Road to Tokyo

10 days and 1,370km (Total: 104 days and 21,162km)

Three hours after exiting Afghanistan, we were sitting in a border hut sharing fruit and energy drinks with the Tajik immigration staff. We needed to pay $10 to import the bike, but they had no change for our $100 note, so we started asking random passers-through if they could help. Eventually a friendly Tajik man pulled out a wad of cash and swapped our dollars for somoni — but only once he’d made sure the note was as crisp as a new one. That matters here.

Meanwhile, the system wasn’t accepting Becs’s Portuguese passport, but that got solved when one of the officers said “Hang on a moment,” took it round the back, and returned with it magically stamped.

A few hiccups, but they felt so minor after Afghanistan that we just took them on the chin with a smile.

In need of rest, we nailed it straight to Dushanbe, the capital. We’d booked two nights — but that turned into six after I was floored by Tajik Tummy and confined to bed. I couldn’t tell you much about the city, but I could certainly give you a detailed review of our bathroom and the sweets aisle in the supermarket across the road. Becs knows I’m not doing great when I’m watching YouTube videos like “How to drive a golf ball straight” at ten in the morning.

The Pamir Highway was waiting. Part of the ancient Silk Road, it’s been used for millennia as the only viable route through the mountains connecting Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. The Soviets turned it into an actual road in the 1930s and named it the M41. It’s famous for its Mars-like scenery, and infamous for sporadic landslides, deep river crossings, and dreadful road conditions.

A week later than planned — and finally ready to trade the toilet seat for the bike seat — we set off.

We left Dushanbe and rode east along the Panj River, which literally forms the border with Afghanistan. It was a scenic and gentle ride, exactly what I needed to get back into the rhythm. Kids played on both riverbanks, seemingly metres apart but a world away in every other sense. Tajik military patrolled their side to stop people crossing illegally.

Five hours later, we reached the first town. We knocked on a hostel door and asked how much. The guy wrote “200” on a calculator (about €20), so we took off our boots and unpacked. Thirty minutes later he reappeared and typed “300”. He had changed the price (apparently not unusual in Tajikistan) so, out of principle, we did the last thing we wanted to: got dressed again and repacked the bike. We rode to the next place down the road and quadruple-confirmed the price before unpacking. That night we had soup and a small plov for dinner and swapped stories with a French couple who’d cycled all the way from Lyon.

On our second day, we followed the Panj River again but the road got rough. Broken asphalt, deep sand, gravel, and narrow passes barely wide enough for two vehicles. The bike was enjoying it even less than I was. From the intermittent revving and dirt flying everywhere, the clutch got stuck at full tension and wouldn’t stop slipping. I couldn’t loosen it with my hands because sand and dirt had locked it in place. So we were stuck in first gear for 20km, with another 100km to go.

We passed a sign for a car mechanic and rolled down the path to his house. He called his brother (who spoke English), poked around, and said he needed to open the engine. I knew that was total overkill so eventually — and proudly — I fixed it myself (with a phone call to my dad).

For the rest of the day I was too focused on dodging rocks and potholes to enjoy the landscape, but Becs was taking it all in.

On the third day, we ascended away from civilisation and into the heart of the Pamirs. Trucks had battered the road to pieces over the last hundred years, so it took us nearly six hours to cover just 200km, probably shaving a few years off K’s lifespan in the process.

As we climbed higher — above 4,000m — the scenery became breathtaking, literally. We passed a few cyclists and the odd truck, but mostly it was just us and the bike immersed in surreality for hours on end.

By early evening, we rolled into a tiny village and decided to stop for the night. The owner, wearing a traditional Kyrgyz hat (locals here identify as Kyrgyz, even though they’re Tajik citizens), sat with us and told us this was his favourite time of year. In winter, it drops to minus forty — the coldest inhabited place in Central Asia.

Dinner was stale bread, fried potatoes, and lentil soup. As the rain started and the light faded, it was exactly what we needed.

The next day brought another 200km of unbelievable views. We passed a town called Murghab, filled up on whatever fuel was available, and wandered through a shipping-container market. The altitude made us breathless within minutes, which was fine as the market didn’t have much to offer anyway.

We sat on the roadside and ate our last bit of bread before pushing on to Lake Karakul — two hours of jaw-dropping scenery. We found a homestay near the lake with a large room full of beds. The mum said we could have it to ourselves (I guess the tourist traffic isn’t heavy here). Her daughter cooked us noodles and potatoes and served more stale bread and tea, which we enjoyed like it was a Michelin-starred meal.

We woke early the next morning and rode north, leaving Tajikistan and crossing into Kyrgyzstan via one of the highest border crossings in the world at over 14,000 feet, and a challenging ride too.

Our destination was Osh — officially the end of the Pamir Highway.

Next stop: one Stan closer to Japan.

4 days and 912km (Total: 94 days and 19,792km)

“Foreigners face a high risk of terrorist attacks and kidnapping.”

I get it, western governments don’t want Brits-abroad happening in Afghanistan. But when you cut through the conservative advice, you find stories from recent foreign travellers, of different nationalities and genders, that are surprisingly positive. It’s like a rollercoaster ride: there are warning signs plastered all over it but, most of the time, the experience is good. So we packed our bags — like we do every day — and set off to find out.

The Afghan embassy in Termez, Uzbekistan, was a little residential building on the side of the street, with a flag flying above a small security shack. The address on Google Maps takes you to entirely the wrong place. Our phones were taken off us and we were walked through to a small, dark room, where the consular officer asked why we wanted to visit the country, as if confused. When we told him we wanted to see his country and its people, he told us we could get a visa that same day, if we submitted the application before 12pm and paid fifty dollars extra.

There was a lot of paperwork to fill out, all in Persian, but a man and his two sons across the road offered to do it all for twenty dollars. After countless spelling mistakes and a couple of power cuts, the forms were ready by 11:42am. We ran back to the embassy and handed everything over. Then we had to go to a bank to pay for the visa before returning at 4:30pm to find it stuck inside our passports, stamped with “Land Only.” We had our final beer in Uzbekistan that night before heading into Afghanistan the next day.

Exiting Uzbekistan was smooth. Entering Afghanistan was… significantly more unstructured… and a lot more intimidating. Halfway across the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two countries, we had our first encounter with the Taliban: two men in black t-shirts with the Taliban emblem, AK-47s slung over their shoulders. Guns are common at most borders, but their presence here felt very different.

They checked the visa stickers in our passports and waved us through. At the next stage, we had to unload our panniers and run them through an x-ray machine (looking for guns, drones, or alcohol). Then our passports were stamped, our photos taken, and we were officially in. It ended up being the quickest — and possibly friendliest — border entry we’ve had. The fact we were British didn’t change their attitude to us one bit. One officer wearing only civilian-style Afghan clothes — which we learnt means he’s the most senior — even pulled out a map of the country and passionately showed us the best places we should visit.

We had a short ride to our first stop, Mazar-e-Sharif. We counted seven Taliban checkpoints along the way and were stopped at all of them, bar one. They’d ask where we are from and take pictures of our visas. Some were friendly, some cold, but never hostile. Between checkpoints were long, straight roads through empty desert. We rode with our visors down not to block insects — which aren’t a problem in these temperatures — but to keep the sand off our faces.

When we arrived in the city, we parked K in a secure car park and walked into the hotel through a door that looked like the entrance to a Swiss bank vault (at least the kind you see in movies). A bit of haggling on the price — hotels for foreigners are expensive here — and €30 a night felt like a win. We were shown to a basic but decent room with a nice view over the city.

We took a walk around the centre, attracting stares from just about everyone. Some didn’t stop watching until we were out of sight. Others turned their stare into a smile when we caught their eye. A few shouted whatever English they knew — the most common being “Hello how are you I’m fine!” It was very genuine curiosity, mostly (I suspect) directed at Becs who, even in a hijab, stood out. Her eyes and face were visible, and instead of a burka, she wore trousers and a long-sleeve top that outlined her body. She handled the attention calmly but I could tell it became uncomfortable after a while, so we ate some Qabeli Plov and headed back to the hotel.

The next day was a ten hour ride to the capital, Kabul. We rode for four and a half hours straight before stopping under a tree that offered some shade and, we thought, peace. But within five minutes we had dozens of young men around us. They love touching everything on the bike. One guy was revving the engine, another fiddling with the GPS, and one was biting our wing mirror like a toddler trying to make sense of a new toy. Some spoke enough English to ask where we were from (always guessing Russian, German, and then American), and they’d repeat the same questions on loop.

The afternoon was longer in time but shorter in distance as the roads had turned to shit. Luckily, Turkmenistan had trained me well for this kind of riding and we were used to potholes, sand, and forty degree heat. The final hour was a slow approach into Kabul, where the energy kept building like water starting to boil. Kids playing football at the side of the road, women walking children back from school, markets starting to emerge, and a crescendo of car horns.

There are no rules on the roads. Literally none. No speed limits, no traffic lights, no designated lanes or directions. Most cars don’t even have license plates. It’s an organic chaos seemingly held together by the shared instinct that nobody actually wants to crash. I must’ve looked like a mug trying to navigate roundabouts properly, while everyone else just funnelled in and out from whatever direction they fancied.

We got to the hotel just before sunset. Our faces were grey from the dust our bums red from the saddle. The staff — also armed with assault rifles — unlocked the massive gate and we rode K inside. My negotiation skills were running low and my boots already off, so we paid what they asked and were shown to our room.

After a quick shower, we went out to find food. Normally, we’d pick based on menu and price but here it was about whether they’d accept a woman inside. We found one that did and walked in, past rows of men eating, into the family room at the back — behind a curtain and hidden from street view. The waiter spoke great English and interacted with Becs a little, but most of the conversation went through me. When he brought one too many Cokes and Becs tried to hand one back, he ignored her and picked up a different one from the table instead. It was hard to wrap my head around and even harder, I imagine, for Becs to experience.

On the third day, we explored Kabul. The markets felt like those in any big city — people selling things to other people — but stripped to their most raw and gritty form. A man sharpening knives with no goggles, his child sitting quietly beside him. Three brothers baking bread beside their home-made clay furnace, the eldest looking like he hadn’t slept in days. A bird seller asleep in his bed, surrounded by towers of cages. It was a sprawl of isolated worlds, all bleeding into each other with loud noises and unforgettable smells. And pushing the senses into overdrive, the blue skies transformed into a thunderstorm.

We ran back to the hotel, taking brief shelter at a Taliban checkpoint, and crashed. Another biker we’d met back in Russia turned up at the same hotel, and we went for dinner together, sharing stories of the Stans and our longing for a cold beer.

On the fourth day, we rode north toward a town called Kunduz. “What the fuck” was on repeat during that ride — first at the chaos leaving the city, then again at the mesmerising scenery once we got out of it.

We stayed at the “5 Stars Hotel,” which had a squat toilet and dirty bedsheets. But the air con worked and it had wifi, so by Afghan standards… it really was 5 stars.

I later downgraded it to 1 star when the hotel manager knocked on our door and came in with two men carrying guns. They said they were police and wanted to make sure we had no drones. They unpacked all our bags, found our stash of cash, and stole a hundred dollars. Right in front of me. Fortunately, Becs was locked in the bathroom, they weren’t aggressive, and they left our passports and other valuables alone (including another four hundred dollars in the same wallet, surprisingly). I guess the western government advice has a point, after all.

We didn’t sleep that night. We wanted to get the hell out of there and we were on the road by 6am and heading for the Tajikistan border — the end of the rollercoaster in sight.

We pulled into a petrol station, woke up the guy working there, and asked for “super.” He yawned. I yawned. Halfway through filling up, I checked the price and realised he was using the diesel pump. “What the fuck.” Again. I pulled the nozzle out of the bike and he told me to smell it. Thankfully, it was petrol. The quality, who knows.

The final “what the fuck” came moments later, just as we pulled out of the station and watched a car completely level a tuk tuk at a ninety degree angle. As we rode past, local men were dragging out a limp body. I felt completely helpless — there was nothing we could do but keep riding.

The rollercoaster had come off the rails entirely and we slid our way over the border and towards our next country.

Next stop: sleep.

7 days and 1,013km (Total: 90 days and 18,873km)

Navigating a two hundred and fifty kilogram motorcycle in these temperatures is a kind of physical labour I’m not used to (relative to the other types like making cups of tea and carrying the groceries home). Gore-tex keeps the sweat in just as well as it keeps the rain out, whilst your mind's playing a game of whac-a-mole to dodge pot holes, crazy drivers and wild animals. It certainly doesn't help when your body is trying to digest food and water it's not used to.

The journey is a challenge but I absolutely love it.

After Turkmenistan we needed a rest so pre-booked accommodation, more premium than our average, to guarantee clean bed sheets and air conditioning — two things Uzbekistan isn't famous for.

Getting into the country was easy. The customs officer prodded around our bags but didn't steal anything, and even offered to fix our wing mirror which had fallen off from the bumpy roads. I suspect he saw in us two people whose day had been difficult enough. We were shattered but only had an hour's drive to Khiva, a quintessential tourist hotspot, where we did the things TripAdvisor will never write about: ate a kebab on the outskirts of the town and had an early night.

The next morning we woke as the sun was rising, pushed K out of the courtyard to not disturb the children sleeping outside, and rode for six hours south to Bukhara. The heat was intense — not just in temperature, per se, but the shimmer on the tarmac, the hot wind blowing into your face, and the mind's consistent draw to water.

We arrived at our accommodation and it was everything we had hoped for, and more. The host opened the door and led us through to a secluded courtyard that cast an instant relaxation spell over us. There was even a tiny tortoise wandering round slowly and aimlessly — the perfect antidote to riding six hours in one direction at a hundred kilometres per hour. The addition of a needy cat topped it off.

The host and his family spoke good English and we really felt at home with them. They made us a huge delicious breakfast in the morning and we only left their house to visit the local bazaar and buy groceries — perfectly content to skip the thousands of TripAdvisor suggestions in favour of air conditioning, hanging out with a cat and a tortoise, and doing absolutely nothing.

Whilst enjoying a cold Sarbast Special that evening, we realised we wouldn't be ready to leave the next day, so asked the host if we could stay an extra two nights with a lower budget. He said we can move into one of the smaller rooms and forfeit the breakfast. We both instantly agreed and paid up front. The next morning, breakfast was still served and he told us we can keep the same room.

It's the first time on the trip that we've stayed more than three nights in the same place. It's also the first time we ate at the same restaurant twice! A place nearby specialised in Uzbek Plov for which you can order “0.7 portions” or “1 portion” and pay a little more if you want beef instead of horse. The food was so good that I had to keep myself from finishing the whole plate before Becs had finished her first mouthful. And the no frills dining experience made it even better: pictures on the menu, food served in two minutes, and the waiters don't bother you again until you get up and pay seven euros for the whole experience. Perfect.

After four nights, it was time to leave Bukhara. As we rode further south the scenery turned from uninteresting desert to undulating hills with enough rain to support farming and some flora. The roads were great and the heat had calmed a bit. It was some of my favourite riding yet.

We’re now preparing for our next Stan. Fortunately, an Aussie biker had topped us off that Tajikistan visas were currently in a state of unknown — some people getting them instantly, others taking weeks, and some outright rejected for no reason. British passports, we were warned, weren't having much luck. We were given a WhatsApp number of a “fixer” who could apparently get visas approved faster. It sounded pretty dodgy but compelling enough, so we sent him $150 and he replied “Leave it with me.”

Next stop: Let’s see.

4 days and 1,433km (Total: 83 days and 17,860km)

The last fifty kilometres to the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan border were bad, really bad. If you wanted to recreate the road, here are five simple steps to get started:

1. Get a spade and create piles of ground close together but of random sizes and shapes.
2. In between said piles, dig holes anywhere from one to three feet deep.
3. Smother the whole thing in concrete (the cheapest you can find) but before it dries make sure to drive some tractors over the whole thing and lob some rocks in there too for good measure.
   
4. When all of that is dry, sprinkle a few hundreds of tons of sand over it all.
5. Finally, station a sizeable population of camels on either side with an incentive to cross the road frequently.

It took us two hours to cover those fifty kilometres, in forty degree heat, with no one else in sight. For a fifty kilometre radius, the only sounds you could hear were Becs counting down in hundred meter intervals, me saying “oh fuck” every ten seconds, and K's suspension bottoming out and making a thud just before or after my cursing.

The arrival to the Kazakhstan exit border couldn’t have been anymore anticlimactic. We entered a small shed to get our passports stamped followed by a customs officer opening our panniers that were so caked in dust that he didn’t touch anything. Everyone looked confused to see us, saying that only about ten foreigners a year travel through this border.

Exiting a country overland is easy. But entering one is another story, and Turkmenistan would be the protagonist if ever such a story existed. Three hours with more paper shuffling but this time we also had to pay per shuffle. Covid test, tourist tax (British being the most expensive), bike import, bike insurance, fuel tax, and others which I gave up asking questions about. They even spent time literally drawing out the route we were taking through the country on a physical map. Overall we spent about five hundred dollars and several litres of sweat before we officially entered Turkmenistan.

Since separating from the Soviet Union in 1991, the country has remained insular and tourism is strictly controlled. You need a full-time guide with you at all times and ours was called Bahtiyar who was accompanied by a driver called Annamuhamet. They told us we had two hundred kilometres to reach our first hotel. The road was significantly better than on the Kazakh side of the border, despite the fact that a single pothole would still make headline news in Britain — and there were thousands of them. I realised that locals adopt one of two strategies: drive at fifty kilometres per hour and dodge around them, or drive at one hundred and fifty kilometres per hour in an attempt to glide over them. There's no middle option. We chose the former and arrived at our hotel four hours after crossing the border. From start to finish it was a gruelling twelve hour day — our most difficult yet.

At the hotel, they gave us a wifi password but few websites loaded properly and all communication apps were offline — a fact we realised was true for all of Turkmenistan. Bahtiyar accompanied us to dinner and we were surprised at how expensive food was relative to neighbouring countries, with a staple Pilaf dish costing thirty manat, which Google (behind a VPN) converted to nine dollars. But, we learnt, that was the official exchange rate set by the Central Bank of Turkmenistan, and the “black market rate” used on the street was nineteen manat for one dollar; so our meal was really just one dollar and fifty cents. Great value for money for high quality food that was all home-grown due to strict import laws.

Even better value for money was fuel. A full tank of petrol cost us just… one dollar. A welcome relief for our budget after the expensive border crossing, and especially since we were covering serious distances each day through sparsely populated desert. The mental stimulation of the riding was low: the roads were straight and flat, the scenery hidden behind a thick haze, and even insects had stopped flying into my helmet — either too hot for them or they need an expensive visa too. Speed wasn’t even something I had to think about, as local police aren’t allowed to stop foreign vehicles.

With the extra headspace I discovered a new art: using airflow through the gaps in my jacket to air-condition different parts of my body. Sweat accruing near the belly button? No worries, sit up tall, tilt the head back slightly and air will funnel down your neck and over the torso. Right nipple starting to overheat? Just stretch your left hand out over the windshield, bend your wrist at a right angle, and splay your fingers like a starfish. Instant relief. Honestly, I could probably make a poster of all the different positions I’ve been learning. Bike yoga.

On our third day, with my new air conditioning system operational, we rode into the capital, Ashgabat. It's like The Capitol of Panem from the Hunger Games. As you travel in, you go from shitty roads and basic concrete buildings to immaculate four-lane highways (one lane reserved for government officials) and white marble palaces — a policy decreed by the former president who envisioned the city as “The White City.” Only Ashgabat-registered cars can enter the city; if you’re born elsewhere in the country you need to park outside the city and get the train in. The cars can only be white, silver or gold, and they have to be sparkling clean otherwise the police will fine you. Fortunately we were exempt from that rule too.

We left K at the hotel and got a tour of the city in Annamuhamet’s car. We saw the huge Turkmenbashi mosque (which was empty), the state museum (assigned with a new compulsory guide), and the city shopping mall (our favourite part). Along the way we drove past The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Ministry of Agriculture, The Ministry of Education, The Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Construction, The Ministry of Security, and all the other ministries that were equidistance apart and grand in design. We even stopped to see a bus stop that was air-conditioned with the national news playing on a TV inside.

After a night in Ashgabat, we rode to the Darvaza gas crater (“Door to Hell”), bang in the middle of the country. Our guide said the road to get there was “dead road” which, by this point, we knew meant dodging potholes like you’re playing a video game, just in sweltering heat and real repercussions if you make a mistake. So we decided that Becs and the luggage would go in the car to reduce the weight — and responsibility — I was carrying on the bike for the next two days and six hundred kilometres.

I got stuck a few times along the way.

But we eventually arrived at our yurt and parked (/got stuck) in the sand for the night.

Bahtiyar cooked us a bbq whilst we walked over to check out Turkmenistan’s most popular tourist attraction.

The heat kept us awake in the yurt till one o'clock in the morning, and we woke three hours later to start the final ride to the border before the sun rose. It was a seven hour ride, with one stop to refuel myself on the local version of Red Bull and another to refuel the bike on siphoned petrol from a stranger passing by in an old Soviet truck.

We arrived at the border just before it shut for lunch time, paid a few more border fees, and waved goodbye to Bahtiyar. It was an intense five days riding through Turkmenistan. The riding wasn't enjoyable, but we made plenty of life memories and it was fascinating to see inside a country that wants to keep to itself.

Despite the physical strain, the motorcycle journey is making me feel a lot younger.

Next stop: more “roads” to Tokyo.

7 days and 2,118km (Total: 79 days and 16,427km)

“Turn right and drive 500km until you reach your destination” said Google Maps every morning.

So that's what we did for our first few days in Kazakhstan — riding through the West of the country and wrapping around the Caspian Sea, albeit only scratching the tiniest surface of this huge landmass the size of Western Europe.

Riding a motorcycle here is tough. The wind is so brutal that your neck becomes sore holding your head in place. The landscape is the exact same in every direction for so long that it becomes disorienting. And the bare road with nowhere to stop is simply intimidating. Time passes slowly and each day is a fresh challenge.

But, it's one heck of a spectacle for the eyes. If Italy is the Teletubbies and Armenia is Dune, then Kazakhstan is Star Wars. It's like a different world — driving through vast landscapes contained only by the horizon and with opposing weather systems battling it out in the sky above. All the while, camels, horses, cows, tortoises, foxes, hedgehogs, and dogs meander across the road in front of you. The place, literally and figuratively, takes the breath away.

Unfortunately I was taught nothing about the Stans at school so my only subconscious preconception was embarrassingly and incorrectly built from Borat. The people seem reserved, keeping in their own swim lane, so to speak, but are super friendly, welcoming, and always have a smile on their face when you interact with them. During our time in the country we had strangers buy us a full tank of fuel, a meal, ice creams, energy drinks, ice tea, and countless bottles of water. We learned earlier in our trip that refusing such “gifts” is disrespectful more than polite.

The restaurants are the size of palaces and always look closed, with tinted windows and their doors shut, until you walk in. The food is tasty, you just have to be comfortable that “meat” is typically from horse and “milk” might be from a camel. Google isn't too helpful with menu translations, so we were often deciding between dishes like “potatoes of the fool” and “meat with confusion”. But, whatever we ordered, we left satisfied every night for less than €5.

The highlight of our week was on our fourth night. We had heard of a mystical landscape called Bozhira — a canyon that was the bottom of the Tethys Ocean millions of years ago. It was roughly 200km from where we staying but we couldn't find directions anywhere on the internet. We were recommended to find a local guide that is equipped with both the knowledge and a 4x4, but we had an adventure motorcycle and this sounded like a adventure. So we mounted K and set off.

After four hours of road, sand, and dead ends, we knew we were close and saw some promising tracks veering off the beaten track and into the open landscape. After 10km (which is a long way when you're off road) we had to make a decision whether to keep going. It was late in the day, we were running low on fuel, and the track was getting worse. If it rained, which we had already learned could happen at any moment, we'd be in a bit of a pickle. We were close to calling it before we ventured over a small peak and Bozhira opened up like a pop-up book.

We found a flat spot overlooking the canyon, pulled up the bikes and setup camp. No internet, no people, no worries. We soaked up the view until the sun disappeared over the edge of the canyon and went to sleep happy and content. If the pop-up book actually existed, I like to think it would be called “Magical Places on Planet Earth.”

The next morning we made coffee and waited for the heat of the day to tell us to get going. We rode back to Aktau and spent two nights in a hostel awaiting visas. More “chicken from a fried grandma”, “eggplant sadness”, and 90p beers.

When we got news that our visas were approved, we left for the Kazakh border. It was only 160km away on a straight road but Google said we needed 4 hours to get there — something didn't add up. We'd soon find out why...

Next stop: Turkmenistan

P.S. Before Kazakhstan we covered 702km over 4 days in Russia. We'll be back in Russia after the Stans so a post will wait till after then.

6 days and 733km (Total: 68 days and 13,607km)

The Turkey-Armenia border has been closed since 1993, so we weren't able to pass into Armenia on our way from Iraq to Georgia. When we arrived in Tbilisi we had yet another biker rave about Armenia so, tipsy from our 90p beers, we spontaneously decided to detour there. Japan can wait a few more days.

We crossed the border from Georgia to Armenia, already acquainted with the next-level inefficiencies you find at these bizarre places, with people handing you pieces of paper which say nothing more than your name on it, for you to then take it to other people, and then back again. It doesn't help when your passport and bike are from an autonomous island which 99.9% of people have never heard of. Once through immigration and customs, we bought compulsory bike insurance from some kids on the other side, and hit the highway in the boiling heat ready for a night's rest.

We arrived at a campsite which was titled “Glamping Tereza” because they had two Decathlon tents you could rent from them (as well as pitch your own tent). The hosts were three generations of a family who brought us over pastries and tea whilst a child’s birthday party played out in the garden.

Our chai relaxation was short-lived as ominous clouds rolled over the mountains in the background and, before I even had time to process what was going to happen next, the universe delivered the answer in the form of one big fat rain drop straight on the table in front of us. At this point, our bags and gear were still sprawled out on the ground in front of us and the tent still packed away in the motorcycle panniers. We knew it was now or never… “Becs, let’s get the tent up!”

We certainly made the kids birthday party more enjoyable, as we flustered and flapped in what was now a formidable downpour. The wrong poles in the wrong holes, the outer shell inside out, the clips unclipping… all whilst our helmets and boots filled with water beside us. Our inefficiencies made border staff look like a Formula 1 pit crew and I had to retract my hypocritical complaints from earlier that day.

Within a few minutes we realised we had to cut our losses. I crumpled the tent into a big wet ball and retreated under a small beach umbrella in the corner — defeated. However their age and language translates it as, I’m sure the kids were thinking something along the lines of “who the fuck are these guys?”

The grandmother and matriarch of the host family, Tereza, felt sorry for us and hugged Becs as if she was her daughter. Seeing our sogging wet heap of a tent on the ground, she asked if we wanted to stay in their Decathlon Glamping tent, but we only had €9 in cash and we knew the “Glamping” experience cost more than that. She said we can use it for no additional cost but we insisted she take the €9 and told her we'd use our own sleeping bags and towels so she didn't have to clean anything in the morning.

We woke to the sun shining and a cat meowing.

We hung up our tent pieces and the family invited us over to their all-in-one kitchen, dining room, kids playroom and lounge to make us Armenian coffee, which tasted like Turkish coffee but smoother and sweeter. We sat around with the whole family communicating with Google translate, hand gestures and mere smiles. A lot of silence that previously I would have defined as awkward but now I find peaceful and wholesome. They invited us to join them for breakfast but they'd already provided enough for us, and we had to leave for our long ride to the capital.

The ride to Yerevan was spectacular and the hours passed by with ease. As we approached the city, the outskirts were filled with buildings either halfway to being built or halfway to falling down. But the centre was incredibly gentrified with kids wearing designer fashion clothes and the coffee shops selling iced-melon frappucinos with western music remixes playing full volume. Becs didn't like the place but the Dune-style architecture won me over.

The next morning we headed to a campsite which several overlanders had recommended. The owner, a Dutch lady called Sandra, greeted and gave us a tour of what she had built — the exemplar of contemporary campsites for overlanders. A garage for bikes and parking lot for camper vans; enough tables such that you can always find one in the sun or shade; three immaculate kitchens with every utensil under the sun (plus free sweets); and hot and spacious showers to fully enjoy that glorious feeling of the days dirt running off your skin. We pitched our tent (early this time) under a tree and setup a little base near one of the kitchens to enjoy a beer.

With my British passport blocking any possibility of going through Iran, we headed back to Georgia via another border and with a small stop at a hostel along the way. The host, an elderly gentleman, insisted we have a few shots of vodka with him before cooking us chicken with the help of a women I could only assume was his neighbour.

The next day we rode back into Tbilisi and had a day off whilst the bike got new tires fitted. This time, they were 50/50 off-road/on-road, in preparation for the next chapter of the trip.

Next stop: Russia and The Stans.

8 days and 984km (Total: 62 days and 12,874km)

Churches instead of mosques, sitting on the toilet instead of squatting over it, and beer instead of shisha... It felt like we were back in Western Europe.

We spent most of our time in Georgia travelling the West of the country — back in luscious green landscapes, through the summer-version of ski towns, and over the highest inhabited village “in Europe” (I’m not really sure what continent this is…). We were aiming for the famous Zagari Pass but, along the way there, we were hearing mixed reports of too much snow, recent landslides, and/or uncrossable rivers. Fortunately the night before we got to the apex we met some German bikers travelling in the opposite direction who told us the pass is all clear. So we passed over it the next day and, despite having to ride through mud trails on the edge of a vertical drop, it was well worth it.

We didn’t camp once in Georgia because the guest houses were relatively cheap — often €20 for a private room with a balcony and view to remember. It’s also staggering the difference in cleanliness standards between Turkey and Georgia. A Booking.com “Cleanliness rating” of 10/10 in Turkey is equivalent to a 5/10 in Georgia, equivalent to a 1/10 in the UK. In some guest houses we were the only guests and we enjoyed the peace and privacy; others were full and we met new people from so many different walks of life.

The latter type epitomised on our fifth night as we pulled into a guest house in a small town called Tskaltubo. The man who greeted us spoke enough English to tell us there was one room left with a balcony and reeled off a ton of other benefits. When we tried to negotiate the price we discovered he wasn't the host, just another guest! My initial suspicion of a pyramid scheme quickly evaporated when the genuine host (I hope) came over and we learnt he didn’t speak any English and this guest had been staying here for quite some time, so was helping a friend.

The host gave us a tour of his house and our room on the top floor. I put it down as a 9/10 on the Turkish cleanliness rating which I was accustomed to (4.5/10 in Georgia, 0.5/10 in the UK) but we liked the vibe and it was a good price, so we took off our helmets and unloaded our gear. The host gave us a glass of his homemade wine, which tasted bloody fantastic, although I’m starting to realise almost anything does after you’ve been riding a motorcycle in scorching heat for two hours non-stop. We asked if the bike is safe outside on the street and the host said it’s so safe that we could leave the keys in it and it won't be stolen. (We still locked it.)

He gave us a lift into town in his beat-up car (which no one would bother stealing, probably hence his advice) after telling us he knows where we can get cheap beer. When we arrived at a local pub we thought he'd misunderstood — we only wanted bottles we could take back. But he waved away our concern, asked how many beers we wanted, before translating to the guy behind the bar who whipped out a two litre plastic bottle and filled it straight from the beer tap. We had to quickly tell them we only needed one beer, not two. They charged us €2 — equivalent to about 40p per pint — and we were back in the car and on-route to our home for the night.

It was a warm and wonderful evening. Whilst we drank our beer, the other guests chatted away around us like a big happy family. We started to connect some dots: The owner was man from Abkhazia and had been expelled from his home during the “ethnic cleansing” of Georgians in 90s; the mother and son were Russian Jews who had recently decided to leave their home in Israel; and the guy who we first thought was our host was Ukrainian. All of them spoke their common language of Russian and enjoyed wine and smiles all evening. The host’s son made the picture even more real-life playing games on his phone in the corner.

We finished our time in Georgia with three nights in the capital, Tbilisi. Our motorcycle needed a good service, and so did we. So as the bike got fixed-up we spent two days walking around the city, reading in the parks and enjoying the huge variety of pastries you can find on almost any street corner, with the language barrier making it a fun exercise as to what would be inside each time (we chanced upon kidney beans, cheese, beef, potato, and nothing). To burn off the added energy I even had the chance to run again with the stray dogs more manageable having tags on their ears to indicate their safety: green meaning friendly; yellow meaning safe; and red meaning dangerous.

Georgia is a wonderfully beautiful and wonderfully undiscovered country. As it invests more in tourism I expect it’ll change a lot between now and the next time I’m back, even if that’s only in a week’s time…

Next stop: Armenia.

3 days and 1,020km (Total: 54 days and 11,800km)

After a week in Iraq, our plan was to get back into Türkiye via a different border crossing further East. However, some Kurds advised us against it as the North East of Iraq is somewhat controlled by the PKK (“Kurdistan Workers’ Party”), which many countries identify as a terrorist organisation.

So we travelled back into Türkiye via the same border from which we left and turned right. We wanted to explore the East — more rugged and mountainous in geography, more Kurd in ethnicity. We were excited for an uneventful and quiet first night back in the country, after a week of riding chaotic roads, staying up five hours past our bed time, and eating more deserts than I have in the last decade. But, like the landscape, our journey wasn't the smoothest.

On the first day, there was one hotel along the only road we had in front of us, but it was outside our budget (we even did the tourist-price check by asking a local Turk to phone them, but they got the same quote we did). So we WhatsApp'd a restaurant and asked if we could pitch our tent on their premises. Their reply was short and included one of the few Turkish words we know — “yok”, meaning “no” — so we sighed briefly before Google told us they had actually said “no problem” and turned our sighs into smiles.

We arrived about 3pm and the restaurant manager had reserved a table for us. He asked if we’d like anything to eat or drink and, despite saying no with all the accompanying body gestures to indicate that we really didn’t, to the extent it looked like we were doing some weird dance, he brought out Turkish coffee, bottles of Coca Cola, and ice creams. We then had to play the subtle trick of showing the host that we were enjoying the food and drink but not so much such that they keep bringing more. “That coffee was great” led to me becoming seriously over-caffeinated at 5pm. Lucky they don’t serve alcohol in restaurants over here (although he did offer to drive to the closest town and buy me gin, convinced all English people love it).

The manager sat down with us and we chatted for ages. I'm not sure how much time passed but he had at least five cigarettes, so it must have been a while. We eventually got on to talking about Kurdistan; he was clearly very passionate about their nationalism. So much so that he soon started talking about his love and support for the PKK...

I had a small “oh fuck” moment before, whilst he went to make me another coffee, I did a quick check on my phone to learn that the PKK don't have any material prejudice against the British. I breathed a sigh of relief. As the conversation went on, his constant praising of Winston Churchill and Britain's defence of its independence in WW2 reassured me that he really did like us and there wasn’t an ulterior motive behind the free refreshments.

Putting aside his affiliations, he was the nicest guy. Of course he offered us to come stay at his house and even got us on video call with his wife and one-year old son. At 1am, with the caffeine still keeping me going and the restaurant guests depleted, all the staff were sitting with us chatting via the manager as a translator. It was a wonderful evening with plenty of laughs grounded not on humour (we couldn’t understand each other), but just happiness manifesting.

By 2am they had to get back to their families and told us not to worry about pitching the tent — we can just sleep in the restaurant and use all its facilities. They then pointed to a man in the corner, who looked like he was in his 80s, and told us he’s the security guard who keeps the restaurant safe overnight. We were pretty quick to take them up on the offer, partially because we didn’t want to have to pitch a tent in the dark and partially because we have learnt that saying no to the Kurds isn’t easy.

When all the staff had gone, it was just us and the security guard. No less than five minutes later and a random guy just appears in the restaurant and sits down next to us. He looked like he hadn't showered in weeks and stank of cigarette smoke. We asked him over Google translate what he's doing here and his reply was “I'm digging a hole from here to Syria.” Before we were able to verify the seriousness of his response, he quickly went on to tell us we should sleep outside — like he does — because it will get too warm in the restaurant. He finished his cigarette and left, no idea to where. Despite not in his physical prime, I was pleased there was a security guard with us, although that reassurance soon vanished after he changed into pyjamas and tucked himself into bed for the night on the sofa next to us!

After a few hours of intermittent sleep, we woke up and made a coffee in the restaurant's kitchen before hitting the road. We aimed for a town called Van where we had booked a private Airbnb to guarantee an uneventful night. And that it was, with an incredibly scenic ride along the Iraq border to get there.

Three weeks after arriving into the incredible country, we spent our last night in Türkiye at the bottom of Mount Ararat. Back in our tent, back in the rain, and back on our route to Japan.

Next stop: Georgia.

6 days and 808km (Total: 51 days and 10,780km)

Crossing the border into Iraqi Kurdistan was long but easy. On the Türkiye side we exchanged a lot of different papers with a lot of different people. On the Iraqi Kurdistan side we waited for an hour whilst they cleaned the passport office and then paid $35 to temporarily import the bike. After about three hours we finally passed into Iraq and merged straight onto the highway towards the capital of the Kurdistan region, Erbil.

The roads are total madness. People driving the wrong direction on motorways at 60kmph, cars slipping over oil spillages, and roads suddenly switching between asphalt, gravel, and sand, randomly interspersed with speed bumps that have no markings. I was lucky to learn early on that putting on your hazard lights doesn't mean something’s wrong, or saying thank you to the car behind you; instead, quite ironically, it invites them to a race. It's chaos. I suppose the police, understandably, care more about who is on the roads rather than what they're doing on them.

For the next two days we stayed in Erbil and fell in love with the city. It has no red tape, just a free-for-all that seems to self-regulate itself through basic commerce and trust, with no ego and even less tourism.

The city runs entirely on cash and it's the cheapest country we've been to so far — a substantial meal for two easily costing €5. But the reason we fell in love with the place isn’t the price but the fact that everyone was so kind and genuine. Someone selling falafel on the street corner didn’t seem like they were doing it to make money; they were doing it to feed a friend.

It was on our second night that we felt this natural force first hand. We wandered into a restaurant and asked for a rice dish we saw on the menu. The owner said something in Kurdish and a man sitting at a table stood up and translated “they don't have any rice left” before adding “but don't worry I know a great restaurant, I'll take you there.”

We got into Anand‘s car and drove across Erbil as he told us about his previous life in Portsmouth before returning to Kurdistan twelve years ago. When we arrived at the restaurant he ordered loads of food, paid for it, and left saying “enjoy your meal, you are our guests here.” For the next ten minutes we were speechless — mostly due to Anand’s generosity but also the enjoyment of the food. But we soon had to get used to both as this wasn’t a freak event.

The next day we left Erbil and rode somewhat aimlessly in forty degree heat. A decision we regretted two hours in as the wind hardened and the sun started to fade in the hazy air. We stopped outside a tiny grocery store with empty shelves and asked a local where we could buy food and pitch our tent. He spoke good English and told us we should go to Ranya — a bigger town thirty minutes away. Hunger didn’t allow us to wait around so we said “spas” (thank you), waved goodbye, and were off.

Within two minutes of arriving into Ranya we had a crowd of twenty locals around our bike. Within five minutes two local women had given us their phone numbers in case we needed anything. And within ten minutes we had a young man phoning his mum to ask if their family could host us for the night. It was overwhelming but comforting. I've never felt so welcomed and safe in a place where you're a total stranger.

We took Halo up on his offer. An hour after arriving into Ranya with no plans, and we were showered and sitting on the floor with a Kurdish family eating bread, beef, chicken, olives, tomatoes, cheese, okra soup, and four glasses of different drinks (non alcoholic of course). The family were eating with us but kept putting all the food in front of us before touching anything themselves. It was such a special moment. Starting the morning riding aimlessly had worked out.

After dinner we were expecting to learn the word “goodnight” in Kurdish, but actually the evening had just begun. Halo took us and his seventeen year old niece named Sara (who had learnt English from youtube but had never met a foreigner before) into town where I got a haircut, we ate ice cream, did some shopping, and joined a game of “Okey” (like Rummikub) with his friends. Halo refused to let us pay for literally anything... including my haircut. “Please, you are our guests here in Kurdistan, you do not pay.”

When we got home at 2am, his mum had washed our riding gear (despite us warning her gravely of the smell) and had laid out two mats for us to sleep on. We could hear the dad (a police officer on the Iraq/Iran border) snoring in the room next door where we had eaten dinner, also on a mat next to the mum, Fatm. Sleep did not trouble us that night, as we let our minds digest the day’s events and reconfigure their understanding of kindness.

The next day we made bread with the neighbours.

We went for a drive through the mountains with Halo and Sara.

We ate bbq'd fish at a local restaurant.

And we finished the day drinking more tea and pistachio coffee on the street with random locals that treated each other, including us, like friends even though they had never met before.

The mum had asked us to stay for lunch the next day so she could make us a traditional Kurd Kofte (like meatballs). Our instinct was to say “thank you but we need to get going” but then we realised that, actually, we didn’t. We had just had the most happy and memorable forty eight hours of our lives — why the rush?

Little did we know that after we had said yes, Fatm had invited round two more of her children and their entire families to stay the night, ready for Kofte preparations early the next morning! So that night there were ten of us sleeping on mats. The next morning we met more of the family, hung out with the kids who enjoyed practising their English, and helped pack different meat mixtures into hundreds of flour balls before they were boiled in a tomato-based sauce. The food was incredible. The mum asked one more time if we’d stay another night but it was time to leave.

We had only been with the family for two nights but saying goodbye was tough. Really tough. Halo and his mum drove with us to the first petrol station (I finally managed to not let him pay for something), with lunch and tea packed by his mum, and waved us goodbye by touching their eyes and heart. The wind through my helmet always makes my eyes water but there was certainly more than usual this time.

It was a short ride that afternoon as we headed back on route to Japan. We were stopped at military checkpoints several times but they would only check our passports, asked if we were carrying drones, and then take selfies with us (and their machine guns around their necks). We also stopped for tea in a small town which a local paid for whilst offering us to come stay with his family for the night. Something we were getting used to, for better or for worse.

The sun started to dim and we needed a place to stay. At the beginning of the trip, not having a place to stay the next night was a bit scary. By this point we were comfortable asking ourselves “where should we stay tonight?” about an hour before it gets dark. At the next military checkpoint we asked a Peshmerga (Kurdistan Region military officer, which translates as “Those Who Face Death”) if we could pitch our tent on the grass next to them. They wrote something back which Google translated as “no problem, take it easy” and we settled in for the night, despite Halo calling me to tell me his dad’s friend would like to host us in a village nearby. However, by that point, we were ready for bed.

The following day we were on the road early and heading back towards Türkiye. During the short ride we had two Kurds buy us tea, another buy us ice cream, and another offer us to come stay with his family. Instead, we chose to stay in a hotel that night so we could be on the road early the next morning without being rude.

And that's what we did to finish our trip in Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Crossing into the region was long but easy. Crossing out of it was short but hard.

Riding through the Kurdistan region of Iraq has been a deeply special experience. The food and landscapes deserve their own applaud, but it's the people that stood out. On the outer layer, Kurds care about their reputation and want it to be shaped accurately by themselves and not by western media. A layer deeper and you find a community infused with a religion and history that makes them authentically put other people first. And on the deepest level you realise this is a community that has been at conflict with its direct neighbours for so many years that they welcome outsiders. It's the first country we've travelled through that I’m already excited to see again.

Next stop: back on route, East.

5 days and 1,770km (Total: 45 days and 9,972km)

After our blissful day off in Antalya, we clicked on a random town in Google Maps, ensured the road there was windy, and got on the bike. It was a stunning ride up into the mountains again and through towns that were low on the tourist guage (a measure of how peculiar the looks you get are).

We were riding to a town called Mut and we passed some fantastic scenery along the way.

But as we got closer, the lakes faded and the greenery turned to rock, gravel and, well, trash. We threw our plan to wild camp into the trash too and did a quick scout for hotels. We found one on the outskirts of Mut so put our sweaty gloves back on and continued. Our eagerness to finish the long day’s riding and take off our boots clouded any expectations we might have had.

We arrived to the hotel and, to be honest, I think we would have preferred to keep our boots on. It wasn't the prettiest or comforting of hotels. The door to our room didn’t lock but the owner soon fixed that with a bit of WD40. The toilet didn't flush either but WD40 wasn't going to solve that. That evening we sat outside for our end-of-day tea and biscuit ritual. After a few women, dressed provocatively to say the least, walked out the hotel and got into the back of men's cars, we quickly realised that we were staying in a brothel. The owner realised that we had realised and kept bringing us coffee, biscuits, and fruit as if to say “yeh sorry guys I think you've stumbled into the wrong place.”

Mut was definitely rock bottom on the tourist guage. So the next day we dialled it up and headed to Cappadocia after countless locals told us it's a must. After 4 hours of riding we knocked on the door of the first guest house we saw, offered the host half what he quoted, and he welcomed us in. Local beers and snacks on the terrace before an early night. The call to prayer woke us the next morning at 4.30am so we rode K a few kilometers and perched ourselves on a small rock overlooking the open landscape. Soon, flickers of light emerged in the distance before hundreds of balloons started to rise in harmony with the sun. Time slowed down and we had a moment to really appreciate where we were and what we were doing.

Before long we were back on the road to our next destination directly East. We stayed in a campgarden that evening and met the only other camper, a German guy cycling from Germany to India. We ended up having dinner together and it was a lovely evening (although a bit awkward that we were eating the same as him after he had just ridden 150km and we had sat on a motorbike all day). All the overlanders we have met so far are so friendly and humble. Overlanding seems to train your patience, teach you the difference between a “problem” and an actual problem, and appreciate that everyone lives their lives in different ways — none of them right or wrong.

The next day was more humbling as we rode South East through more arid mountains. Along the way we kept passing huge development sites that had hundreds of empty houses identical to each other. 10km later we were riding through equally large towns but they were inhabited and everyone living in identical white tents. They were such strangely similar but contrasting sites so close to each other that we asked the guy at the next petrol stop. He illuminated our ignorance by telling us that we were in the region that was obliterated by the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes. The new houses were being built by the Turkish government for the thousands that had lost their homes. The tents were the temporary accommodation they have been living in for the last two years.

After “we are strong and resilient” his next Google translation was “you are our guests, please have lunch with us.” We said we have to get back on the road but then realised he wasn't asking us. We sat down and they (yes, the entire staff of the petrol station) brought out a huge platter of roast vegetables — potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, jalapeños — with piles of bread. And, of course, unlimited Ayran. Some locals stopping off for fuel sat down and joined too.

For the next hour they asked about our trip and recommended we go see Göbeklitepe, which was a coincidental oversight in our planning as we had recently listened to a podcast about it (it's the site of the oldest known megaliths, pre-dating the pyramids). That night we stayed in Şanlıurfa and met an English and German couple that had been travelling from Hong Kong back to Germany semi-overland. They also recommended Göbeklitepe, so it was decided... we'd go in the morning.

Afterwards we followed a long road directly East, not fully aware that the road skirted within 1km of the Syrian border. The landscape was changing quickly and police cars transitioned to military tanks. We got stopped a couple of times (they stop 90% of the vehicles passing through) but when they realised we don’t speak Turkish they would always say “ok go!” with a big smile on their face. That night we pitched our tent in the garden of a hotel, feeling pretty safe with a military checkpoint right behind us.

Next stop: 👉