The next day we left Tashkent to head for the Kyrgyzstan border. We didn’t know it yet but our half day drive to the border was about to be one of the most irritating so far.

The mood & the weather was bright as we headed out of the city & back into the openness of Uzbekistan. It was good to be out of the city & we were looking forward to meeting up with the teams in Osh. As we merrily navigated our way through the country  we were reflecting on how first impressions can turn you off a country very quickly. Our entry into Uzbekistan was far from smooth & from that point we wanted to be out as quickly as possible. So much so that if we hadn’t arranged to pick Frank up in Tashkent we would have bypassed Kyrgyzstan & headed into Kazakhstan. As it turned out, by visiting Tashkent we saw another side to Uzbekistan. Our encounters with the locals on our route, at the hostel & in Tashkent had made us wish our entry had been different. We may have stayed a bit longer & explored more.

Our regrets about our entry were going to be short lived. We hadn’t been driving for long when we went through a check point & were indicated by a man in uniform with a waving stick to pull over. We duly did as we were told & pulled over. The man came over & asked us for our passports & car documents. He then walked off with the passports to a hut in the middle of the road. I was sat in the back of Minty so I asked Frank to jump out so I could catch up with our documents.

I went over to the hut & there were more officials sat inside. They started checking our passports & copying information from them into a series of books. The whole process took about 15 minutes. I was expecting a charge of some kind but once they were finished they handed back our passports & car registration documents I was told we could be on our way. That was check point 1.

We were back on the road but wasn’t long before we came across another check point. Again, we were pulled aside & told to take all our documents to a building to be checked. This time we all had to go. The weather was starting to change & the sky was becoming grey. We headed to the office & the officials once again hand wrote all our details in a series of books. Another 15-20 minutes later we were on our way again.

The grey skies that were starting to loom earlier were getting thicker & the wind was picking up. Still wearing shorts & flipflops we dug out our hoodies just in time. We had reached our 4th checkpoint of the day just as the rain started. We were once again told to pull over beside a number of other cars on the other side of the check point. It was at this checkpoint we started to see things change. Up till now the checkpoints had been fairly civilized with a handful of officials in small buildings or kiosks at the side or in the middle of the road. This one had gun turrets sunk below ground level with a gap for a gun to point through roughly about windscreen height just in front of some small kiosks. Luckily there was no-one in them.

All 3 of us got out of the car & someone shouted over to us that we had to go to a small compound on the other side of the road. Behind the chain link fence there were some port-a-cabins, each with a small queue of people. We lined up & waited our turn. I went first as Minty was registered in my name. At the window I handed over my passport as asked, each page was checked & details were once again hand written into a series of books. I did pass Minty’s registration document at the same time but this was given back to me straightaway. Maybe they didn’t need it…..

John & Frank were behind me & as John was being processed I headed back towards Minty. For no valid reason I would get concerned each time Minty was out of our sight & some distance away. Normally if we parked Minty we would make sure nothing of value was left in sight or easily accessible but at the checkpoints the last thing you can do is start hiding things. The next best thing is to try & stay with the car as much as possible. As I was halfway across the road dodging vehicles negotiating the checkpoint John & Frank started shouting at me. I had to go back with Minty’s registration documents. So back I went, narrowly being missed by a UN vehicle as I crossed the last part of the road!

I queued up again with Minty’s documents & eventually I was able to hand them over. As the rain started I was allowed to go. The next challenge was to again cross the checkpoint between the trucks & cars who had no concept of pedestrians & in reality they didn’t care. John & Frank were back with Minty by this time, ready to go. We were losing driving time due to the checkpoints. The roads were getting worse & the weather was getting as bad at the same rate. I joined them & we headed off, hoping this would be the last one.

We should have known better. Another 2 checkpoints later it was dark, the rain hadn’t let up & now we were in a thunder storm. Minty’s dire headlights were slowing us down even more. At best we were doing 70kmp. We worked out we were only about 100km from the border but we had no idea if it was 24 hours or what time it closed if it did. When we left Tashkent we thought we had given ourselves enough time to reach the border if it closed early. We were now about 2 hours behind our original plan.  We reached our 6th checkpoint of the day when the storm was full steam. Hoping the weather might help our plight to not be stopped were shortlived. We were pulled over & again had to get our documents checked. Not sure where to go someone waved a glowing stick at us to go to port-a-cabin on the other side of the road beside a huge crossroads. Getting out of Minty we couldn’t dodge the huge puddles. Giving up we walked though the mini lakes in flip flops to the port-a-cabin. Inside were others drivers having their documents checked. Some were taken into a small room to the side where I could see bribes being paid. We were all stood there thinking it was this checkpoint we were going to get told to pay a bribe. The thunder & lightning was above us. The lights in the port-a-cabin were flickering & then there was a massive clap of thunder, quickly followed by lightning & the power went. Nothing like standing in a metal port-a-cabin in the middle of a lightning storm.

This checkpoint had computers so I was hoping we might be through it a lot faster. As the lightning had taken out the power it was back to the handwritten books. The official had obviously got used to the computer as he didn’t have a clue which book to use for what. After triple checking each one he started to copy all our details. I’m not sure how long it took us to get through this checkpoint but if we were going to make the border that night we needed the gods on our side. Not knowing if we were going to be lucky or not we pushed on. We tried to ask someone if they knew but we got mixed answers.

What seemed like ages later we made it to what we thought was the border crossing. It wasn’t, it was another checkpoint but everyone had gone home. Someone came out of a building next to it & told us it was not far down the road. We got back into Minty & carried on. The roads were eerily quiet which was never a good sign when heading towards a border. It normally means it is closed.

We eventually reached the border & it was closed. I can’t remember what the time was but it was pitch dark & still raining heavily. The area in front of the gates was like a big carpark full of trucks. We weren’t getting through this evening so we had to come up with plan B.

Frank had heard from his team mates that they had made it to Osh that evening. They were going to stay there overnight & meet us in the town the next morning. Meanwhile there was 3 of us in Minty with 1 tent & 2 sleeping bags. All of Frank’s gear was with his team & to be honest there wasn’t an option to put the tent up. We were going to have to sleep in Minty. First though we needed something to eat. We hadn’t had anything since breakfast & the ability to get something on the road disappeared as the checkpoints kept appearing. Freezing cold & wet I grabbed the jetboil & started boiling some water for a drink & something to eat. The only thing we had left which used boiling water were some pasta in a mug things. That was dinner sorted. They weren’t that great but at least they were warm & had some form of sustenance to them.

It was time to try & get some sleep. John & I had got used to sleeping in Minty & had a system. Normally we would clear the back seat, roll the seats back & John would grab one of the small rucksacks & sleep on the passenger side with his feet on the bag. I would move & sleep on the drivers side. We often slept this way on the rally as we didn’t always find somewhere to camp or it was too late to find somewhere & pitch a tent. As Frank was with us we had to rethink how we were going to get some sleep. We ended up clearing the back seat & John crashed there for the night. I moved to the drivers seat & Frank stayed in the passenger seat. I don’t think Volkswagen ever envisaged 3 adults trying to sleep in a Polo when they were going through the design stages but we managed it.

This day was probably the most interrupted yet. We expected a smooth drive & ended up being stopped & checked at every opportunity. As each stop came along John & I were jokingly blaming Frank more & more. Until this day we had hardly been stopped. Frank became our jinx. Little did we know that in the days to come he would be the jinx for us all.

We did find out the reason for so many checkpoints. Uzbekistan’s independence day was coming up. The route we had taken was alongside/though the Fergana Valley, an area which has been known in recent times to be unsettled. There are countless disputes between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan & Tajikistan about borders & enclaves. From what we could understand, in the run up to the independence day the government are fearful of an attack of some kind so they track people’s movements. As we were foreigners overlanding unguided we were prime targets to monitor.

Early the next morning we were woken by trucks starting. The border was open. The truck drivers told us to go to the gate & we were let through.

Whoop Whoop, we were leaving Uzbekistan.