June 24, 2014
She was orange!: Anyone know anything about the Russia-Mongolia border per chance?
I said goodbye to Ana just before the border. It was the only way; she had to get going to Tajikistan along the Pamir Highway and I could follow her no longer. As we cycled off in opposite directions I glanced back to see her, a red dot disappearing into the mountains, before turning to my talking bicycle and addressing it. The conversation was a good one:
Me: "Hey bike, why do you always do this? Taking me away from girls that I like this way?"
Talking Bicycle: " Whoa! I am NOT having this discussion with you again! YOU are the one pedalling, YOU are the one steering! Did you ever stop to think about me in all this?"
Me: "What?"
Talking Bicycle: "Didn't you see Ana's bike? She was beautiful dude! Come on man, have you ever seen such a sexy piece of steel? She was orange man, orange! I was in there, I tell you, one more day..."
Me: "Sorry, bike, I didn't think..."
Talking Bicycle: "No, that's your problem, you never do think about me"
Me: "Look I'm really sorry"
Talking Bicycle: "Forget it, I'm not talking to you anymore!"
Me: "Yeah, actually, to be honest, that's probably not such a bad thing."
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As I cycled on in silence across the wide valley back towards Sary Tash I spotted yet another touring bike heading for me. Given that whoever it was had a very good chance of catching up with Ana I began to fear a great deal that this was going to be a handsome hunk of a young man who, with great good fortune for himself, was going the same way as Ana. The lucky b*stard drew closer, and finally pulled up to me. I saw that it was an old man. Quite a relief.
"Hello, I'm Alain. From France. I'm cycling with my son," he told me, pointing behind him.
"Oh great. And I bet your son is a handsome hunk of a young man isn't he?"
"What?"
"Nothing."
"He's cycling with his wife."
"Oh! Thank God!"
"What?"
"Nothing."
Alain's son Cedric (who was a bit of a handsome hunk, truth be told) and his wife pulled up, just as Alain decided to continue. They greeted me with the opening line of "Oh, you're the one who was cycling with Ana?" It seems word gets around fast on the Central-Asia-Cyclist-Grapevine. Cedric's father had only joined them in Kyrgyzstan, but the pair of them had started cycling from Bangkok in 2009, making them the slowest cycle tourists I had ever met. "We spent some years working in Mongolia" they explained. They told me Mongolia was great, and also gave me a little bit of hope regarding the western most border between Russia and Mongolia. Previously I had been under the impression that it was necessary to take a car across this border (thus forcing me to cycle a considerable further distance to the border in the middle of Mongolia) but they told me that they had been allowed to cycle across. However, they were traveling Mongolia to Russia, not Russia to Mongolia and, if I may be so bold as to hijack my own blog post does anyone reading this know if it is possible to cycle across the western most Russia-Mongolia border from the Russian side? Coming from the Altai region? If you have any information please leave it on my guestbook, thank you!!!
As for the rest of my day, I cycled back up the double pass again, a task made considerably easier by a) knowing what to expect and b) I was still buzzing from having met Ana and c) I bought a lot of Snickers in Sary Tash. The downhill was also made considerably easier as the landslide was clear and the road reopened. I got back to the village where I had met Ana and continued onwards, at last enjoying my long downhill towards Osh. All of Kyrgyzstan was ahead...
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Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 21,354 km (13,261 miles)
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