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After a long night celebrating we woke early with the intention of getting to the Kyrgyzstan boarder early. We didn’t want any problems or long queues to contend with. We had heard that it could take a very long time so we didn’t want to miss the closing time of 8pm…. Thankfully on our high quality (£2) vodka we didn’t have any hang over and felt fresh in the morning.. After packing up and having a big breakfast (again horse sausages and eggs) it was time to make tracks.. for the first time at a border crossing we had got fully prepared with loads of food and water so that we didn’t end up starved and hungry (e.g. Like coming into Russia).. I hope you see the irony in that as the story unfolds…

Buying roadside Honey - Kazakhstan

On the way into Taraz we stopped at one of the various local honey producers to get some honey for the fresh bread that we can now get everywhere… we bought some local honey that has an excellent taste… It still had some bee’s in it.. after a short honey break we got back on our way to Taraz… Stopping for Petrol on the way into town. In Russia and most of the old Soviet states in Central Asia you have to go and pay for the petrol first. They then turn on the pump and fill you up until your money runs out… Its all a little bit of a lucky dip as your never 100% sure how many litres of fuel you actually need or have used up… Often its either too much or too little.. When we arrived the armed guard came out and started yelling at us to turn the engines off… it was a little odd… but we went to the wrong pump that didn’t have the right type of fuel for our bikes so we had to push the bikes back. I went in to wait at the cash register while Heather had the bikes filled by the attendant…. while I was waiting in the service station they had some serious heavy artillery… some beefy shotguns and a collection of other weapons behind the counter.. maybe they hadn’t paid their protection racket fees yet… around the door there was shotgun blast marks.. All the shelves in the “shop” had absolutely no stock and everyone seemed a little on edge… all up the whole “lets fill up” experience was rather amusing and really highlighted that we are not in Europe any more :)..

Erken Family Hospitality - Kazakhstan

Shortly after filling up we found our way through Taraz… on the way south we asked for Directions and found that we had actually found the right road the first time.. shortly after getting directions we got pulled over by a man and his wife… They offered to drive us to the right border roads so that we didn’t miss the turns that are often not sign posted…. After a short time we made a few turns and got onto a long straight road.. They pulled over and offered if we would like to come back to their place for some Chai/Breakfast… They seemed very trust worthy and drove a nice car so Heather accepted their invitation.. After a short drive through some back streets we came to their house.. It was very nice with a beautiful court yard and a collection of fruit tree’s and a vegetable garden. Once we arrived we cleaned ourselves up and the guy showed me his collection of photographs of various motor sports events they attended, their horse and some family shots. “Unimog good?”.. “Da”.. From the photo’s he had a real passion for motor sports in particular off road driving/riding. Afterwards we went out to their court yard for breakfast. They had a collection of stuff animal heads around the verandahs over looking the fruit trees. We sat down at their table with the family and discussed (whit the help of their grand kids translating from Kazakh/Russian to English). All up the extended family was very welcoming and the food was more than superb.. Its probably the best food we have had since leaving the U.K. It was very nice to have traditional Kazakh food that was home prepared, we had an assortments of chocolates, pancakes with home made strawberry jam, soups, fresh breads, grapes, nuts! It was amazing, we felt like kings! A true feast, great hosts.

James Rambo Style - Kazakhstan

We ate and drank chai for a few hours talk about all sorts of things, after a while the subject turned to Safari’s. It was interesting to hear that the father would go hunting and so on. It was amazing when his grandchild brang out his hunting rifle.. Some SKS rifle with telescopic sights.. very impressive gun.. It had to make for a good photo opportunity which Heather ran for the camera! Their hospitality was amazing and really added to the overall fantastic feeling we have had with Kazakhstan so far…. They offered us to stay over the night but unfortunately we had to refuse knowing that we had to make tracks to Kyrgyzstan so that we could pick up the replacement clutch for Heathers bike… they loaded us up with gifts, silk material and a Uzbekistan jacket which we will love when starts to get cooler, food and helped us get back on the way to the border (we followed one of the Son’s who drove out to the main road and gave us directions to the border).

At the boarder crossing we parked our bikes and went to passport control.. that was when all the fun began.. In Kazakhstan and many other ex soviet countries you need to register your visa in what’s referred to as OVIR. The OVIR process is not required for some nationalities and in most of the books it talks about the process being automatically done when you enter the country. Unfortunately for us the automatic process didn’t get done. We had asked at a hotel in Atryau and they said it was not required… go figure.. even when we got pulled over at police check points they made no comment of our visa registration missing.. anyway the immigration guys noticed that we had been there for more than 5 days without registering and asked us to go and sit to the side… Some more senior immigration officials and some customs officers joined the pack and tried to explain the situation to us.. Unfortunately we didn’t speak any of the languages they did so we had to sit around for 2 hours while they found a translator.. The place where we had to sit was actually right near a broken stinky loo which made the pleasure so great too just see the both of us hanging our heads out the window for air…. After bringing the local schools English teacher down to the border we had someone that could translate for us… we got taken to a room up stairs and away from the other people.. At the time we thought.. oh shit they are about to really screw us over.. we tried to explain the situation to them about what we got told and showed them the lonely planet guide with the automatic visa registration stuff but it did little to help.. When we got taken upstairs we now had about 10 officials all in the same room, all different uniforms and the feeling we had was not so great…. we had to start answering loads of questions and it was a huge blessing that

a) Heathers bike had broken down…

b) Heather had put the dates of where we stayed each night on a big map so that we could show where we had been for the period in question. She put nice descriptions of the places like, land of bugs, vodka night, stinky gas night, we were happy they couldn’t read English.

After about 4 hours we had filled out a load of forms and the police had arrived. They said that it was not a huge issue for us to not have done the OVIR and that we would only be given a warning.. the condition was that we had to go with the police back to Taraz to get a stamp on our passports so that they got registered… We signed loads of documents feeling a little unsure of what we were signing since it wasn’t English though the vibe in the room was light at this point. The drive from the border into Taraz was more scary than any roller coaster ride I have ever been on… 90+km/hour in 40km zones with traffic, pedestrians, horses, cows other cars etc… it was very scary and we almost had a crash at least twice.. After a 30 minute drive to the immigration department in town we got told to sit at the guards office and wait until the police returned… Having not eaten since we left the people house I pulled out some Nut fudge that we bought back in the desert and had some, offering the Guard some was a real bonus.. He became really friendly and got some people who worked there that spoke English.. The surprised look on their face was not something we expected when we said we needed the OVIR stamps… they said that nobody would be in for at least 3 days that could do that.. shit.. it was Friday afternoon and it was outside business hours.. maybe we would have to stay in Kazakhstan for a few extra days until we could get this all sorted.. thankfully about 5 minutes later a man came running in who had been called back to the office by the police to sort out the stamps…. YAY…. about 20minutes later we got back in the police car and driven at high speed all the way back to the border… it was now 7:20pm and we had 40 minutes to get through the border before it closed….. Thankfully the remaining paper work only took about 10 minutes.. The guards happily sorted out the exit stamps and gave us a merry send off to Kyrgyzstan.. Finally we got back on our bikes and rode out of Kazakhstan about 10 meters until a guard stopped us again.. thinking that this was yet another Kazakhstan border we didn’t understand what was going on.. then the Guard said that this is the Kyrgyzstan border to Heather and ohhh what a relief that was… most of the borders we had crossed so far had large gaps between check points where “no man’s land” existed… often filled with sheep or goats.. at this crossing it was all in about 100 meters which was a welcome surprise.. all the guards at the Kyrgyzstan border smiled and welcomed us with open arms which was another big change between countries. It was nice chatting to them while Heather sorted out the paper work and chatted with the immigration control guys.. all up the process took about 30 minutes.. in that time Heather ended up being given two more loafs of bread… Welcome to Kyrgyzstan… The guards told us that we had to do wheelies as we drove away.. unfortunately we didn’t have the space to do one safely which I’m sure disappointed them but it was still a warm welcome to their country….

It was now getting dark and we had managed to get through before closing time… It was now time to find somewhere to camp and fast.. The ride out of the border goes straight ahead not to the right like the signs say.. thankfully the guards told us that before we made the mistake ourselves..(well Heather made the mistake and I had to go and get her te he he)…. As we passed through the border towns all the shepherds had the roads blocked with all their live stock being brought back to their pens for the night to keep the wolves away.. it was nice to see all the kids still out and big groups of people chatting along the road as we passed.. Many of them waving and kids chasing after us waving.. It was a really nice feeling. We felt special.. hehe

Shortly after we went through the third small village a van driver started to follow us… it was not something that really raised any alarm bells at first however as we sped up he would also speed up.. when we did a U-Turn to find a camp site (which turned out to be a swampy field) he also did a u-turn… it was all very creepy especially as it was now getting very dark.. We couldn’t find any camp sites or places to stay so we kept on going.. as we went through a mountain canyon we came around the corner to see a huge dam wall with a jet of water at least 200meters spraying out.. the sheer size of the dam wall in the canyon at night was creepy.. while Heather stopped to check out the Jet the van appeared again behind her… it was time to get the hell out of there and fast… riding along the dodgy mountain roads at night was not a safe experience with cars and pot holes to contend with.. the van driver was not a welcome addition to the situation.. after several stop’s and go’s we decided that I would go and talk to the van driver.. He was just a “little” bit creepy.. he said he was going to Talas and that we could put the bikes in the back of the van so we didn’t have to ride on the unsafe roads.. my response to that was no and he persisted.. It was very bad in the end we just rode off after telling him to leave us alone…

Shortly afterwards we went really slow to let him go past us so he wouldn’t see where we were going.. this time we then followed him for a while until he disappeared off into the distance.. it was now time to start looking for a place where we could hide the tent and our bikes for the night and get some rest.. it was now 9:30 and we felt exhausted.. Luckily we had the food we were given to snack on.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 22nd, 2009 at 11:04 am and is filed under Adventure Motorcycling, Kazakhstan, London to Sydney, motorcycle touring, Visa, Wild Camping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.