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After previous trips together to Russia and
Morocco, my son, Gareth, and I were looking for
something completely different.
Central Asia, perhaps?
This was the plan: Fly the bikes into Almaty in
Kazakhstan, head into the Pamir Mountains and
the Pamir Highway, the Silk Road, then press
further south through Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
towards Afghanistan and China.
There were two tracks we were particularly
interested in: the first was a dirt road that hugged
the Afghan and Chinese borders along the
Wakhan Corridor, a thin finger of Afghan territory
designed to keep the Russians and British apart
during the 19th century; the second was the
remote Bartang Pass, described by Lonely Planet
as: "the stark and elemental Bartang Valley, one
of the wildest and most beautiful in the western
Pamirs... at times the fragile road is only
perilously inches between the raging river below
and sheer cliffs above."
Then, after three weeks playing in the
mountains we would ride back to the UK across
Kazakhstan, southern Russia and Ukraine.
We'd given ourselves five weeks to complete
the trip but, when travelling in Central Asia, it's
best not to make too many detailed plans...