a trip to the moon

I rested in Almaty for two nights. Not much of a city - very, very expensive and bad services, too. Something like Roman or Targu Frumos in Romania. Then a short trip to Barnaul (Russia), meaning 1600 km in two days.

(heading West)

In Kazachstan they have the most curious policemen - where are u from? are u sure? are u married? where are u heading to? is this your bike? what’s it’s highest speed? Some of them even wanted to ride my Gnu. This was too much. I told them that Allah will cause a terrible accident to the men who will ride Gnu (except it’s owner).

So, after leaving Samarkand some darker clouds drew upon Gnu and me.
She started boiling and on the night of 24 of June I was being pulled
into Schymkent by an old Mazda, with 2 blond Russian girls waving
hands and singing on top of it and a few other members of the
Schymkent Adrenalin Biker’s Club inside. Well, that night I didn’t go
to bed very early

… and in the next days Gnu’s engine was opened into
pieces, water and oil circuts checked for contact (the radiator was
full of mud, seemed to be antifreeze with oil),

… the gasket was however intact, so we cleaned the water pump, cooling circuit,
changed the cain to DID x-ring, changed the sprockets, changed the tires
(she has MEFO Explorer, and I switched from 18/140 to 18/120 in the rear.. I’m
just one now and less lugage). Gnu seemed in excellent shape and I
left Schymkent on the evening of 28. What I had gained in these days
was my “reconciliation with the Russian people”, a lot of knowledge of
my bike, and … hmm.. it’s even hard to talk about friendship. I
could say that these people spend hours after hours, after hours with
me to help me out, without asking for any money, without knowing me
before.

A simple phonecall in the night telling them that a fellow
biker (?some talk on that as well?) was in trouble was enough to make
them organize and grab their passports and they would have crossed
into Uzbekistan to pull me.. but fortunately, I was already in their
country. I could say that they hosted me, that they gave me food, I
could talk about Den, the 14 years old boy that staied around me the
whole time, that know so much about bikes at his age, about his honest
and inocent way of being, about the seriousness he always had in
his eyes, about the way he covered the tears when I left with his
father’s sunglasses, about the such hard, hard, hard breaking away
feeling, and than about the way Gnu had puncture the next day, about
the man that tried “to help” me by taking my wheel and breaking the
camera valve so that I couldn’t move along on my own and his
suggestion of a 100S worth “evacuation” with a trailer. People and
people. So many things to say but I have to go now.

I am in Almaty and I’ll head into north and soon into Mongolia.

(camping solo)