Central Asia | GlobeRiders Silk Road Adventure

My family and friends are like, why do you want to go there? I mean, they hate Americans. They don't, you know, it's a part of the world. We shouldn't, shouldn't be in. At times I would question, I'm like, you know, is this the smartest thing to do? You know, I thought about it. You know, I was like, wow, you know, Uzbekistan's got one of the more hardened Al Qaeda cells outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, in the world right now. In Uzbekistan right now, there's been an uprising in the southeastern corner in Ajijan. It's very ugly when you look at the news and I don't want to, don't play what's going on, but of course I'm a little nervous that that's going to affect our tour, but because if they close the border to Uzbekistan, even though we are not going to this troubled area, I really don't know the answer to what the outcome of our tour will be at that point. So I just cross my fingers and keep a positive attitude. I had a little talk to the group yesterday and I think that was in place because we need to have everybody on the same page and I don't want anybody to freak out. I know people are sitting at home and getting a little freaky about our progress, so you just have to keep it calm and I think, I hope for the best that we don't have any issues. This group really seems to be amazing. Everybody's keeping their cool, everybody brings something different to the table. There's different personalities and different wrinkles going on here and there, but when the shit hits the fan or when it really comes time, everybody's there completely. Getting into Uzbekistan was not a problem despite recent violence between protesters and the authorities in the city of Andijan. However, due to political unrest in the country, the government has banned motorcycles from certain parts of the cities and we're forced to ride in a convoy with at least two police cars through the entire country. The reason is that the motorcycles, you know, they're too loud. That's the explanation we've got, but as the rumor goes and the rumors are the big source of information in this country, is that the president got some information that's gonna be an attack on him from some kind of a motorcyclist and what he did, he just prohibited motorcycling and that's where we ended up. Convoy, got a long way to go and a short time to get there. Well, riding in the convoy, coming out of town in the morning's not so bad because you kind of feel like you're just in a parade and traffic's all stopped and everyone waves and it's fun for like about the first 10 minutes or so. Then it gets a little tricky, I guess, mostly because I think everybody feels a little confined. Some people like to ride fast and they can't ride as fast as they want. Some people like to be able to stop and they can't stop when they want. So I think everybody feels that they've compromised their riding somewhat. Nobody gets to do exactly what they want this time. But it is nice getting in and out of town when you don't have to worry about traffic lights or other traffic or anything like that. Feel kind of like a celebrity but it does wear off after a little while. Uzbekistan is actually a very clean country. They're poor but it's neat, the roads are ideal. It's desert, of course, and it's a little warm so you need the vents open like that. And otherwise, everything is wonderful, it's a great time. Many of us would see on some of our CNN that we'd pick up about problems in some of the countries and could we go there, and they were fine. When you get on the ground, you realize the problem area may be well away from where we're going. They like America and most of them, when they come through and see a motorcycle, they do a thumbs up, American thumbs up. Things are much more sophisticated than the little news bike we get. So the Central Asia, we consider the five stands, the former five Soviet republics. Uzbekistan is located right in the heart of Central Asia because it's surrounded from all sides by other four stands. I have to call them the stands because it's like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, all the stands. Oh, you see, Central Asia is very different, so every stand is different. If you wanna have kind of an adventurous tour, I would say that Kyrgyzstan is quite a nice place. If you wanna see more traditions, more history, you'd better go to Uzbekistan, which is right in the heart of Central Asia and which stands right on the Great Silk Road. You will see such cities as Bukhara, Samarkand, which are really an oasis in the desert. And historically, those places were on the Great Silk Road, so you will feel the atmosphere of the past in those cities. This architectural complex consists of three big monuments and one minaret. This minaret was built in 1127. It means that it is 20 years older than Moscow. The height of the minaret is 46 and a half meters. Inside, there is a winding staircase with 105 steps. So the first function of the minaret was that of a lighthouse. But in the reign of the last dynasty, Mangit dynasty, which was very cruel, the minaret was used for executions. People who were sentenced to death, they were thrown off the minaret. That's why they also call it a death tower. There are many legends about this tower. They say in 1220, when Bukhara was conquered by Genghis Khan, Genghis Khan destroyed the whole city. He destroyed all the monuments, but only this minaret was not touched because when he looked at the minaret, it was so high that he dropped his cap. His cap fell down and he bent to pick it up as if he bowed. Then he said, if this minaret makes such a great person as Genghis Khan bow to him, let him stay. So the minaret is greater than Genghis Khan. That's why he bowed to the minaret. The minaret is connected with the mosque Kalyan or Kalon, the biggest mosque in Bukhara and the second mosque in Central Asia, after the mosque Bibi Khanim in Samarkand. The area of the mosque is about one hectare. About 12,000 people can pray in this mosque simultaneously. There were more than 100 madrasas in Bukhara. Bukhara was a center of religion, a center of religious education. But in the Soviet time, the religion was discouraged and all the madrasas were closed. They were transformed into hotels, into storehouses, into shops and museums. Normally in every madrasa, as you enter the building, there are two big rooms on both sides. One is a mosque and the second is a classroom. On the second floor, there was a library and inside there is a courtyard with two floors of rooms for students. That was a dormitory. In 1997, before the Jubilee, they restored this building. I mean that all these tiles are new. Although the building existed, but the tiles were not available in the Soviet time. In the Soviet time, this madrasa was also used as a hotel. Now there is a concert hall and there is a craft center. In the morning, the craftsmen come and they work in the rooms of the dormitory and they make different handicrafts. I've traveled a lot in all these countries, so the most religious country is Uzbekistan. Religious, I mean not fanatic, not fundamentalistic, but people really believe in God and they really, they take it very serious. Many of these areas too that we've been through depend on tourism. Tourism has been down and they want the Americans to come back because that is a segment of their tourism industry that they have lost and it's hurting their income level and they want us to come back. To gain an understanding or whatever, we have to interact. We have to go there and meet them and maybe they'll come and meet us too. And I hope more people go there because it's a wonderful place to travel. It's not an easy place to travel. You have to deal with some government and visas and things like that, but just get that taken care of and jump in and go. It's well worthwhile. That is my ceramic place and here is my stuff. And I have two kind of ceramics. One of them, you see the blue and green, they're from Fergana Valley and the yellow and green, they're from O'Hara. Best customer is America. America and French. You know how America is the best customer? Because America use dollars but French or Germans, they use different money. If American, we say $10, they know they don't have to change the money. $10, they will pay $10. If it's $20, they'll pay $20 because they don't have extra change. You know what I love? I love in my job, spend the money to buy for myself stuff. This is the best one. Having traveled through the country before, Helge comes prepared with prints of his photographs to give away. If he can only find the people in the pictures he took. You know him? No. He's in luck and finds this gentleman who happens to be wearing the same clothes he had on a year ago when Helge took his picture. Uzbekistan is like a big trading post. You can still feel the old silk route. It's an eye-opener for me. An eye-opener because I didn't know. I really didn't know that there were that many cultures, that many individualities. I thought that maybe it was all Russia. No, it's not Russia at all. It's really individual. I wouldn't say tribes. I wouldn't say clans. I wouldn't say people. Some people know that they look a little bit different. I can't tell, but they are different people. Like an Italian is different from a Norwegian, you know? I sort of feel like this has been one big compare and contrast essay because it's the compare that has struck me more than the contrast. The silk road has been mixing and matching cultures for hundreds of thousands of years. We've seen that. Words that I learned in Istanbul came, I could use in Turkmenistan. The languages are related. And to see that commonality as we've gone through these major border hassles and different countries and different languages, there's something about the people that's been a continuum and not this discrete, total change. It is a beautiful, sunlit day. I'm looking off. I can see the mountains. I need oil, but they don't have oil at this gas station. That's up the road somewhere. So anyway, we did this fantastic repair on the baggage. We found a nice welder. He welded those two places together. Makes the whole thing much more sturdy. Anyway, this is gonna be a very fast trip this morning because we have police escort all the way. Some of them are fast and I have to catch up. Some of them are slow and I have to put on the brake. But normally it's pretty good. I mean, you don't have to get anywhere in a hurry because everyone's right here. You know, you can't hold anybody up. I'm happy to get there. Miss all those checkpoints. It's a little warm, but we need to get going a little faster and then we are fine, just great. I love it. A cop just hired a taxi because the police car broke down. So off we go to Tashkent. There he comes. A few miles later, a real police car replaces the taxi and then quickly runs out of gas. Fortunately for him, there's a few bikers who know how to fix the problem. Such a simple thing as buying gas can be quite an adventure when you're traveling in another country. So the whistling is to tell the pump man to shut off the pump. Very unusual system. Guarantees they sell more gas than you get in your tank, however. Most of it's on the ground. Anybody throws out a cigarette, we're all in deep doo-doo. He doesn't have a good shut off. He runs his gas basically at a fairly rapid flow. And then once he sees it coming out, he yells at the guy inside to stop it. It's not uncommon. It's called full up at your own risk. Second one, right? Five, 580, 518. One crop above all others dominates the landscape of Uzbekistan. Despite its intensive need for water in this arid part of the world, cotton production rose to new heights under Soviet rule and it remains an important export of the country. I would say that Uzbekistan has the most fertile area in the Central Asia. So that is why when you are there, you will see a lot of fields, a lot of gardens, orchards, and especially when you're in the bazaars. Bazaars is the main feature in Uzbekistan. So you will see a lot of different products. And it won't look like a supermarket in your country but it is the abundance of different things. As to the historical heritage, we have a lot of buildings and they're more or less well preserved. And thanks to UNESCO, we have such buildings because Bukhara and Samarkand, they are in the list of the world heritage. So that's thanks to that organization and of course, thanks to our government to preserve it. So that is why always among the guides, we say that thanks to these buildings and of course, thanks to Tamerlane who built up Samarkand, we have the job now. You know, many famous conquerors came through the city like Alexander the Great who captured the city in the 4th century BC. And you know, he left something behind him. For example, when he left the country, people began to build houses and they've used columns. And since that time until present day, people still use these Hellenistic elements. The next conqueror, but you know, he was one of the most cruel conquerors of the world, Genghis Khan. And city grew and it reached its flourishing but you know, the city was just raised to the ground by him. But the most of the history of Samarkand is connected with the name of Tamerlane. And you know, he left many beautiful buildings behind him. And if you stop to Samarkand, you can see very beautiful monuments survived since the time of Tamerlane. For example, you can visit the Gurimir Mausoleum. It's just the mausoleum where Tamerlane found his last shelter. He himself and his relatives, only men, not women, are buried here. The next one place I recommend you to see, it's a very famous Registan Square, which is nowadays is used as the Great Bazaar as a great craft center. The culture, the history, there are things that I didn't know about and they're just intriguing. It's just a whole nother world. You know, and when we're in school, like grade school, high school, and we have our history classes, we don't learn much about that part of the world at all. And there is so much there. As an American, there's a whole history of this region and a way of thinking and looking at the world that's different from ours, that's older than ours, that makes one sit back and realize that the world is not Western-centric, not Western-oriented as we Westerners think it is. When we were struggling in the West with civilization, some of these civilizations through here were much more advanced than we. Tashkent is number four after Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev. Territory is 240 square kilometers. So it is as big as Kiev by population, 2.5 million people is the population. Tashkent is divided into two parts. You can exactly divide it like they divide Delhi. In Delhi, there is a New Delhi and there is Old Delhi. We have the same. We are in New Tashkent now. You can see TV Tower, 375 meters. At an altitude of 100 meters, there is a rotating restaurant. During one hour, it makes two circles and the people who are sitting there make a half dinner and just observe from that altitude the city. For some people, it is very interesting to see that. And then there you see nine-story buildings, prefabricated concrete houses. These are apartment houses of Soviet style. We still continue building that because they are very cheap. They're very cheap. One bedroom costs $1,000. The central thing, this rotunda, is the burial place. That is the common graves. That's where many people died really for nothing. Some people died during the battle or during the civil wars and many of them are buried here in the common graves. The Khan Madrasa was built in the 16th century and houses the Muslim religious board of Uzbekistan. These plaques reflect the changes in writing as the country moves from the old Uzbek national script to a new Latin-based one. There are more than 1,700 mosques and madrasas in Uzbekistan, including 250 in Tashkent, although this is one of only two that were left open during Soviet times. Across the way at the Qasd Imam Mosque, this book printed on deerskin is thought to be the oldest Quran in existence. It was written in the period while Muhammad the Prophet was alive. And then after that, six copies, other six copies were made after this, of course, by scholars. And they also lost because 1,400 years passed and only three of them we have. The main one, which is believed this is the number one because of blood of the Caliph Uthman, at his orders this book was written. And one is in Mecca, another one is in Yemen. The rest, those that were in Baghdad, those that were in Basra, those that were in Istanbul, they disappeared. No one knows. This bazaar is old quarters bazaar. It is just the beginning of old quarters. And this maybe is one of biggest bazaars. If we have about 20 bazaars in the city, this is very well-known. It's very picturesque. It's crowded always, and it was always crowded before because bazaar is something special for Uzbeks. Always they spend their time, not only for buying things, but sometimes to see the people. Every day, practically, they go to bazaar. The bazaar is just a place we are used to go. Every day you need something. This you can find in the bazaar. If you look this way to the right, you see the Korean ladies. They are selling kimchi and the spices the Korean population use. And Uzbeks are also those who like, they come here to the bazaar to have Korean spices. This museum, you may call it a museum or you may call it an exhibition of applied art. Everything that you see here is embroidery, wood carving, ceramics, terracotta toys. And then we have carpets and many, many other handmade things by artisans. You know, there is a school. Otherwise, this art maybe will die. We have seen their embroidered things. This embroidery comes from generation to generation. And even little girls, ages seven, they already start embroidery. They don't need it. They can go to market and buy that. But anyway, tradition is tradition. We have school. We train younger people to follow the tradition of old embroidery or ceramics. So there is a studio. And all craftsmen are training younger people. I think it's a good idea for we can show to foreigners in the future what we were doing in 19th century or old time. I love about my country is a very nice nature. It is a mountainous country and a lot of fresh air, a lot of clean water in the mountains, you know, fresh places. That's a good thing about Kyrgyzstan, about nature. All the Stan countries, that's former Soviet republics that now are independent and really struggling to find their identity in this region of the world. You saw just the other day in Kyrgyzstan, there was an uprising just, it was started by the people and really nobody really knew what were happening. All of a sudden, the president was ousted and now they're gonna have election. Heard, been a little nervous about the reports and stuff because you don't want to take a group into a political situation, but it's very calm now, it's okay. And for some reason, if there should be a problem, we can navigate around all of this. But Kyrgyzstan is such a beautiful country by itself. I didn't worry that much about political safety until about a month before I left and I visited my brother and he said, do you know there was a coup in Kyrgyzstan over the weekend? And I thought he was joking. Kyrgyz people have this nomadic culture and coming from nomadic culture, people like to be free and the kind of more democratic minded people. That's why Kyrgyzstan was called as, you know, as island of democracy. And that's why recent changes in the political structure, also, people are demanding that the election should be more free, more democratic and Kyrgyzstan, I think, can be leader in this sense in the region. Bishkek, know nothing about it. I got in late in time to spend three minutes, dump my stuff, hop on the bus, go for dinner. But what I loved about it is we came in during dusk. And everybody was out. They're out walking, talking to their neighbors, pushing baby carriages. And I like the feel of it. I'd love to go back and spend more time there and see our people. We just had the feeling that people are out and about and enjoying the evening. And that's a wonderful thing. Yeah, Bishkek is, in terms of history, it is relatively young city. So it has, we celebrate 125 years old only. This is our capital city. Now, it's unofficial. It's more than a million people. Although it's relative to other cities, it's a small city, but this is important city for us. Coinciding with our arrival to Bishkek, the annual International Day of the Children with festivities throughout the city. How many kilometers is this? The place where the old, ancient time, Balasagan city existed, this was one of the greatest cities in the Silk Road. And now, the one tower remains from the old time. And there used to be big bazaar and everything, you know, people coming from all, from the east, from the west, trading there. And even when the Genghis Khan, Mongolian empire came, who destroyed, you know, literally everything, he decided to save that city because it was too important and too good city. So that's when Kyrgyzstan was right in the middle of the Great Silk Road. 95% of Kyrgyzstan lies in the mountains of the Tian Shan, and the Kyrgyz people are proud of their beautiful country. They've done a lot to promote and protect their natural environment, including the creation of a biosphere reserve around the crown jewel of their country, Lake Issyk-Kul. More than a hundred rivers flow into the lake, but none flow out. This entire area was off limits during Soviet times when secret testing of torpedoes was performed here. In the mid 70s, the lake was reopened and resorts returned to its shores. A classic example, the Aurora Resort. The stark white building with endless hallways and rows of bathtubs was once an old school communist playground that drew the top Russian brass from the Politburo. Now it's been reopened to the world, and patiently awaits crowd from Bishkek and Almaty who come on the weekends. In Kyrgyzstan, when we went to the Siminov Canyon, we were down at Lake Issyk-Kul, but it was fun riding up there because you got to take a lot of dirt roads and single track up into the mountains. And we saw where these people lived and everything. It was up in a deep valley, up high in the mountains. It's just a perfect nature setting. It was just beautiful. Those are the interesting riding days. And I'll have to be honest with you, I don't expect a trip like this to be interesting riding. So I expect this to be a pavement trip with very few curves and straight. I was here to see the countries for the travel aspect. So the fact that I get a few bonus days where I'm really riding, it's just icing on the cake. The horse games were something I'd never seen before. But they started out, they had a lady take off riding, and then they had a guy chase her down and he had to catch her. And it was all very ritualistic kind of, you know. So if he caught her, she was like his and everything like that. So they did a couple of games like that. But the main game, which is the national sport, they take a goat and they, it sounds kind of gross, but they behead it. But then they take the carcass of the goat and they play a game. There's, I believe, four people on each team. There's two teams and they take the goat carcass and they have to score goals with it. But the goat carcass is on the ground and then they have to pick it up and ride. And it's a lot of interaction between the two teams trying to grab the goat carcass and score goals with it. The Kyrgyz culture keeps all these ancient games as they used to be. And today you saw several Kyrgyz games on horse. So this is an ancient concept, which I think they gave idea to the contemporary of this Olympic games, polo or whatever you have today. And the Kyrgyz people try and still play it same way it used to be in old days. I definitely did relate to these people. And they were very interested in our motorbikes and stuff. And they rode right with us on their horses as we're riding on our bikes and stuff. They were always looking over, checking us out. Riding up to their homestead there, everyone was out looking at the bikes and everything. And even though we don't really, didn't speak the language, we had an interpreter, but you could still interact with them and just kind of communicate on a level for sure. Yurt is a traditional house of Kyrgyz, Kyrgyz house. And still today, many people prefer to have good yurt. And you can use it anywhere in a nice fresh area, everywhere. And to have guests there, to have food, to sleep there. This is a wonderful because this is all natural and all handmade. This is a good tradition which Kyrgyz people preserved. They don't leave during the winter time. During the winter time, they come down. Those places are called, you know, summer pastures. According to the old Kyrgyz tradition, so they used to take animal up in the high mountains during the summer time and they would come back down during winter time. So they have winter places and summer places. But this is a very nice places to stay during summer time. This place is absolutely gorgeous. It's so green. I think I must cloud up and get a shower about every afternoon to stay green like this. 7,500 feet thereabouts. This is no imagination. This is pretty cool stuff. Yeah, hard to get here though. I mean, it's tough to ride around the road a little bit. I had a little crash this morning and I banged up a little bit of the side of the crash bar, but everything else is okay though. Heads up. Now we have to get back. Couple of river crossings, a couple of potholes and we'll be okay. This is an awesome area. I think that the people should know better about the region, about the Silk Road region and specifically about my country, Kyrgyzstan, because I have a lot of friends in different countries, including the United States. And when they talk to me, I give them right information, whatever happens in the country, saying that this is a safe place. This is a nice area for tourists to come. And they trust me. If you just watch what is on the news, you might get a different impression and you might be scared or you may not decide to come to Kyrgyzstan. And I hope that people will get right information and they can come to these nice places, which is naturally reserved to them. So no idea what happened here? No. I think he hit the gate. How do you feel? I think he hit the gate. You feel like you're in one piece? Yeah. Well, except for his tooth. Yeah. You gotta see the teeth here. Yeah. Broke my tooth. Yeah. Where's the... How do you get the visor up? Now give us a smile. Yeah, lost two teeth. So it looks like you were here when I got here. Yeah, I came along and the bike was sideways in the road and his legs were under it. I couldn't tell if it was laying on his legs for a while. It was laying face down, but he's fine. He just got a little shook up there for a minute. I don't even remember what happened. Well, by the looks of the skid marks, it started back there behind Roger's bike. You got a little squirrely and then you just slid around right here. So you must've went down back in there about where my bike is, maybe a little further back than that. Oh, wow. Yeah. I don't remember what happened. I was out. Did you lose your wallet? Okay, you're still on that. Yeah. And you're otherwise, you're okay? Yeah, a little stiff in the neck. Well, wait till the dentist arrives. I made a boo-boo. Emergency repair. Oh. It's liable not to hurt because there's no pulp showing. What happened here? Getting complacent is hazardous. Continuing to learn, continue to sharpen reflexes and scanning, it sharpens. And at the end of the day, you're more tired than had you transported yourself over the same area with the car. But it has enhanced the enjoyment. So realizing that the danger is there sharpens your response, but it also enhances the reward that you get. The biggest risk, I think, to me as a physician is if someone's hurt or injured on this trip, there's not medical care available. And I don't really think people know how bad it is. And having your little Medjet card in your wallet is wonderful, assuming you can last 48 hours to get out of here. Because they can't get you out of here very fast. See you at the border. How are you guys doing? Hey. Yeah, it's fine. We'll keep it a little lower and slower. And we're gonna keep our visors down and our jackets on. We'll see you in Kazakhstan. See you soon. Well, I've been riding on the back of Roger's motorcycle for about 12 years. And I really love the freedom of being on the back of Roger's and really experiencing the countryside and the smells and the sights. And I have kind of a photographic memory. So I have many, many wonderful images from this trip of pictures I just didn't take. When you're on the motorcycle, you can take some, but just families and children running and playing along the side of the road, and just all the animals and baby animals. It's just, it's been a tremendous trip. From a motorcycle standpoint, we rode unfinished roads, high mountain passes. But if I had to pick one day, it was from Lake Istiklun in Kazakhstan, where we went over this high mountain water post on this plateau at probably 6,000 to 7,000 feet where there were animals out grazing and almost no people. Roads were dirt, gravel, potholed when you got some of the blacktop, but it was just magnificent riding through it. I'm playing Hospital City. It's a multinational. It's located in a beautiful place by the mountains. It was part of the northern branch of the Silk Road. And as I mentioned before, people went along the northern slopes of Tian Shan towards the Balkans Lake to trade salt and some precious stones from India, from China. And Almaty was one of the trade centers along the Great Silk Road because it's a former capital of Kazakhstan. There are many theaters and places to go out. And at the same time, there are about 36 or 37 international and national banks here. So I would call it a big cosmopolitan city, business and cultural center, southern capital of Kazakhstan. What is interesting about this cathedral is that it was rather lucky not to be used as a stables or a warehouse during the Soviet time. It was used at the Central Museum, National Museum of Kazakhstan. And in 1995, it was given back to the Russian Orthodox clergy. There was a restoration. Nowadays, it's a functioning cathedral. So it's one of the pearls of Almaty, I would call, the beautiful landmarks of the city. Okay, now we're standing at the War Memorial, which is dedicated to the Second World War. And actually, it consists of three parts. The first part is called the Vau. And you see the soldier of the Red Army holding two horses, which means that two of his friends died, but he's still determined to establish the socialist regime. And it's 1917, 1920s, the Socialist Revolution and the Civil War. And the central part, you see the multinational group of soldiers in the shape of the Soviet Union. And behind them, there is a Kremlin. What is written beneath is, the Russia is huge, but there is no place to retreat. Behind us is Moscow. If the Soviet army would have lost Moscow, they would lose the whole war. And the third part is called Singing the Victory. It is also dedicated to World War II, 41, 45. And in front of the whole complex, there are black tombs made of labradorite, which symbolize the city's heroes, Moscow, Novorossiysk, Leningrad, Kerch, Odessa, etc. And inside every tomb, there is a metallic capsule with land from that city. Kazakhstan, guys! Yeah! We have our own club, and this club exists only one year. So every group which comes from, from actually any part of the world is welcome. So we, we try to invite them for some parties, or just help them to maintain bikes, and we try to advise them on the routes, on local traditions, and so just trying to be very friendly. One of the benefits of hooking up with the local riders, getting to see new places, like the one Elvis is taking us to this morning. I thought that it would be a good chance for you to see a canyon, because it's on the way to Kazakh-Chinese border. So you have noticed that it's only 20 kilometers from the main road. And this is the unique canyon. So much resembles to the canyon in Nevada. So maybe it will make you homesick. Yeah. A little bit. The name of the canyon is Charyn Canyon, because there is a river down there, which is called Charyn. To go down to the canyon, you have to have a lighter bike. Really? So not heavy bike, not touring bikes that you have here. Look at this place. It's awesome. It reminds me of one of my favorite places in the world, too. Utah. What are you up to, Rick? Collecting apple seeds from all the apples that I can get in this area. Collecting apple seeds? What? Yeah, got all five of them. Apples have five seeds, and I got five of them. Because Almaty means father of apples. And this is where geneticists believe that all apples came from. So I'm gonna bring some of these apple seeds home, and hopefully they'll sprout when I plant them. Oh, really? So you're gonna take them back to Oregon? Yep. And get the Almaty apple tree in your backyard? Yeah, I am. Oh, man, that's cool. Yeah, I've already started an apple orchard. Yeah? And I don't think these will be all that good, but I gotta do it anyway. Makes sense to me. She was just excited to see Americans, and she was just joking, saying that I'm touching Americans. Well, the Soap Goat Adventure is, for me, has been truly an adventure. Every day has been an adventure, something different. The people have just been absolutely wonderful. I'm taken back by all the people. It's certainly changed my attitude. It's made me more aware that we are one world. These people here are no different than we are at home. They all have families. They all love their families. They're just wonderful people. For more information on the Silk Road Adventure with Helga Petersen, including the live journal for this and other Globe Writers adventures, please visit our website.