We decided to leave the hotel at 6am in order to avoid the police and the heat.
Our destination wad Khiva approximately 285 miles away heading north westerly.
The tarmac was in very poor condition as we headed out in to the desert making the journey hard work, especially considering the lack of a functioning shock absorber!
After the first 150 or so miles we began to get nervous about the lack of open petrol stations. Even the big shiny new ones were either closed or had no benzol (petrol). We eventually pulled in to a gaz station (butane replacement for petrol) and asked where we would be able to get benzol. The friendly Uzbek's signalled that fuel was a long way away and made gestures for us to wait. What happened next was brilliant. A local man pulled out of the gaz station and parked up. He and his friends then proceed to syphon out fuel from their petrol tank and give it to us in our empty oil can. He did not even want any money but we insisted on giving him $5. A genuine random act of kindness.
After another 20 miles Andy decided to turn off the main road which by now had turned in to a very smooth new very boring hot highway, on to a more interesting route.... This turned out to be a poor move as the road instantly became incredibly rough and sandy (5mph ish)
By now we were stuck in the worst afternoon heat (2pm) and there was nowhere that was sheltered enough for us to stop for a break.
The last thing that we need was a police check point, but that was exactly what we got!
As we pulled in we said hello and greeted them in our best Russian. The officer took ages reading our documents, then proceed to use my passport as a ruler to draw a table in his note book! We continued to smile and wait and I handed out yet more London stickers. There is something very amusing about a grown man getting excited about a little stickerof a union jack flag and watching him sticking it to his ID badge.
We eventually got the all clear to leave, then one of the officers offered us chai (tea). We gratefully accepted his offer and were led in to the police porta cabin office. We spoke no Uzbekand and they spoke no English but we all sat smiling and drinking tea. The police man then insisted that we eat bread with him and within a few minutes a steaming plate of lovely smelling plov (rice and vegetable dish) had been put down in front of us to share. I am convinced that this was supposed to be the other officers lunch, but the main officer would not take no for an answer and insisted that we eat with him. So we took him up on his offer and we happily sat and ate their plov, beneath a giant poster of the most wanted criminals in Uzbekistan with some kind of badly dubbed ancient video of a Robinson Cruso on a CRT TV in the background! Full to the brim, after lunch and 3 cups of tea, we were waved of for the next leg of our journey. This was the polar opposite of our police experience the day before! Very random indeed.
The only other thing to report was that we eventually managed to get fuel via one of the infamous pastic water bottles of fuel by the roadside. We pulled up the vendors driveway and took our pick from his outbuilding filled with water bottles of fuel. We were very pleased as we managed to fill the tank to the brim :-)
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