As the sun set on a fine example of a decaying Soviet industry sprouting forth putrid fumes with no regard for the majestic mountain surroundings, a man walked up to us. He was amiable and eager to take our photo and offer us a bed for the night. However, given our hung-over progress out of Tashkent, we felt obliged to push on and thought little more of the encounter.

That was until headlights suddenly swept across our tents just as we were heading to bed. This interruption was nothing to do with the militias; to our complete amazement the same man emerged from the car. It transpired that this man, Ulumbek, had driven up and down several times to search for us. In fact, so intent was he to offer us hospitality that he had been waiting around for our arrival since his friend in Samarkand had mentioned our journey to him three days ago. We were quite taken aback, both humbled and embarrassed by the lengths Ulumbek had gone to in order to meet us, and so we gratefully accepted his offer of breakfast the next day.

This turned out to be no mid-morning meal en-route. Ulumbek and his friend Tsoy insisted on waking at 6am to deliver us home cooked manty (meat filled pastry parcels) served on his best china. And that was just the beginning of their kindness, for they took it upon themselves to escort us up the mountain pass which led to the Fergana valley. After 10km of meandering beside an azure reservoir, we saw the pair again perched on a roadside wall. They called us into a farmyard and produced fresh cows?milk to quench our thirst. We were taken down to the reservoir’s edge, where we plunged into the breathtakingly cold water. An inflatable dingy even appeared to provide us with a precarious swimming platform and an opportunity for rowing critique. Our hosts patiently endured our slow onward progress up the hill, reappearing at frequent intervals to urge us on and, near the top, to offer us a most satisfying barbeque lunch of assorted bits of mountain sheep.

This was the latest in a series of interesting encounters - from an American diplomat who chucked us a roll of bank notes to pay for our Tashkent vodka session to the white van man who deposited two kilos of water melon in Chris' outstretched palm as we cycled along and the shopkeeper who could not believe we attempted such travel unarmed. However, at no point in the trip has anyone gone so far out of their way to provide us with such a welcoming reception and for that reason meeting Ulumbek and Tsoy will remain a truly unforgettable.

We did not think that the day could get any better after this and rightly so, for that evening we watched England versus Paraguay on a cafe television not quite fuzzy enough to hide the mediocrity of our national team's performance. While sitting around in restaurants it is generally interesting to hear local's views about England: recently political comments have included people declaring their love for Margaret Thatcher and our colonial past, both of which I can empathise with. However, on this occasion as conversation turned to football, we were unable to respond assuredly to the local's projections of England's World Cup success.

There was still a strange twist to come at the end of the day. Only a few kilometers away from the media frenzy of the World Cup we found ourselves in empty desert once more searching for a place to camp as darkness drew near. We were in the middle of a particularly arid patch of mud when a man appeared. Apparently he was responsible for farming the surrounding land, although his success appeared to be somewhat limited. Despite the fact that our comprehension of Uzbek is limited, we understood his message clearly when he signaled that deadly scorpions and snakes inhabited this particular area. We were grateful when he spontaneously led us back to his caravan, which was parked beside a small stream in an irrigated oasis of cotton fields. He invited us to sleep on a raised platform, and after a moon lit chay brewed on his campfire, we dozed off whilst staring up at the stars.