28. September 2014

Day 72 - Mad Max Country

We left the Shithole and rode  to Kungrad -there we would make a small detour to the place formally known as the "Aral sea" - which is a desert now. In Sowjet times the Russians forced the Uzbeks to guide all the water of the Aral sea to the countryside in order to supply the vast cotton fields with water and secure the cotton supplies of whole Russia.. the consequence was that the Aral sea right now is just a small puddle of water and a shadow of its former size... But if you go to Moynac on the Uzbek side you can see the whole disaster in its prime... beached ships that lie in the desert and remind of better times when the aral sea was still a source of life for fishermen and their families... For us the prospect of seeing huge fishing ships rusting and stranded in the desert was worth going the extra 200 km.

...at first...

 

But as we arrived in Kungrad we first had to get the Benzin that will bring us to the Ships and back -  That turned out to be so time consuming and most importantly money consuming that we decided to skip the "stupid" ships and push on to the border.

Who cares about rusting beached ships anyway!? tourist stuff -  thats not for us adventurers... Is it?. 

 

 

Fuel refill -Mad max style
Fuel refill -Mad max style

Honestly - we where a little upset that we couldnt go to see these lovely ships - but paying tripple fuel prices just to take some pictures might not be worth it... considering that our travel budget we already strechted as we spent lots of dollars chilling in Samarqand.

Our new invisible bikes
Our new invisible bikes

So we drove on and planed to end up around 100 km before the Kazak border - there will be no more benzin no people - nothing - just plain desert - Mad Max country!

In the end it wasnt half so bad. Sure, there was no Benzin but there where plenty of people. at least if you count all the drunk truckdrivers who hung out at what seemed to be the last sign of civilisation before the kazak border in the middle of Karakalpastan -  Kuron Truckstop.

The rooms where surprisingly comfy and after we stuffed our faces and watched some russian hollywood movies we decided that it was time to make an end to all this mess and go to bed.

 

 

 

Our new old bike
Our new old bike
Tags: thestans

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