With a Tailwind to Bukhara

Last night I still didn’t sleep particularly well. This time the room was almost quiet — but only almost. A few mosquitoes were flying around, and that buzzing sound makes it very hard for me to fall asleep. So I tried to get rid of them, which I managed to do for eight or nine of them. But that took time — every time I switched off the light, the buzzing would start again shortly afterward and the next mosquito would be up. And when I woke up in the morning, there were still two mosquitoes flying around.

Even with rather little sleep, I got up and set off. I left shortly after nine with the goal of reaching Bukhara early in the afternoon so that I could still join the sunset city tour. Before booking it, however, I wanted to make sure I would arrive in time.

And everything went incredibly smoothly today. The tailwind certainly helped, but my legs also felt fantastic, and the temperature was very pleasant under an almost cloudless sky.

After a little more than 30 kilometers, I heard someone calling out, and indeed — there was another cyclist traveling in the opposite direction. I crossed the sand, which fortunately had not become too muddy after yesterday’s rain, to reach the road on the other side. There I met Zhengzhi from China. Like Bing, he had also started in Khorgas and was on his way toward Turkey. We talked for almost half an hour before getting back on our bikes and continuing on, each in our own direction.

Thanks to the tailwind and my strong legs, I arrived at my guesthouse in Bukhara already at 1:40 p.m. despite that little intermezzo — my average moving speed was over 25 km/h.

I then booked my three-hour discovery tour starting at 4:30 p.m., but shortly afterward I received a message asking whether I would also like to join the four-hour tour starting at 4 p.m., since I would have been the only participant on my original tour. That suited me perfectly as well, and I didn’t even have to pay extra for the longer tour.

On the tour, besides the super friendly guide Guli, who spoke very good English, I also met Odette from Croatia and Eli and Jensen from Sydney. The tour was extremely informative, and honestly, I enjoyed it much more than the one in Khiva a few days earlier. What surprised me most was that a large part of the population here speaks Tajik, while the official language — including the language used in schools — is Uzbek, and most people also speak Russian. So a large part of the population actually speaks three quite different languages. And then some also speak English, like Guli.

Besides the many sights, Guli also showed us various traditional crafts. I was most impressed by a metal engraver whose work has been exhibited in museums all over the world, including the Museum Rietberg in Zurich. He had even been mentioned in a Swiss newspaper article.

The tour really lasted the full four hours and ended after nightfall on the other side of the city. Odette and I decided to go for something to eat together since our hotels were not too far apart. But by the time we were actually sitting at a table and able to place our order, it was already 9:30 p.m. Because of the earlier tour start and the cycling beforehand, I hadn’t eaten much after riding and was correspondingly hungry. After some very enjoyable conversations with Odette, it was already past midnight by the time I returned to the hotel.

First, a few impressions of Bukhara will follow; the photos from the cycling stage can be found further below.