Day 43

First up today! James looks like he’s unconscious but the tent’s boiling so I’m out in the sun on the beach watching the birds and listening to some music. There are some huge birds around - Eagles or Hawks of some kind, I can’t tell what though. There are also some seagulls fishing and then having to fight off the rooks whenever they catch anything.

Didn’t take long for someone to get up and make coffee and boiled eggs. Everyone’s up now, Hugh and I have spent about 30mins throwing stones at a glass jar about 20m down the beach. I was pretty much ready to give up when he hit it square on and it smashed. Now we’re off for a swim.

Well, that was refreshing - the water was pretty murky and has a load of foam round the edges. I feel nice and clean now! We’re off on the road to Mongolia again, in the baking sun, on some of the straightest roads ever.

Just had a walk around and a bite to eat in Taldy-Korgan, very busy bazar, lots of ice cream stalls and a lot of one way streets that make it almost impossible to get out of the town. We managed to get back on the road to Semey and are going to see how far we can get before it starts to get dark, then we’ll just see if we can find somewhere to sleep.

We’ve just been attacked! Nutella-bread to the windscreen! What a waste. We retalliated with similar weaponry but just missed Russ’s window.

Found a nice enough place to camp just before it got dark and then a dust storm decided to blow over us, so we’ve spent the last couple of hours just sitting in the cars.

The dust cloud has passed now and we’ve just had some noodles & tuna, although the tuna was a bit funny (it was actually salmon) it was pretty tasty. Washed down with a nice beer too, it’s strange drinking a bottle of beer that slowly gets cooler as time goes by. It’s getting late again now though, so time for bed.

Day 42

Morning on a landfill! Lovely! Nice morning coffee and nutella sandwich, now we’re off back into Almaty to see if we can register our presence in Kazakhstan, get some more money out and buy some food to keep us going.

Found the immigration police place without too much trouble and a woman there who helped us out and spoke pretty good English. To register properly, one needs an address in Kazakhstan and “my tent” apparently isn’t good enough. But rather than pay 400USD each for a hotel room we won’t even stay in, some hotels (including the one this woman works for) will cook the books a bit and register us within the hour for $20 (it can take over a day apparently) so we’ve gone for that and now we’re registered. No 200 dollar fines at the border for us!

Just had a long wander around the city centre, managed to get some cash out in dollars, change some more Pingus and do a supermarket shop - with our own security detail watching our every step!

Managed to hit rush hour traffic out of Almaty too and are now heading out to the North, back on the road we should be on! That’s the one to Mongolia. We just got some petrol and got a guy to blow some dust out of our air filter. He wanted 50 dollars for the service, then seemed happy to take my nail clippers instead but we haggled him down to some random foreign change. That change pile is getting smaller now - past turkey nobody uses coins - but it’s been handy.

Just arrived at the beach on the North shore of a Lake, just past an unpronounceable town where TYO may or may not have driven straight past a policeman who was waving them down. This place seems like it might once have been a popular resort but now it’s totally dead. It’s a nice enough beach to sit and have a beer on (we bought a 1 litre can of beer!) and go for a swim in the morning.

Day 41

After 40 days & 40 nights on the road, we were woken up by a policeman whistling at us and standing over the tent. At 6.30am! After thinking “oh shit.... this could be expensive” - camping in a national park and we seem to be the only ones - we got up, put some clothes on and went up to the road where our car is and the policeman was standing. It was absolutely no trouble at all! They were just curious, so we told them what we were up to, they scribbled on our car and then went to leave - but didn’t have any petrol in their BMW! So they came back and asked if we had any fuel, so we gave them some from our can and they gave us... A Kalashnikov! So we took some photos and then they set off. God it’s early!

Just back from a long wander up the canyon and a nice little swim, managed to walk back in the baking midday sun as well, turning nicely brown now so not too worried about sunburn, just mosquito bites that are a real pain now. Some of them seem to have swollen up like crazy, but none are too itchy unless I scratch at them. 

Just stopped for a bite to eat at a little village on the way to Almaty after another HUGE stretch of straight, flat road through the steppe.

Arrived in Almaty along with a huge cloud of dust and some rain clouds, had a walk around and got rained on. We eventually found a net cafe to spend an hour in, had a chat with Jen, Mark & Mike, nice to hear from home. Then we went to Burger House, I had a БУХ ХАУС (Big House) meal. Yum!

Just parked up for the night about 20 miles out of Almaty on a quiet road for some Nutella-bread, probably going to sleep in the car here, it’s still pouring with rain. Kazaks don’t seem used to the wet road conditions, there’s been crashes everywhere!

Just got a call from Hugh & Russ, they’re at a net cafe in Almaty! Interrupted by the curious police, we decided to drive back into Almaty to meet up with TYO again!

Woohoo! We found them at the station no problem - Friends Reunited - at last, we’ve missed their radio banter and navigation “skills”. We went for a pint together in a nice little cafe which was pretty expensive but well worth it. Then drove out of the city again to the quiet little road, which it turns out goes through a land-fill site! But it’s stopped raining and there’s some flat dirt so we’ve all pitched tents and are off to bed, it’s gone 1am - our latest night in ages!

Day 40

Up nice and early again, plenty of time for a morning coffee, and some bread dunked in honey. The honey is definitely best in the morning when it’s cold and doesn’t drip everywhere!

Just arrived at the Kazak border, it’s a tiny stop on a crappy road. Hopefully this will be nice and easy.

It was! Slight worry on the Kyrgyz side when they were telling us in Russian that we wouldn’t be able to come back to Kyrgyzstan but when we understood all was fine and they let us go. The Kazak side was very easy too, a couple of stamps, a customs form for the car and we’re off. One of the Kyrgyz guards fancied my leatherman, but settled for some foreign coins.

The horrible horrible road turned into a dead-straigh, dead flat tarmac road just south of Karkara and we’ve made it to Kegen in no time, just changed some Euros into Tengu (I think that’s what they’re called) - we got 20 grand for 100 euros. Then filled the tank with petrol - also pretty cheap, and now we’re back on the straight, flat road to Almaty, next stop: Charyn Canyon.

We found the canyon no problem, just driven down to the river and parked the car under a bridge to hide from the sun, might go for a swim but the river is very fast flowing. There’s a nice pool to paddle around in just off the river though, good for keeping cool in. The other side of the river looks like a good camping spot too, but there’s no way to get the car down.

Some Kazakh tourists just turned up and parked next to us, they seem to be stopping here for a swim and a drink. One of the women speaks pretty good English so we’ve managed to explain what we’re doing and how long we’ve been on the road. They all seemed quite interested too.

They emailed us this photo just after I got home.

After seeing the Kazakhs do it, we decided to go for a swim. The waster isn’t all that cold, it’s just very fast and the sun is plenty warm enough to dry in. Nice to feel clean(ish) again! The group of Kazakhs also just came over again for some photos and took our email address and website.

We’ve just crossed the river to set up camp on the greener side, where there’s plenty of wood for cooking dinner. This is definitely a great lace to spend a lazy afternoon.

James has spent about an hour trying to make fire by rubbing sticks together (with no success) and I’ve been keeping cool by paddling at the side of the river.

We’ve managed to fix my flip-flops too! Some blue string and a bit of ingenuity is all you need! Duck tape might make them slightly more comfortable but they stay on my feet properly.

Just cooked tea with no problems at all, both had rations today, mine were Pork Casserole & Fruit Dumplings in custard. They were actually delicious!

The only downside to this spot is the mosquitoes - there aren’t swarms and swarms of them, but they’re around and they’re bloody annoying! So we’ve put the tent up quite early and since it’s dark we’re going to jump in and I’ll probably play solitaire for a while, good old ipod!

Day 39

Woke up to a nice warm tent again, James has already got up and gone to the car, so I’m sitting in the tent sprawled out just listening to music, will get up when the heat is unbearable.

Finally got up at half 8 - it’s sooo strange that 8.30 feels like a lie-in these days! If I was at home, I wouldn’t be up until at least noon!

We've just finished completely tidying out the back of the car, it’d become a complete mess - probably not been tidied for about 2 weeks. Now we’re of to see if we can find a nice beach to spend a few hours on before we head towards the Kazakh border.

We've found a lovely little beach, just a few fishermen around and one family with kids splashing around when we arrived but the family left again not long after we sat down. The water here is really cold though, so we’ve just been for a quick dip to cool dwn and will probably just sit and read in the sun until we get too hot again.

I went for one more dip then waited until I was dry and we went back to the car. James didn't want to get wet again, I recon he’s just scared of the cold. Now we’re heading back to Karakol to pick up some food and then head to towards Kazakhstan so we can do the border nice and early tomorrow.

Managed to spend all our remaining Som on food in Karakol before heading towards Kazakhstan on a god-awful road through a lovely valley. We found a little track down to a river, with a great little camping spot, there’s definitely been people camping here recently too.

We managed to cook dinner tonight on a proper open fire, James had Kyrgyz supernoodles and I had the first of our ration pack meals - Beef Stew with Dumplings & Chocolate pudding, it was LOVELY!

We sat and watched the fire die for a while until I realised I had seen some dry wood down the track earlier, so I went and got it and threw it all on and the flames got huge. We managed to burn all of our rubbish too, including a few pairs of socks and a couple of pairs of boxers I just couldn’t be bothered washing or taking home. Boxers burn REALLY WELL! Now it’s pretty late and there’s nothing left to burn, so it must be bedtime. Border tomorrow!

Day 35

What a great sleep! Tent is in a lovely grassy spot, feet downhill and it was freezing! I was nice and cozy with the sleeping bag done up right round my face and it was still cold in the morning, a bit cloudy and the sun didn’t rise over the valley for ages. Fantastic!

Just popped into the “North Face” shop to see if they sell stoves, but no luck. It was mainly clothes and the closest they had were gas refills.

Spent the morning hiking up to a waterfall in the park. Weather’s nice, but there’s clouds on the bigger mountains so we’ve had a couple of small showers, but the sun’s so hot that it’s just like walking through a refreshing mist.

Day 34

Got up nice and early so we can get to the embassy before it opens to make sure we get the application in today. Bread+Nutella for breakfast again!

Bummer! Just been pulled over for the second time in Kyrgyzstan, this time it’s for crossing a double white line in the road, ironically, the white lines start round a corner and are the only road markings we’ve seen on the way into Bishkek. He wanted to keep hold of my license for a month, and wouldn’t shift below 10 USD to get it back, so we paid and got back on our way to the embassy. Still plenty of time though.

Well we waited around for the embassy to open then got in after not too long, had to copy a letter to the Kazakh Embassy and fill out an immigration form, then he said come back Thursday evening to get the visa, so we should be sorted now, going to head South to Ala Archa National Park this evening and stay there until Thursday afternoon. For now, we’re going in to town again, back to our favourite Net Cafe.

Well, I managed to spend about 5 hours on the internet, typing up this diary and putting up some photos. James gave up half-way and went to read in the car and have a walk round the park.

Just popped into the supermarket again for bread, juice and more nutella, going to head out to Ala Archa now.

Wow, this place is amazing, it’s a huge canyon through some huge mountains. There’s quite a bit of cloud this afternoon, so you can’t really see the bigger mountains behind the valley walls, but the foothills are huge themselves. It reminds me of the valley in Chamonix, but it’s pretty dead too, if this was anywhere near Europe, it’d be mobbed with walkers, climbers and picnicers.

We’ve just had a walk up one of the trails to the river, it’s FREEZING but I didn’t expect much different, it’s glacial meltwater. Doubt we’d last long if we went for a swim. Just back at the car now, off to find a spot for the tent.

It’s getting cold now, we’re pretty high up and it’s been cloudy but we’ve found a nice spot for camping, just off the road, but hidden by some trees and not too far from the river.

Bugger! The stupid stove isn’t working again! There’s a “North Face” shop in the in the National Park which might sell something to replace it, but I was looking forward to a hot meal.

James is carving a chess knight from a piece of wood and I’m getting cold, so I’ve just eaten half a loaf of bread and going to bed. It’s a zipped-up sleeping bag night!