Sadullah

Today I planned a somewhat longer distance again. Samarkand was still about 260 to 270 kilometers away, and I wanted to cover that in two days. I started a little after 11 a.m., rather late, but after yesterday’s long evening that was to be expected. At first, I once again passed the sights of the old town of Bukhara. The whole time I somehow felt as if I were cycling again after a rest day. In reality, though, I had only arrived in Bukhara yesterday — but I had experienced so much since then.

There was quite a lot of traffic leaving the city, but the roads were excellent, and some sections were even beautifully decorated with flowers. The shade-giving trees also showed that I was no longer in the desert. I also started seeing several cyclists again. When I overtook one of them, he suddenly appeared next to me again on the left side — apparently he didn’t want to get dropped. We could hardly communicate, but somehow a tiny bit of information still passed between us, and I found out that his name was Sadullah. He rode together with me for a few kilometers before turning onto another road. We laughed almost the entire time and had a great time together — truly “wheely good times” ;-).

I already had a headwind while riding with Sadullah, and it felt as though it kept getting stronger. Sometimes the wind was so intense that I was moving at only eleven or twelve kilometers per hour. And then the mental cinema started again: “At this pace I’ll never make the planned distance before dark,” and so on. In moments like that, there is really only one thing that helps: just keep pedaling and see what happens. Since the road gradually curved while the wind direction stayed the same, the headwind slowly turned into a crosswind, and with time I started making better progress again.

Today, for the first time in a long while, I saw mountains on the horizon again. The visibility was very clear, and I could see incredibly far. Although it was 28 degrees warm, the wind made it feel quite pleasant. At least that was one advantage of the wind.

About twenty kilometers before my destination for the day, a car once again stopped in front of me, and the driver who stepped out signaled for me to stop. Like so many others, the elegantly dressed man wanted to know where I was from. After I answered, he made a gesture that probably meant “wait a moment.” He took a loaf of bread out of the trunk, gave it to me, thanked me — though I have no idea for what — got back into the car, and drove away.

Perhaps this generosity is connected to one of the five pillars of Islam — the giving of alms. In any case, being given gifts like this always brings me enormous joy and makes me feel truly welcome. For me, that beautiful feeling is much more important than the gift itself.

By 7 p.m., I had already reached a hotel where I found shelter — so in the end, everything worked out fine again.