Month: September 2024

Khromtau looked rather less awful in the light of day with some nice looking single-storey brightly-painted houses visible from the main road. It is a major chrome mining and processing … Read more

There is practically nothing worth writing about today, except that the monotony of the semi-desert/steppe was broken by lines of trees either side of the road which were presumably planted … Read more

There are no settlements of any sort on the motorway over the huge distance from Aral to Aktobe, so we stopped at a huge service station at the turnoff to … Read more

I feel so sorry for the Kazakhstan tourist authorities. One of the few places that anybody outside of Kazakhstan has heard about is the Aral Sea which has been steadily … Read more

Kazakhstan has to be the most boring country on earth. And it is HUGE. Over one million square miles, bigger than Western Europe, and the 9th biggest country in the … Read more

Continuing on the Talas road we came, after about 100 metres to the border with Uzbekistan. Turning round, we noticed a sign for Shymkent and spent the rest of the … Read more

After an emotional farewell to our dear friend Gapur, who saved us 450 dollars by looking after the van for us, we set off for the border with Kazakhstan. However … Read more

After a breakfast at the nice little coffee bar a short distance from the hotel, we walked to the Historical Museum. The first floor was full of exhibits from the … Read more

A grim journey from Alrewas to Bishkek. Richard very kindly took us to Birmingham airport, where the plane for Bishkek was supposed to leave at 15.15 but finally got off … Read more