Day 176, 18th November, Kotyayevka
We reached the Russian border two days early, and had to hang around because our Russian visa specified that we had to enter on 20th November. More precisely, we arrived … Read more
DavidJennyTravel
Day 174-175, 16-17th November, Dossor, Orul
Mile after mile of nothing. The road was utterly appalling and passed a number of small oilfields which seemed to be closed. There were plenty of new tracks in the … Read more
Day 172-173, November 15, Nogaity
The temperature was -16 when we woke up at Aktobe. The van took ages to heat up and we sat and shivered. It was a bit of a struggle getting … Read more
Day 170-171, November 13-14, Aralkum-Aktobe
Climbing out of the cosy warm bed, I switched on the dashboard of the van to look at the outside temperature. I thought it was a bit cold to be … Read more
Day 169, November 12th Baygequm
It was a fine sleet falling as we went to sleep, I optimistically assumed that we wouldn’t get snowed in, although a jovial Russian came up to me and told … Read more
Days 166-168, November 9-11,Bishkek-Taras
In the evening of the 9th Gapur knocked on our door and said “Good news. The light has arrived”. In the morning of the 10th, his two friends came round … Read more
Day 163-165, November 6-8, Bishkek-Balykchy-Barskoon-Kumtor-Balykchy
We reached the checkpoint in the Barskoon valley on the way to the gold mine about 3 pm and were told its not a good idea to climb the pass … Read more
Days 158-162, November 1-5, Bishkek
After five nights on the road, we opted for some luxury at the lovely and incredibly cheap hotel of our friend, Gapur Karimov. We went to the TsUM department store … Read more
Day 157, 31st October, Bishkek
Ensconced in our very nice and reasonably-priced hotel in Bishkek, we can now get a good phone signal which means that the mifi works and I can upload the Tibet … Read more
Day 156, 30th October, Kara-Talaa
Setting off to see the Barskoon waterfalls, we inexplicably missed them and carried on up the road which, although unmetalled, was of reasonably good quality. We came to a checkpoint … Read more