Into Kazakhstan

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After a brief stop back in Tashkent in Uzbekistan to finish our Silk Road detour we headed off through Kazakhstan on the way back to Russia.

The journey started well with the guy drving us to the border getting stopped by the police twice for speeding before getting lost and having to ask the cops who had just booked him where the border was.

Various dodgy looking people on the Uzbek side helped us fill in the forms then we were happily adopted by a couple of ancients who walked us through the border very slowly (not so nice with hefty backpacks - could have carried them on our backs too and got there faster) finally lost them as they queue jumped and got through the border after 3 hours to be met by every taxi man and his dog with dollar signs in their eyes at the sight of two westerners. Luckily our driver spotted us and plucked us from the crowd and drove us off to Chimkent.

From Chimkent we caught the train up to Almaty in the East of Kazakhstan, even sharing a compartment with the dodgy Russians who helped fill out our forms ....

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