into Kazakhstan - 24 June 2012 - mile 7186

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It only takes 2hrs 45mins at the border – that's amazingly fast to get 12 bikes out of Russia and into Kazakhstan. They're friendly too, as soon, as we get the last stamp on our little piece of paper the official shakes our hand and says “ Welcome to Kazakhstan”.

From the border the Kazakh steppe stretches off into the distance. In the sunlight the grass seems to be a mix of all shades of green, yellow and brown and the streams are the deepest blue - all very scenic against the clear blue skies. At first glance it looks just the same as the last 20 miles or so of Russia. But its so not the same, as soon as you start riding through it its so totally different – its quite a shock.

There are vast herds of cattle that seem just as happy on the road as on the grassland and gradually the cattle are replaced by horses and camels. There are more people around and their faces are far more Asian/Mongolian. But the biggest difference of all is the houses. All across Russia it has been gingerbread houses with their uniform brown roofs here its European houses with red or green or blue or black tiled roofs, they really stand out. Its the first thing you notice about every village – how colourful the roofs are.

Overall it just feels far more European than Russian. It shouldn't do as only 50km into Kazakhstan we cross the Ural River and officially leave Europe and enter Asia. The landscape is dead flat and the road dead straight – you see the tops of the trees and houses appearing over the horizon way before you see the whole object, its really weird, sort of like someone is unwinding a film-strip in front of you. And there are lots of mirages on the horizon so the far off hills seem to be floating a few inches above the horizon, all quite psychedelic.

The straight roads are lined by small, stumpy trees which are host to vast numbers of birds. Suddenly makes you realise that, despite all the tree lined roads in Russia, we didn't really see any birds. Here there's bird song, big flocks of small birds and big eagles sat in trees that are way too small for them. They even have giant nests in the little trees and every now and then you can see the eagle chicks looking out.

The long straight roads are also lined with bus stops, its not always clear why there is a bus stop as most of them seem to be in the middle of nowhere. But what's amazing is that every bus stop has a toilet built behind it – they may be long drop toilets but they're not too bad and very handy in such a flat landscape!! The bus stops are handy too, they provide the only shade for miles and miles.

Picnic spots appear at regular intervals. There's always a sign showing a nice picnic bench under shady trees but when you get there it just a concrete car park complete with car inspection ramp and no picnic bench or shade!! Not sure who uses them as we practically have the road to ourselves. Initially the road is great, almost brand new, but there are constant diversions down miles of gravel tracks and every time we rejoin the main road its standard seems to have deteriorated. The gravel diversions are a bit too much of a challenge for the top boxes and we find 3 of them lying on the road!!

We're doing some camping in Kazakhstan, theoretically to take in the vast vistas but some of the camp sites are a bit short on vistas and have a bit more of an “its late, this will do feel”. Some do have wonderful vistas but you do miss out on interacting with the locals. We make up for this when we stop in the small towns and are immediately surrounded by curious children who all want to look at the bikes. It mostly boys, there's a few girls around but they will only come and talk when the boys have wandered off and if the boys come back they run away.

Cemeteries are the other noticeable roadside feature. In Russia they always seemed to be tucked away in woods so you didn't really notice them but here they stand out against the flat steppe land. We stop to look at a few – all the graves date from 1990 onwards. Obvious really when you think about it, they are all post Soviet as religion was banned in Soviet times. Never did find out how/where people were buried in Soviet times.

We're now heading for the bright lights in the big city of Aktobe. There's nothing specific there but we have to register our visas so need to stop in a big town. Beyond Aktobe there's another 1000miles of Kazakh steppe stretching down to the Uzbek border but its littered with exciting places to see – two of which are part of the reason for coming on the trip! Watch this space.

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Photos

heading out across the Kazakh steppe
its looks the same as the Russian side of the border but its so different...

....there's enormous herds of cows
they seem to like the road as musch as the steppe land..

...and there's European style houses with colourful roofs
not a gingerbread cottage in sight

long, straight roads run for miles and miles across the flat Kazakh Steppe
the vista is so vast you can see the sky chaging from light blue on the horizon to dark blue above..

the road to nowhere
proper junctions with road signs but road that go nowhere

ooops
another top box bites the dust

great a picnic stop
just what we need after all those diversions

here's the picnic stop
not quite how its shown on the signs! And with a back drop of spoil heaps from the chromium mines.

Comments

[carol]

Roads...................
Long straight roads scare me, I used to end up falling asleep on them as they seem to mesmerise me!!!!! You obviously survived them ok. - as well as the K. vodka! Well done, or is that why you had eye tests after your return? Carol.x