5.7 to 8.7.2001 Onwards to Tashkent - Camping with Musea

Cass writes...

The road to Tashkent is strewn with chaykhanas and their identical offerings; pots of chay, fat-chequered kebabs, colour worn crates of coke and label-less bottles of vodka - a legacy of colonial times. There's not so much to see; a horizon that seeps into haziness, an expanse of featureless cotton fields, canals choppy with diving children and the darkened vaults of tyre repairers; yet there's a gentle charm to the landscape that makes for peaceful riding. Fringed with fruitsellers, sleepily they preside over stockpiles of watermelon the size of bowling balls, faithfully tracking the shadow of a tree with the passing day. In the scorching sun, these havens of shade make perfect pitstops for weary cyclists.

Traffic keeps us attentive on the road, the rich disparity that makes Asia such a journey of the senses. Manned by age-old grandpas, a portrait of burnished faces and impressive wispy beards, long quilted coats, soft leather boots and grimy skullcaps, I admire the untroubled pace of their horse drawn carts, co-piloted by wide-eyed grandchildren in faded baseball caps, deep tans and ropey singlets. Bouncing along these potholed highways, they release an exhaust of wheat grass, caught by the breeze and blown into the air, a hand on the heart and a smile as we pass. Timeless; far removed yet strangely at ease with the barrage of Kamaz trucks and convoys of Turkish semi-trailors, shuttling today's cargos along the old Silk Road.

Cycling out of Samarkand, a young boy trails us on a clunky Russian cruiser; broken peddles, balding tyres and a squeaky chain. We ride along, battling a headwind, lost in our own thoughts. It's only when we stop for lunch that we notice him sitting in the shade, quietly watching the road ahead. Packing up to move on, I walk over with some grapes and an apple, which he accepts without words.

Thirty kilometres on, he's still behind us; and another thirty kilometres after that. We stop to swig water bottles and make our introductions. Musea is his name and like so many teenagers here, he wears a uniform of flip flops, baseball cap and button down shirt. Limited to our few words of Uzbek, we ask him where his home is, and he shrugs. If his family will miss him, and he shrugs. We shrug. We tell him we're heading to Tashkent, and he nods and smiles for the first time, as if to say, 'I guess that's the way I'll be going too.' When we take off once more, he's not far behind.

As the sun sinks deeper on the horizon, the landscape is bathed in that golden, tranquil light of the late afternoon, a coat of peacefulness. Weary-looking farmers return home on tractors, heaving trailers crammed with tomatoes, waving as they trundle past. Stall holders are closing up for the day; we catch flashes of golden teeth and multicoloured dresses as we ride by. Silhouetted against the sun, a child sweeps a scythe in a glinting ark and a family crowd around picnic of tomatoes and bread, a herd of cows tethered nearby.

Again we stop for dinner in a network of truck stops, a mass of tea houses and water fountains, alive with jangling outdoor music, hectic with bus loads of stiffened passengers, relieved to feel a cool breeze after their day of sweaty confinement. The tandem attracts the usual flow of bystanders as we sit cross legged, on quilts, at a low table stained with tea. Musea has a long ride home; slurping our bowls of soupy laghman noodles, dunked with sesame coated bread, , the least we can do is leave him with a full belly. We must make a strange looking sight, the three of us together. But we're still troubled that he's cycled so far, intending to go further, and ask him if he has problems at home. 'Problema familia?' 'Yok', is the negative reply. Again, a game of charades that asks whether his parents be miss him. Another shrug and a smile that seems to say, 'Don't worry about me, I'm just fine.'

Riding on, it's almost dark so we pull over and tramp across a field to roll out our maps for the night. Musea follows. Offering him a sleeping bag and sharing out our last few biscuits, he observes our strange camping customs - inflating thermorests, brushing teeth, removing contact lenses. Bedding down beside us on a layer of grass, we lock our bikes together, say our goodnights and sleep soundly.

Awaking early, I look at Musea fast asleep beside me. It's five oclock and there's a freshness in the air that will soon be replaced with a blast of heat. Breakfasting on bread and honey at sunrise, it's time to move on. I take a photo of Musea, Rosal and the tandem, asking for an address to send it to, as much to check he has a home as anything else. We know he wants to follow us once more, further still from wherever he lives. But we worry about his family, his friends, their concern and our own responsibilities. With few ways to communicate, our only option is to pull ahead, until he falls behind, a dot in the distance, hoping he'll turn back and ride the 75 kilometres to Samarkand. I feel bad not to have the heart to say goodbye.

Forging on through a meandering valley, breaking away from the cultivated land, the road snakes parallel to the Trans Caspian Railway line, whose steel trail we have followed since the Karakum Desert. We ride through a Soviet style town of leafy boulevards, then a series quiet villages, alongside a concrete water channel in which we stop to bathe. The day is long and our road enters Kazakstan for an hour, where roadside kids seem rougher and laugh raucously.

As we pitch our tent that night, exhausted, we wander where Musea might be, hoping he's made it home safely. Two days later we close in on the outskirts of Tashkent, leaving the peaceful ambivalence of the fields behind, merging into the concrete sprawl of once the fourth largest city in the Soviet Union. It's the end of this dusty stretch across the cotton fields and cultivated plains of the Uzbek people, soon we will climb back into the mountains towards Kyrgyzstan.

Again, we think of Musea. Children have often followed us but have always peeled off at invisible boundaries. I ponder what teenager this is who follows two strangers on their bike, shares their food and camps with them by the roadside; I wonder what he's made of it all. Trying not to feel guilty for leaving him behind, we tell ourselves it's best he made his way home to be with his family, not knowing what family he' s returning home to.

On this peaceful road punctuated with mellow chaykhanas, it seems a strange connection to have made. Our night of camping with the Uzbek boy of whom we knew so little about.