The ferry wasn't actually as bad as I thought it might be. I shared a cabin with some old russian guy, and there were meals for about $4. We arrived in Aqtau the next morning but as there was no room to dock at the port we were stuck waiting for 3 days, anchored a few miles outside the port. We finally docked at about 6am on Sunday, where we had to wait until about 10am for a customs officer to board the boat and check our passports. After that we went a few hundred meters to a passport control area to get our passports stamped and waived through the actual customs point.
After arriving in Aqtau I promptly proceeded to the immigration police who were of course closed because it was Sunday. However there was still someone there who assured me I could register in Shetpe, so after seeing a bit of the city, resupplying, and waiting out the hottest bit of the day, I started on the two day ride to Shetpe.
Kazakhstan wasn't as flat as I thought it shouldv'e been.
Some random Kazakhs bugged me when I was resting in the shade and forced me up on one of their horses:
I arrived in Shetpe and stayed in a hotel. I went to the police in the morning to register, only to found out that as I suspected, they couldn't register me and I had to go back to Aqtau to register. So I left my bike in the police station and took a bus to Aqtau for a few dollars. Once there I headed back to immigration and spent almost two hours waiting to register. I wandered across the entire city on the way back to the bus station and again paid to sit in a hot, cramped bus for two hours. The buses seem to run on the same schedule as the ferry: you buy your ticket, then sit in the bus until it's full, then the driver will show up and you'll leave. I ate another plate of shashlik for dinner before heading out of shetpe in the dark, only making it about 20k before hitting a pothole, giving myself a pinch flat, which is when I decided to fix it and go to sleep.
Shortly after Shetpe, the road deteriorated. I wasn't afraid though, since I had expected this. In fact these roads were half the reason I brought a mountain bike with a front suspension.
One thing I didn't anticipate though is that while a front suspension helps quite a bit, you still need a death grip on the handlebars, and you still can't take bumps too fast for fear of pinch flats on the rear tire. Also, all the bouncing really makes your butt hurt a lot.
Back to covering my mouth because all the cars and trucks kick up so much dust on the road. There was enough wind that it wasn't too hot to wear. I thought I would be on my own completely in this desert the whole way, but in fact there were some teahouses along the way. I had brought 20 liters of water with me to start, but I bought a few extra along the way, as well as having my first taste of borsh in 4 years. I was waking up at about 6am to ride until noon, then find an underpass in the road to sit in for 5 hours, cook and take a nap and start up again. After about 11am all my water was 100 degrees so it was disgusting to drink but I had to drink it anyway. The constant bouncing on the terrible road combined with the head combined with the annoying schedule and lack of real sleep tired me out. Also, most of the cars and trucks were still honking at me.
Finally I made it to Beneyu where I resupplied, this time with 25 liters of water, a few liters of ice tea, lots of food, and a bunch of fresh fruit.
This is how I role through the desert (slowly):
From there it was 90km to the uzbek border. I deliberately stopped just shy of the border because I knew it was a long way to the nearest town in Uzbekistan and I technically only had three days after entering the country before I was required to be registered with OVIR. I started towards the border around 8am and was across by about 10am. Again I was able to bypass most of the lines, but since they didn't speak much english I ended up milling about a bit and answering the same questions over and over from all the other people crossing the border.
Since I had entered Kazakhstan by ferry I skipped hordes of people all wanting to change my money there. At the uzbek border I wasn't so lucky and I was instantly swarmed by people trying to sell me cold water and wanting to change my money. I opted not to change any of my dollars or tenge at the border since I wasn't sure of the exchange rate.
I found out after crossing that it was 350km to Kungrad, the nearest large town, so it was lucky that I had plenty of food and water. As it turned out the slight headwind I had in Kazakhstan coming from the northwest stayed strong and turned into an amazing tailwind when I turned southeast in Uzbekistan. The roads also drastically improved and I was able to break my all time record for mileage, in the middle of the desert no less. I rode from around 10am after crossing the border to 12:30 where I set up my tarp for shade and cooked some pasta for lunch. The wind was so strong it was tearing my tarp to pieces so at 2:30 I decided to just go. When the wind wants you to ride, you must ride. By 4pm I had done over 100km, so I decided to roll with it and see how far I could go. By 8pm the wind had slowed, but I figured I would be a failure if I didn't make it to 200km, so that's exactly how far I made it before camping.
The next day I again awoke early and rode another 120km, to end just before Kungrad. The next day I started heading into town, hoping to find a hotel, bank, and the migration police in kungrad before resting for the day, but on the way into town I met up with two German cyclists who were headed into Nukus, so I figured I might as well ride with them if they were planning on making it to Nukus in one day. When we made it to Nukus I started a frantic search for a bank or a place to change money. It turns out Uzbekistan is a silly place and they have no idea what they're doing with money. There is no such thing as an ATM. The only way to get money is to change dollars or get a cash advance on a credit card and only about one in ten banks will do this for you.To top it off, the government seems to be in extreme denial about how worthless their currency is and they refuse to print bills larger than 1000 sum. This means that the largest bill available is worth less than 50 cents, and when you go to pay for anything you end up counting out at least 5-10 bills, only to watch the cashier count them again. This also means you're forced to walk around with a huge stack of bills unable to fit into any normal sized wallet, and you waste hours of time in each transaction. I heard for the first time the english phrase "prepare your money" which seemed ridiculous until I realized that if you're paying $20 for something, you get to enjoy counting out 50ish bills. Efficiency!
This stack is worth less than the single bill in front of it:
The one worthwhile thing in Nukus, other than a shower, was the Karakalpak art museum which had a number of pieces formerly banned by the soviet union, as well as art and artifacts from the region.
After seeing that and relaxing a bit, it was off towards Khiva, where I arrived after two days of cycling and checked into a hotel. Most of the interesting bits of Khiva are contained within the old walled city of Itchan Kala.
The gates into the city look like this:
After arriving in Aqtau I promptly proceeded to the immigration police who were of course closed because it was Sunday. However there was still someone there who assured me I could register in Shetpe, so after seeing a bit of the city, resupplying, and waiting out the hottest bit of the day, I started on the two day ride to Shetpe.
Kazakhstan wasn't as flat as I thought it shouldv'e been.
Some random Kazakhs bugged me when I was resting in the shade and forced me up on one of their horses:
I arrived in Shetpe and stayed in a hotel. I went to the police in the morning to register, only to found out that as I suspected, they couldn't register me and I had to go back to Aqtau to register. So I left my bike in the police station and took a bus to Aqtau for a few dollars. Once there I headed back to immigration and spent almost two hours waiting to register. I wandered across the entire city on the way back to the bus station and again paid to sit in a hot, cramped bus for two hours. The buses seem to run on the same schedule as the ferry: you buy your ticket, then sit in the bus until it's full, then the driver will show up and you'll leave. I ate another plate of shashlik for dinner before heading out of shetpe in the dark, only making it about 20k before hitting a pothole, giving myself a pinch flat, which is when I decided to fix it and go to sleep.
Shortly after Shetpe, the road deteriorated. I wasn't afraid though, since I had expected this. In fact these roads were half the reason I brought a mountain bike with a front suspension.
One thing I didn't anticipate though is that while a front suspension helps quite a bit, you still need a death grip on the handlebars, and you still can't take bumps too fast for fear of pinch flats on the rear tire. Also, all the bouncing really makes your butt hurt a lot.
Back to covering my mouth because all the cars and trucks kick up so much dust on the road. There was enough wind that it wasn't too hot to wear. I thought I would be on my own completely in this desert the whole way, but in fact there were some teahouses along the way. I had brought 20 liters of water with me to start, but I bought a few extra along the way, as well as having my first taste of borsh in 4 years. I was waking up at about 6am to ride until noon, then find an underpass in the road to sit in for 5 hours, cook and take a nap and start up again. After about 11am all my water was 100 degrees so it was disgusting to drink but I had to drink it anyway. The constant bouncing on the terrible road combined with the head combined with the annoying schedule and lack of real sleep tired me out. Also, most of the cars and trucks were still honking at me.
Finally I made it to Beneyu where I resupplied, this time with 25 liters of water, a few liters of ice tea, lots of food, and a bunch of fresh fruit.
This is how I role through the desert (slowly):
From there it was 90km to the uzbek border. I deliberately stopped just shy of the border because I knew it was a long way to the nearest town in Uzbekistan and I technically only had three days after entering the country before I was required to be registered with OVIR. I started towards the border around 8am and was across by about 10am. Again I was able to bypass most of the lines, but since they didn't speak much english I ended up milling about a bit and answering the same questions over and over from all the other people crossing the border.
Since I had entered Kazakhstan by ferry I skipped hordes of people all wanting to change my money there. At the uzbek border I wasn't so lucky and I was instantly swarmed by people trying to sell me cold water and wanting to change my money. I opted not to change any of my dollars or tenge at the border since I wasn't sure of the exchange rate.
I found out after crossing that it was 350km to Kungrad, the nearest large town, so it was lucky that I had plenty of food and water. As it turned out the slight headwind I had in Kazakhstan coming from the northwest stayed strong and turned into an amazing tailwind when I turned southeast in Uzbekistan. The roads also drastically improved and I was able to break my all time record for mileage, in the middle of the desert no less. I rode from around 10am after crossing the border to 12:30 where I set up my tarp for shade and cooked some pasta for lunch. The wind was so strong it was tearing my tarp to pieces so at 2:30 I decided to just go. When the wind wants you to ride, you must ride. By 4pm I had done over 100km, so I decided to roll with it and see how far I could go. By 8pm the wind had slowed, but I figured I would be a failure if I didn't make it to 200km, so that's exactly how far I made it before camping.
The next day I again awoke early and rode another 120km, to end just before Kungrad. The next day I started heading into town, hoping to find a hotel, bank, and the migration police in kungrad before resting for the day, but on the way into town I met up with two German cyclists who were headed into Nukus, so I figured I might as well ride with them if they were planning on making it to Nukus in one day. When we made it to Nukus I started a frantic search for a bank or a place to change money. It turns out Uzbekistan is a silly place and they have no idea what they're doing with money. There is no such thing as an ATM. The only way to get money is to change dollars or get a cash advance on a credit card and only about one in ten banks will do this for you.To top it off, the government seems to be in extreme denial about how worthless their currency is and they refuse to print bills larger than 1000 sum. This means that the largest bill available is worth less than 50 cents, and when you go to pay for anything you end up counting out at least 5-10 bills, only to watch the cashier count them again. This also means you're forced to walk around with a huge stack of bills unable to fit into any normal sized wallet, and you waste hours of time in each transaction. I heard for the first time the english phrase "prepare your money" which seemed ridiculous until I realized that if you're paying $20 for something, you get to enjoy counting out 50ish bills. Efficiency!
This stack is worth less than the single bill in front of it:
The one worthwhile thing in Nukus, other than a shower, was the Karakalpak art museum which had a number of pieces formerly banned by the soviet union, as well as art and artifacts from the region.
After seeing that and relaxing a bit, it was off towards Khiva, where I arrived after two days of cycling and checked into a hotel. Most of the interesting bits of Khiva are contained within the old walled city of Itchan Kala.
The gates into the city look like this:
Inside Khiva are all manner of historic buildings and
museums.
From Khiva I rode back to Urgench to pick up a minibus to
skip a 4-5 more days of riding through the desert, mostly to save time since I
have 12 more days on my visa. It turns out that even though there are no towns
for 300+km there are plenty of teahouses. Also there are shops at most of the
road checkpoints. The buss dropped me off at 10pm just outside the old city of Bukhara
so it was easy to ride into town and find a hotel.
Ah yes, the Kazakh roads. Something that truly don't miss :P
ReplyDeleteALSO! MONGOL RALLY FACE/HEAD BAND THINGY! :D:D:D I don't even know where mine is now >_>
Two rally cars passed me yesterday on the way to Samarkand, and one group was staying at the hotel I am in today. I was hoping I'd start seeing them soon :D
Deleteoh lol! that's hilarious and awesome :D maybe you can tag along with them... cus if the roads are still horrible where you are, you're really not gonna be that much slower :P
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