This is the travelblog of Cyril Ducau and Niccolo Manno on their adventure from London (Cyril), Munich (Niccolo) to Hong Kong on motorbikes.
It took us short of 3 months to do 20,000km on bikes, trains and planes. We crossed the following countries together:

Austria - Italy - Slovenia - Croatia - Serbia - Bulgaria - Turkey - Georgia - Azerbaijan - Turkmenistan - Uzbekistan - Kyrgyzstan - Kazakhstan - Russia - Mongolia - China - Hong Kong

On this site you will find some info on both of us, our bikes, some of our friendly helpers in Hong Kong and London and loads of pictures on our trip. 

Latest top picture

Latest top picture
Thanks for watching our blog - Enjoy as we did it!

Our path

Our path
Click picture to download Google Earth kmz file !

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Entered into Kyrgyzstan and its outdoor wonders

Bye-Bye Uzbekistan; it was clearly an highlight of our trip so far – especially for its amazing historical heritage.
We therefore left the Fergana valley in Uzbekistan yesterday to enter Kyrgyzstan and its mountains. The border crossing was fairly uneventful – at least compared to what we had been used to so far. We spent the night in Osh – a typical Central Asian border town with a lot of trading activities and many small businesses along the road. This is also the 2nd largest city in the country, has one of the very few remaining standing statute of Lenine and it hosts the largest bazaar of Central Asia. Quite impressive – all sort of people from the mountains and valleys around (Uzbeks, Tadjiks and Kirgzks) selling their products in one massive mess spreading to all the streets around. Cars and trolleys coming and going in all directions with anything from fresh meat to traditional hats.
Our first impression of Kyrgyzstan is very positive: extremely friendly and welcoming people, a lot of different faces, the food seem to vary a little bit (getting a bit sick of the mouton meat…) and we both look forward to discover the high mountains that are known to host some of the most impressive landscapes of the region.

With the mountains should come back some of the riding challenges and the road are said to be in pretty poor conditions especially at this time of the year (Thanks again Chopat !). We should be at above 2,000m for most of the time over the next few days and will have to cross mountain pass above 4,000m (snow well expected). So far so good – the bikes are holding up very well and there is little technical problem to report.

Internet connection is likely to be non-existent in mountains and so you will have to wait for a few days for the next pictures and stories. We are hoping to stay with nomads and experience the infamous ‘yurt’ stay.

3 comments:

Azamat said...

It is a great that you guys are doing this. Welcome to Kyrgyzstan!
Azamat

Raj said...

Lovely latest pics. Keep going guys,

Raj

Anonymous said...

Hey Cyril, are you going for the beard look as well? Hope the mountain passes and snow will not have left you too exhausted, and try to wash once in a while ;-)

Ciao

Jerome

A BIG THANK YOU TO:

Cyril:
- Maddy, the head of our "London HQ", special technical and weather advisor, and because she is simply the best and has been so supportive over the last few months
- My family and friends for their understanding and moral support
- Robert Roe (alias Bob) from Motoselect Franham for preparing the bike with such good care
- Anastasia from thevisacompany for helping me deal with so much red tape
- Claudio von Planta for sharing his valuable experience on Long-way Round and Long-way Down and answering so many of our questions
- Ronnie, Emmanuel and Benjamin for their enthusiast support and precious advise
- The Techtransalp team for their excellent website and advertising our adventure

Niccolo:
- clearly Manon as she has always been supportive of this trip even though this means 3 months without me
- My mother for not giving up on me, for receiving all the parcels at home in Austria and for not freaking out!
- Amy and Steve for pushing over several months to keep focus on the organisation
- Xavier, for trusting me to be in France in June and be his best man at his wedding
- Cyril, for posting our tracks on the blog
- Louis, for looking into getting Continental to sponsor us
- Romain, for getting us the Turkmen visas
- My friends for all telling me "DO IT"!
- Claudio von Planta, Sambor and Maciej for sharing their great experiences on their numerous motorbike trips
- Henry, Yau and Tan from BMW HK for their support with the bike, the preparation and the bike sale
- Yasser, Mark, Michael and Christoph from BMW Munich for their help with all the accessories and the last minute bike purchase
- Bertrand and Alice for your help with the tyres in Almaty