Lou's Blog

​It really says everything when we spent the first two days in Kyrgyzstan saying "I miss Kazakhstan"!

​Our last two weeks in the beautiful Kazakhstan were busy ones as the end of our 30 day visa was looming and we still had a long way to go. We blasted down the road from Aralsk to Kyzylorda to Turkestan and Shymkent leaving a trail of 100km+ days in our wake. But in Shymkent I realised we had missed something in Turkestan, a mausoleum to Khoja Ahmed Yasawi a Sufi poet from the 12th century...I know what you're thinking, how could you miss the mausoleum of a 12th century Sufi poet right?! Well I thought exactly the same so on our one rest day I make the trek 180km backwards along the very same road we had spent two days on to see the sight. And boy was ot worth it! The huge mausoleum, which is now a mosque, stands on the rdge of the city and is already beautiful at first, far-off glance. It is half finished so one side looks like the open mouth of a basking shark whilst the other side is a mesmerising mosaic of geometric patterns in bright turquoise, lilac and gold.
Its one of those buildings that stops you in your tracks and makes you audibly say, wow. I walked up,mouth half open in wonder, and man appeared with an incredibly angry looking owl, reluctantly I took a picture at his insistance and before I knew it I was sat on a step with the owl clutching onto my arm with its claws being photographed by the other tourists.

My day out was a success so I hopped in a Mashrutka back to Shymkent, picked up a few bits and pieces to fix my panniers in the bazaar and packed for an early start the next day to Taraz and the border.

Our last night wildcamping in Kazakhstan was a bit of an affair as we had to cycle 120km so ended up setting up camp well after nightfall. We were exhausted and there was nowhere good so we walked off the road into the middle of an open field and set up the tent there (rule 1 of wildcamping: be concealed) and went straight to sleep. Waking up early the next morning I crawled out of the tent and was happy to see that although we were one obvious green tent in the middle of an empty field the views around us were just lovely. Flat fields on one side and on the other the foothills of mountains rising out of the morning fog lit by the orange morning sun. I was sad to leave this warm, friendly, beautiful country but it wasn't done with us yet! Oh no! Our last day in Kazakhstan was one of the best.

We cycled 50km to Taraz to meet Aram at a bike shop which Chloe and Will from the Caspian Sea ferry recommended. There we met the lovely Shuran who treated us to lunch and helped us find a place to power was our bikes. I adjuated my brakes ready for the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and we set off for the border....7 of us! Leaving Kazakhstan in style we cycled the last 10km with Shuran, his wife, daughter, friend and Aram. A memorable end to a great month.

​Now we are in Kyrgyzstan and the change is landscape has been dramatic and immediate. I really hope to go back to Kazakhstan at some point and explore more of the country, its a firm favourite. But first.....THE PAMIRS!!!!!!!!!! dun dun dduuuuuunnnnnnnn!!!!

Charlie's blog
From Aralsk we headed towards the city of Kyzylorda along the way we would pass the famous Baykonyr, which is where the spaceport is, the setting of many famous jaunts into space. The actual launch site is out in the steppe for for obvious reasons but the town apparently had some statues and a museum which we thought would be cool to see. After a morning of cycling we arrived in time for lunch and stopped at a local bakery. We then cycled down the road to the town only to be stopped at an army checkpoint who asked for Russian visas to enter the town, which of course we don't have. Thoroughly disappointed we tried the other entrance just in case they were more lenient or on a tea break or casually looking the other way but no luck there either. So we headed back out to the main road and carried on without seeing so much as a hint of anything space-y.

Two hours later I got my first puncture of the trip. 4 months and 3500 miles ain't bad! Thank you Christie crew for the Schwalbe tyres, they are great!

This part of the steppe was back to being hot, flat and sandy. It made for some fantastic views and more beautiful night skies. We met some great people on the road including two Kazakh guys on their way home from a fishing trip who enthusiastically waved us down to show us their barrel of fish, and another two guys who gave us some biscuits and a bottle of camels milk, a Kazakh delicacy... its like a weird disgusting fizzy milkshake!

​After Kyzlorda we were getting close to the end of our visa so we pushed on to Shymkent. After quite a few 100km+ days we arrived on time. Unfortunately on our one day off in weeks I was ill and all my plans to see the bazaars, a cool sacred rock, fix up my bike and buy supplies went out the window. Although I did drag myself out to one bike shop (which was closed) and braved the hot, crowded bazaar to buy some earrings and a shawl until I felt too ill and beat a hasty retreat back to the hostel.

It was a shame as I got talking to a lovely local girl at the bazaar who gave me loads of tips of places to go, food to try and things to do. She gave me a Kazakh delicacy called chokul, it is a small ball (looks decievingly like a bon bon) of dried horse milk and salt. It's awful. I highly recommend you never try it!

​Still feeling ill we left Shymkent for our last few days in Kazakhstan. We made for Taraz where we would meet Aram our cycling buddy from Austria and cross into Kyrgyzstan.

After a message from our Caspian Sea friends Chloe and Will we went to find a man called Shakran and his bike shop. We had such a great afternoon, Shakran bought us lunch and took us to get our bikes power washed! Then we spent the afternoon giving our bikes some tlc before the mountains. When it came time to leave Shakran, his wife, daughter and friend all hopped on their bikes and escorted us all the way to the boarder! It was a hilarious 10km singing Rolling Stones and the Beatles and getting pushed along by Shakran so that it was the fastest 10km I think I've ever done!

It was sad to leave Kazakhstan after such a wonderful month, but what a day to leave on! Now we successfully crossed into country number 12, Kyrgyzstan! I am super excited to be here, back when i spent my time learning the countries of the world instead of writing my dissertation, never did I think it would visit this oddly named country.

Goodbye flat Kazakh steppe, hello Kyrgyz mountains!
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Charlie's blog:
Kazakhstan is huge, it's the 9th biggest country in the world which is pretty much the size of the whole of Europe! The whole journey is 3,016km and we have a 30 day visa to get from Aktau to Taraz.

We had a day in Aktau with the other cyclists from the Caspian Sea ferry, the highlight being trying to order food at a restaurant with absolutely no idea of what we were going to get! But it did introduce us to plov which has been my main meal everyday for the past 3 weeks!

The next day we set out into the steppe for a 6 day cycle to Beyneu via Shetpe. Cycling in Kazakhatan is completely different to what weve cycled so far and so we needed to adjust our food and water supplies to include at least 5 litres of water a day and enough noodles to last a week, as well as fruit, snacks and chocolate (obvs). After fitting all this food and water on our bikes all the extra space I'd made by sending lots of stuff home back in Greece was well and truely gone. Luckily we dodnt need to carry lunch food as there were tea houses called chianas all along the route. They are mostly used by lorry drivers who have been a really nice bunch and have come to our aid with water on many occasions. We quickly picked up the common questions we would be asked (where are you from, did you cycle all the way here, where are you going, are you two sisters?) so we could have conversations with a mixture of our limited Kazakh and a lot of miming. One driver drew us a rough map with the distances between each town. He was going the opposite way to us but a couple of days later he caught us up on his return trip and stopped to say hi again!

Another by product of stopping at chianas is that it gives everyone there the opportunity to ask for a photo. The Kazakh have no qualms about asking for a picture (using the globally recognised mime for picture). Pretty much every day we get out photo taken at least once. Sometimes if it is a family or van full of people they all want a photo and we end up standing and smiling with 4 or 5 people! Other times we get waved down as we are cycling along to have a quick photo but my absolute favourite is when cars slow down to drive next to us while the passenger hangs out the window to take a selfie with us as we are cycling along!

The Kazakh steppe is very flat as you might have suspected but actually there are little hills and craters and a couple of rocky plateaus which varies the landscape. But it's really all about the evenings, camping on the steppe you get the best sunsets and stary skies. It is really stunning and pictures just don't do it justice but it makes for the best views for brushing my teeth!

My other favourite thing about cycling the steppe is the amount of camels everywhere, just hanging out or crossing the road. They really seem to have a good look at you as you cycle past.
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Despite our best efforts cycling through the steppe was a learning curve and twice on the way to Beyneu we ended up running low on water with no chiana in sight. So we stopped at house to see if they would fill up our bottles. Both times the family gave us water and invited us in for some chai and food. It was such a lovely experience as both times the whole family was there, from grandparents to kids and babies. Everyone would be sat round a low table covered with food. The ladies wear brightly coloured dresses and white scarves over their heads and again using our poor Kazakh and the trusty Google Translate we spoke about our trip and we're introduced to the family.

The kids were the best, they all wanted to try on our helmets an have a go with our cameras, which turned out really well as they took some of the best pictures of the trip!

We successfully made it to Beyneu and had a decision to make. Kazakhstan is already an enormous country but it is made even bigger by the fact that there is no road that goes from East to West, oh no, instead you have to make a 1000km detour up north via Aktobe... google map it and you'll see what I mean!

So we decided to take a sleeper train from Beyneu to Aktobe and then continue cycling from there. The train was a lot of fun, it was an open carriage with fold down bunk beds. It left at 10pm so we went straight to sleep and then spent the next day reading, napping and chatting to the other passengers, particularly one cute little girl called Ira who was in the bunk beds next to ours with her family.
When the train stopped at stations we could hop out and buy food from the ladies selling on the platforms.

​We arrived in Aktobe the next day to find that it was really quite cold! We were pretty much in Russia but I hadn't considered the climate change, but it was an opportunity to finally use some of our cold weather clothes that we've been cycling around with for the past 4 months so that felt pretty good.

The next stage, Aktobe to Aralsk, was another long stretch through the steppe, 611im which we predicted to do in 7 days (we actually did it in 6, go us!). The first few days were full of headwind and rubbish road that was still in the process of being tarmaced bt we were still making around 90km a day, not much else to do but cycle when you are in the middle of nowhere! Podcasts and audiobooks have become an essential part of my day, at the moment I listen to the adventure zone (thanks James!), tough girl, coffee break spanish and this american life a d would highly recommend them all!

We mwt some friendly people along the way including two men on their way home from a fishing tril, they showed us the barrel of fish they'd caught and gave us a melon, another couple stopped to give us a bag of sweeta and a bottle of carbonated camels milk (apparently a big thing in Kazakhstan but eww it ia disgusting!) and a group of lorry drivers who filled up our water bottles and shared a melon with us when we were running low before arriving in Aralsk. I really cant stress what a lovely bunch the Kazakh people are :)

We had a day off in Aralsk to shower, chill ans see the abandoned barbour before setting off towards Kyzylorda the next big city on our route and where we are now.

The main attraction on this stretch was that we would pass Baykonyr, where the Spaceport is. This is where they launch all the rockets from including Yuri Gagarin, first man in space! I knew the actual launch site would be out of view, you wouldn't want a space lainch pad right next to a town! But we thought the town would be interesting at least. Unfortunately it was a big disappointment as it turns out you need a Russian visa to go into the town (trust us, we tried). So we left after having a lovely pastry and piece of cake without seeing any of Baykonyr.

The infamous cross wind was back making cycling very difficult again but we are still doing roughly around 100km a day, and we'll have to keep it up if we want to be at the Kyrgyzstan boarder before the 19th. We've heard the fine for overstaying your visa is pretty hefty so we'll keep pushing on towards Taraz :)