Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia

First of all a bit of housekeeping. I've been having big problems with the tracker recently. It's down to the poor quality batteries out here. Apparently Spot requires lithium batteries to run properly but getting those anywhere outside of Europe is pretty much impossible. So that is why the tracking is barely working. I've managed to obtain some new batteries (thank E&A) which actually work but I won't be doing the real time tracking any more to try and save them.

I'm writing this on 18th August but know I won't be able to publish it for probably a couple weeks (I have unexpectedly found a small internet in the back end of nowhere). A sudden change of heart and a lack of internet access combined to mean I haven't been able to write anything more even though I have passed through 3 countries since the last update.

At the end of Tajikistan I was surprisingly relaxed about having to miss the Pamirs even though I was bitterly disappointed. And to be quite honest I enjoyed sitting around in Dushanbe and doing very little. But as soon as I hit the road again I remembered exactly why I ride a motorbike and why I want to travel. So I entered Kyrgyzstan newly resolved to complete this trip as originally planned.

What with the business in Khorog the normal border crossing into Kyrgyzstan was inaccessable. So the Tajik and Kyrgyz governments opened up another border further to the west which is usually just a bilateral crossing. Of course that meant that the locals were completely unused to tourists and the attention and curiosity shown towards all the cyclist and motorcyclists suddenly coming through the valley massively increased.

But it was well worth it. It was a really beautiful ride up to Osh. It's a shame that most of the time people would never bother to go there.

Along the way I kept running into lots of cyclists I had already met at various places around Tajikistan. All of them had also abandoned their plans for the Pamir Highway and were escaping into Kyrgyzstan.

The crossing was interesting. Exiting Tajikistan was no problem at all. But then there was 10km of no mans land along a tiny unpaved road carved into the side of a steep valley leading to the Kyrgyz post. There was a small section of mud at one point. No problem for me but a truck had managed to get stuck in it. And there was no way past.

So a bulldozer had to be acquired from somewhere or other to tow the truck out. It succeeded in towing it about 50 metres to an equally narrow section of road at which point the bulldozer broke down. Nice. Took an hour to fix it.

The Kyrgyz side of the border was a complete joke. It was essentially a trailer park that looked like it was built in the mid-16th century and had undergone absolutely no renovation in the intervening centuries. Traffic drove on the opposite side of the road through the compound for absolutely no reason at all. Customs didn't exist and passport control was very reluctant to issue a stamp. Still, at least they were aware of the new visa rules.

Yes, about 1 week earlier the Kyrgyz government brought into effect a new law that means that citizens of any 'developed' country no longer need a visa. Right after I paid £60 for one.

And the road just kept getting better and better. It goes straight along a valley which marks the northern edge of the Pamir mountains.

The FCO advises against all travel to this valley for reasons only known to them. They claim that it is unsafe and dangerous but as always all I found were genuinely friendly, interesting and generous people. Who would have though it? The foreign office issuing bad advice. Mind you, the same website says that one should avoid driving in Kyrgyzstan since the roads outside the cities are in such poor condition. In reality the roads outside the cities would put the UK to shame. Bristol city council should come here to learn how to build a road which doesn't turn into the grand canyon after a mild frost.

The valley climbs very slowly up to Sary Tash at 3200 metres. It is very gradual and I didn't really notice the ascent. I had been riding in shorts and a t-shirt since Turkmenistan because of the heat and by the time I reached the town I was completely frozen. I fell into a home stay with two cyclist couples I already knew.

I don't have many pictures of this, but I have a very good reason. I mentioned that in Tajikistan the charge-everything battery charger I had been using had packed up. In Dushanbe I picked up a couple of Nokia phone chargers with the intention of bodging together my own charger of amazingness. But I didn't actually bother to build it until all my camera batteries were completely dead. Of course the new charger only succeeded in blowing all the fuses on the bike.

Anticipating something like this happening I had brought my old camera which runs on AAs. Except I didn't have any batteries for it since I hadn't needed it up until now. I tried to find some in the Sary Tash shop but couldn't. It was only half way through the next day that I realised that the camera already had batteries and, even better, they still had some electricity in them. Fail. The first mountain pass north of Sary Tash was really beautiful (and cold) but I missed taking any pictures of it.

I got to Osh and managed to find a battery charge for my Canon. I also discovered that the GoPro can be charged via USB. To make me look even more stupid I found in one of my bags a USB cigarette lighter converter thing that I had been carrying all the way from the UK. Fail. Again.

I'm thinking of submitting my front mud guard to the Tate Modern. I feel it says a lot about mud, modern life, anger, depression and lots of other things that they might believe.

I also want to point out the absurdity of the borders in this part of the world. Have a look at a map of the Fergana valley and see if you can actually work out which country is which. While travelling on the main road between Osh and Bishkek I had to make a sudden detour of at least 10km. This is the reason why.

Did you spot it?

The road this picture was taken from is the same road as the one on the hills a few hundred metres away. It travels north for 5km along the edge of the valley before sharply turning 180 degrees and heading south for 5km along the other side of the valley. The hills are in Kyrgyzstan. The valley floor is Uzbekistan. All 300 metres of it.

But Kyrgyzstan is a really beautiful country. It was such a welcome change from the deserts and barren rocky landscapes that had marked much of the last couple countries.

And after just a couple days I crossed into Kazakhstan. I was planning on spending a few days in Almaty to pick up a Mongolian visa but decided to carry on putting in the miles and go to Mongolia visa-free as an American.

Outside the city I ran into a Canadian biking couple, Ekke and Audrey. I was running low on fuel so they offered to follow me to the next town just in case I ran out on the way. We ended up riding all the way through Kazakhstan and Russia together.

We found a place to camp for the night. There was a farmer nearby so I went over to ask permission. As I approached his dogs got all territorial and attacked me. Oh well, just adds to the every increasing number of scars on my legs.

It turns out he was a watermelon farmer, and a Muslim. Even though Kazakhstan is not a particularly religious country there is still a Muslim majority. And the special kind of hospitality you can only find in a Muslim country is still alive here. The farmer immediately gave permission to camp next to the field and gave me a very fresh watermelon. Unfortunately on the way back to Ekke and Audrey there was a slight watermelon-falling-off-the-bike incident.

In the morning the farmer drove past our camp site and gave us 2 more melons.

And we carried on riding through the Kazakh steppe.

I don't like to be overly critical of places, especially when it is the people who really make a country, but this was a really tedious day. I mean just nothing. We rode over 500km that day and saw nothing. The roads were in great condition but were just completely straight. There would be no change of direction for 100km, then a very slight left hand turn followed by another 100km of completely flat, barren landscape. The most interesting part of the day was when we discovered that a large section of Kazakhstan was on fire.

The next day suddenly became a lot more interesting. It was raining, not brilliant but it didn't really matter. We had to go through some roadworks.

Roadworks in Kazakhstan involve building a temporary road for 50km parallel to the existing road while it is upgraded in small section. The temporary road is not paved in any way.

The Kazakh cemeteries are amazing. Rather than putting up a headstone they build entire castles when someone dies.

We crossed into Russia late in the day. It was the second easiest border crossing I have done so far, after Kyrgyzstan. Customs didn't really seem to exist. But I did have to buy insurance for the first time since Turkey.

The first day in Russia was pretty much as good as it gets. Perfect roads, perfect temperature, nice scenery, almost no traffic. We fall into Barnaul mid afternoon. The annoyingly perfect tarmac all through Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia had really taken its toll on my front tyre which is pretty much dead. I manage to find a guy in Ulaan Baatar who can get me a replacement, but that is 2500km away yet.

We camp that night next to a river. It was almost disappointing that the famous Russian mosquitoes were nowhere to be found.

Now I knew that Russia had big rivers but this is something else. This is a fairly minor river by Russian standards but it is easily as wide as the Thames in London and flows at least twice as fast.

And we headed down into the Altai mountains. I had to limit my speed in an attempt to save the front tyre as much as possible.

Ekke and Audrey are taking a different route to Mongolia so we said our goodbyes and I headed on into the freezing cold and rain by myself. I enjoy riding alone and I think it is a better way to travel, but we had a really nice couple of days together and it was good to have a bit of company. We will run into each other again in Ulaan Baatar.

I really don't want to go in there

I reach some town about 60km from the border completely drenched and freezing cold. I had to get a hotel that night just to recover a bit. There was a flock of 4x4s drivers from Moscow there on a short holiday to the mountains. They invited me down for dinner and we spent the evening drinking vodka, of course. Whoever said the Russians are unfriendly?

To be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to Russia as I had the biggest safety concerns about this country. But now that I am here I'm not sure there is much to worry about. It certainly isn't as safe as somewhere like Iran, but it's not overly dangerous like some people make out. The reputation of Russian as being unfriendly is not really deserved. On a personal level they are a very warm people. Everyday we had some stranger help us out in some way and were constantly chatting to people in cafes or just by the side of the road. I can honestly say that I am now looking forward to my return to Russia in a couple weeks.

In the morning I packed up and started off to the Mongolian border. I bumped into a couple cars taking part in the Mongol rally. They tried to get through first thing in the morning only to find that the border is shut for the weekend. Fail. Yet again. So another night in this town and I really will be in Mongolia tomorrow one way or another.

And then the most difficult part begins. I have about 10 days to get across 1600km of non-existent roads, massive river crossings and brutally cold temperatures. I am dangerously over-optimistic, dangerously over-confident and dangerously under-prepared. I don't have a good enough fuel range, my bike doesn't cope well at altitude and I have to travel all the way across a massive country on a tyre that likely won't even make it to the border. This is going to be fun.