Well, here’s the quick version…
Made it to mongolia… panda gave up the ghost about 300km from Ulan Bator. I ended up trading it for a ride to UB and then flew home. Weeks without warm water finally took it’s toll on me.
I’ll try to do an actual writeup of the chaos that transpired after the first day in Mongolia.
Next challenge, the west coast…of Africa. Will post a bit more as it starts to become more than just a fantasy.
Leaving my dinghy-hungry host from the previous post, I begin my trip to the Mongolian border. The roads are still holding up, the landscape is getting a bit more…rugged would be a good description. Desert with huge snow capped peaks in the distance. As I get closer to the border, I get stopped at a checkpoint. The guard comes over to the car, salutes me, and waves me through without exchanging any words. I’m really hoping that the border crossing will go this easily, but am mentally preparing myself for a 6 hours on each side. Rolling through the last big village before the border I’m greeted with lines of little shops selling everything imaginable. This is starting to look serious. The vehicles are looking a bit more menacing as well. The panda is getting a lot of waves and honks. The look of utter shock on peoples faces as you drive by is probably going to be one of the things that I will miss most when I have to go back to driving at home.
With the map pulled out, I start estimating about that I’ve got about 30km left before the border, when it pops up on me. One of the nicer border crossings that I’ve seen, and no line. I pull up to the gate and head into the first little hut built into the fence. It was an strange scene with a huge soldier sitting behind behind a desk with a subway type turnstile separating us. This made things interesting once he started asking for documentation, as it was a good 3 feet between the turnstile and the desk, and he didn’t seem to intent on getting up. Walking through the turnstile is apparently also a big no no… We go through the documents fairly quickly, and he sends me back outside to wait out the opening of the gate. by this time, two Mongolian registered UAZ vans had pulled up behind me. The obligatory panda inspection begins, As I begin pouring tea for everyone, the gates open up, which I should have expected. I roll up to the customs inspection zone and am herded inside. Another exit document to complete, but this time I was prepared. Simon and I had filled out extras at the last crossing. Copying the old one like a pro, the entire form filling out process took a whole 3 minutes. The Mongolians seem to be having some trouble, and are already unloading their vehicles. I head over to customs and am greeted by young inspectors who speak excellent english. I give him the whole spiel about the trip, and he asks me if I have narcotics or weapons, to which I pause for a second and then shake my head. Picking up on the hesitation, he frowned and walked off. Another guard asked me to empty out the car, so I began unpacking. There’s that thermos that we were supposed to clean out in Barnual… and the tuperware container with noodles from Kazakhstan. After getting about half way through, they are content and give me the nod that it was enough. Seeing an opportunity, I decide to do a little housekeeping and unload the rest of the stuff out of the panda. About this time, inspector number one comes over with a black lab with a “you’re going to russian prison” look in his eyes. He does a bit of sniffing, and manages to find the tuna sandwich that I prepared earlier. Load the car back up, and am waved through. Last little hut, and I’m free. I pass over the paper, get a salute again, and the barrier goes up. Off into no mans land. We read online that the no mans land was big, it’s 18km to be exact. Brand spanking new road, my hopes are running high that the roads in Mongolia won’t be that bad. Head up to a little gate, is this Mongolia? I stop and two border guards head come out of a little hut. Passport check, and they open the gate. I’m out of Russia. The other side of the gate reveals a gravel trail. This isn’t so bad. After about 10km of gravel trail, I get to a huge complex. The Mongolian border seems to be a bit better funded than the Russian side. Brand new buildings all over the place, with huge gates, cameras, fences, the whole deal. There are two vans parked in front of the gate, and they let me know that it’s lunch time at the border crossing. We wait for about half an hour, and then a guy comes out to relieve me of 50 rubles for disinfecting the car. The Mongolian disinfection process consists of walking to a little hut labled “disinfection station”, paying 50 rubles, and eating some crackers. First hurdle cleared. At this point, a guard comes out of the compound and gives us all arrival forms to complete. He speaks perfect English and runs me through the form. 15 minutes pass or so, and he wave us all in. I get a salute and “welcome to Mongolia”. On to customs and passport inspection. I walk in and present my passport, the lady behind the counter seems to have a hard time believing that not only am I the driver, but I also don’t have any passengers. The familiar kerthunk of the stamp, and I am directed over to the medical station. With a runny nose, red face, and a bit of a cough, I declared that I was healthy, and did not have any swine flu symptoms. Another 50 rubles, and then on to customs. I was sure that this would be the point where I would be detained and thrown into the pen…I stuck to my story that I was going to drive to UB, and then ship the car to China. They gave me some documents, a couple of stamps, and sent me out to inspect the car. A nice Mongolian lady came out, looked at the car from about 20 feet, nodded her head, and motioned that I should follow her inside. We did, and I got another stamp, and they told me I was free. This can’t be right. I head out to the car, hop in, and make my way for the other gate. Present paperwork, another salute from the guard, and then I was in Mongolia. Whew. Stop, buy some Mongolian insurance for 3 euros, and head out.
The road…well, it’s an accumulation of Kamaz tracks which makes for bumpy driving. Nothing to horrible as long as you don’t try to drive over 40kph. This holds up for about 10km, and then the road splits about 15 different directions as I come up on Tsagaan Nuur. Might I suggest not stopping in Tsagaan Nuur and asking for directions, as you will just have everything repeated back to you. I start driving through the town and end up driving around in a clearing trying to get around a lake. After about 20 minutes of driving around, I manage to find a trail, which according to the compass, is taking me in the correct direction. Little did I know at the time, but this would be my primary method of navigation over the next 1500km. Driving along, I see a little van stopped on the side of the road with some people taking a break and having drinks. I decide that this would be a good time to stop and make sure that I was in fact headed to Olgii. One of the guys in the van is a tour guide who is just getting back from escorting a couple of tourists to the border. I offer a ride in the Panda to Olgii, and he seems to be up for adventure, and takes me up on my offer. Now I have a guide and a vehicle to follow, spirits are high. The road is pretty bad, lots of ruts, and what looks like a trail going up the side of a mountain in the distance. As we get closer, what looked like a dirt track going straight up the side of the mountain, turned out to actually be a dirt track going up the side of a mountain. I have my doubts. Panda isn’t liking it at all. About half way up, the panda decides that the incline is too much and stalls. Hmm, that was quick. Died on the first pass. Lets try to get some speed and head up, so we back up, and head off the road to drop the angle a bit, and it works, just barely, but it works. After a few more minutes of zig-zagging, we’re up and over the mountain. At the base of the mountain, I am greeted by a very strange sight. Brand new roads. My passanger lets me know that this would the last paved road that I would see for the next 1500km, so I should enjoy it. We get into Olgii, which is probably the dustiest town on earth, and I give Laura from couchsurfing a call. Laura has Matt pick me up from the Blue Wolf Cafe, and we drive over to her house. Laura and Matt are both peaccorps volunteers working in Mongolia on two year stints working on development projects. My first meal in Mongolia ended up being soft tacos which were recently imported from the US courtesy of a care package from Lauras family. After a meal with some other volunteers, Laura wasn’t feeling too well, so I stayed with a friend of hers who was from the German equivalant of peacecorps. After calling it an early night, we wake up and have breakfast, I wash up, load up the panda, and head out to Hovd… If today was the easy transition with arm floats, tomorrow was to be the day that I get thrown into the freezing cold lake…
It’s 0530 in the morning in Barnaul, there is an alarm going off. Why in gods name would an alarm be going off at 530? The only justifiable reason to be up at 530 involves personal safety (see last blog entry on “sleeping at Kazakh border”). Personal safety wasn’t the issue this morning, as we were tucked away safe and sound at Sascha’s place and the panda was in a mad-maxesque high security car prison. The culprit for today’s’ ridiculously early morning was even more sinister. A 720 AM flight to Moscow, with a further connection to Amsterdam. Today is the day that Simon headed back to the old continent to find new adventures in a place the locals here call “Gollandia”. From his description, it seems like just the place for a disaster tourist such as myself. An entire country built below sea level using dikes to taunt the sea, a country of 7 foot tall behemoths who sustain themselves on nothing but fried foods, a country so backwards, they wear wooden shoes. I still don’t believe him. After relieving Simon of some excess baggage (anyone looking to buy a leatherman? willing to trade for camping stove fuel), we said our good byes and he was off. And then there was one. Shortly thereafter, I went to free the car from the compound. I traded the two bits of paper with the registration scribbled on the back, and in return, I was allowed to liberate the car without having the dogs sicked on me. After loading up, I bid farewell to Sascha and hit the road. I’m not really a morning person, and driving around at 630AM through an unknown city only reinforced my belief that I should not wake up before noon, it’s just not for me. Despite the roads being practically empty, I still managed to drive around for half an hour before I found my way out of the city. Russians hide their roadsigns very well, and I turned to the trusty compass to get me into the right general direction.
Crossing over the new Ob river
bridge, I managed to spot a huge rainbow sprouting out of the center of Barnaul. Frightened, I floored the Panda and got onto the highway. To my surprise, I was greeted with 4 lanes of sweet new tarmac bliss which lasted all of about 30km before I had to turn onto the 2 lane road to Gorni Altai. I can tell that I’m getting spoiled, the roads were great. I set the cruise control on the panda to “foot down to the floor” and start to think about things while driving through the rolling hills east of Barnaul. I think about things like “how will you explain your Oklahoma drivers license and German visa to police hungry for chocolate?” and “how many days will I be detained at the Mongol border”… the usual stuff. As I come out of my daze, I notice that the scenery is starting to change from pine forests to the full range of colors that mother nature has on hand for autumn. Bright yellow, orange, and red were the colors of the morning, only becoming more brilliant the further east I went. Getting close to Gorni Altai, you could tell that this was tourist central in the Altais. I hadn’t expected it to be as developed as it was. Beautiful, with everything you could possibly wish for. Gas stations every couple hundred meters, camping all over the place, roadside cafes, rafting, go karts, pensions, you name it. When you manage to look past all that (which is difficult to do after 14000km), the landscape is amazing. It really is an outdoor paradise (note to self, one more reason to move to Russia). The rolling hills then dramatically turned into huge peaks covered in the colors of autumn. The road followed a valley carved by a huge crystal clear river, it was the first time on the trip that I was really moved by the landscape. Give me the Altais over Switzerland any day. Sometime during this transformation of the countryside, the Russians had decided it was enough, and stopped building tourist stops. I was driving for stretches as long as half an hour without seeing another car whatsoever, winding through the mountains on brand spanking new roads, always following that turquoise river.
My stomach started letting me know that it was time to give it some attention, so I stopped at a little unassuming cafe where the strangest thing happened. I walked in, and took a seat as the cook was in the kitchen preparing another customers meal, and then a Kazakh lady walked up to my table and I attempted to order plov. She stopped me mid sentence and began speaking German to me (panda doesn’t hide it’s origins very well). Not just German, but with a Hessian accent. It was amazing. Here I am driving around, not able to find an English speaker, and now I am placing my order in German. She disappears, then comes back a couple minutes later with a plate full of plov, a smile, and a “Gutten appetite”. I was dumbstruck. She disappears again, and I down my plov and chai. I ask the cook where the lady went, and she shakes her head and makes driving motions while saying “home”. Bizarre. I may return just to find out what was going on there. I loaded up and hit the road again. Snow capped mountains started popping up on either side of the valley. I have become a master at taking pictures out of the window without driving off the side of a cliff. A few close calls…
Before I knew it, the sun was going down, menacing clouds were forming, and I was 150km from the border. I decided to stop at a cafe and find some accommodation for the evening. Turns out the lady who runs the cafe has a sister with a pension, so we head over and fortune smiles upon me once again as 1.she speaks great English, 2.has a clean room, 3.has parking available, and 4.asks for 350 rubles. DEAL! As I’m unloading the car, her husband comes up to me asking if I want a banja. For some reason I thought that he could speak some spanish and was offering me a toilet. In actually, he was offering to let me use his russian bath. Once this was explained to me, I quickly changed and had a life changing 45 minutes of steamy bliss. Then, I was pointed to the internet cafe, which turned out to be a truck stop with a cafe, no internet…or coffee. Another strange day, tomorrow will probably prove to be even stranger.
We had some fun in Semey (Semipalatinsk).This city in the North West of Kazakhstan is close to the border with Siberia. We spent a night there after driving within 60km of the nuclear testing sites. close enough for me. Once in the city we found some great cafe, stopped for food and a cappucino….had forgotten what those were. Walked around the city and stumbled across a small park tucked away in the residential area that was hosting a collection of soviet era statues and busts. A handful of busts depicting past soviet ‘personalities’ presided over by a 15m tall bronze Lenin, arm outstretched triumphantly. Strange to see such sites nestled in amongst trees and surrounded by high rise soviet aprtment blocks. Incongrous, thats the word!
Semey has one more nice suprise for us. We wombled around the city and found the medical university. We wanted to get inside to the anatomy museum where there are collections of human body parts/deformed babies etc in formaldahyde(?) dating from the soviet nuclear test era. We were turned away, probably quite rightly as the doctors ushered as away from the door I felt a tinge of guilt being this overpaid european barging in there seeking to satisfy his morbid curiosity. But, the nice suprise was on the way around the campus we stumbled into some beautiful medical students (its a gift we think). Three girls dressed up in there white overcoats staring at these unusual visitors. We had along chat with them, two spoke excellent english the third not so good but it was enough to have a pleasant 20mins standing in the sun at a far away kazakh medical university.
We parted company, hit our favourite cafe for one more luxurious coffee and hit the road north to the russian border and Siberia…Da!! Da is YES in Russian by the way, but it becomes the most addictive word you can imagine. We both use it impulsively now, even incorrectly most of the time…its a gut reaction to any question. either of us will spit out Da! several hundred times a day. ha hah.
We arrived at the russian border 8 hours early and spent a cold, restless night in what could be described as a barn with metal framed beds and paper thin mattresses for the hard fought price of 4 euros. Hardly any sleep was had despite it being in the middle of nowhere. Feral dogs, strangers rustling around the car and whatnot, it being -2 degrees also. the border crossing is surrounded by woods and fields as far as you can see or drive within an hour. The local kazakh population of 3 have these ramshackle huts right on the border, in sight of the barriers into russia. in any case we were happy to be inside and not in the tents.
we were up and ready to leave at sunrise, 6.30am. piled across the KZ side of the border quite quickly, no gifts this time! the guards were polite and efficient. Most often phrase from each new guard was ‘Mongolia da?’ to which we reply DA! and smile at each other.
Russian side of the border was 3 hours, again they are efficient and polite, and thorough. car got a good looking over inside, out, underneath..the works. we we told to wait 30 mins as the customs team were not on duty yet so we broke out the stove and made tea and boil in the bag rice. a welcome hot meal as we watch the sun come up and the temperature drags itself slowly up past 5 degrees.
We headed straight north to the first big russian city Barnaul in Siberia. Its somewhat like a gateway to the beautiful Altay mountains so popular with local siberians and russians for camping, hiking etc. We are here for two nights staying with the wondeful Alexander or Sasha as we call him, and his wife L. Sasha probably one of the most modest men I know is the first to admit English is his weaker foreign language despite it being superior to most foreigners I have met. His first foreign language, that which he officially translates is Spanish and Polish. We are huddled down in their charming aparmetent or panelak for you over there in CZ/SK 
sampling amazing fresh fruit and vegetables from the local area. Tonight we will drink and be merry and once again discuss life under soviet rule, life in Amerika and Europe. Oh that reminds me…joke for you folks, this is fresh off the printing press from Sasha:
Stalin is giving a speech about the superbly high quality of life all Soviets currently enjoy. During a pause for breath an audience member coughs. the hall falls silent and Stalin asks ‘Komrades, who was it?’. Silence. ‘Have the first row executed’ Stalin requests. Again Stalin asks ‘komrades, dear komrades…who was it?!’. Silence. ‘Have the second row executed’ Stalin retorts. One more time Stalin asks who was it. One man answers nervously ‘It was I’. ‘Bless you, komrade’ says Stalin. boom boom.
Onto more pressing matters. After leaving the UK 9 weeks ago I am calling it a day. I have some issues back in Europe I need to fix sooner rather than later and time is running out. Mongolia will still be there next year. I plan to go there someday. It will also be nice to have a sleep in a familiar bed, a regular shower and familar surroundings. Dave is going to continue on and attempt the last 3,000 or so kilometres in true disaster toursit spirit. He will no doubt pickup Mongol or siberian hitch hikers and force them to drive him all the way. You think Im joking. He has recently armed himself with a shovel and a large thermos, and my leatherman 
So I will head to Barnaul airport here in Siberia and hopefully not get stuck at customs. I arrived into russia via car, my passpot is stamped as entering with a car. When I leave via plane there is a possibilty they will ask about the car. its a long shot but russian paerwork is russian paperwork. If I cant prove the car is leaving or already out of russia I am technically importing the car. as far as they are concerned it is still on russian soil, therefore I must pay import tax on it…that runs to a few thousand dollars. With only 2 days left on my russian visa I have to get out quickly as being caught with an expired visa is a very un-pleasant time from what I have read. So! If you hear from me in the next few days its all good, otherwise I am in a police cell stuck at Moscow airport for a few weeks.
Will Dave update the blog? not sure, there isnt much internet out there in Mongolia. there isnt a whole bunch of anything across siberia and mongolia.
So getting here from Astrachan in Russia was a real trek (Astrachan in Russia - Atyrau - Uralsk/Oral - Aktobe - Qostany - Koshetaw - Astana). 3,000km+ of the most erratic and un-predictable road system we have seen. Around the oil cities the roads are pristine, smooth tarmc highways. In other towns and cities the roads mostly fine, the worst being akin to poorly maintained A or B roads in Europe…driveable in any car without a problem but at slow speeds, and still paved…its not dirt. Rods linking the cities are typically 400 - 600km stretches of hilarity. Let me start with the good parts.
Atyrau - Uralsk/oral is autobahn quality perfect tarmac all the way, 2 line highway. Uralsk - Aktobe is good tarmac most of the way, except for maybe 80kms of bomb holes and 4 inch deep
trenches across the road. This terrible section of road is about 80km before Aktobe, then it clears up into better tarmac closer to the city. Aktobe a wealthy oil town looked fantastic, shame we passed through it in the night. We met a KZ air traffic controller at a gas station and had a chat as we pumped gas. The road out of Aktobe for 100km is autobahn quality tarmac then another 200 of good tarmac heading north to … then it starts to break up in long sections of terrible surfaces…punctuated by 10k or 20k of decent tarmac again, then back to junk. The 20km sections or longer where the tarmac disintegrates to the rock base underneath or worse are amazing to drive. We have pics.
First it eases you into a false sense of security by allowing you tyo get upto 100kmh then throwing up more frequent, larger pot holes that can be anywhere on the road, 4 inches deep or more…2 foot across and almost invisble to the eye until you are on top of them (the tarmac leading upto the holes is furled up like a bow wave so you dont see them, even at 40mph). Then there are the trenches across the road….3 or 4 inches deep crossing the entire width of the road, both sides..and they are at least a wheels size in length. So you end up driving at 40kmh max, traversing hole after hole zig zagging across the entire road from left to right or at times reversing back on yourself trying to avoid the deeper holes and accepting fate that you will bottom out, albeit more slowly, in the shallower holes. Our sump guard and tank guard have saved us to this point, countless times.
Add to that the hundreds of TIR heavy trucks (30 ton articulated HGV trucks) and Kamaz wagons coming the other way doing exactly the same thing it becomes this sybchronsied choreography of all drivers avoiding the potholes and each other, huge plumes of dust and 50 degrees celsius in the middle of nowhere.
The really bad sections can be 20km long (there were 2 or 3 of these along our entire KZ trip so far) where you are forced off the road (well its a line on a map) down the embankment into the desert scrub or grassland and have to take the dirt/sand strips to the sides…even the large trucks do this. you can see them in the distance on the horizon, headlights blazing and dust plumes rising high in the air as they approach. Then out of nowhere, a 50km section of virgin tarmac with painted white lines appears…the relief!. So 2 or 3 nights of camping in desert scrub or cornfileds we made it to Astana, the capital. No punctures, no damage to the car across that terrain so we are happy.
Had a good nights sleep last night in this little hotel in Astana. Back in Uralsk (or Oral as the Kazakhs call it) we somehow managed to bag two new Russian visas directly from the Russian consulate! With a mix of the correct paperwork, some cash and a lot of help from our new Kazakh friends Nur and Eugene.
Firstly Nur an Almaty resident visitng Uralsk on business was a real gent and was always there to help us, show us around and go to the Russian consulate to do the translation work for us, thanks Nur!
Eugene the proprieter of the Malinka bar by Hotel Oral was a true gem. She spoke immaculate english, had the finest kitchen this side of the english channel serving incredible cottage pie, curries, omelettes and anything else that we missed from home. She kept us company while we sat out the 3 day wait for the visa to be processd at the Russian consulate. Thankyou, we will miss your great food and hospitality! Those of you heading to Oral, you must stop by there and sample the excellent food and hospitality.
The new Russian visa is a transit visa for 5 days only but we think that is enough to get us across the 1,000km or so of Siberian forest and Altay mountains to the Mongolia border. If not, one of you will be getting a phone call from our embassies and/or the Russian immigration service to discuss deportation fines and car import tax
Today we leave Astana and head for the desert and more steppe of East Kazakhstan to Semipalatinsk or Semey in Kazakh (via Pavlodar). Semey being infamous as the industrial town and the city closest to the former soviet nuclear testing site called the polygon where they detonated 400+ nuclear bombs from the 50’s to the late 90’s without telling the locals. They built a metro system, towns, parked planes and other infrastructure at ground zero there as part of the tests. We will get the car serviced hoepfully somewhere there and roll the 150km to the Russian border into Siberia on the 19th. that is the start date of our visa. We hope to get some internet conenction before crossing into Russia. Otherwise our absolute last stop for electricity, internet and phone serrvice is the russian city of Barnaul in the Siberial forest. That is our decision point and last post before driving into the mountains and the mongol border, at whichpoint you will not hear from us for 10 days probably (approx 21 Sept - 1st Oct) as we cross the mountains and inner Monglia hopnig to pop out in Ulaan baatar around the 1st.
We just checked the weather and it is gonna be around 0 to -9 at night across the Altays at the russian border and all of Mongolia, upto 15 in the day with occasional snow. Will stock up on thermals in Barnaul before me thinks.
Good news, only 3,000km to go to Ulaan Baatar. We have covered 12 or 13,000 so far.
’til next time.
After 2 or 3 days of driving across some desert, camping and the worst roads we have ever seen we have made 1,800km it to the capital Astana. We wil stay here tonight. More stories of the drive to here will follow, for now we need to go sleep somewhere.
Still here in North West Kazakhstan. Awaiting new Russian visas as ours have both expired we are effectively trapped here in the country with no legal path out with the car. We visited the Russian consulate yesterday and with a huge load of help from our new friend Nur we managed to get the forms completed and submitted. Hope to get the visas tomorrow and get out of town, pushing on west for 3,000km to the Russian border with Siberia. From here its 3,000km of dodgy kazakh roads, desert and cities every 600km approximately, including the capital Astana. We plan to push hard all the way through to the Russian border as we will only be given a 5 day transit visa from the russians. That 5 days is to get across 1,000km of siberian mountains and forests to the Mongol border.
This morning we checked the car, she is working fine. No mechanical issues, no more punctures as we now have innertubes. The sumpguard and gas tank guard saved us to many times to count. Hitting invisible potholes, 6 inch deep trenches aross the road and other obstacles at 50kmh.
Gotta run, we have found a place with a shower so we are gonna live like kings for today.
What follows is not a work of fabrication, it comes not from the warped mind of Mr Driggers or I, this really transpired. So, we leave beautiful Russia and roll upto the Kazakh border. We are greeted by a smiling Kazakh border guard resplendent in uniform, 18 years old if a day. As Dave gets his visa processed in a far off building I wait in the drivers seat, the uniformed schoolboy sits in the passenger seat, offers his upturned high-peak hat and says ‘gift’ in Russian (darek) then in english ‘present’. I give him a bag of nuts and dried fruit from a russian shop we stopped in, he was happy. Now I know why the caps they wear are so high brimmed - he put his hat back on and walked back to his office hiding the bag of nuts up there. it was a kilo of nuts!
Next up are the customs guys, 4 or 5 all in fatigues, well built and 100% Central Asian looking removing any doubt that we had left Russia. Thrown off guard by friendly border police, we barely noticed that one off our brand spanking new tires had gone flat. By this time, the customs inspection had already started. The usual banter about where we were going quickly turned into the border guards rummaging through our stuff looking for ‘presents’. While Simon ran off to take care of the customs paperwork, and it became obvious that we weren’t going to much farther on the tire. I decided that it would be a good idea to change the tire while Simon was off with the paperwork. There are a number of reasons why this turned out to be a bad idea, chief among them being that you can’t change a tire and guard your belongings from the prying hands of border police looking for presents. After about 30 minutes of jacking up the car and then running to the back to tell the guards that “yes, I need the tent”, Simon emerges victorious with customs paperwork in hand. In the end, we knocked out 3 hours, one bag of fruit and nuts, a pipe, and some tabaco. All in all, a good border crossing. Much quicker than expected, and a good introduction to Kazakh “gifting”.
First guard in hut with barrier blocking road, fill out his paperwork give him gift, barrier is lifted. drive to next guard, he checks passports and rummages around car, possible gift, discussion about how great the country you are in is and how shit the country you are heading to is ‘Da..da!’ in agreement, gut laughs exchanged with the officers at the neighbouring cvountries poverty, then waved on to customs guys. Customs guys always in fatigues, full or partial, heavily armed and looking at you like you slept with their kid sister. They ask a bunch of questions, rummage through the car, kick tyres, might ask for a gift, then stamp some papers and move on. We have it down to a 2 hours end to end now, like professionals. In Kazakhstan EVERY single guard, from all over the area appear and queue up asking for gifts. But these guys use a psychological tactic I had not expected. They get your first name off the passport and use it all the time. SIMON, SIMON gift! …Come back SIMON….gift. You give him gift, Simon! And so it continues…dont get me wrong,they are not aggressive or forceful, very polite and have the warmest smiles you could imagine. You say no enough times they smile and let you go, even wish you luck.
Anyway on with the kazakh story you have to hear….
I know I say this alot but, the change of scenery this time was jarring. First up is the epic flatness of the famous Steppe. The non-stop wind and the barren desert/grassland. As you go east the gbrownish grass gives way to sand. The highway is collection of potholes 4 inches deep minimum, connected by random patches of tarmac and ruts from heavy trucks. The Panda would have been destroyed already if we didnt have the sump guard and gas tank guard. We have had 5 tyre changes in 48 hours. We bought two new tyres as we left russia, 300kms later they are destroyed. We have swapped out all our spares already and are buying new as we roll on. More on this in a while….back to the story. Leaving a country of wealth like Russia to a barren western Kazakhstan, far from the oil towns where the money, infrastructure and modern civilisation is was humbling. Mud huts, massive herds of camels, cows, goats….roaming wild across the ‘highway’ in our path. Whilst hurtling along at 90kmh in the night, dodging potholes and seeing a 600kg camel sideways on 100ft ahead of you is a novelty. Interestingly we never see roadkill camels, on wrecks of trucks and cars at the roadside.
We pass small encampent after another, really jsut a few mudhuts at the roadside, someone burning tyres over there, a woman herding her cows there, amongst the constant wind and dust. All the while these Kazakh people look up smile and wave with these big central asian faces you cant help but want to like.
First small town we stop for gas. Unable to locate a gas station we roll around the collection of huts known as a town and spot a young policeman, again he was maybe 19 or 20 at most. Fresh faced, beaming smile, immaculate uniform. We ask for directions to gas and then the game changes. He starts gesturing and after a while we figure he wants a go in the panda. He jumps in alongside us. Three of us up front, in a panda..remember the back of the car has no seats and is full to the roof with stuff. I straddle the handbrake, Dave drives, Policeman on the right. He takes us on a tour and onto the gas station. We take pics, exchange thanks and leave. He was nervous trying not to be spotted by his seniors around the town.
Back on the road the sun is setting fast.The desertified, empty surroundings, never ending horizon and wind is not too appealing, we press on. The road surface is getting worse so we push on to the next ‘town’ marked on our map. Under the cover of darkness it feels remote, a few house lights on..but mostly a town of a few thousand built around the highway, a train line running through it and a bunch of mud tracks for roads. As we roll in we are greeted by the now customary inital looks of bemusement followed by waves and smiles, sometimes shouts in English. No street lights, no infrastructre to talk of so we are navigating over mud roads, surrounded by ramshackle houses and mud huts some with lights on. We find a dead end, the road stops..only steppe ahead. We turn the car around and a local van driver stops next to us. We exchange some words and in a few minutes we are following him to our nights accommodation. We are led to the only pension in the town, a 3 room affair and a giant bar stacked full of local young guys busy drinking the saturday night away. As we park up we are surrounded by guys of all ages asking us a million questions, where are we from etc, where we going. All very welcoming, shaking hands, smiles. Each proud to say where they from ‘Uzbek’, ‘Kazahk’. loved it. We talk with the owner and get a room then are invited into the bar for a much needed cold beer. As we unwind we take in the rustic, rural bar and the local faces staring at us. Steadily a stream of locals come upto us and sit and chat until finally we are requested into a backroom. Earlier we saw this door open once or twice, each time we catch a glimpse - very small, packed with guys and alot of smoke, alot of smoke, coming out. Turns out its the 30th birtday of a local. So we pile in there and get squeezed in on a bench seat. 8 guys in a room about 2m x 2m, like a prison cell in capacity, two bench seeats either side of a table. We are greeted warmly and congratulate birthday boy, we continue to drink beer. At this point I notice the two guys directly opposite me. on their side of the table there are 3 guys, on my side 4 or more. Hmm. The two guys opposite me have the classic central asian look, big round faces, broad noses, dark skin and disarming smiles. I then see why there are only 3 guys. Its because they are fu*** huge! Man-bears.No wait, man-bear-ox. We get talking and after more beer conversation is flowing. We learn our new friends are former champion wrestlers, gold medal winners in international competitions. Wrestling and boxing are national sports here - EVERY boy learns to wrestle and box. Dont screw with a Kazakh! Well now, the opportunity was there so I couldnt let it pass. By now we are getting on famously, we have exchanged numbers, pictures of friends, home etc and I propose an arm wrestle. The big guy Ivan is 120kg and about 6 foot. His forearms as big as my waist. More than happy to do so, we clear the table top and I lock hands with him we count 3, 2, 1 GO and whilst still staring at the wall behind me, smoking with the other hand he barely moves his shoulder and my arm feels like its been dislocated. He wasnt even trying. Dave tried it too, we all tried it a bunch of times. Turns out this guys job since retirement is slaughtering camels and horses. He showed us pics on his phone. Im pretty sure he does it with his bare hands. He was a great guy, gentle, humorous and fun to drink with. Onto his buddy, shorter, smaller but by no means any less imposing. Again, the arm wrestle was comical. But I decided to up the ante and said I wanna wrestle, not arm wrestle. So I convince this guy to take me outside and hurt me. So, its 1am we head outside to the dirt road. He proceeds to do a handstand walk along the street in darkness. Jumps back onto his feet and shows me some grips, arm locks, throws and other stuff. Then its game on - I go for his neck as instructed and after that it was all over pretty quick, I was on his shoulder being carried down the street laughing my balls off. It was ridiculous how strong and fast this guy was. Dave also got the treatment. Then he showed me a pressure point pinch on my neck. He had me nearly unconscious by just two fingertips. Awesome. errr, yeah. awesome. Then we went back inside and continued drinking, all safe in the knowledge who the Alpha males are.
By this time we have finished the 2nd bottle of vodka and have sunk a few beers too. The locals start to call it a night and I head to bed, Dave hangs around longer as there was still stuff to be drunk. I spend an hour throwing my guts up and get a rough nights sleep.
Awake to a huge hangovber, burning throat, stinking of smoke and alcohol, in a strange bed…no running water in the place. hmm. Where are we again Dave? Use bottled water to brush the teeth and head out to the Panda. Im still drunk, Dave is most definitely still drunk so I opt to start the driving. The car has developed a flat tyre in the night so we swap it out and head try to head out of town only to discover the newly fitted tyre is also going rapidly flat. We
limp around this little place, dirt roads, shacks for houses and find something that passes as a gas station. No air. I get directions to a place that has it. We roll up and they have no air but a little boy comes bombing over across the dirt on his bike so excited he cant contain himself. I talk in broken czech/russian with him and he says to folloow him. We follow a kid on a bike around the town and get to a wooden hut about 4m x 4m in size on the side of the dirt road…you have to see pics to understanad this. but they aint like roads in europe. No roadside grass, just dirt, sand, burnt out tyres, car wrecks, tin shacks, mud huts and friendly locals or over excited kids. The proprieter was a fantastic Uzbek guy in his 30’s who was humbled we were using his ‘facilities’. One man, a compressor, tyre changing gear and a few big hammers. He had us up and running in no time, re-inflated the bad tyre and fitted our spare tyres to the old rims. In exchange i let him keep the old tyres which he was more than pleased with. I tried to pay him some roubles and he reluctantly accepted them..all he wanted was 100 roubles (2 euros) and a photo of us. While Im paying up I notice dave and the car surrounded by an army of local kids…crawling all over the car, fascinated by ipods, orange juice, sunglasses or anything else they could find. Not a single thing was stolen….my cynical mind was put to rest. sorry for that. They were honest, excited little boys who were as interested in us and the car as we were in them. As we drive away the army of kids jump on their bikes and chase us down the road waving and shouting goodbye. Happy days. We head on into the 40 degree heat with throbbing headaches, dry throats, dodgy stomachs but a warm glow of contentment from the hospitality we had experienced in the last 24 hours.
It gets even stranger. As we leave the town we approach a cyclist. Not any cyclist. This is in the middle of nowhere, the rider is clearly European and the bike is laden down with kit. He is traversing Europe and Asia to get to Japan, by bike, alone. I recall flying past him the night before on the highway, catching a glimpse of him as we pass. First, no-one cycles here, not even in the last two countries we have driven through. To see a cyclist was like seeing Dave in a unitard. It jsut doesnt happen. So we pull alongside, he stops and we get chatting. Tim, from Rochdale UK..is cycling to Japan. we thoguht we were mad. He camps on the roadside everynight, it is taking him 6 months, on a good day he covers 30 or 40 miles in total. The wind acorss the steppe is so strong he is reduced to walking speed. We are already gettihng tired of the endless steppe in a car, on a bike i really cannot fathom where he gets the motivation from. Articulate, educated, more than happy to see an english speaker especially another island monkey like me. He told stories of how in Poprad he was camping by the roadside one night adn his bike was stolen by a truck driver. He was left with only his underwear on and his money belt. No shoes, no clothes, a small tent and that was it. Anyway, we offer him a life to the next city (which takes us 1 hour, will take him a full day and night of cycling), he refuses and said its cheating. We bid farewell after treating him to fresh apple juice and head on our way.
As we approach the next big city Atyrau we are running flat on a tyre again. Iits getting painful now. 5 flat tyres, its 40 degrees or more, middle of the day with no shade, we havent eaten or drunk (non alcoholic drinks) for 20 hours probably. Feeling weak and dejected. We pull in change the tyre one more time, in doing so nearly destroying the jack. We roll on into the city seeking food, water and a miracle. Even a plane ticket home at this point.
In a few hours things change alot. Atirau is one of the wealthy cities in Kazakhstan thanks to the oil nearby. Not far from Atirau is one of the worlds largest oil fileds and not much further beyond under the Caspian is another field 3 times that size. So Kazakhstan has something like the worlds 4th largest oil reserves, not to mention the gas and minerals it sits on too. This oil town has some nice tarmac roads, new buildings, beautiful new Mosques, fancy cars, multilingual locals, a bunch of American and European oil folks visiting and an expat community with the infrastructure they need to survive; high security gated compounds for housing, manicured streets inside, expat themed bars and so on. So we had late lunch in the air conditioned finery of the Guns n Roses bar, partaking in a tasty burger and a beverage to wash it down with.
We crusei around the city looking for tyre shops and find a place where yet again we are humbled by the locals. I manage to explain what we need, the boss of the place sets his best man on the job. We are in a decent car repair shop and they have all the latest kit to repair tyres, cars, whatever you need. You wouldnt expect it from the first look of the place outside. Anyways, Our man speaks some english and he thoroughly checks all the wheels and tyres we have.He showed me the problem, why we were going thru tyres so fast. the old wheel rims (4 of them) are so old they have small perforations where the metal has fatigued so much. He puts a tyre and wheelin a vat of water to reveal the tell-tale sign of bubbles from eaach wheel rim. After explaining he has no tyres or wheels our size we are ready to quit. But our man suggests inner tubes. He has none. So we go for a walk to his brothers place, pick up inner tubes and get back to the car. He then spends over an hour, hammering out the rims, cleaning them up , fitting inner tubes and so on. By the time he his done the wheels are as good as new, almost. I try to tip him but he refuses to accept, again he is happy with just some photos. Whilst at this car repair shop a local over hears our conversation and comes over speaking perfect english. Our new friend Azamat. He takes us on a drive around town, we get given almost new tyres he doesnt need (that dont fit but we can trade them) and an invite for dinner in the evening. Now are spirits are high.
We head into town for dinner in a nice restaurant, met Azamat’s beautiful little kids, his two good friends who also speak excellent English. Educated in Izmir, Turkey they are charming guys…speaking fluent English, Turkish, Russian and Kazakh. They pay for our dinner and we share great stories. We exchange contact details and our new friend Damir, a BASF employee, is going to hook us up with some sponsorship stickers for the car. A charming evening.
We are not uploading pics as we are not finding any places with enough bandwidth to upload pics. We have over 3,000 so far. Oh yeah…we got a bunch of problems with our cell phones. roaming is proving very hard across this country so getting hold of people even via SMS is often not possible. Apologies if you are SMSing or calling us and not getting through or not getting a response. We can see the SMS’s but cant answer.
We stayed the night in Atyrau the oil town. Yesterday we drove on North to Uralsk where we might stay for a few days out of necessity. It is possible we can get new Russian visas here directly from the Russian consulate. Our Russian visas have already expired so we are locked into Kazakhstan with no exit over the border for our onward journey. Options are to send passport back to home countries for new visa application, or hopefully the first option of getting them here. This country is huge, massive. take a look on a map. We are taking it in 600km chunks. We have another 1,000 km to the next city, then 1,200 to the next city, then 1,500 to the russian border. Yup..it is pretty big.
The locals look at us funny when we say we are driving across this place. most folks fly. So tomorrow we head to Uralsk about 600 km away, then onto Aktobe another 500 from there. So in a couple days we will be online again. Keep your fingers crossed for us.
Spent the night in a hotel here in Astrachan, spitting distance from the border with Kazahstan and the empty desert we have to cross. Awoke to see the the hotel is directly on the banks of the Volga, still wide and majestic. We sat here eating breakfast high up in the hotel watching the fisherman at work and the daily river traffic passing by. We are starting to enter the real Asia now - the locals faces are changing from Russian/European to a Kazakh and Asian mix. Some beautiful people here.
Last night as we rolled into the city around midnight we pulled up at some traffic lights and were greeted by a car with smiling and waving girls next to us. Window wound down we exchanged a few words and when asked if they spoke English a euphoric yes was the answer. We pulled in just up the road from the lights and spoke to the driver and got some bad directions to a hotel, eventually finding this hotel on ourselves.
In southern Russia we picked up two punctures somehow so we are down to one spare now. We need to get the two flat tyres fixed before we enter the desert so that is our task today. We also managed to pick up a decent camping stove and supplies in Volgograd, thanks to Svetlana for her help in finding us a camping store there. Sad to say goodbye to Volgograd and the friends we made there, but time marches on - we have barren landscapes to traverse and Caspian Sea Baluga Caviar to sample.
We have only a few hours today to get the tyres done and exit Russia quickly as Daves Russian visa expires at midnight tonight. Persona non grata in Russia is not a party I hear.
Car is still holding up well, only the two flat tyres so far. We drive the Panda flat out for 8 hours or more in the day (100 kmh or so) and despite the awful noise she just keeps going. We just passed the 10,000km point yesterday. 7 or 8 more of desert and mountains.
On the road in Southern Russia. heading towards Kazakhstan border and the desert, will stop for night in Astrachan where Volga meets Caspian. Caviar!