Tag kazakhstan

Before leaving Tashkent I spent several hours pouring over countless maps of Kazakhstan and Russia, trying to work out the best route to Mongolia. Since we rested a week in Tashkent, we had the added benefit of being able to read other team’s reports online, and the reports on road conditions in Kazakhstan were not favorable. One report in particular, from a team called Yak to the Future, told us that the roads straight North-East from Uzbekistan were so bad that it was actually easier and better for the car to just drive off-road. With some 1,500k to cover in Kazakhstan, our little Saxo would not be able to handle the abuse. Already, the car’s frame was cracking, the back tires rubbed noisily on the wheel wells, and the gear linkage popped out freely over big bumps. Our car simply carried too much weight over imperfect roads. We couldn’t take that risk. So, I continued to look at maps.

Eventually an alternative plan emerged. I decided to take our team some 700k out of the way on good roads, which would save the car and only cost us the additional gas money. Since fuel in Kazakhstan is relatively cheap, it was a good trade off. We would avoid Almaty and head towards Astana, cutting east before the city and bearing south-east and then north to Russia. It was a hell of a long way out of the way, but after hours of online research about the road conditions, I discovered that in 2007 the road I had chosen was refinished, making it a much, much smarter bet than the ancient panel-style cement roads that cut straight towards Russia.

We set off on our new route on the morning of the 23rd, with plans to make the Mongolian border in less than 5 days, with over 2,000k to travel across rough terrain with three border crossings. We were feeling optimistic. The road we chose turned out to be a good decision. We were essentially on highway for three days, with only intermittent dinosaur-sized pot holes. The worn ridges from semis on the roads remained, so that you were driving on the crest of two cement waves for the duration of Kazakhstan.

We easily crossed into Russia after a few days of non-stop driving, camping at night, and eating limited camp food at night. It was more work than play to cover that kind of distance. The Russian border, though we had heard it would be difficult and the guards had already acquired a reputation for demanding bribes, turned out to be a breeze for us. The only snag was that with his beard, the guards did not think Mike was the same boy from his passport pictures. After several minutes of laughing with them and threatening to shave on the spot, they let us pass. We looked at the map and made a snap decision. It was still early and we had made it through the border, we stopped in the first town to eat and take a short break, refill on groceries and water, and hit the road. We ran into another team that was aiming for the Mongolian border some 1000k away by nightfall.

The Mongolian border closes on weekends. We suddenly realized it was Thursday. If we drove until we arrived at the border we might, just might, make it through before closing time on Friday. We revved up the 1.1 liter engine and drove through the night, arriving at the Russian border at 4am. A team from Belfast was in front of us in line, we slept in the car for a few hours and at ten am we again greeted Russian border guards, but this would be the last time we’d see Russians in a long while, so we endeavored to enjoy the experience.

As with all good things, it was time for our little convoy of three cars to end. The Abandon the Cube team had visas and plans to head into Uzbekistan, while the FaceRace and Schumacher teams would head straight across Kazakhstan. As we neared the border with Kazakhstan, we decided to make the most of our remaining time together. After crossing the Russian-Kazakh border (we’ve become pros at border crossings, recently) we camped inside Kazakhstan just outside of Aterau. The road conditions were decent, but were the worst we had seen thus far on the rally. Pot holes would appear out of nowhere that were the size of small cows. More dangerously though were the ripples made by trucks on the roads so that the pavement was not flat, but consisted of two ridges in each lane. Small cars like ours had to drive on top of the ridges or else risk ripping apart the undercarriage. Because of this, the going was a bit slow. Add to this the fact that camels abounded in the area and, at night, camels venture onto the black pavement roads to soak up the heat of the dark cement.

We pulled off the road. It was entirely a flat region so there was no cover for our tents and cars. We decided to camp anyway, and after a bit of roof riding by Lauren, and a bit of football playing by the Brits, we pulled our cars into a flat area and began to set up our tents. We wanted our last evening together to be fun, so talk of a campfire raged through the camp. But, as we were setting up we noticed ants all over the area. We traced them back to hives all around the flats. There was nowhere to go to escape them. While we were investigating the strange ants, the mosquitoes emerged. I don’t expect there are many people on the planet who like mosquitoes, but this was ridiculous. If you pointed your flashlight above someone’s head you could literally see a grey, moving cloud of humming mosquitoes, diving in for the kill. Only Bill and Mike were able to stay outside their tents long enough to cook some quick noodles. Everyone else huddled in their tents, scratching their bites and watching for ants. It was like a bad Indiana Jones movie, with strange insects closing in on us from all sides.

Despite the annoyance of the bugs and the extreme, lung-halting heat, we managed to get a few hours of sleep. In the morning, we pushed on to Aterau and arrived fairly early. We found a bank and quickly changed money, then decided to have a group lunch together before we split up. Parked outside a shopping center, another rally team pulled up consisting of two middle-aged men who worked as deep-sea exploratory oil divers. We all went to the town’s Irish pub. Apparently there were hundreds of Americans and Aussies in Aterau working in the oil and gas business. Who would have guessed? We had a beer and pizza and, back in the parking lot, took a final convoy picture and said our goodbyes.

Bill, Mike and I nestled into our tiny Saxo and pointed it due south to Uzbekistan. The rest of our tiny convoy pulled out their maps and began plotting a route East and then North towards Russia. It was a sad goodbye, and it was lonely to be a solo rally car.

Snow

From the Beijing Train Station to the corrupt police on the far Eastern route of the Russian Trans-Siberian Railroad, the 2008 movie Transsiberian was enjoyable to watch having dealt with many of the same problems…ok minus the kidnapping part.  Not so much for the plot as for the accuracy the movie portrayed when depicting a couples ride on a Chinese train and problems with Russian police.  Although we did not go on the Trans-Siberian…yet, the movie was thrilling to watch as an American couple from Iowa, Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer, left the Beijing Zhan (station) headed for Moscow via a 6 day journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway.  The train-station, gray colored everything, sleeper cars, and food carriages, were right on and I would believe it was filmed on location.

Emily Mortimer’s character was always planning a new route or travel adventure and walked around with a Cannon Digital camera around her neck throughout the whole film – which reminded me a lot of Lauren.  The broken sleeper-car knobs that wouldn’t turn off terrible Russian music, the shared cars with strangers, the rude and short tempered train attendants, drug smugglers, and corrupt cops were a direct parallel to our experiences en route from China through Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan.  Although the plot got extremely more creepy in comparison to the things that happened to Lauren and I, if you have traveled throughout the former Soviet Union, Russia, China by train, or are interested to see what it looks like, I think people would find certain aspects of this couple’s travel accurate.

Going through Kazakhstan we were hiding from the police as their boarded our train trying to avoid paying bribes, watching all the drug smugglers hide taped packages to their stomachs or under their beds, and arguing with the grumpy train attendants. Our train travel in China was pretty easy going and we had no problems, but the movie gave a good atmosphere to some of the fears you develop as you go into less safe areas ruled by corrupt cops and officials.

For a more detailed clip go to:  Transsiberian Part I – watch from 4:10 to about 9:00 to see a little bit of what it was like.

As we depart Central Asia, we’re hit with a bittersweet feeling partially of relief and partly of sadness. Central Asia is like no other place on earth. Check logic at the door, and reason as well sometimes. The people are so vastly different from one another between the Stans that each place is like stepping into an entire new continent. Some are friendly, helpful and kind while others are greedy, rude and unethical. Its a region that will test even the most tried of travelers, and will cause even the most devout to swear. At the same time, it houses some of the world’s most cherished relics, a complex and interesting history and some of nature’s most comical and magnificent structures. While in Central Asia we composed a few top ten lists, here they are, as we say adieu:

Top Ten Illegal Things We Saw in Central Asia:

• Illegal money changers with counterfeit bills
• Marijuana growing on the curb in Tashkent
• Drug deal exchanges in Bukhara
• Transporting illegal substances across borders
• Prostitutes all over Central Asia
• Bribing guards on trains, border crossings
• Dangerous driving, with no regard for safety
• Hassling tourists, foreigners
• Cops patting down travelers for money
• Camping on protected ruins

Top Five Things you Don’t Want to Hear while on rusted, Soviet Chairlift:

• “Is that a broken chair down there?”
• “I think the two seater in front of us is seating four.”
• “Are you wearing Birkenstocks?”
• “Thats definitely wreckage of a chair lift down there.”
• “…and now we have to get back down the same way.”

10 Most Difficult Things to Achieve in Central Asia:

• Getting a napkin out of the booby-trapped holders
• Crossing the street without losing a limb
• Hailing a cabby who will charge in local currency
• Avoiding food poisoning
• Conversing with anyone about Russia
• Mentioning America without getting a response of “George Bush, Michael Jackson or Michael Jordon” in return
• Finding a road without potholes
• Avoiding manty (meat dumplings)
• Changing money across currencies
• Finding shoes in any size above women’s 8

Top Five Strange Things We Heard at a Restaurant in Central Asia:

• “That guy is playing with his belly button.”
• “Last time we ate here, we didn’t get sick!”
• “Try the tongue.”
• “That guy is combing his stomach hair….”
• “Even the waitress looks like shes about to throw up.”

Top Five Strange Menu Items in Central Asia:

• Lamp Shish
• Banana Spleen
• Corn and Cancer
• Language Beef
• Two Generations
• Frog Paws
• Cinnamon of my Youth
• Seafood pizza with Fruit
• Beer: The Goner
• Fish on a Shish

Top Ten Strange Sites We Visited:

• Flaming crater called the “Gates of Hell”
• Sarcophagus of Daniel (13m long)
• The nodding donkey monument
• Mosque honoring Turkmen Dictator, not Allah
• Russian Orthodox Church in the desert with skull and bones
• Downed MiG plane on display in someone’s yard
• Snake infested section of Caspian Sea
• Torture chamber and bug pit where condemned lived for years
• “Big Mac” restaurant on top of a mountain (lamb burgers)
• Petrified dinosaur eggs in the desert

Top Five Things We’ll Miss About Central Asia:

• Friends
• Bazaars (Push-Push in particular)
• Camels, EVERYWHERE!
• 2000 year old ruins…everywhere
• Constant oddities making you shrug and say, “its CA!”

Yup, Central Asia is a strange and mysterious place! We loved our time in the region, despite a few down times (being shaken down by cops, bad border guards and dishonest cabbys). We were lucky to be able to spend over three months in the Stans!

Uzbek CYM

One of the strangest, and most frustrating things about traveling in Central Asia has been the double standards related to costs. As Americans we take for granted the amazing equality we have inside the country. True, we have problems, but one would never walk into a museum and be charged a different fee because of the color of his skin. That is not so in Central Asia.

In Uzbekistan, for a local to get into the Registan it cost 200 CYM, for a foreigner it costs 7000 CYM. Similarly, to get into any sight in Khiva, a foreigner must buy a city-wide pass that costs roughly $7 USD while locals can pay to enter whatever exhibit they want for free or for pennies on the dollar. Can you imagine the same practice in the US?

For a local in Turkmenistan to get into the underground lake it costs 3 Minat, but 30 Minat for a foreigner. (Thats the difference of $14 USD). We drove over an hour to reach the underground lake only to be rudely shoved aside by a guard who demanded fistfulls of cash. In this stubborn instance we turned on our heels and left the park, a $14 USD difference is not only unethical, its downright discriminatory.

And cash is not only demanded at ridiculous sums, its sometimes simply taken. In Kazakhstan we  were hassled by police, guards and railway attendants who demanded money, and when it wasn’t give they patted us down and took it anyway. A strange way to treat a visitor.

On your customs forms in Central Asia you have to list how much you are bringing into the country. We’ve heard of other travelers who didn’t report all the cash they were carrying, and as a result corrupt guards simply took the extra cash and laughed away all complaints. On the other hand, if you do list how much money you have you will get shaken down by one of the custom’s officials pals. Catch 22. We stick to withdrawing small sums out of ATMs, though even that is tricky.

Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling here, but the money issues are a bit annoying, and it really makes me appreciate the countries we’ve visited that don’t discriminate based on country of origin.

Arrival in Ashgabat

Originally, the trip was planned as a Shanghai to Ashgabat adventure. Well, we have an announcement to make—we have decided to keep on going. Since this was our original destination, here are some updates on the stats so far.

Total miles by land: 13,136 miles by land
Number of countries visited: 4
Total amount spent: $882 per person
Number of days on the road: 43
Amount spend per day based on total amount and days on the road: $20.50
Total number of currencies used/traded: 6 (RMB, KZT, USD, UZS, TMM, AZM)
Number of lost items: 3 (Mike’s sandals, Mike USB, Lauren cell phone (later recovered!)
Number of mosquito bites: Lauren 14 and two bee stings, Mike 6
Number of bouts of food poisoning: Lauren two, Mike one
Bribes paid: Two (Kazakhstan)
Number of trains taken: 7
Number of border checks: 6
Number of crappy batteries gone through: 6
Number of cities seen: 10
Number of buses taken: 5
Number of pictures taken: 3,800 (14.3 GB), 95 in Shanghai, 56 + 77 + 43 on the rail, 259 in Urumqi, 422 in Kashgar, 96 in Yarkand, 307 at Lake Karakul and Tashkurgan, 100 in Almaty, 394 in Tashkent, 142 Chorsu Lake, 661 in Samarkand, 647 in Bukhara, 523 in Khiva, 378 at Urgench Fortresses
Number of cars taken: 29 (cabs, mostly)
Number of guesthouses/hostels: 10
Number of hotels: 1
Number of other American travelers we’ve met: 3 (two traveling male friends starting law school soon and one very interesting woman traveling solo for over a year

Lamb kebabs – Urumqi, Xinjiang. Urumqi has an amazing night market near the park with beer, kebabs, nan, plov and other Central Asian treats.

Pizza – Tashkent, Uzbekistan. There is a locally owned Pizza cafe called Bistro in Tashkent with amazing pizza, good beer and outdoor seating.

Coffee – Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This is on the list at everyone else’s request as I don’t drink coffee. Cafe Jum is the best spot in Central Asia for an espresso.

Spiced Tea – Kashgar, Xinjiang. We ran into a man mixing tea in buckets by the mosque in Old Town. Amazing spices and knock-you-out tea.

Nan – Almaty, Kazakhstan. This is, by far, the best bread I’ve ever head, and it is totally different from Xinjiang nan.

Battered califlower – Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Steamed, and then battered and fried. Creative and savory.

Fatush – Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This Lebbonese salad is a mix of tomato, califlower, tortilla and vinigar. Amazing.

Donar Kebab – Almaty, Kazakhstan. The best donar this side of the Tian Shan.

Goat milk yoghurt – Kashgar, Xinjiang. Mixed with sugar and served ice cold.

1. A marijuana plant growing on the side of the road in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Uzbek lake

2. Multiple people on the train shaking the border guards hands full of money to avoid having their bags searched in Kazakhstan.

3. Illegal money traders on every train in every country so far.

4. Kazakh guards patting Mike down for money, official theft.

5. Elderly man on Kazakh train with drugs taped to his stomach.

Honorable mentions:

6. Everyone driving in Central Asia is breaking a multitude of laws every second on the road.

7. Kazakh woman transporting goods illegal from China using our train cabin.

8. Racing cars down a public road in Uzbekistan, using the e-brake to pull 180s.

After sleeping in the Almaty-1 train station we boarded our first Kazakh train at 5:12am bound for Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The train arrived a bit early and no one knew which car or cabin we were meant to be in, and in our limited (ok, non-existent) Russian we had a bit of trouble finding our births. Once situated in car number 9 we discovered we were meant to be in bunks 13 and 16. A very old, very sickly man who was thinner than a pencil and paler than paper was sleeping fitfully in my bunk while a giant, fecal-covered bag was resting on Mike’s bunk. The train attendant/scariest looking man on the planet approached us and heaved the heavy bag up over his head and threw it atop the birth above ours and ordered us up into two bunks. He came back five minutes later and demanded 700T from us to buy sheets for the bunks. I doubt anyone else paid but seeing as he was the largest shirtless Russian we’d ever seen we forked over the money (we later learned everyone did indeed pay for their sheets).

I’ll pause here to describe the train. Once in car 9 we were met with the most pungent aroma of vomit, human sweat, excrement and burnt hair. The smell was so string it made the skin around my eyes itch. The interior was paneled in fake wooden siding with bunks 2 high with a third bunk for baggage. Nowhere were there safety rails or hand grips. The tiny isle held additional bunks which doubled as benches. The bathroom was a tiny room with a stainless steel western toilet that was so stained and textured from years of use that it looked like a rusty old ship port hole.

Somehow, and probably because we had not really slept in the train station the night before, we fell asleep in our tiny bunks (so thin in width that you had to lay on your side or you’d roll onto the floor and get hepatitis. Throughout the night we made long stops in the middle of nowhere, literally the train would stop in a field and then, at random, take off again. By 8am the lights were flicked on and we rolled into a station for a brief stop only to discover that we had only gone about 20 miles down the tracks. Amazed, Mike set off to ask someone when we arrived in Tashkent. We had heard that it was a 12 hour ride, but that turned out only to have been true several years ago. Instead of arriving 12 hours later at 5pm we found out we would arrive 24 hours later at 4am the next day. We had no food, only a little bit of money in Tenge and the smell of vomit was making us nauseous.

Around late morning we made a stop and watched as everyone looking out the window panicked and dashed into their bunks. Even the sick old man pretended to be asleep. Several guards in elaborate uniforms got on board and talked briefly with the giant train attendant/giant before marching straight up to us. “Passport! Declaration.” We showed him our passports and he forcibly took mine out of my death grip on it and rushed down the isle. We could not both chase after him and leave all our bags, so Mike followed him. What ensued turns out to be a common occurrence on Kazakh trains. The man took Mike into the giant’s cabin and closed the door. He then patted Mike down and took all the money in his pockets, which turned out to be about $2 USD. Luckily the bribe-seeking Kazakh did not find the money belt containing hundreds of RMB. Mike took the event in stride and laughed about what a crappy bribe the guy got away with as he snatched my passport back from the cop and quickly returned to our cabin. From there after, at every stop we would watch for guards and, if we spotted any, we jumped into our bunks like everyone else and pretended to be asleep.

Around 10pm the giant (he had acquired a shirt now, but had it unbuttoned) gave us declaration forms. He found a translator who asked us if we had any money, any at all. Obviously after the bribe incident we lied and said no. This turned out to be a brilliant idea. They said we had to write something so we listed the guitar and computer (after he asked several times if we had one). We later found out the “translator” was a guard who was trying to get close to us to find out how much money we had left, as well as what other valuables.

When we approached the border of Uzbekistan, Kazakh officials border the train and again asked if we had money. Again we said we didn’t. Having not slept or eaten in almost 24 hours our sense of humor was weaning. They made us open our bags (but did not notice three of our 5 bags so did not search them and only ended up looking in the most boring bag full of clothing). They did a swine flu check and inquired again if we had any money or valuables. We kept saying no, insisting that we were planning on using our credit card (I had a deactivated card to show them just in case they stole the card). After a ridiculously long search of everyone’s bags on the train minus those of ours hidden on the top bunk, we saw a young Russian boy of about 17 taken into the back room and frisked. He lost several hundred T. We saw another man walk right up to the Kazakh guard and put a wad of bills into his hand and then point at his bag and walk away. The guards did not search his bag. We saw the old man from our bunk hide a box under his bunk and a boy of about 20 kick a black bag out of site while being searched. As we rolled away from the Kazakh border I had the feeling that everyone was transporting something illegal except us.

Fifteen minutes later it was 4am and we were rolling into the Uzbek guard station. The people on the train seemed less stressed and said the Uzbeks were not as hard to get through. Everyone stashed their secret packages and the old man revealed, mid-stretch, that he had stuff taped across his entire midriff. The Uzbeks had a nurse come take our temperatures and check our passports while a drug dog went around and terrified everyone. This was the first drug dog of the trip. The Uzbeks were friendly and efficient but again only searched one of our bags. They took no bribes and did not intimidate anyone. After we rolled away from the border we arrived in Tashkent thirty minutes later.

Cathederal

We arrived in Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, at 6:00am after 36 hours on the train. We immediately realized how screwed we were when we tried to buy train tickets to Tashkent for the next day using charades, smiles and Pictionary-like drawings. We both studied Russian for the month before we left, and discovered that knowing how to ask someone’s name and where they are from is useless and unpractical, albeit friendly. Finally, I figured out that there was a train, from another nearby station, leaving at 5:12am the next day. I promptly bought two tickets for 12,000Tenge after speedily changing my RMB into Tenge at a nearby counter using a similar method of charades and Pictionary.
From the train station, we hopped in the back of someone’s car for 400T to So Young’s Youth Hostel. It was hardly 8:30am, but So Young was awake and set about making a nice breakfast of fresh peppers, bread, popcorn and tea. A New Zealander woke up and joined us, and a bit later a boy from Holland joined in. We discussed everyone’s travel plans and how So Young, a S. Korean native, had ended up in Almaty (logistics expert for rail transport).
While we have many legitimate gripes with The Lonely Planet guidebooks, the section on Almaty was decent and set up an 8k ‘walking tour’ through the key spots in the city. We decided to add ‘buy Russian phrase book’ to our to-do list for the day. We walked all around the city in honest awe of the cleanliness, greenery, modernity and friendliness of the city and debated settling here for 6 months or so to learn Russian in a comfortable and interesting metropolis. This is still a possibility, although we would also like to see what Uzbekistan has to offer.
We had a fine 6USD lunch at a bier garten and then walked to the city bazaar and mosque, as well as an old cathedral in the middle of Pavlov park. We walked to the cable car, but decided not to take it to the top because of impending rain clouds. An hour later it poured so ferociously that the streets soon filled with water. We ducked, quickly, into the town’s biggest expat bar in an attempt to meet a few locals to hear what they think of living in the city- but the bar was deserted. Dashing through the rain, we reached So Young’s and settled in for some quality time with the other travelers and So Young, and a nice evening prepping for our border crossing tomorrow and uploading pictures.
More from Uzbekistan soon to follow.

We took the 11:58pm train from Urumqi to Almaty, a 36 hour adventure across the Chinese border to Kazakhstan. Arriving early (as is my custom) we waiting outside a bit before being allowed into the terminal. You can only bring 36kg on board the train, and everyone’s bags were weighed, X-rayed and probed at the station. Once on board (car 5, room 6, bunks 23 and 24) we discovered that this was the nicest train we’d ever been on in China. The bunks actually left enough room for you to sit up straight and the hooks were facing up, instead of down and the toilet actually flushed! We fell asleep almost immediately and slept well because the rooms have doors (another improvement)!

At 7:00am I awoke knowing I should get up before we got to the border. I must have fallen back asleep because promptly at 9:00am a Chinese military official swung open the door to our room and motioned me off my bed. Thirty seconds later, when I was still blinking away sleep he came back and motioned again, a bit less humored than before. A second uniformed set of officers came in after the military cleared out. These men (in blue) collected our passports and put them in a metal briefcase and then sauntered off to a nearby building. After a moment, a third string of officials came through. These I did not recognize.

A Chinese official in white and blue walked up to Mike and held a small, white machine up to his forehead. It displayed a red dot directly above and between his eyes. Another official did the same thing to the woman across from Mike in her bunk. No one seemed perturbed by this. I was a bit terrified though, and when the guy came at me with the mystery devise I jerked back until he started laughing and pulled a thermometer out of the inside of the machine to demonstrate that he was only taking my temperature. Apparently (and, my guess would be from fear and paranoia) my temperature was a bit high. No kidding, officer?! He saw that we were American and then began to freak out a bit, he pulled out extra thermometers and made us stick them under our arms. The lady in our cabin motioned for us to remove them when he turned his back, so we did. When they came back they were at 36 and 37 degrees and then, suddenly, the officer spoke. I responded in Chinese and he nervously laughed, “I didn’t know you understood!” after a pause he added, “Excuse me, do you have the swine flu?” We said no, and a group of five officers showed up to listen to our story. We explained that we had been living in China since December and thus had not been in proximity to Mexico.

I’m impressed, honestly, with the way the government organized for mass border health checks including training the officers and explaining the origins of the flu. They did it professionally and quickly, and targeted the correct people for further inspection. I applaud. Its no small thing to halt a pandemic, and the government does away with PC measures to get stuff done.

After the swine flu check we had a baggage check. Here, I give a one thumb up, one thumb down. The Chinese guards only searched our bags and no one else’s. They made a big show of making us unpack every item in our bags. I suppose it is their job, but while we were showing them how an electronic toothbrush works the lady in our cabin was subtly kicking a duct-tapped bag under her bed. Whatever she was transporting was not 100% legit.

We finally chugged along only to stop five minutes later while they changed the wheels. Apparently Russian tracks are not the same distance apart as Chinese tracks, and this means all the wheels have to be replaced when entering Kazakhstan (also true with Russia and Mongolia).

Now to go through Kazakh customs. While the Chinese side had been entirely large, intimidating but finely groomed males the Kazakh customs officials were petite, gorgeous women in fish-net stocking, mini skirts and fluffy white blouses. A brunette came directly to our cabin and batted her big brown eyes, “You are American?” she asked. Mike nearly fell over himself as his jaw dropped and I responded, “yes.” She told us to give up our passports and show our bags to her friend, a red-head in a shorter skirt and more elaborate fish-net stockings. Mike responded with, “whatever you say!” and they walked away. However, after two hours of waiting, much to Mike’s disappointment they never came back. A burley alcoholic-smelling man came to return our passports and, after picking up new Kazakhs we headed on towards Almaty after one very successful and ultimately hassle free border crossing.

Kazakh visa example

We applied for Kazakh transit visas and found the process amazingly easy (perhaps because we are comparing it to the process of getting an Uzbek visa from Shanghai). Last Friday we dropped off our applications feeling a bit worried. We marked “transit” throughout the forms instead of “place of residence in Kazakhstan” or “transit area.” However, despite being very vague we arrived at the Kazakh consulate in Shanghai today and picked up our transit visas without issue. For a three day transit visa we paid 125RMB each (about 20 bucks).

While they have no expedite service (and it takes one full week to get a visa) they did us a favor and got ours back to us on Wednesday, having dropped it off the previous Friday. They were very friendly and helpful.

The hours of operation for the Kazakh consulate in Shanghai are a bit strange. They only accept applications between 9:30am – 12:30pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They will only issue your visas (for pick up) between 3:30 – 5:00pm on those same days. Come early as there is always about an hour wait. A guard will escort you to a small waiting area and then usher you, one at a time, into the main consulate room. Expect to spend about two hours each visit so bring a book.

As per most visa applications, you’ll need passport photos. Have these cut and ready to go as they were a bit anal about the sloppy cut job we did on our pictures and spent quite a bit of time ‘properlly’ trimming the pictures and gluing them lovingly to the application. In addition, bring copies of your passport – simple black and white is fine- and the names of the port of entry and exit for a transit visa (for normal vaisa, have the name of a hotel in a major city for the application).

The address for the Kazakh consulate in Shanghai is: Room 1005, 1006 Orient International Plaza 85 Loushanguan Road Shanghai 200336, P.R.C. You can call +86 (21) 6275 -3878 or  email: office@kzconsulshanghai.org, or visit their website: http://www.kazembchina.org