a tower block.

Finally a bus took me back to Riga, completing my loop. A few more days in Riga and then a ferry to Stockholm. Which is where I am now as I write this. Remarkably it’s just past midnight, I’m sitting out on deck and I can still see remnants of the sunset. The advantages of the north.

A flag flying in Riga's old town.

A pigeon watches over Riga's central market, the largest market in Europe.

Illegal hat sellers who got a bit aggravated with me for taking a photo.

The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia.

The House of Blackheads.

A view over the old town.

The river, with Riga cathedral in the foreground.

Leaving Riga on the ferry to Stockholm.

Tugs manoeuvre a coal ship.

On board the ferry.

To start here’s a graph. “A graph? On a travel blog?” I hear you say, but bear with me. It’s a good graph.

A logarithmic plot of PPP GDP per capita (vertical axis) against year (horizontal axis). Data from Penn World Table (Alan Heston, Robert Summers and Bettina Aten, Penn World Table Version 7.0, Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices at the University of Pennsylvania, May 2011.)

It’s a log plot of GDP against time for some of the key countries I have visited, along with figures for the US, South Korea and Brazil for comparison. Specifically it plots inflation-adjusted, PPP (purchasing power parity) GDP per capita which means comparisons are meaningful. Far too often these sorts of graphs use dodgy statistics invalidating any conclusions drawn.

So what does it show us and how can I relate it to my experiences? Well starting from the top you see the “decline” of the US – or more correctly the rise of the rest. Note I’m using the US to represent much of the developed world. Then you see how impressively South Korea has done over the past half-century. It’s a real success story.

Moving further down you also find success in some former Communist states; Poland, Russia and Kazakhstan. The energy I felt in these places seems to back up the graph. It’s not unadulterated success (Russia’s a bit up and down) but they’re not doing half-bad. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia follow a similar trend to Poland.

I included Brazil as one of the BRIC countries and it’s interesting to note how stagnant things have been since 1980. The economy has grown but inflation has kept pace. This means that it’s global economic power has risen but the average Brazilian hasn’t seen much increase in wealth at home. Talking of BRIC countries it’s funny to note just how differently all their economies have behaved. Perhaps a warning to avoid lumping them together too much.

At the bottom of the graph you have a slightly sad group. Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and to a lesser extent India. They’re growing but slowly and from a very low base. Pakistan is not a surprise given the instability (but note how recently it was ahead of India), the same for Kyrgyzstan and any trip to India shows some dynamism but a lot of poverty.

However I was surprised to see Uzbekistan down with Kyrgyzstan. My experience crossing the border was a palpable increase in prosperity – construction work, new businesses and better infrastructure – so I’m not quite sure what is going on. It could be a problem with the statistics but I reckon it’s more likely that the Uzbek glitz hides deeper problems. The authoritarian government has clearly ploughed money into vanity projects (and some worthwhile infrastructure) which probably distorts a tourist’s impression.

An example. Just before I arrived a new Spanish-built high-speed train had started running the Tashkent to Samarkand route. I saw it sitting in a station and it certainly looked very modern. Tourist’s will love it but any comparison to China’s high-speed network is false. It’s a single train and was fairly empty. Less a sign of a dynamic economy than of a government trying to grab positive headlines. In comparison China has built a vast new network and, despite criticism of high-fares, it is consistently bustling. That network is clearly trying to keep up with a country on the move.

Which conveniently brings me to China’s line, which also is on the move. Upwards and fast. Perhaps only a little faster than South Korea but what is extraordinary is that this is a country of nearly 1.5 billion people. China’s rise really is astounding.

Of course there’s more to life than GDP. It tends to follow progress in healthcare and life expectancy fairly well but there’s little correlation with protection of human rights, media diversity or political freedom. There’s a lot to be concerned about in China.

And people around the world are concerned. China is huge, increasingly rich, a massively important trading partner for the West and it owns huge amounts of foreign debt and assets. I met a Londoner in Laos who had just read the story about China buying a stake in Thames water and there was genuine worry in his voice as he talked about it. “They’re buying our utilities, they’re buying our property, they make our products and they’re twenty times our size. They own us. How long before they’re imposing their politics on us, rather than us imposing democracy on others?”

An extreme view but probably not too far from typical. Who hasn’t felt the slightest hesitation hearing the latest growth figure from China. It’s great for poor people to be lifted out of poverty but don’t we want a superpower who shares our values?

Ideally but we shouldn’t worry so much. The fear comes from two factors. First the Chinese government is pretty unpleasant and second it’s a huge, and hence powerful, country. To the first point I would say it’s not great but there are plenty of worse governments out there. It’s not democratic and there’s little political freedom but at least there is freedom of thought and in the World Democracy Audit it is ranked number 56 for corruption, ahead of Greece and the vast majority of the developing world. It also doesn’t have a lunatic leading it, living standards are going up rapidly and it is generally pretty passive in foreign policy.

Uzbekistan, on the other hand, seems to have a much worse government. According to the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, President Karimov was boiling opposition figures alive in 2002. But we don’t worry so much about Uzbekistan because it’s relatively small. We could sanction or even bomb it with very little impact to our own comfortable lives. China’s size scares us.

Take a look at this next graph. The previous graph was a log plot of GDPs whereas this one is linear. That means it takes up an unreasonable amount of space, making it a rare sight, but I think it helps to clear up some confusion about quite how close China is to eclipsing Western economic might.

A linear plot of PPP GDP per capita (vertical axis) against time (horizontal axis). Data from Penn World Table (Alan Heston, Robert Summers and Bettina Aten, Penn World Table Version 7.0, Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices at the University of Pennsylvania, May 2011.)

China looks a long way behind now doesn’t it? Even looking at total GDP (to some extent a better measure of global economic power) shows it with an economy around a third the size of the US’s and less than a third the size of the EU’s. Looking at other statistics makes the difference even clearer. The West owns far more of China’s assets than China owns of ours. China’s manufacturing industry is far more reliant on us than we are on China’s manufacturing. And China barely registers when you compare military power.

So let’s relax for a second. There’s a lot that could improve with the Chinese government but compared to many other countries it’s not that bad. And it’s very big but not about to eclipse Western power. Most importantly though from 1981 to 2004 around 500 million Chinese were lifted out of poverty. Once in a while can’t we just be thankful for that?

The wood-fueled boiler at the end of the carriage.

Looking down the carriage.

The Urgench to Tashkent train coming round a corner as the sun sets.

The train drew into Tashkent the next morning and I checked into the Gulnara guesthouse. I had stayed the night here when passing through Tashkent before and it was a lovely place with rooms set around a sunny courtyard. Tashkent was noticeably colder – barely 30°C – which made sitting outside quite pleasant.

Tashkent is one of those transit cities that everyone end up in but you’re not supposed to like. However I found it to be quite nice. It may lack in wondrous sights compared to Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand but it’s much more lively. If I was choosing an Uzbek city to live in I would go for Tashkent.

My one bugbear was the traffic. It’s not particularly heavy but seems even more pedestrian-hostile than the normally pedestrian-hostile Central Asian traffic. A green man means nothing when crossing the road but worse is the fact that if there is a car in sight as you cross they will do their best to mow you down. This may mean accelerating and swerving onto the wrong side of the road, horn blaring. I really don’t understand it and it makes walking quite unpleasant.

However long walks aren’t usually necessary because the metro, the only one in Central Asia until Almaty’s opened last December, is convenient and also interesting. Planning for it begun following an earthquake which destroyed most of Tashkent in the sixties and each of the ornate station follows a different theme. Unfortunately it is classified as a military installation (nuclear shelter) so taking photos is strictly prohibited.

Spices in the lively Chorsu Bazaar, near my guesthouse.

The outdoor food court in Chorsu Bazaar - easily one of my favourite places to eat in Central Asia.

Just another quote from President Karimov. They're everywhere!

A new building for the rubber-stamp senate.

A bird sculpture near the senate building.

Walking across the senate pool. All Uzbek water features seem to have people walking/swimming in them!

Out with the old, in with the new. Tadpoles feast on a dead frog in the senate's pool.

The Alisher Navoi Opera & Ballet Theatre, unfortunately not showing anything while I was there.

Kosmonavtlar Metro Station. I blame the photo's blurriness on the fact I was trying to shield my camera from the omnipresent police. This station is dedicated to various cosmonauts. By making the stations feel quite eery they've done away with the need for air-conditioning - just entering them sends a chill through your bones.

Telyashayakh Mosque.

With a couple of kids in the mud-brick old town.

After a couple of days in Tashkent it was time to take a flight to Latvia. My original plan had been to overland it back to Europe but I had problems getting an Iranian visa. The flight was cheap but the timing was about as bad as it gets. We left Tashkent at 02:50 and landed in Riga at 06:10 local time. I tried to catch some sleep on board but the seat was absurdly cramped and the turbulence near continuous. Still it wasn’t so bad and I checked straight into a nice hostel on arrival.

It’s going to take some getting used to being back in Europe. Everything’s very different. Transport runs to a schedule, there’s no black-market currency exchange, police tend to be honest, shops are well-stocked, the internet works and cars don’t swerve to hit pedestrians.

Very odd.

For me the book had mostly been the great The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk. This beautifully described the cities with their barbaric leaders, teeming streets and fabulous Islamic buildings. Places where British agents had been executed and Russian invaders had been turned back. Untamed cities that formed the core of the silk road. No wonder I was keen to visit.

Of course I knew things would be very different now – after all the Russians had finally taken control – but recent photos of dazzling blue domes and stories of extensive restoration had me hoping that there was plenty intact. Lonely Planet warned that Khiva had been so done-up that it could feel like a city-museum but naively I read that as a sign that it was all there, preserved.

In a sense it is, but a city is more than its buildings. Restoration and “beautification” efforts have wrenched the souls from Samarkand, Khiva and Bukhara. Don’t expect horse-carts to be thundering down the streets but also don’t expect lively tourist restaurants or cheesy street performers. Often, particularly in the evenings, the streets just feel dead. Barren.

President Karimov doesn’t like chaos and I think he must see street-life as chaotic. There’s a pedestrianised area in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, known as Broadway. Some years ago it used to be a lively spot with restaurants and bars spilling onto a street filled with souvenir-stalls and musicians. Then in September 2006 Karimov visited. Two days later police came in, evicted all the vendors and cleared the area. Lonely Planet now describes it as the “world’s most boring pedestrian avenue.”

Travel to Samarkand, Khiva and Bukhara is dominated by (mostly French) tour-groups. As they shuttle between their hotels and overpriced restaurants they add little to the atmosphere. Worse, because things are so focussed around them, it can be difficult to find anywhere to eat except the tour-group restaurants. Woe betide you arrive after their official dinner time; your chances of being served the mediocre food drop considerably.

Right, moaning over. Karimov may have provided a textbook example of how not to preserve ancient cities but they are still ancient cities and interesting or atmospheric remnants remain. Also some of the overly restored Islamic architecture may look like it was built yesterday but a Medressa can be elegant or impressive no matter how old. So here are the good bits, city by city.

Samarkand

From Fergana I went up to Tashkent, stayed a night there and then took the very comfortable morning train to Samarkand where I checked in to the fantatic Bahodir B&B. Just $7 (£4.43) for a dorm room with breakfast in an atmospheric old home a couple hundred metres from the historic centre. The shared bathroom was a highlight. Descending a few steps into a cave-like room, a blast of heat hit you. Flickering flames from the gas boiler were amplified a hundred times as they shone off the damp stone walls. There would be a scuttling sound as cockroaches scurried away from the few rays of sunlight you had allowed to enter their den. It felt like walking through the gates of hell.

The sights in Samarkand are very distinct; little islands of history poking into the smart Russified city. Most impressive is the Registan, medieval Samarkand’s historic centre. Around a large plaza are three vast medressas, apparently some of world’s oldest. They have been extensively restored but no matter because the architecture is impressive, not just the history. They could be built today in central London and the would draw a crowd.

The Registan with Ulugbek Medressa (left) and Tilla-Kari Medressa (right).

Tilla-Kari Medressa's blue-tiled dome. The Soviets controversially added it during the "restoration" process but I think it looks quite good.

Inside Tilla-Kari's very golden mosque.

Tilla-Kari Medressa.

Sher Dor Medressa.

Restoration work underway at Sher Dor Medressa.

Flouting Islamic prohibitions against the depiction of live animals, the entrance to Sher Dor Medressa is decorated with what are supposed to be lions (despite looking like tigers).

Inside Sher Dor Medressa.

Other notable sights include the huge, but mostly earthquake destroyed, Bibi-Khanym Mosque and the Shah-I-Zinda, an avenue of mausoleums. This contains the grave of a cousin of the Prophet Mohammed and some fantastic remnants of unrestored interior tilework.

Bibi-Khanym Mosque, viewed from the outside.

Inside the earthquake damaged Bibi-Khanym Mosque.

Bibi-Khanym Mosque against an increasingly dark sky. A thunderstorm started a few minutes later.

Inside the Shah-I-Zinda's most impressive sight - Shadi Mulk Aka Mausoleum with its unrestored tile work.

It's not all mosques, mausoleums and medrassas. Here a woman sells cattle hooves at the market.

To the Afghan Border

To break up my tour of the old cities I headed south from Samarkand to Termez, on the Afghan border. On the way I stopped for a night in Shakhrisabz.

Finding a hotel in Shakhrisabz was a nightmare. There were two reasonable options recommended in Lonely Planet but one was clsoed and the other didn’t seem to exist. If I asked anyone for help they would put me in a marshrutka to a $45/night option despite me insisting I was looking for somewhere cheap. One marshrutka driver finally understood what I was after but, despite driving round town for an hour, he couldn’t find any affordable option. I thanked him for trying and made to get out but he wasn’t having any of it.

“We are friends” he said. “I help you.”

Fine by me but there really didn’t seem to be any cheap hotels so he decided to invite me to stay in his home. We dropped my bags with his bemused mother and carried on marshrutka driving for an hour or so, I think less to make money and more so he could show off his new friend. Then a chicken dinner in a roadside restaurant followed by a race around town in his van. “Michael Schumacher!” he kept shouting as we careered round blind corners and dodged potholes in what was now thundering rain. Thankfully we survived and the next bit of high-speed driving was decidedly safer; we met some of his friends at a gaming stall where I handily won an Xbox race around the streets of San Francisco. They were all so wowed by my lucky success that we had to celebrate with some beers in a local shop. Finally at around midnight we returned to his house and bemused mother and hit the hay. An odd night.

In the morning I saw a couple of Shakhrisabz’s sights. Shakhrisabz was actually Timur’s hometown so as well as a monument to him there were some impressive ruins. Most notable the crumbling remains of his summer palace.

Timur's statue looks over town.

The remains of Timur's summer palace.

Later that day I carried on down to Termez. It was a long and bumpy, although often scenic, drive. Interestingly most of the trucks down here were run by Willi Betz – a German company with a NATO contract to supply soldiers in Afghanistan. This actually links nicely to current news. As we all know the NATO attack on Pakistani forces late last year prompted Pakistan to close America’s Afghan supply lines running via Karachi. For some time the US had been trying to reduce dependance on Pakistan by developing the more complicated Northern Distribution Network (see The Northern Distribution Network and the Modern Silk Road (PDF) for an interesting discussion of this) – routes run into Central Asia either from the Riga (Latvia) or Poti (Georgia) and Termez is the main crossing point into Afghanistan. With the Pakistani closure the switch to these routes became more urgent and Termez has taken on huge strategic importance, a throwback to the eighties when the Soviet’s used it as the major base for their Afghan war. Funnily enough the Northern Distribution Network uses the railways built to supply that war.

In Termez I hit very lucky with my hotel, getting a large air-conditioned room with private bathroom for 8000 UZS (£1.75) per night. The air-conditioning was much appreciated given Termez is the hottest point in a generally warm Uzbekistan – temperatures were consistently in the high thirties.

Lonely Planet had described Termez as a bit of a wild-west town with its paranoid police and Luftwaffe base. In fact it was quite a pleasant place although everyone did assume I was German. Unfortunately I was there on a Sunday so the apparently fantastic archeology museum was closed. Instead I took a stroll to the Afghan border, managing to catch a faint glimpse of the other side under the watchful eye of some soldiers. As I had dinner outside in the evening I could hear various rumbles and bangs in the distance. Hopefully this was a mixture of thunder and fireworks rather than something more lethal.

Through the central gate and over the river is a barely visible Afghanistan. I was able to get a little closer in person but the soldiers weren't keen on me taking photos.

"McDonalds" in Termiz. Perhaps to make the NATO soldiers feel at home.

Long queues at the CNG station. My shared taxi north from Termiz had to wait an hour to refuel. I'm guessing that CNG is very cheap because huge numbers of cars have converted to it, often in a dangerously shoddy way. The refuelling station seemed so concerned about safety that passengers had to leave cars and stand some distance away whilst they were topped up.

You may wonder what a train is doing on a hilltop north of Termez. So did I. Fortunately I managed to find the answer - apparently it marks the highest point on Uzbekistan's railway network.

The road north from Termiz with a fuel tanker, probably headed for Afghanistan, coming the other way.

Bukhara

Having had my fun it was time to continue to Bukhara. First over the mountains to Karshi. We were delayed at a road block by policeman who insisted there was a problem with our driver’s papers so by the time we arrived in Karshi it was getting dark and I was doubtful of my chances of reaching Bukhara that day. However I think my driver must have phoned ahead because we were met by a car heading that way. The two hours to Bukhara were spectacular. The desert sunset was broken up only by the sight of the odd roaming camel or the glow from a flaming gas tower.

Bukhara is full of the same sort of sights as Samarkand, but it feels a little more like a continuous old town. There’s a nice ancient pool in the centre with music and fountains although the mediocre restaurant here seemed to be the only eating option. One rarity is that there is still a working medressa. You can’t go in but there’s a metal grating where you can join crowds of tourists peering through at the students going about their lives. It makes a change from seeing student cells filled with souvenir stalls.

Maghoki-Attar, Central Asia's oldest mosque. There's a mixture of 9th century facade and 16th century reconstruction. Apparently it's built on top of even older Zoroastrian and Buddhist temples and was once used by Jews in the evenings.

The unrestored tilework of the Abdul Aziz Khan Medressa.

The Kalon Minaret - apparently so tall that a mystified Genghis Khan ordered it to be spared. It was probably once Central Asia's tallest building.

The Kalon Mosque, big enough for 10,000 people.

Students in the working Mir-i-Arab Medressa.

Entrance to the Taqi-Sarrafon Bazaar at night.

Mir-i-Arab Medressa.

Looking out from Taqi-Sarrafon Bazaar.

Khiva

My final historic city was Khiva, a very comfortable night train ride from Bukhara. Khiva probably has the least wow factor but the most atmosphere. The medressas are a bit less massive and the minarets aren’t so tall but almost the whole of the old walled inner-city – including the mud walls – is intact. Not only that but if you walk to the north side you can actually find real local residents living in old, slightly collapsing houses. Of course most of the rest of the town is occupied by souvenir stalls but at night everything gets packed away and the place takes on an eery starlit feel. It feels a bit like walking around a deserted museum but that’s not such a bad thing.

Kids play football in front of the Ark. Local life is far more visible in the historic parts of Khiva than in Samarkand or Bukhara.

A residential street in the north of the old city.

Women collect mulberries. They kindly gave me a few.

The problem with building in mud.

Silhouetted city walls at dusk.

The open-air summer mosque in Kuhna Ark.

Stairs to Oq Shihbobo Bastion for views over the city.

Panoramic view of Khiva from Oq Shihbobo Bastion.

The main architectural sights from up high.

The music "museum". Most of the museum's were laughably bad, mainly consisting of unlabelled models or photos.

The Juma Mosque supported by 218 wooden columns, a few of which are 10th century originals.

A street between medressas in the inner-walled city.

Alloquli Khan Medressa.

Kalta Minor Minaret. This unfinished minaret was begun in 1851 by Mohammed Amin Khan, who according to legend wanted to build a minaret so tall it could be seen from Bukhara (about 400 kilometres away). He dropped dead before engineering got in the way of his vision and it was left unfinished and rather squat.

A tower in the south-west of the city on a starry night.

So to summarise Samarkand has the most impressive sights but is fundamentally a typical Russian city, Khiva has the most atmosphere but fewer spectacular buildings and Bukhara is a bit of a jack of all trades. My favourite was Khiva.

An Uzbek policeman stands guard at Fergana bus station. The police have such a reputation for corruption that it pays to stay well clear of them. Alternatively I found that if you want them to stay clear of you, you just need to point a camera in their direction.

£0.70s worth of shashlik and beer. It may look nice but you get pretty sick of the same meat and bread diet after a few weeks here.

I almost missed my first Margilon sight, the huge Sunday bazaar. I had been having too relaxed a morning and by the time I had taken a slow bus then a marshrutka to the market it was nearly 15:00 and a lot was being packed away, the traders heading home in their overloaded Ladas. Fortunately the market really is huge and across the road was another section, mostly selling food but pretty interesting. Also strawberries were absurdly cheap which is always a good thing; I binged on a lunch of strawberries and naan.

Traders at the Margilon Sunday market.

A Sunday market drink stall.

Seeds for sale.

Butcher's stall.

Vegetables for sale.

A heavily laden car heads home.

The next day I almost missed my second Margilon sight and the real must-see; the Yodgorlik Silk Factory. Lonely Planet had gushing praise for the unique and free tour around this traditional silk factory but forgot to explain where it was. I assumed this meant the location would be obvious but after looking around the centre for a while I was no closer to finding it. I asked a local teenager.

“Ah. Yodgorlik. Yes, yes.” He gestured for me to follow him to the other side of the road where we flagged down a marshrutka.

“Yodgorlik” he told the driver and bundled me in. We drove south five kilometres and the driver, refusing to take any money, told me to get out and head across the small park. “Yodgorlik” he reassured me.

I looked around for a while but the closest I could find to a silk factory was a run-down coca-cola bottling plant and they didn’t seem to be offering tours. I asked another man for directions. After he had sought a number of second opinions he returned and pointed me into a marshrutka. “Yodgorlik” he told the driver and we sped back to the centre. Thankfully this driver did actually know what he was doing and took me a couple hundred yards west of the central crossroads (where I had first asked for directions) and down a small, unmarked lane to the factory.

I was introduced to the director and we spent an hour outside talking about life. Given it was a free tour I didn’t feel I could rush things and he was actually quite interesting. He had spent a few years working in London and talked about how life in the UK had compared to his expectations.

He had enjoyed himself but there was the also disappointment that so many migrants feel. He came expecting perfection. A place where everyone was rich, free, honest and fair. Of course reality didn’t quite meet those expectations, in part probably because he was a foreign worker. He had been working at one of the big bakery companies for a while and experienced endless unpaid overtime, dangerous conditions and lax quality control. He and his colleagues (all Asian) never dared complain though for fear that they might be sacked and their working visas revoked. So many immigrants from developing countries lack knowledge of or trust in the law and certain employers no doubt take advantage of this.

Anyway after an hour or so a French tour group came in for a prearranged tour and the director, assuming all Europeans were fluent in all European languages, told me to tag along with them. My silk factory French was a little rusty but it turned out that enough of the words were similar enough to English for me to get the gist. We started with the steaming of the cocoons and the drawing of the silk out of them onto a wheel. Various spinning then took place before the silk was transferred to a different building to be boiled, soaked and so on. Next it was dyed and then finally women would weave the thread into silk sheets, ready to be made into scarves, clothes and whatever took their fancy.

Drawing the silk from the cocoons.

Spinning the silk.

Boiling the silk.

Soaking the silk.

The weaving room. It's all done by hand here.

A woman weaving.

Disused old Soviet machinery.

It was very interesting but in some ways the factory made me feel slightly uncomfortable. It was set up to be a socially responsible enterprise using traditional, non-mechanised techniques which all sounds very nice but parts were more reminiscent of a 19th century workhouse. Doing everything by hand may score tourist points but also requires employing dozens of low-paid workers for long, monotonous shifts. One woman was coughing away from the smoke produced by a coal boiler as she rinsed the silk. These are the sort of jobs that we have decided to do away with in the west, yet, for tradition’s sake, it pleases us to keep them alive in other countries. I’m all for “artisan” skills but there’s a fine line between artisan hand-made and sweatshop hand-made. This factory probably fell on the artisan side of the line but I’m sure plenty of “hand-made” souvenirs come from less responsible factories. Ones which fall on the wrong side of the line. Let’s not get so enamoured by tradition that we turn our backs or progress, or worse welcome the progress for ourselves but encourage poorer countries to ignore it.

Jalal-Abad bazaar.

A man in a traditional hat.

A workman climbs into a train in Jalal-Abad. The railway is currently closed (I believe since the 2010 Osh riots) but they seemed to be doing a fair bit of work on the engines so perhaps there are plans to reopen it.

Next to Uzbekistan. Unfortunately the border near Jalal-Abad was closed so I had to go back via Osh. The border here turned out to be quite entertaining.

I decided to change my remaining Kyrgyz som into Uzbek som before crossing over. I handed over the equivalent of around £7 and waited. And waited. The man behind the counter was counting huge wads of cash and I assumed he was dealing with someone else until he picked up the wads and handed them to me. “Welcome to Uzbekistan” he laughed, and pointed me towards the border.

The Uzbek currency really is ridiculous. The largest denomination note (1000 UZS) is worth around £0.20 on the black market. This man had used a couple of hundred of his 200 UZS (£0.04) notes on me which I stowed away in my rucksack. I would have to learn to count money bank-teller style!

This is £40 in the highest denomination Uzbek som notes. What a ridiculous currency...

Getting stamped out of Kyrgyzstan was painless although the immigration guy couldn’t understand why I couldn’t speak Russian. Communication wasn’t a problem – he spoke English – but he was bewildered that someone could get by in the world without knowledge of the great language. He asked how I read books.

Entering Uzbekistan looked set to be a more painful process though. There was a large, stationary queue. Fortunately, although slightly embarrassingly, a businessman spotted that I was a tourist and shouted this out to the crowd, who promptly parted to let me through. I tried to insist on waiting my turn but by this time a soldier was waving his rifle at me to beckon me forward and I thought it best not to argue. I went through, confused the passport controller with my nationality and hopefully filled in the Russian-language customs form correctly. I guess I’ll find out for sure when I leave the country.

From the border an hour in a shared taxi took me to Andijan. Andijan has historically been best-known as the birthplace of Babur (of Mughal Empire and cruise missile fame) but nowadays it’s probably more famous for the 2005 Andijan Massacre in which the government shot dead at least several hundred protesters. Given the only maps of the city I could find were from news reports on the massacre, every time I looked for directions I was reminded that I was now inside a police state led by a fairly evil dictator. The bazaar was apparently just past where armoured personnel carriers had been stationed.

Otherwise Andijan was pleasant although I only had a night there and there weren’t many sights as such. One thing that struck me was how prosperous Uzbekistan felt compared to Kyrgyzstan. Mind you, that’s not saying much. Here are a few photos:

Man repairing shoes.

The concentrates for fizzy drinks look more like burettes of chemicals.

An arched bazaar building.

A butcher laughs having tried to convince me to buy some entrails.

An organisation called Community Based Tourism organises homestays for tourists which are fantastic. I was staying with the former village mayor, now turned English teacher. While his wife and children provided endless delicious food he would keep me entertained with talk of Kyrgyzstan and the wider world. At one point he had me show him some photos from travelling and it was interesting watching him react to a few.

First was a photo of a valley in Pakistan. To me it looked unremarkable but as soon as he saw it he called his wife over. “Look, look!” he said excitedly. “The whole valley is covered in the plants you use to make your jam. We must go there.” Perhaps this was just a passing comment but I think there something from nomadic tradition, still alive and well in Kyrgyzstan, coming through. Move to where things are growing rather than growing things where you are.

Next he noticed a photo of an improvised hydroelectric dam in Burma and was very impressed. The prospect of constructing the same thing in the small river at the end of his garden excited him and soon I was trying to answer endless technical questions and having to explain that I had only seen the thing from a distance. I wasn’t sure exactly how many kilowatts of power it produced. In the end his son copied the photo over to his phone and promised to study it.

Then a photo from Singapore. “Ah – I think this is the most beautiful place I have seen” he gasped. “It is so clean.” Given Singapore was one of my least favourite places this reaction was somewhat disappointing but to someone who has rarely escaped village life it must look spectacular. He couldn’t understand why I bothered with mountains when I could visit cities like this.

We moved onto some photos of Scotland and our farm. “Look at the cows! They are so big.” He called his family around to see. As a picture of a sheep popped up they all laughed. “The sheep is the size of our cows” his son joked. He couldn’t believe that farms would regularly have hundreds of them. His family were the proud owners of three cows, seven sheep and twelve chickens.

Then the finale. I showed them a video I had made a while ago of a cow’s caesarian and this elicited astonishment. They had never seen or heard of anything like it. The next day he took me to his school. After giving a slide show to a classroom of kids, they were sent out and all fifteen of the school’s teachers gathered round. “Watch carefully” my host told them. “I think we should learn from this.” I spent the next half-hour working my way through the caesarian video trying to answer questions about every step of the process.

And that was time up for Arslanbob. It really was a fantastic place to stay and it only cost around £6.00 per day for delicious food and a comfortable bed. The key thing is that even if I had more money to spend I would have wanted to stay in the same place with the same people. My budget wasn’t constraining my trip and that, surely, should be the essence of low-cost travel.

My homestay and its garden.

A pancake breakfast. I was well fed!

Men at the village teahouse. The traditional tall hats are amazing, most of all because they actually wear them on a day-to-day basis. They're not just a tourist souvenir.

Arslanbob's waterfall.

The view over Arslanbob and the walnut grove.

A father and son fixing the road in a digger. My host was telling me how much of the work in the village gets done. Each hundred households or so elects a leader. When there is work to be done this leader will put out a call and every household, if they are able, must contribute one person for a day's labour. A bridge had been swept away in recent flooding so the day I left the call went out that they were rebuilding it.

A boy with a cardboard box.

A petrol station but with donkeys rather than cars.

Local kids on their way to school.

It’s pretty sad how underdeveloped Kyrgyzstan is because it always seems like such a nice country. It’s just never found its feet. Everywhere you look things seem to be stagnating. However, since my last time there, the country has undergone its first peaceful transfer of power so perhaps the new government will be able to start sorting things out.

I had a few chilled days in Osh, enjoying teahouse shashlik and German-style beer gardens. It was weird actually. When I first came to Kyrgyzstan from Kazakhstan I felt this was where I truly escaped Europe. Now, back from months in the Far East, the contrary was true. Everything seemed full of European influence. Little touches, such as ovens in kitchens and cheap chocolate in the shops, jarred with what I had come to expect.

Here are some photos.

Solomon's Throne, a huge rock overlooking Osh. It's a Muslim pilgrimage spot because the Prophet Mohammed apparently once prayed here. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The view over Osh from Solomon's Throne. Notice how green the city is.

A mosque, with a Muslim graveyard in the foreground.

The fact that Lonely Planet describes this as a 'futuristic dome' says something about quite how underdeveloped much of Osh is. The rusting structure does stand out as a beacon of modernity.

Osh's ferris wheel and plane. Quite why they dumped a plane here I don't know, but it makes an interesting attraction. As I was looking around a guy came racing through in his car, swerved off the road and drove under the plane, just clearing it. He was showing off to his girlfriend in the passenger seat!

Men playing chess.

It was just gone six o’clock and I was waiting at a Beijing subway station, two lines, nine stops and a bus away from my 19:03 sleeper train to Pingyao. This would be the start of my 5000-odd kilometre journey, across deserts and mountain ranges, to Kyrgyzstan. Then just as the the train drew into the congested platform I felt down to my pocket and realised my phone was missing. I had left it at the hostel.

I tend not to panic much but right then I came pretty close. I stood watching the train pull away, frozen to the spot as I contemplated the impact of missing the train. I would miss my connection to the far west of China and, given that fills up days in advance, I wouldn’t be able to get to the border before my visa expired. That would mean staying another week in China to renew it and leave my onward plans in tatters. I considered just ditching my phone but fortunately reason returned and I started running back to the hostel. And you know what? An hour later, slightly sweat-drenched, I had my phone in hand and was sitting on my bunk as the train to Pingyao pulled out of Beijing. It was a good start.

Pingyao

In the early morning the train arrived in Pingyao, a fantastically preserved old town. In fact it is probably better preserved than any other in China. What’s great about it is that it’s not only the ‘sights’ which are old. Everything from the banks to the post offices to the shops are in historic buildings and there are still plenty of old town residents.

Of course all this means it gets its fair share of tourists. In a way this is quite a nice twist of fate. The reason the town is so well preserved is that until fairly recently it was too poor to rip down the old and build up the new. This poor past has given it a rich future.

I only had a morning there but it worked out pretty well. I had time for an early walk (before most tourists arrived), a nice breakfast and then a little more of a look around before my lunchtime train. I’ve included a few photos below, but they don’t really do it justice. You could take these sort of photos in any of the dozens of old Chinese towns. The point is in Pingyao you can take these photos wherever you look.

Pingyao's west gate.

A run down side street. Notice that behind the facade of bathroom tiles the traditional building remains.

A small tower in Pingyao, right next to my breakfast spot.

The main tourist street.

Banks, businesses and shops are located in the historic buildings.

Crossing the Gobi Desert

Having seen Pingyao I boarded the train to Turpan. In the next thirty hours or so I would cross China, passing over plains, mountains and the Gobi desert.

The journey was mostly uneventful. I made friends with a bunch of people sharing my compartment. This turned out to be a mixed blessing. A couple of them were students who spoke some English and were very friendly. Funnily enough one was from near Beijing but studied in Urumqi (the far west of China) while another lived near Urumqi but studied in Beijing.

The mixed part of the blessing was due to the other two. They were also very friendly but, despite not speaking a word of English, they were determined to engage me in conversation. This became quite tiring particularly given they kept me up until 2:00 a.m. – thankfully the train guard eventually came to shut us up and I was able go to bed. Not for long though because everyone inexplicably rose (loudly) at 6:00 a.m. despite the train not arriving till the evening.

The entirety of that day was spent crossing the desert. It’s a bleak place, although with its own kind of beauty. It’s broadly uninhabited although some mining, oil pumping and other industry is being developed. You would see the occasional 4×4 speeding along a dirt track in a cloud of dust despite there being no settlements for hundreds of kilometres. The student from near Urumqi was talking to me about this new desert industry and saying how sad it was. Apparently when he used to travel you would be bound to see camels and other wildlife by the tracks. Not so anymore. “The government cares too much about money” he said. “They don’t do enough for the environment.” Hearing this sort of attitude from an increasing number of Chinese people really makes me optimistic about their future.

Looking out of the window as we crossed the Gobi desert. It may look slightly dull but was impressive just for its vastness.

On board the train.

Our arrival in Turpan was somewhat dramatic. The train had been delayed by high winds but aside from a slight rocking I hadn’t seen what the fuss was about. Then the doors opened. Immediately the man in front had his jacket ripped off him by the gale. It sailed down the platform and out of sight. The platform attendant shrugged helplessly. He was wearing goggles to protect his eyes and held his hat tightly to his chest. I started taking photos but a policeman soon shouted at me to move on. “For your own safety.” For the first time in China I felt this excuse was said honestly.

Our arrival in Turpan, in the middle of a sandstorm.

The platform attendant struggles to keep hold of his hat.

Goggles protect against the sand.

I fought my way through the wind to the ticket office, where I had an onward journey to book. There were huge and slow moving queues at every ticket window. I waited for half an hour in one and then an announcement came over the speakers. Everyone ran from my line to join the other queues and, before I realised what was going on, I was standing at a closed ticket window and the other lines had swelled massively.

I waited again, this time for about an hour and a half. It was getting pretty late and I had no idea where I was going to stay. Turpan-proper was about an hour away by bus or shared taxi, and I guessed transport would no longer be running. Just as I was getting near to the desk I heard a voice. “Are you a tourist” it said in surprise. I looked around, also in surprise, to find a British guy talking to me. “I’ve not seen another foreigner around here for weeks” he said.

He spoke some Chinese and was able to get me up to speed with the situation. The high winds meant that all trains had been cancelled. That explained the queues. He had been planning to go south but was now stuck here not sure what to do. Not only were trains cancelled but all roads were closed. He had only been able to get here from Turpan by going on dirt tracks in a 4×4. He doubted we would be able to get back. And all the hotels in this small railway junction town were full.

I bought my ticket south to Kashgar for a couple of days from now, praying that trains would be running again soon. I had no time to spare with my Chinese visa. Any delay and I would be overstaying which could get complicated with the PSB. I then left the station with my new friend, both of us unsure what to do, and by some luck we stopped the only car around and found he was going to Turpan. Or at least he was going to try.

The ride to Turpan was like something out of a disaster movie. Flashing police lights were the only signs of life on the deserted roads. A huge fire seemed to have engulfed the land to the east. Early in our journey with our car being buffetted around we had to load up the back with piles of rocks to keep it down. We crawled along, barely able to make out the road markings for the sand, and finally arrived in Turpan around midnight. The first hotel we tried was full but our second attempt was successful and, windows sealed against the dust, we settled in for the night.

Turpan

Turpan has many claims to fame. For one it’s pretty near the most landlocked point on earth (the Continental Pole of Inaccessibility). It’s also located in the Turpan depression, the third lowest point on earth at -154 metres, which helps make it the hottest place in China. None of this make it sound a very welcoming place though, so the local government is also promoting it as the hometown of grapes. Russian explorer Grigory Grumm-Grzhimaylo said the Turpan raisins “may be deemed the best in the world“. There were indeed a lot of vines but it was out of season so I can’t comment on the quality.

When I was there it was suprisingly cool. The dust had largely blocked out the sun. Fortunately the wind had died down a lot overnight which meant shops and businesses reopened – apparently the day before the entire town had been shuttered. I took a walk around the bazaar which immediately made me glad to be back in Xinjiang. There’s a certain liveliness that you only seem to find in Muslim markets.

You know you're in Xinjiang when there are tup's heads scattered on the ground!

Kids wait for their bread order.

A hot food market in Turpan.

I also used my day to visit the ancient desert city of Jiaohe. I went with low expectations but came away stunned. It’s protected by UNESCO so it’s hardly undiscovered but when I went there was only one other group in the city. It was built 2300 years ago and has only survived because of the exceptionally dry climate. Of course much of it is ruined (it was abandoned in the 13th century) but you can still climb down into some of the old cave-like houses and imagine its former glory as you walk the streets – according to one guide it’s the largest, oldest and best-preserved earthen city in the world and I was given no reason to doubt this. There was also something amazing about seeing how inhospitable it looked in the current sand-storm.

Looking over the ancient city.

Jiaohe lies on a large river islet in the middle of a dried-up river, which gives it natural 100 foot defensive walls.

A Jiaohe ruin.

Looking into a house's courtyard. It's kind of amazing just how old this stuff is.

One of the larger buildings.

A monastery at the edge of the city.

The largest stupa within a Buddhist "stupa forest".

The other sight I saw in Turpan was the attractive Afghan-style Emin Minaret, completed in 1778 and the tallest in China. It is a true silk-road sight in that it combines imported Islamic architecture with Chinese traditions and local Uyghur building techniques.

A kid rides past on his bike as I walk to the Emin Minaret.

The Emin Minaret.

Grape vines with the minaret in the background.

Down to Kashgar

The next morning I took a bus back to the railway station and boarded the train to Kashgar, which thankfully was running again. This train is slightly decrepit but that makes it one of the remaining rail bargains of China – 170 RMB (£17) gets you a bed for 24 hours and 1500 kilometres.

The journey itself was spectacular. For the first few hours we rose up out of the desert into snow-capped mountains. Away from all signs of civilisation, aside from the odd shepherd herding animals on horseback, we wound back and forth through the massive, still dusty, landscape. Sitting at the window with a coffee just watching the scenery roll by never got old.

A huge desert wind farm as we leave Turpan. I counted at least two hundred turbines.

We rise into the mountains with a herd of feral horses visible on the bottom left.

The train winds through the valley (apologies for the quality of the photos but the windows were pretty dirty).

Snow-capped mountains.

After descending from the mountains we returned to desert, this time the Taklamakan desert. Travelling like this you begin to understand the make-up of much of western China. A whole load of sandy plains, almost as many mountains and the occasional oasis town. No wonder it was historically so inaccessible. In fact the railway only made it down here in 1999.

Reaching Kashgar the next morning was quite strange. As I checked into the lovely Old Town Hostel I realised this was the first time since setting out from the UK that my route had really looped back on itself. It was nice to be somewhere familiar. The hostel staff remembered me, I remembered my favourite places to eat and I didn’t have to look at a map to find my way around. How relaxing.

“Please Let Me Out”

I was lucky enough to meet an American guy in the hostel who also wanted to head to Kyrgyzstan the next day. Despite speaking some mandarin he was fairly useless but made a good body to share taxi costs with. When I say he was fairly useless I really mean it. Given he spoke the language I left the job of negotiating our first taxi to him.

“The driver says 150 RMB (£15.00) for the taxi but he also says we can pay 40 RMB (£4.00) per person” he told me. “It doesn’t make sense.”

I explained that this made perfect sense. We can pay 40 RMB per person in which case we wait for other passengers to fill up the spare seats. There are four seats in the taxi so this way the driver makes 160 RMB. However, if we are in a rush and want to leave straight away we can pay him the reduced price of 150 RMB for the whole taxi.

“Huh?” was the American’s reaction.

He went back to negotiations and soon turned back to me.

“I think this guy is stupid. He keeps saying 150 RMB per taxi and 40 RMB per person. Should we try someone else.”

I gave up with him and told the taxi driver that we would take the 40 RMB seats and wait for other passengers. Half-an-hour later we were on our way and a couple of hours after that we arrived in Ulugqat (Chinese Name: Wuqia).

This is where things became rather complicated. Since I had last crossed from Kyrgyzstan the Chinese had apparently moved passport control about 150 km into their territory but we weren’t sure exactly where it now lay. We tried asking, my American friend of course not grasping the distinction between passport control and the actual border, and eventually managed to take a taxi 10 kilometres to a massive new immigration building. We were just about the only people there.

All was going fine and they were about to wave us through to be stamped out when a soldier suddenly took another look at my Kyrgyz visa.

“There is no stamp on the visa. It is not valid.”

I looked at the visa and sure enough there was no stamp. It looked official enough with its hologram but comparing it to my previous Kyrgyz visa I realised that it should indeed have been stamped. I told him that the Beijing embassy must have made a mistake and he agreed but told me that they couldn’t let me leave China.

“I am afraid it is the law” the soldier apologised.

I tried explaining that the Kyrgyz border control would surely let me in since their embassy had made the mistake. It was clearly a valid visa. Unfortunately he was not going to budge, although when I explained that if he didn’t stamp me out I would be forced to illegally overstay my Chinese visa he began to understand my predicament.

I asked if they could contact the Kyrgyz side and explain the situation but they had no phone number. With the borders 150 kilometres apart it wasn’t as if they could just pop over to ask for leniency. They did agree that if Kyrgyz immigration contacted them then I could be allowed out so I started to work the phones (kindly provided by the soldiers) to see if this was possible.

First a call to the British embassy who didn’t answer, then a call to the Irish embassy who managed to dig up an up-to-date phone number for Kyrgyzstan’s Beijing embassy and wished me luck. I got through to a receptionist who put me through to the woman in charge of consular affairs who told me to wait fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes she told me she had found my visa application, that they had obviously made a mistake, but that I must go back to Beijing to get the stamp. I explained that this would force me to overstay my Chinese visa (and would also involve a few thousand kilometres of travel). Surprisingly at this point she gave me the Kyrgyz ambassador’s mobile number and told me to try him. I got through to a man with an incredible Russian accent, straight out of a Cold War spy film, and explained the situation.

“Ahh” he sighed. “This is very problematic. You must go to Urumqi consulate and they can give you a stamp.”

“But Urumqi is 24 hours away by train” I exclaimed. “And it’s expensive to get there.”

“I understand. The embassy can arrange for you to fly there. You can do it in one day.”

This sounded better but I still wasn’t keen for the detour and delay. I explained about my Chinese visa expiring.

“Ahh. This really is very problematic. Give me one hour.”

I phoned back an hour later.

“Yes. We have a big problem. You see that I can contact the Kyrgyz border but it will take many days for the letter to arrive.”

“But can’t you phone them?” I asked.

“Phone them?” He sounded shocked. “I don’t know if the border is connected to a phone. Give me some time. I will call you back soon.”

All of the Chinese soldiers waiting with me were very sympathetic and somewhat excited with the drama. At one point I counted eighteen of them crowded around. One in particular felt my pain.

“This is very shame for you. Chinese side is very friendly but Kyrgyzstan is not good to you. They must apologise for waste your time. I think you should phone them and ask for apology.”

I told him I was more concerned about getting through than getting an apology but this didn’t satisfy him. “I will call them” he said and grabbing the phone he called the ambassador. I can just imagine how the conversation must have gone. “Hello. I am a two-star lieutenant for People’s Liberation Army of China. You must make apology to helpless Irish tourist.” The ambassador must have been quite bemused.

Anyway the whole process continued for six hours but finally an immigration chief came with a message. “You can go through now. The Kyrgyzstan side has called us.” Given it was after four o’clock and as far as I knew the actual border, which was four hours drive away, closed at six I was not sure how this was going to work, but eager to get my exit stamp I went forward. While I was having my passport processed a soldier came to me with his mobile outstretched. “For you” he said and I took the call.

“This is the Kyrgyzstan ambassador” the voice said. “I just want to check that everything is ok now. I have contacted the Kyrgyz border and they understand to allow you to enter without a stamp.”

He also gave me contact details of the head of foreign affairs in Osh city where I could get the missing stamp so that I would have no problems leaving the country.

“And just one more thing.” He hesitated. “I would like to apologise on behalf of the embassy for the mistake we made. It was very careless of us and we are sorry for the inconvenience it has caused you. I hope you have a nice time visiting our beautiful country.”

Wow. A genuine apology from a former Soviet government body. Pigs might fly. I thanked him, passed through immigration and a soldier shoved me into a truck that would take me to the border. “No need to pay money” he informed me. “This is a present from China for your inconvenience.”

To Kyrgyzstan

The truck journey turned out to be quite an ordeal. Six hours into the four hour journey and we were only half-way. I knew the road would be bad, which is why it should take four hours for 150 kilometres, but I hadn’t banked on the truck having so many problems. First we stopped for an hour to get the spare tyre repaired. He had obviously had a puncture some time back.

My truck (in blue) stops to get its spare wheel repaired.

A couple of men winch down the spare wheel on another truck. The guy in orange looked like some sort of classic Russian writer, with his ill-fitting clothes and bushy moustache.

Inside the lorry cab. This is a view I got used to.

As we continued the truck’s weak engine struggled on any inclines. Often we would stall on the hill and have to take it again at speed. Then, as the light was fading, we had a blow-out.

It’s quite dramatic when a big truck has a blow-out in the desert. It seemed to lurch over to the side and with a hissing a dust storm engulfed us. For a minute or so we could only wait until finally the air stopped rushing out and the dust settled. The tyre was ruined. I was quite glad that I could be of some use to the driver and we set about putting the spare wheel on. It’s similar enough to doing it with a car but on a different scale which makes things quite tricky. The spare wheel has to be winched down rather than carried, the jack requires serious work to lift the lorry and undoing the wheel nuts is a two person job. While we were undoing a particularly stubborn nut the huge wrench suddenly gave way and cracked back into by hand sending a shock through the bone of my arm. I tried my best to carry on until the new wheel was on but as I climbed back into the truck I realised my right hand was now effectively useless. I couldn’t even unscrew my bottle of water.

We carried on late into the night. A constant slow trundle, the driver’s eyelids sagging everytime we were on a straight. At two in the morning, while climbing a long hill, we stalled with a bang. The driver tried to restart the engine but there was no power. We got out of the cab to find the connection to the battery had exploded. There hadn’t been any other traffic for hours. We were stranded at 10,000 feet and started putting stones under the wheels to stop the truck rolling back.

After we had done this the driver took out his toolkit and started poking around. Sparks flew and at one point he jumped back with an electric shock. I was glad that my job was just holding the torch and handing him tools, although it was painful doing this with my damaged right hand.

Finally we made a bodge job of reconnecting the battery and got the engine started, but we had to phone for another truck to help us get up the hill. On and on we carried, inching ever closer to the border, and then finally at 5:00 a.m. we reached it. The driver parked up in the queue of trucks – as expected the border was shut – and he signalled for me to get a bit of sleep in my seat. It was cold and uncomfortable and my hand was killing me but I was tired enough that it wasn’t long until I fell asleep.

After a couple of hours we woke again as the border opened and rather than wait in the truck queue I got out, said my thanks, and walked across the border. Once in no-man’s land the guards put me in another truck for the few kilometres to the first Kyrgyz checkpost. I started to walk from there to the real immigration point but soon a truck braked alongside me and another hitchhiker signalled for me to jump in.

The hitchhiker was a Tajik businessman who, in his long grey coat and polished shoes, looked distinctly out of place. He had travelled to Urumqi, China as part of a delegation and was now on his way home. It’s a sad sign of the state of the Tajik economy that it makes sense for a businessman (obviously fairly well-off in Tajikistan) to spend days making the overland journey rather than flying. Despite this he was chirpy and helped me get through Kyrgyz immigration where they fortunately seemed to know about the saga of the missing visa stamp.

It was 10:00 a.m. Kyrgyz time (12:00 a.m. Beijing time) and all I wanted was to get to Osh. My journey had begun 28 hours ago in Kashgar. You can understand then that when someone claiming to be from the Osh Guesthouse (where I had a reservation) offered me a ride there for a reasonable price I jumped at the chance. I had forgotten the rules of Central Asia. This of course was a shared taxi and as it happened it wouldn’t leave for six hours. I was too tired to argue though so just had a nap in the car whilst we waited. At lunchtime the driver kindly took me for lunch at one of the many caravans that form a little village at the border. It was actually quite interesting talking to some of the people living and working here.

Most were involved in filling in paperwork for the trucks crossing with others running little restaurants, shops or other businesses to support them. One man turned out to be the doctor responsible for the border’s health control. I only found this out after he asked how I was feeling medically. It seemed like an odd question but I explained that I was fine except for a blocked nose (caused by the dust storms in Xinjiang). He looked concerned and told me that he couldn’t allow me into Kyrgyzstan if it was serious.

The caravans at the Kyrgyz border. Many of the people living here were well educated and some spoke English. A common story was that they had been forced to work here because of lack of jobs in Osh and the other cities. One was a former university professor, sad that his life had come to this.

Finally the taxi left for Osh at about 16:00 and the driver made all haste in getting us to Osh. We flew over the mountain roads. At one point, when the road was reduced to one lane by snow, we met a lorry coming the other way. The driver swerved into the snowy bank but thankfully the impact was fairly soft. After four hours or so, with the sun setting, he brought the car down from the mountains into the lush greenery surrounding Osh. After 39 hours on the road I checked into the Osh guesthouse. I had made it.

A Kyrgyz immigration post. I don't know why they find it necessary to camouflage it but I guess it helps make things more atmospheric.