Half way
Submitted by minutemat on Tue, 22/07/2008 - 5:24pm.
P166: So. Despite the Shogun holding up pretty good, we had our second taste of mechanical trouble a couple of days ago whilst driving out of Turkmenistan. A very strong smell of petrol in the car and after checking the pipes and having a look round the engine bay couldn't work out what was wrong.
Until we came to fill up and noticed the fuel overflow pipe dangling precariously whilst emitting vast amounts of fuel vapour into the car. Thankfully varnish bunged it up before I passed out at the wheel; the fumes stopped, and we continued in peace.
Glad to be out of Turkmenistan. A very strange place indeed. Varnish reached up to take a closer look at a wierd looking fruit (we joked that they were microphones recording everyone's conversation, and may well be right), and just as he touched the tree branch a policeman blew his whistle VERY loudly. No touching the trees apparently. And certainly no dirty cars in Ashgabat city centre. Oh no. In fact, so disgracefully dirty was our shogun that we woke up the next day with it shining gloriously in the hotel car park having been cleaned and valeted that morning. Who cleaned it remains a mystery.
In Tashkent at the moment, after stopping in Buhkara and Samarquand and wished we could've spent at least a day or two more in each. The lack of road signs and ambiguous T-junctions is starting to get a little infuriating, although today was a little easier. Looking forward to heading into Kasahkstan / Almaty tomorrow.. prob have a day off before driving into the Kazahk wilderness.
