Riding Cyclette: Day 458-462: To Bulunkul

Where is blue sky

Trying to get the grey clouds behind me but with this I'm not going any faster

Can you tell there is hot spring here? Look at the ground... the colour

Looks like a nice village... so I stopped again

They were busy working on their field... getting ready for the winter

Potatoes - that is what they will be eating throughout winter and also what I have been fed throughout Tajik. People are very much self sufficient here, growing their own food but my host told me its hardwork and she doesn't like it.. she wants to live in the city but it will be too expensive... her husband is unable to get a job in the city and had to try his luck in Russia. There is no water at home so she has to go out regularly to carry buckets of water back...

Carrots

Princess

so cute... ok kiddo you can have anything you want

Big feet small feet

+++

Place to buy diesel... but I wanted petrol! .. if you need for cooking during that 100km of nobody route ahead, you should stock up petrol around Vrang as after that I don't find

Helloooo

Don't drink from the stream

It was a good meal but.... I started feeling awful in the middle of the night and had to run out of the house to throw up, almost couldn't make it in time and had food shooting out from the nose and mouth... it was messy

+++

I thought I'll be fine, my host gave me bread that will last me for a few days as she knew there will be no villages for the next 100km until I'm back on M41 and we said our goodbyes....

After pushing up the crazy climb from Langar and puking along the way... yes I'm the culprit who was making yellowish splat (mashed potatoes from my stomach) on the road :(

It took me a long time to cover few kilometres... constantly resting my head on my handlebar

I still think I'm going to be fine.

Exhausted, with my head about to explode and no place to put my tent... I make do with the space at the side of the road.... crawled into my bivy with a temperature and dozed off

+++

Pressed`on another few kilometres the next day still feeling restless, found a place to put the tent up and decided to call it a day

Good place to rest with such view and water source nearby

+++

After some diarrhea runs, I set off again the next day
Sand @_@

When I saw the road slowly winding up, my motivation was slipping. Then a jeep pulled up and asked if I was ok (there were 2 other tourists and a local guy in the car)...
I looked up with a forceful smile and blurt out..I'm fine, no problem and so they drove off... the sight of the jeep became smaller and smaller, I started to regret... I must be out of my mind, I'm not ok and its rare to even see a car on this stretch of road. Then magically I saw a silver moving object coming in my direction and a guy got off, running towards me waving his passport in his hand. He said, look we are from Switzerland, not terrorists (he really said this though it never crossed my mind they were talibans), let us help you... we can put your bike on the jeep..come with us.
To cut the story short, its the same jeep and they turned back for me.
.... I caved in. Thankfully my brain and mouth synchronised this time.

Modern days knights came in jeep. When they stopped for photos, I will be disappearing somewhere to...... maybe I should stop talking about my bowel system

Feeling nausea and pain in the stomach, the jeep ride was awful. I was almost crouching like a ball on my seat, with the guys offering their medicines they brought from switzerland

There is no sign on Khargush Pass that I was supposed to cross on my bicycle but you'll see lots of stacked stones.

Instead of getting off at M41, I followed them to Bulunkul lake as there is a village there for me to recover.

In and around Bulunkul

Everytime I looked at this photo, it puts a smile on my face

Bulunkul lake on far left

Not far from Bulunkul lake is Yashikul lake.

Yashikul lake. If not for them, I wouldn't have come here

Bulunkul village

My Saviors. The brothers from switzerland (Stefiano & Emanuele) on the right, then the driver/guide (Nurali) and surprising the guy on the left was the son of Ayder, my host in Yamg.

Really glad I met them!

Farewell guys! I stayed for another night to get better so I can cycle out myself

They left me medicines before they left

Doing laundry

Hot water that they have to boil for washing the clothes

External toilet - hole in the ground.. sometimes you can almost tell the health of the whole family >.<

Stacked cow dung... as there is no electricity.. they rely mainly on solar energy, battery and burning cow dungs. Winter can be as cold as -40 to -50 deg I was told