A pair of dark eyes watch me as I pause and look around me. I’m clearly a stranger in these parts. I smile in an attempt to hid my nerves, something I’ve never got used to doing.
The eyes are unblinking.
And then, suddenly, a shriek almost topples me from my bike.
“Tourist!”
I am surrounded by bodies, touching Buster, touching my bags, touching me. The crowding is overwhelming after days of emptiness and space.
Where on earth is Damien?
This is how I have so often felt when entering a new town or village after hours or days of cycling, particularly in Central Asia when we could go for long periods without meeting anyone.
Although it can be terrifying not to know what will happen next, in my heart I love this.
I feel like an adventurer.
Our last long cycle trip took us to the very border of China. Before, we had left Australia to fly to Tashkent, where we had stopped over two years before, to restart our journey, we had organised three month Chinese visas.
Five months later, after weeks of mountains, sand, altitude, sickness, pushing, mud and guts, we are turning left instead of right. We are going to Almaty, to fly to my mother in the UK. We’re not going to China.
This time. There will be a next time, I am certain.
So this is where I most want to go in the world. To that rather desolate part of south-east Kazakhstan, and to cycle over the border into China.
Travelling Slowly! 