Early May.  Luke comes to visit.  Here’s his on take on Kyrgyzstan… It’s not every day that you get to write a guest post on someone else’s blog, especially one that is as well written as this one. However, following my recent return from Kyrgyzstan I was encouraged by Will to share my experiences, so here goes: Not much more…

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I cycled the Pamir Highway in the middle of April 2013. This article is concerned mainly with the road from Khorog to Osh although I do make some reference to the valleys along the Afghan border, including the detour through Ishkashim. Research is key, fitness is important and luck will play a large part in whether you have a good…

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As a cyclist, getting enough to eat in Central Asia presents a major challenge. I’ve harked on and on about this in previous posts and so its about time I presented a bit more information about the different dishes found in this part of the world. Using a highly simplistic and unsatisfactory out-of-ten scoring system, I have tried to rank…

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A rickety pancake stall ruined all chances of leaving Osh in good time. Hidden down a quiet alley in the bustling central bazaar a couple of smiling old ladies chuckled good-humouredly as Kaleb and I sat on stools wolfing down plate after plate. ‘Maybe they sell lemons here?’ – ‘they must have sugar too’ – ‘how about a coffee?’. Five…

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Solo, weaving steady through steep and curving valleys, crawling breathless up snowy mountain passes, pedalling one of the highest plateaus in the world and zooming weary down the other side … here’s my take on the Pamir Highway, a road widely-touted as the cyclist’s ‘ride of a lifetime’. Officially it starts in Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan and city of the…

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