From paperwork to Pastures: A hard lesson in the road ahead.

“Adventure is just bad planning.” — Roald Amundsen

Checkpoint Roulette

Kazakhstan’s vast schlep lay behind us; Kyrgyzstan lay ahead, another line on the map, but a different rhythm entirely.

Crossing from Kazakhstan into Kyrgyzstan should have been routine by now. Another border, more paperwork, another search of the truck. But this crossing set the tone: chaos, separation, and the sharp reminder that overlanding never gives you all the answers.

I drove the truck through the usual checks — Guards reviewed the papers for the truck and motorbike, my passport, and searched for contraband. Charlotte was forced through another path, and we agreed to meet on the other side of the border checkpoint. She didn’t complain—she rarely does.

When I finally cleared no man’s land and entered Kyrgyzstan, there was no sign of Charlotte. I had Starlink, which provided me with internet, but Charlotte had no money, water, or food with her (a rookie mistake, which won’t happen again). I asked a guard if he’d seen her; it wasn’t a difficult question. Probably the only white, blonde to pass that day. He didn’t speak English and grew aggressive and telling me to leave. I’m not sure why?

It took twenty minutes of weaving through the chaotic mess of the border area to reunite. The scene was mayhem: So many people milling around, selling SIM cards, hawking food, shouting, meat grilling on skewers, and lorries barging through crowds of people doing what I have no idea. I was panicking. Where was she? Where was Charlotte? Those twenty minutes felt like twenty hours. Every scenario ran through my mind, none of them good. We found each other eventually, but the episode left me repeating the truth we’d muttered before: we don’t know everything.

Calm Fields, Closed Doors

Reunited, we drove out into Kyrgyzstan’s calm. Green pastures opened up before us, dotted with lakes. Simply stunning scenery.

In the countryside, farmers worked fields by hand while shepherds steered flocks of goats, sheep, and cattle with lazy dogs of no real assistance.  And in this region, the faces told their own story. Tall white Russians, squat Mongolians, Chinese-looking locals. Quite an array of different looks.

Since leaving the Middle East, we hadn’t seen Black, Caribbean, or African travellers at all — none. Stereotype or not, it was how the landscape of people struck me. Fascinating.

In the cities, the contrast was sharp: wide boulevards, modern layouts, a sense of order. People were laid-back, not rushing like in the West. Traffic was light, the streets clean. It was a pleasure to be there.

Bringing home animal fodder.

Yet beneath the calm, new problems surfaced for us. After the India–Pakistan spat, the Wagah border was closed, cutting off the only direct land route into India for us. A real issue is that we can no longer cross from Pakistan to India.

Our fallback meant heading into China, then Tibet and Nepal — but first, I had to secure a Chinese visa. Charlotte could enter with her Danish passport. I could not. Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, gave us the bad news: no visas issued there. Options were thin. London was two flights away. The only real choice was a direct four-hour hop to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Sunday-to-Sunday flights. So I left Charlotte with the truck and headed for Mongolia.

After the chaos of the border crossing, the decision felt heavier. Neither of us liked the idea of being separated again, but there wasn’t another option.

A Week in Ulaanbaatar

Ulaanbaatar was a collision of worlds. Sleek malls and international restaurants sat just beyond farmland where families lived in yurts. Winters hit -40°, and you could see it etched in faces hardened by survival. Traffic, though, was worse than anywhere I’d seen. My apartment host said her office was two miles away, but in winter, too cold to walk — two hours by car each way instead.

I hired a car and drove to see the colossal Chinggis Khaan equestrian statue — truly mega.

Even better was stumbling into the national archery championships. A thousand archers competing, all in traditional dress. Bows and arrows are handmade in the old style. The targets lay flat on the ground; when the arrows struck their target, a puff of dust rose to signify a hit. The crowd chanted in rhythm, rising in pitch with every release, cresting when arrows did indeed hit. It wasn’t a spectacle for tourists — it was heritage. Archery is one of Mongolia’s “Three Manly Skills,” alongside wrestling and horsemanship, and you could feel the weight of tradition.

Mongolia’s beauty was stark, but bureaucracy was harsher. At the Chinese visa office, I queued from dawn, only to be shoved aside, told my forms were wrong, sent back, and made to repeat the process. Hours stretched into eight. I was the only Westerner in the building. I felt like the idiot who hadn’t read the rulebook to a game everyone else had mastered. It felt less like paperwork and more like being tested. Eventually, the visa was in hand, and I counted down the days until I could return. After a week of Netflix, long walks, and sweltering heat, I boarded the flight back. A two-hour drive, a four-hour flight, and a three-hour haul later, I was back with Charlotte, visa ready.

Stamped, Sealed, and Squeezed Dry

From Kyrgyzstan, the road pointed towards Turkmenistan — a country you cannot enter without a guide and a prearranged letter of invitation. At the border, we met a group of Japanese tourists clinging together, pushing through like their lives depended on it. The officials charged us for everything they could imagine, each fee scribbled in triplicate receipt books and stamped to prove its authenticity. Wheels dunked in foul-smelling water for “sanitisation” — $30. Apparently, disease only travels by tyre tread. Who knew? Total cost: nearly $600, paid in a blur of meaningless slips.

Our guide suggested lunch. We asked for local food, nothing touristy. The restaurant he chose was packed with the same Japanese group we had encountered at the border. Not a promising start to our visit.

The desert roads afterwards were brutal: corrugated, broken, and slow. Twelve hours of jolting and we still had a hundred kilometres left to the first “attraction.” Our truck crawled at ten kilometres an hour while cars sped ahead. At that point, I pulled the plug. We’d camp in the desert instead. The guide panicked — tourists weren’t supposed to improvise — but we insisted. The night sky was worth it: zero light pollution, silence, and freedom. No Japanese. Just us.

The sights in Turkmenistan form a loop that you drive before exiting the country. A kind of theme park, but with huge drives between attractions. Great for tour buses and plenty of opportunities to stop and spend a little more money on cheap tourist souvenirs.

Turkmenistan’s tightly controlled system — receipt stamps, tour-bus routes, itineraries set in stone — wasn’t built for travellers who wanted to stray. We left and headed back into Uzbekistan.

Romance Meets Reality

Uzbekistan had the Silk Road romance we’d expected, but the heat and the roads were punishing. The truck’s air system failed from the constant vibration. The air pipe fittings gave up. I had spare fittings, but the wrong size. After five breakdowns, crawling under the truck in 40° heat beside a blazing diesel engine, I managed a bodge repair with tie wraps that seemed to hold just for a short time. Each time it blew apart, I slid under that furnace of an engine. Sweat didn’t drip — it hissed. Finally, It held.

Our fridge and freezer overheated, and inside our living box area, the temperature rose to 45°. In desperation, we switched off the fridge and freezer and fed stray dogs and cats with the thawing contents. Even then, it was unbearable. Hotels became our refuge.

Khiva should have been enchanting — Silk Road architecture, caravanserai echoes. Instead, it was crowded with souvenir stalls, pony rides, camel rides, carnival tat. Samarkand felt the same. The romance was buried under kitsch. I was turning off from the country.

By Tashkent, fatigue had us in its grip. The city itself was wealthy, modern, pulsing. The garage where we repaired the air system and prop shaft was a Mercedes dealership. The metro gleamed. But we were worn down, ill from the heat, buying antibiotics over the counter, unable to keep up with truck maintenance. Dust caked everything. The journey had shifted into attrition.

Roadside, eating out was practically a national sport, and we indulged, too weary to cook, and no fridge freezer meant fresh food was scarce. Shashlik everywhere, served with bread and onions, costing only a couple of pounds. Competition was fierce, and we sought out the best-looking spots. Plov was the national dish: rice, meat, carrots, onions, and garlic.

Vendors selling watermelons crowded every kilometer, as many as twenty at a stretch.

From Tashkent, we rolled on to the Tajikistan border. Another country, another turn in the road ahead.

Lessons in “Bad Planning”

No matter how many borders we’ve crossed, or how many repairs we’ve cobbled together under punishing heat, travel keeps finding ways to remind us of its contradictions. Unwanted separations, endless bureaucracy, and expectations that fall flat — the Silk Road wrapped in carnival tat, a breakdown instead of a vista. But just as often, the chaos brings something unexpected: archers chanting in unison, a desert sky blazing with stars, a moment of calm after the storm. Travel keeps reminding us we can’t plan for everything, nor should we.