Category Archives: Kazakhstan

Camping on the Kazach steppe

After a pretty good night, we were ready for another day on the bike. The goal of today was to reach the border of Uzbekistan.

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First things first, so we went for benzine, some Tenges which is the local currency and water. At the gas station we had to wait a bit because there was a shift change. We had a nice chat with the locals and discussed the roads and the usual bike talk. I must admit, after a while you get used to the same questions: how fast does the bike go, how much does it cost, what is the consumption…

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There was a shortcut to Kulsary but the locals said that road was not good, so we took the main road to Dossor and from there road to Kulsary. The road was new and very good. So we advanced well.

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In Kulsary we had to make a pitstop, so we checked a few gasstations. At the second we met two guys from Austria, they have a facebook page called “Why not?”. They were both riding on KTM 660 machines and heading for Mongolia and the BAM. Interesting project as well. We were informed by them that the road to Aktau, was really bad. One guy had even lost a piece of luggage under the way. Too bad this road was bad, because it is almost the only way if you want to go to the Kaspian coast.

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After 5 minutes or so, all of sudden a huge yellow truck arrived. The truck had a german couple from Dresden on board, Geu and Katrin. We wanted to have a rest before the ride to Beyneu which was about 200km further, so we invited them to go for a cup of tea in town. We rode a few kms further and found a nice chaihana. It is always nice to listen to travel stories from other people so we exchanged our experiences and ideas.

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After this nice stop in Kulsary, we had to push on. We wanted to get to the Uzbek border by this evening! The road ahead was very good. Even a ferrari could ride here.
We did some offroad riding also and found a little house in the middle of the desert.
We had another pit stop to fuel ourselves up. It was getting hotter and hotter. By now the temperature was around 35 degrees but still bearable.

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Back on the road we saw horses, camels, sheep… Always be on the lookout 🙂

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By the evening we reached Beyneu. Time to gas up again. In Uzbekistan finding benzine is a real problem. I am not exaggerating here! We fueled the bike up with 93 octane and filled our 3 liter jerrycan as well. Now we had to buy water as we were planning to camp.

After Beyneu the road gets horrible. The concrete is all broken up, with steel rods sticking out. Very dangerous for the tyres! There are lots of potholes. So you can only ride slow, and when possible ride next to the road. The engine of the bike got hot at this point and the temperature gauge was reaching the marker line.

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We pushed on, and reached a small village. The sun was almost setting. This was the last village before the Uzbek border. We saw two guys on an Ural bike but they seemed pretty drunk and not too friendly. Time to move on, and find a safe place to camp.

We drove out of the village, not too fast as the last 100kms or so from Beyneu, after the bad asphalt part were all off road. We decided to ride of the track right into desert and do a clandestine bivak. I parked the bike in a small canal to make it invisible from the track. You should know that the Kazach steppe is really flat and you can see many many miles far. We set up the tent quickly without lights. The sun was already half an hour down so it started to get dark. I was a bit on guard as I knew there were wolves out there on the steppe. Time for a hot meal and sleep. At sunset we would ride to the Uzbek border.

 

Welcome Kazachstan

We got up early in the morning as we were doing a border crossing today. You never know how long it will take. We also had to ride a good 400km as we wanted to reach Atyrau by the evening.

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The ride was nice. There was a lot of water and as we got closer to the border, we saw already some horses running wild on the steppe.

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The border crosser went very smooth. There is a big nomandsland between the Russian and Kazach border. We had to export the bike from Russia and import it in Kazachstan.

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The roads in Kazachstan or horrible. There is asphalt but full of potholes. So you have to look out constantly and sometimes it is better to ride next to the road. We did some offroading on the steppe to get closer to the many horses.

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Further towards Atyrau we saw what the city was about: gas and oil and lots of it!

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We also met a dutch guy named Stefan. He was riding on a very light 250cc bike and was already traveling since March. We shared info and got useful info for later on the road.

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By the evening we reached Atyrau and checked in the hostel Stefan had been in. It was ok, only the parking for the bike was less secure, so I checked a few times during the night 🙂