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 day driving there and onwards to the new town of Turkistan. The landscape between Taraz and Shymkent was bare treeless yellow steppe with high mountains to the left and occasionally crossing ranges of low hills. From Shymkent onwards the steppe was flat as a pancake rather like a semi-desert but covered in yellow grass. One delightful event took place when we pulled into a parking spot and a landrover with a Dutch registration pulled up behind us. Thomas and Rosie jumped out and we spent a happy 30 minutes describing the places we had been. They were returning to Holland from Mongolia, which they thought was brilliant, but driving to Atyrau and then taking a boat across the Caspian to Baku. They have been driving for three years and have been everywhere we’ve been. I did learn, however, that we can now get a VOA for Pakistan at the border at the Khunjerab Pass. Up to 2 months ago, you had to go through the misery of applying for an eVisa through the Nabra agency which couldn’t upload my photo. So I wasted a fortune at the Max Speilmann getting pics which were rejected.
We stopped at a lorry drivers cafe 20 kms north of Turkestan and I had borshch which was delicious, and my Kazan kebab was very nice but Jennifer grumbled bout her boiled meat kebab so I ate it. We spent the night in the lorry drivers carpark, but a young lad came from the cafe and suggested that we park in front of it. Presumably because it is safer.
