Author Archive | Jo Morgan

  I’m lying face down, the bike is running still and I’m waiting for the big black dog to sink her teeth in me. Shouts from the road workers have sent the bitch running, but my leg is at a strange angle with the bike on top of it. Dave is muttering about the leg […]

Today a few of us went to see the Caves of 1000 Buddahs carved into a rocky cliff face at the edge of the desert. In 366 AD a Buddist monk started this creation and it continued over a 1500 years depicting the art and life of the people. Only in the early 20th century […]

Sitting in a depressing Taklamakan desert town (Mangmai) in an internet cafe that is like a bomb shelter with 200 people in it. We are the first foreigners to come here. Had a really hard (but good) day with 300 km on gravel, sand and rocks and then the last 80 on some wonderful tar-seal. […]

We have had problems with one of the bikes, so the group is now split. One pair of riders is on their way fron Tashkent (we hope) in catch-up mode while we have an easy day on the shores of Izzk Kul near the Russian border. we had a very cool swim this morning and […]

Hi Buddies, Boy I’m ugly and the bruising has proceeded down my neck topped by a bright yellow cheek and a red eye socket. Lucky what ever I hit didn’t get my eye. Vodka is great for pain (even if you have none) and you forget how ugly you look and think you are being […]

We are in Tashkent — very recently made a motorcycle-free city due to terrorist concerns. So we had to truck 5 of the bikes in for their half-way service from the police post on the outskirts of town. One bike was already on a truck that we had hired from 100km out, as we couldn’t […]

While wandering back to our Bukhara digs and trying not to fall in the open drain in the narrow high walled street I received an invite to a party. Well I didn’t know it was a party but being keen to see behind the walls I went in for “a cup of chai”. WOW a […]

As you head across the mainly desert wasteland a raised penninsular rises up where the run down town of Moynak is. Formerly a fishing village on the Aral sea and now 200km from the water” edge. The rivers that fed this unique ecosystem were diverted to grow cotton in another part of the desert under […]

From muddy and dusty streets and adobe houses in the East of Iran we come over the mountains to what appears to be an American dream town Ashgabat in the desert. We are in shock as we didn’t expect such opulence and ostentatious wealth even though we had read of the oil and gas that […]

Just out of police “house arrest”. Had to look on the funny side and I found it rather interesting that they demanded all the boys passports but didn’t think I would have one. I had to send mine down to the station later when we thought the police were going to change our visas. There […]