Kazakhstan: the long ride North

In order to get to Mongolia we have to drive 1500+ km along the East of Kazachzstan to southern Siberia in Russia…

It was a long drive on pretty annoying roads… Road conditions were sometimes ok but mostly 70 km/h was the max one could drive.

A couple police encounters gave me satisfaction this time…the first guy wanted to give me a “straf” because I did not have my full lights on as the daylight driving lights were not enough in Kazachstan…. Yeah sure…

Anyway, it was the the old game of threatening to keep my driving license and get a good amount of dollar cash to return it but that day I was a bit more relaxed and played along… when I said "sure keep the driving license" he looked at me puzzled and with his pretty reasonable English asked whether I had understood that he wanted to keep my license… "Sure yeah just keep it…" more puzzled look then a hand to return me all my papers and "Go!- Dawai!… Won this time :-)

The next one tried everything, checking fire extinguisher, 1st aid kit, warning triangle... everything and finally mentioning something I seemed not to have he lightened up and went to the car with his colleague to start the game…. The only thing they did not check to that point was the insurance, which I then produced. This was answered by a disappointed look sending me off on the road again… The 3 dollar insurance for 10 days was definitely worth the money... Pure satisfaction… These things canmake your day here on the road….

One night we thought we stop a bit early at a lake not to far off the road…i.e. 15 km of bad track. Was a bit of an eerie place with a lot of deserted buildings and old railway cars etc…plus the big mosquitoes in the night but we had a nice late afternoon and sunset although Rach did not want to swin in the shallow lake…

Some guys came by in a landcruiser as always having a good look at the truck…in admiration ;-) but conversation was difficult as my Russian still is not advanced…

Next day a different track back to the road we passed some carcasses of trucks and busses that were strangely ligned up in the dusty steppe.

I took a few pictures not noting the obvious…

15 minutes further onwards the same landcruiser of yesterday turned up on the track and a guy in uniform jumping out asking for the permit…. Well, we were in a bombing/shooting range as it appeared….the old trucks had lots of bullet holes I overlooked…

Anyway his boss was in the car too the same guy from yesterday and they just said we should go on straight to the road and not mention to anyone that they saw us… nice guys….

The rest of the trip was pretty eventless, roadside camp spots in the woods and steppe… It appears that the Russians had huge wheat fields in this Northern part of Kazachzstan with watering system and lines of trees as windrows…but now its just grass and steppe regaining this terrain…

Border x-ing was reasonably quick after we filled up to the brink with reasonably cheap fuel in Semey.