A T4 Syncro on the Silk Road

Following the proposal of some members of the camper van club "On the Silk Road and on the World Roads ", in February 2015 we decide  to participate in this trip to Uzbekistan with our T4 Syncro.

We depart on April 15 with two more traditional camper vans (full Fiat carrier) after getting our visas for Russia and Uzbekistan.
We must be at the Uzbek border on May 1, where we will wait Ilhom, our french speaking guide. Two weeks of fairly quiet trip: Germany, Poland, Baltic countries, Russia, Kazakhstan, will be crossed without problem, except the border areas, Russia-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan: 300km potholed tracks and dusty where camper vans suffer and T4 enjoys ...
We will be on time in the D-Day and after the difficulties of entry, although quickly resolved with the help of Ilhom, we enter in Uzbekistan for thirty days and not one more, as required by the visa!
Again a hundred kilometers of infernal track and there will be Noukus, capital of the Karakalpak countries, Kizilkum desert area inhabited by a population of sedentary semi-nomadic herders. Some live in yurts.
At Noukus we discovered  the diesel refueling at the black market. Indeed, this fuel is not available in the fuel stations and our guide must find storage places for each refueling.  Then begins the ballet of jerry cans for transfer into our tanks and we question the quality of the precious liquid. The following will show that we were right to worry us: one of our traveling companions, who has the "more modern" vehicle, (common-rail engine), will definitely fail before the end of Uzbek journey. After many adventures, the vehicle and the occupants were repatriated to France on a tow via Russia and Poland.
Khiva and its old walled city will be our first stop on the Silk Road. The city is still inhabited and through its small alleys we discover the unforgettable monuments with blue domes : mosques and their gigantic minarets, madrasas, palaces, caravanserais and other mausoleums. We will spend two days in Khiva and take the route to Tashkent, the capital, by secondary roads. They follow a while the Amu Darya River, which flows into what was the Aral Sea. We see all these cotton fields that absorb water of this river ... which reaches its mouth, dry!
Tashkent is a beautiful capital entirely rebuilt after the seism of 1966. Mosques and mausoleums with blue domes are recent. The wide avenues are lined with beautiful façades: the gossips say that there is nothing behind ... Metro stations are paved and decorated with marble, no pub or graffiti defile the walls and one or more security guards monitor the premises .
The bivouac in Tashkent will be a little complicated: we need to  justify in Uzbekistan, when leaving the country, the places where we spend the night. There is no camping and only the hotels can give us that sesame, but some require taking rooms, we only use for showers, vehicles being parked at the bottom of the gardens or parking ...
This will then be Fergana Valley. That is the most populous region of the country and is open to foreigners since 2007 following a bloody crackdown in 2005. It includes all heavy industries, manufacturing of silk and of ceramics, that we visit. This valley is wedged between Tajikistan and Kirgyztan, countries with cold relations with Uzbekistan. We did not perceive any sensation of insecurity, despite the many controls and strong military presence. We have the opportunity to be accommodated in a small school where a dozen young children learn French. Fergana is also the valley of the cotton, watered this time by the Syr Darya, the other river flowing into the Aral Sea.
Cotton production is the property of the state that monitors the productivity of its workers and represses severely when the latter is insufficient. This activity represents 40% of GDP: the Aral Sea is not on the verge to receive water from its rivers ...
The return towards the interior of the country and Samarkand will be "decorated" by the failure of Fiat colleagues, cited above. The vehicle will be towed on 90kms, to the garage of our agency, with a tow-bar that we ask to be manufactured to avoid usage of a tensile steel cable.
We will stay three days in Samarkand, legendary city of the Silk Road and we will visit its important monuments: the Registan, all madrasas majestic covered with majolica tiles and blue azure, Bibi-Khanum mosque, the jewel of the empire of Tamerlane, one of the largest mosques in the world, the Avenue of Shah-i-Zinda mausoleums which contains some of the most magnificent mosaics of the Muslim world.  Many Uzbeks are on visit in these places and we will be, as in the whole country, the subject of pictures with them. Appear with Europeans seems to be a pleasure for them.
 The agency will host us in his guest house for two nights. For the third, we bivouac safely on a large parking lot near the Registan park.
We will continue the journey with two equipages, hoping to find our colleagues in Bukhara. This will unfortunately not be the case ...
A judgment of a few hours to Shahrisabz hometown of Tamerlane who lived in the 14th century. This was the great conqueror of Central Asia who remains today the symbol of Uzbekistan. There are only little of his palace, but the city is currently in course of landscaping a huge park in his honor.

Bukhara, the holiest city in Central Asia, has monuments covering a thousand years of history. We will spend two days in camp on a small shaded square outside the Hovli Poyon-owned hotel our agency.
Mosques, madrasas, mausoleums, minarets, bazaars covered, small inhabited alleys, friendly atmosphere, wonderful village. It's said that the restoration of monuments was carried out more subtly than for Samarkand ...
After Bukhara, we leave to the north and thus we close the loop by recovering our route near Khiva. A last foray into the desert we will visit one of the 20 citadels that reached their peak between the 6th and 7th centuries AD. It is very hot and we have lunch in a yurt.
We drive through Noukus once more, join Koungrad and then we will come out to Moynaq on the shore of what was the Aral Sea. Some daring rusty fishing boats on the sand ...
The finding of the shrinking of the sea is touching and depressing. Water is now at five 4x4 hours from Moynaq and is not ready to come back!


This will be our last visit to this country so welcoming.
Once again, the 300 km of rough roads, we will regain the Kazakhstan and Astrakhan, Russia, where we will find our unlucky colleagues previously arrived with their camper on Uzbek trailer. They will stay here for two weeks without being able to be serviced!
To avoid large monotonous plains of Russia, we decided to return from the south via Georgia and Turkey. The course, slightly longer took place without problems except the monstrous traffic jams in Istanbul.

18,000 km, fifteen countries visited, 1,400 liters of diesel consumed (sober T4), we returned on June 14 ...
A puncture and a battery change were our only "mechanical"  interventions .
Vive older engines!

Claude Madrias & Isabelle Gallard

(translation Syncro-Club with help of Google)

See the pictures