After an excellent night’s sleep despite the howling gale and dust storm outside, we set off for the Uzbek border full of trepidation. We hadn’t been able to buy Kazakh motor insurance and expected, at the very least, to be heavily fined or even sent back to Beineu to buy it. In the event, insurance wasn’t mentioned by the border officials, who were all friendly and helpful. More potential trouble at the Uzbek border because the Caravanistan website says that right-hand drive vehicles are not allowed in Uzbekistan. The Passport Control man, when entering details of the van, said “pravo?” (“right?”) to his boss who replied “ok” and we were through.
At the Customs Control we met a lovely biker from Greece, Zissis, who is travelling to Mongolia. He was telling us how, on his way from the Caspian port of Aktau to Beineu, he met an English biker going the other way. Henry!!!. He also mentioned that he had met another English biker, Ben King, who was trying to do the same thing as Henry. At 22, I suspect that he is younger than Henry. We hope Henry wins. Zissis helped us buy insurance (for 100,000 soms which equals 13.58 euros) because we didn’t have soms or dollars, the only currencies accepted.
The Uzbek road from the border to the village of Karakalpakaya, which has only one house, was rubbish and part of the road to Jasliq, 133 kms away, was not much better. It improved after it was joined by a road from the Aktobe oilfield but soon reverted to rubbish again. The monotony of the semi-desert landscape of the Ust Yurt Plateau was broken only by the magnificent herds of camels. When we stopped at the roadside for a drink, an Uzbek lorry stopped and the driver asked if we were OK.
The motorway from the Ust Yurt petrochemical plant to beyond Kungirot was excellent. We planned to spend the night in a hotel in Kungirot but couldn’t find our way into the town, and weren’t sure that it had a hotel, so decided to carry on to Nukus. The road then turned to rubbish so we spent the night in a layby near Takhiatash.
All the websites say that auto-tourists must spend at least one night in three in a hotel, which is why we have been looking for one.
