Blogs from Kazakhstan, Asia - page 15

CENTRAL ASIA to EUROPE - (Aug 2007) - (Sunday 19th to Wednesday 22nd August) - So the day had finally arrived when I would start my long journey back to Europe, or to be more exact Moscow. Over 70 hours, including three nights, on a train all the way from Tashkent in Central Asia to Moscow in Eastern Europe. For the next few days I would be stuck on a train, travelling alone, and I didn’t really know what to expect. I’d nearly had a last minute change of plan and had been weighing up the possibility of travelling back to Europe via the Caucasus’ (Azabazan and Georgia) and into Turkey and from there into Western Europe and back to England. However, to do the region justice, I would probably have had to extend my trip ... read more

In an effort to avoid my normal boring titles, I was going to title my blog “Kazakhstan is nice”, and then after a few days I was going to title it “Kazakhstan has a veneer of niceness”, but I was already sick of people making the Borat references, so I decided not to reference that film at all and instead go with the title from the Beatles song which got stuck in my head. In his book “In Search of Kazakhstan”, which I mention here in my attempt to sound more literate than I actually am, Christopher Robbins talks about how in conversation with one of his friends he made the politically correct point that Sacha Baron Cohen (“Borat”) would probably never have even felt that it was OK to pretend to be from Germany or ... read more

For four Journey’s there has been a travelling soul that has been in me wanting to find adventure, wanting to discover new things, new cultures. That soul has enjoyed nearly every possible moment. But here in Central Asia that soul was gradually drained of life. Hence for the first time ever, I pulled the pin and got a flight outta here. My last stop was the Kazakhstan former capital Almaty. One thing about football is that it can indicate where a country is looking towards. All the Stan countries play in the Asian confederation because they see themselves as Asians. Kazakhstan on the other hand sees themselves and look towards Europe hence they play in UEFA. This means it can be expensive for Asian standards. Hotels are limited with the cheapest costing about $20 with no ... read more

DON'T MISS THE ENGLISH VERSION! PLEASE SCROLL DOWN IN ALL OF OUR BLOGS. ;-) Tag 75 bis 94 15.200 km von Galway Wir haben es geschafft! Nach 4.000 km Steppe, 4 Reifenpannen und der Erkenntnis, dass die Seidenstrasse auch nicht mehr das ist was sie mal war, haben wir dieses riesige Land erfolgreich durchquert und koennen Kasachstan hinter uns lassen. Hurra!! Erstmal dort hin zu kommen war ja schon ein Abenteuer fuer sich…. Wie Ihr Euch erinnern koennt, sassen wir in Baku (AZ) fest, da das Schiff, welches uns nach Aktau (KZ) bringen sollte, nicht abfuhr, solange keine Ladung aus Georgien da war. Das hiess, wir mussten erstmal unser 5-Tage Transit Visum fuer Aserbaidschan verlaengern, um ueberhaupt abwarten zu koennen. Dies war aber recht einfach. Einfacher jedenfalls, als rauszubekommen ob bzw. wann dieses Schiff nun ... read more

I arrived in Almaty Kazakhstan two days ago. Yesterday my bike mule (aka Jim Wilson) flew in with my bike and tomorrow we start off on 12 days of mt. biking from Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan and back again. I t promises to be beautiful but grueling ride as we climb over 12K foot passes. I will write and tell you all about it when I get back to Almaty on the 11th! ... read more