Central Asia

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan & Uzbekistan

After crossing from Russia with mere hours to spare on our transit visa, we overnighted in the city of Oskemen before travelling south to Almaty via Ayagoz. The roads through here were really tough, with over 800 kilometres of road works over two days. We literally stumbled into Almaty, but were in for a great surprise - Almaty proving to be one of our favourite cities in Central Asia. From here we swung south along the Pamir Highway, returning to Fergana valley and the Silk Road at Tashkent.

Tajikistan & the Pamir Highway

We approached Tashkent coming south through the Kyrgyz cities of Bishkek and then Osh - aiming for our bucket-list destination of the Pamir Highway and Wakhan Valley. As we drove south, altitudes increased while diesel quality and availability decreased. We encountered our highest altitude pass for this half of the trip at Ak Baital, which exceeds 4,600m. The toughest crossing however was at Khargush, where highly technical terrain at >4,300m pushed Disco to its limits.

Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan has a rather strict policy for full visa holders, requiring the use of a guide. For this leg, as for Iran, we’re looking forward to having a local in the car with us. Over ten days or so we’re hitting the major destinations in Turkmenistan before proceeding onwards to Iran.