Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan - a catch-up

Here, as promised, is the first of several catch-up entries:

18th June, day 62, Tashkent, Uzbekistan - Kazakh Border



It's quite a long wait today. That's all a part of traveling, it requires patience, a quality I lack in abundance. But at about 5pm ish we finally leave the hotel and head for the Kazakh border, it's not far. Before we know it, we're there. Unfortunately it seems we are not welcome at this border, so we turn round and head towards a different crossing point. A few hours later we arrive at another border crossing point, safe in the knowledge that we'll get through this one. The Kazakh official says it closes at 9pm, but it's just before 8 when we arrive at the border, so plenty of time. The Uzbekistan exit formalities don't take too long and at shortly after 8pm, we're through to the Kazakh formalities. Then the bombshell hits. The Kazakh side of the border has just closed, because in Kazakhstan it is 9pm, not 8pm. Just a shame no-one took the time difference into account!

So we all set up camp in no-mans land, with Pete's warnings if not climbing over the fence to go to the loo, there might be land mines. Lovely.

19th June, day 63, Kazakh Border - middle of nowhere, Kazakhstan

We are through first thing in the morning when the men in huge peaked caps open the gates. It's quite quick really.

After a few hours driving through flat countryside with the occasional shanty-town we are busy overtaking a slow lorry when another car decides we are not overtaking fast enough, so overtakes us at the same time. The road is only 2 lanes, one each way, so the car has to go onto the dirt beside the road. It then pulls in in front of us and jams on the brakes. The driver gets out and starts yelling at Kirsten, who was driving. Pete and various other men get out. The car driver looks a bit worried and backs down. The problem is, were are in an extremely chauvenistic culture and women are seen as inferior. It's true in all the Stans but seems brutally true here. The car driver probably though that the truck was full of women, because (just by chance) on the visible side whilst overtaking, only women would have been visible through the window (apart from me, and I have long hair).

Another slight incident was being stopped by police. Nothing unusual in that in the Stans. The police have wide ranging powers to stop anyone they like, and as foreigners we are obvious targets. The policeman says something about insurance being invalid, and it will cost a US$200 "fine". Clearly he's making it all up, the insurance for the truck is world-wide. One bribe later and we're on our way. Welcome to Kazakhstan. What a horrible place.

20th June, day 64, nowhere, Kazakhstan - Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Last night we were camped near a railway line - quite a busy one at that. Luckily it didn't keep me awake much. Also, all the tents were in a row along a farm track next to a field. Sometimes it's hard to find a good camp. We were expecting to have to bribe/compensate a farmer for letting us stay, but vodka usually does the trick. We never saw him, though.

It's only a short trip to the Kyrgyz border and we bid a last farewell to our first unexpected country. We're getting quite good at border crossings now and this one isn't too painful. After that it's on to Bishkek for a night in a hotel.

Kyrgyzstan in apparently 96% mountains, so it only seems fitting that the journey from the border to Bishkek is flat as a pancake. Not so much as a molehill. The road all the way along is lined with the ubiquitous third-world market stalls - little brick or concrete shelters brimming with goods for sale spilling out over the muddy wasteland either side of the main road. This continued all the way to Bishkek. We found the hotel in the suburbs, and it's about a 40 minute walk into town, navigated with a map whose road names are all out of date.

In the evening we all go to the Metro Bar for a few beers. Not really in the mood, don't stay late. The taxi driver has no idea which way to go back to the hotel, it would have been quicker to walk, but apparently it's very dangerous to walk after dark in Bishkek. Not the the locals are a threat, oh no. It's the police you've got to watch out for. They violently rob tourists after dark.

21st June, day 65, Bishkek - Lake Issyk Kol, Kyrgizstan

Bishkek did not give a good first impression to Kyrgyzstan, but luckily it's only one night in the Hotel Alpinist, where, if you manage to get any water out of the taps you are doing very well.

We leave fairly late in the morning, it's a shortish drive to Lake Issyk Kol, the 2nd largest mountain lake in the world. We have now started to enter the mountains - just. The lake is so big that it stretches all the way to the horizon in some directions and looks like the sea. Look another way and you'll see snow-capped mountains reflected in the lake. Very beautiful location. We arrive mid afternoon and set up camp, and I go for a swim. It's lovely, not too cold.

22nd - 26th June, Days 66 - 70, Diety Orgus, Kyrgyzstan



We have now entered the mountains proper and set up camp for 4 nights in the beautiful Diety Orgus, a mountain valley in Kyrgyzstan. The valley is very lush and green with plenty of pine trees and river running through it. We are now at an altitude of about 2400m, the highest camp yet, and so is no longer hot. But with altitude comes other problems such as slight breathlessness, but really 2400m is not that high and the breathlessness soon passes.

This location is great for walking and during the time here I go for some nice walks including one to the top of the mountain immediately opposite the camp. It was a bit of a challenge but well worth it.

Another activity was horse riding, which Joy and I both tried. The horse I got was quite well behaved, I was able to make it go, stop, turn etc without too much hassle. Simon and Alice went riding at the same time and they did not have quite the same luck I did. Their horses refused to turn around and instead just stood there where thay should have turned, some miles from the camp. Simon and Alice just gave up in the end and got off their horses and walked them back. I managed to ride mine back and returned to the camp about an hour before them. Not sure if the locals who we hired the horses from were worried or not.

On our last full day, another overland truck turned up. It was a Dragoman truck on a journey from India to Istanbul, via China, the Stans, Iran and Turkey. It was nice to sit with them and compare notes over a few beers, though I must say our truck is nicer. They all stayed in Yurts that night.

26th June, day 70, Diety Orgus - Karakol, Kyrgizstan

It's a shame to leave Diety Orgus. There's so much more we could have done, especially since just about one whole day was nearly constant rain, so another day would have been nice. But we do have a schedule to keep and Australia is still thousands of miles away.

We go to a small town called Karakol where we have a homestay, a chance to have a proper hot shower after 4 nights under canvas.

27th June - 1st July, days 71-75, Lake Song Kul, Kyrgyzstan



After Karakol we have 5 nights bushcamping, one en route and four near Lake Issyk Kol. The drive from Karakol is uphill all the way and soon we are getting some altitude again. The en-route camp is just a spot near the road heading up towards the lake, not a busy road, luckily. It's in a valley with a stream running through but not quite as picturesque and Diety Orgus.

The following day we head further up into the mountains, the road zig-zags up a very steep slope and soon we are beyond the snow line. At this point I am on the roof-seats looking around surrounded by snow-covered mountains. The air is thin, bitterly cold, but the sun is blisteringly hot. A strange combination.

We soon come down from the high pass and emerge into a vast, flat grassy plain with the lake shimmering on the horizon just below the mountains on the far side. This stunning location is exactly how I'd pictured the Stans - endless grassy plains with the occasional yurt separated by huge distances, horses and yaks roaming free, huge dramatic sky, mountains on the horizon dwarfed by distance.

Here is the highest bushcamp again - now over 3000m. Can't stand up too quick otherwise my head spins but other than that I'm OK. It's all good preparation for the Himalayas, where even in the valleys it rarely gets down to 3000m.

One day, a group of us decide to walk towards one of the closer-looking mountains. This is the sort of place where you can walk for hours and the scenery doesn't change. Still the same mountains in the distance, the same lake, the same endless grass. It's just that the camp reduces to a mere speck in the distance. After about 2 hours, the mountain didn't look an awful lot closer although the ground was getting steeper, so we headed back. We'd gone uphill a fair way and could see the vastness of the plain better from this vantage point. A tiny speck was visible, we thought it to be the truck. Beyond, we could see the lake.

This is a huge and awe-inspiring place, my feeble descriptive powers or the photos can't really do it justice.

Next update - the gruesome game of Goat Polo, coming soon....