Kyrgyzstan and suspension issues

Since our last post 90% of the convoy have lost partial bowl control, this lead to some speedy emergency stops by the side of the road, such is the nature of foreign travel. Anyhow shortly before we hit the border we sheared our rear left suspension spring such that it was rubbing against a part of the car.  With a little help from Red Dog Racing we fixed the spring back into place using about 20 cable ties. We gingerly carried on, with confidence in our fix growing with each mile. It turns out you can literally fix anything with cable ties.

 Leaving Uzbekistan proved to be a bit more challenging than entering as the border guards did not seem to be in the mood to do any actual work. By contrast the Kyrgyzstan side of the border was super quick and friendly.

The next day we headed over the Kyrgyz mountains towards the capital Bishkek, this turned out to be my favourite drive of the trip so far. The roads were levelled and tarmaced  meaning we could enjoy the mountain landscape passing by.  Inevitably it wasn’t long before I got pulled over for speeding, however in a masterful display of smiling and ignorance we got away without paying any fine.

Our little convoy briefly grew to 5 cars before dropping down to 2 as we parted ways heading for different borders. We’ve also got and extra person in our convoy team as we picked up another rallier who’s car has died.

We intended to drive around the edge of the Issy-Kul lake in Kyrgyzstan and then head up over the border into Kazakhstan.  Unfortunately when we arrived at the border we found the Kazaks had closed the border a couple of years ago - Doh! We turned around and headed back to Bishkek to cross the main border into Kazakhstan.  We are now in Almaty (the old Kazak capital) getting our suspension springs replaced.