The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

We emerged today from six days almost without seeing a paved road and entirely without mobile phone reception. It could be said that this zone of radio silence, devoid of much direct communication with the outside world, is a sort of black hole in the fabric of normal civilisation, remote even from the rest of Kazakhstan. Whatever might have happened in the world outside, we would have known nothing of it.

During this time, and the week before, our route has taken a turn south through the centre and east of the country. Over a distance of about a thousand kilometres, we have passed hills, semi-desert, an enormous lake, and some remarkably remote places.

Upon leaving Astana, we headed south along the busiest road we have yet encountered in this county, its being so due to the fact that it links the capital with the city of Karaganda and later Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan and also the capital in Soviet times.

In contrast to the relatively flat landscape through which we have travelled so far in this country, and actually ever since leaving Poland, we very quickly found ourselves in quite hilly terrain. This was to continue all the way south to Balkhash, with weather to match – rain, thunder, and lightning. I found it strangely refreshing to wrap up once again in my waterproof clothes, after so long in just a T-shirt or even less.

After passing the smoke-stacks of Temirtau, the first major industrial city we have passed in Kazakhstan, we reached Karaganda around three days after leaving Astana. We remained only a few hours in the city, during which time I did see one strange sight – a Scottish bar. Intrigued, I stepped inside, whereupon I was met with an assault of tartan, Scottish flags, and whisky bottles. I attempted to ask the staff (all clad in little kilts and tartan bonnets) why such a place existed here. No-one could speak English, but as far as I can tell it is because they are sponsored by Johnny Walker. To demonstrate, the barman produced the most enormous bottle of Red Label I have ever seen, complete with built-in handle.

Beyond Karaganda, the landscape continued to change quite dramatically. As well as more hills, we passed through a vast area which is as close as we have yet come to real desert. In contrast to the steppe between Oral and Aqtöbe, here there were no trees or indeed any plants of any kind bigger than small shrubs. The heat bore down relentlessly onto a flat terrain which stretched to the horizon, or sometimes to lone, craggy mountains in the distance.

One morning, seeking some shadow in this wilderness in which to sit and drink our usual cup of Earl Gray, we asked some road construction workers if we could sit next to their trucks. This was no problem, especially since they were of course not actually doing any work – I don’t blame them, far too hot. They kept bringing us presents – fruit, sweets, sachets of instant coffee – but unfortunately we didn’t have anything to give them in return. We had to make do with a few of Astrid’s endless supply of small Dutch flags.

As we headed south along the main highway, we saw many, many trucks crammed full of enormous watermelons heading north. I have no idea where so many could possibly be in demand, and of course wondered what all these empty trucks going back south could be filled with. Coincidentally, I saw many of the same sort of trucks heading south completely filled with tree trunks. I therefore have the idea that the watermelons are taken all the way north to Siberia, to those poor frozen Russians eager for a taste of the tropics, and are there exchanged for timber, badly needed in the south. Of course this is probably nonsense, but I like the thought of it very much.

On this road, we also encountered a lot of bikers – the first in a long time. It turned out that there was a major festival that week, and many of them were making an enormous tour from Siberia down through Kazakhstan and back north into Russia. I had assumed bikers would have quite a lot of contempt for cyclists, but in fact all those we spoke to were very friendly and impressed with our journey.

About a week after leaving Astana, we arrived on the shores of Lake Balkhash. This was quite an amazing experience after such a vast expanse of dry and empty land, as we turned a street corner in the town of Balkhash and saw the gleaming azure blue of the lake before us. The sickle-shaped lake is amongst the very largest in Asia – so large that it is almost a sea – and is unique in that it is partly freshwater, and partly salt. Salty or otherwise, we were delighted to be able to go swimming, wash our clothes, and generally enjoy being in the presence of water after so long with so little.

Such a large obstacle, welcome as it was, presented us with the question of how to get around it. The normal and obvious way would have been to continue along the main road which runs along the western shore of the lake.

But we did not do this. Instead, we concocted a plan to head east over the steppe, where there are no real roads, to the village of Qaraqum. Since this lay on the narrowest part of the lake, directly across the water from another village which lay (at least on the map) at the end of a paved road, we guessed that it might be possible to take a boat across the lake and continue from there. All those whose advice we asked in Balkash said that this was crazy and impossible, and that in any case there were lots of “bad people” out there, but once again we decided to ignore their advice and head off-road in search of some adventure.

The very evening after leaving Balkhash on this idiotic escapade, I began to have doubts. There were so many things that could go wrong – the track might stop or become too difficult to cycle on, we might get lost, there might not even be any boat, and even if there was that was no guarantee of a lift over the water. An of course there were all those “bad people”.

But it was late and I was tired, and so I decided to forget my worries and see how things looked in the morning. Indeed the morning light and a good night’s sleep brought with them plenty new encouragement, and so off we set along the winding tracks which ran over the steppe.

The country around us began to look more and more like the Wild West than ever before. Astrid said it looked like something out of Lucky Luke, while the crooked telegraph poles and long, straight, deserted road had me singing Witchita Lineman to myself all morning. It would certainly be a great location for a Western.

As we sat having lunch in the shadow of a small brick hut, a couple of men in a 4×4 truck stopped to say hello. We met them again later in the day, since they were in fact maintenance men working on the decrepit system which pumps water to Balkhash town. They took us down inside a pumping station and let us tank up with as much clean water as we liked. It was a strange contrast to suddenly be in the dark with a huge amount of noise and the smell of diesel in the pumping station, while outside it was bright sunshine, silent, and totally empty.

About 10km further along the road, the asphalt suddenly stopped. We would not cycle over a paved road again for almost four days. It did so next to a deserted village – or at least I thought it was deserted, until I suddenly met a lone soldier while wandering around it. He looked at me quite sternly and said something which clearly meant “go away”, and so I did. I could not tell what exactly he was supposed to be protecting.

Many kilometres of rough tracks, grit, sand, and gravel later, we camped for the evening on the shores of the lake. I really had the feeling of being in one of the remotest places on earth, so far removed did it seem from the normal world. Although we had cycled only a day from Balkhash, there was not a light to be seen from any town or village, it was completely silent save for the waves on the shore, and the stars shone brighter than I have ever seen in the night sky. It felt like we had reached the end of the earth here on these shores, although it would be more appropriate to say that it is the middle – for it is hard to be much further from the sea than there.

The next day was a hard trek over more of the same, with little to see aside from a railway line to the left and the lake to the right. Every hour or so a gigantic freight train would rumble by, loaded with what I do not know.

On our third morning east of Balkhash, we came across a little beach which seemed, much as so many of the landscapes before it, like the sort of thing you only see in films. The lake was shimmering blue, the sand golden, and we were the only people to be seen. It was hard to believe that there were so few people in this beautiful area.

Finally, later that afternoon, we arrived in Qaraqum. There were indeed plenty boats, erasing one of my earlier worries, but not yet any idea of how we would go about getting a lift on one. There was talk of a boat the next day at midday, but this was by no means certain.

Then something quite unexpected happened. A boy bounced up to us and introduced himself in good English – and I am very sorry to say that of course I have totally forgotten his name. He ended up being the source of a great many answers to all the questions we had been dying to ask about Kazakhstan and this area in particular, and also acted as a translator in our attempts to organise a boat across the lake.

To this end, we ended up talking later to a bunch of suspicious-looking men on the shore, who stank of alcohol. First we were told it could be done for 2500 Tenge (about €12), then more than twice as much, and then even more. I tried negotiating with them, but they were too drunk to make any sense of the situation, and so obviously also in no state to be in control of a boat. Their apparent leader then said that we could come back the next day when he was sober, and he would do it for 2500 Tenge after all. “We’ll think about it”, we said.

Since it had become clear that we would not get across the water that day, we began setting up our tent in the grounds of an abandoned building on the edge of the village. As we did so, a man came up and said that we would be safer doing so in the courtyard of his house, an offer which we eventually accepted.

This turned out to be a very good idea, since the brother of his wife happened to have a boat, and said he would take us over the water the next morning. As on several occasions on this journey, the solution to our problems had come “via-via”, as the Dutch say.

We ended up having dinner with the whole family in the courtyard under a low roof, as a variety of family and neighbours dropped by – including our English-speaking friend, who now had to translate a huge barrage of questions for us from our hosts! For example – were we married? How many children did we have? Were we rich? (no, none, no). They found all this quite surprising, since it is expected here that you get married at around 21 whether you want to or not. And if you have been on a few dates with someone, then you are more or less engaged.

This was indeed a strange place to be. The nearest road was 200km away, mobile phones did not work, and when I gave a map of the world to our host to explain where we were from, he held it upside-down, mystified as to what he was seeing. He he was, a fisherman, who had likely never seen the sea. How could I possibly explain anything to him about where I was from? Not for the first time on this trip, I felt like I had landed on another planet. All the same, we shared a few vodkas – here at least we were on common ground.

The next morning we said our goodbyes, and headed down to the lake. The massive son of our host from the night before was on hand to haul the little boat to the shore, and also to start the rusty engine with a mighty tug on the piece of rope tied around the axle.

And we were off, bobbing up and down alarmingly in the small fibreglass boat with no lifejackets an and an engine which had seemingly come out of a Lada. Mercifully, we made it to the other side in one piece and were soon back on dry land.

Having thanked our captain, and quite elated at our success so far, we headed through the reeds for the village of Köpbirlik, and the supposed main road that would take us south to Almaty.

This road did not exist. What was there instead was a track of grit and gravel 40km long, making this easily the most difficult and exhausting day of the whole trip. In the scorching heat, it was necessary to pick your way through the enormous ribbed mounds of gravel on the road, sending the bicycle jolting up and down and shaking you around like a rag-doll. Constant concentration and an iron grip on the handlebars was necessary, and the whole horrible experience felt much like cycling with two flat tyres. Or imagine driving over a never-ending series of speed bumps of differing sizes. And later in the day, we came across a 4×4 lying half-crushed upside down on the road, with petrol and shopping spilling out onto the ground. A small group of people were gathered at the scene, and the lack of panic or shock on their faces suggested that was no-one still lying in the vehicle. But still I dared not look. We offered to help in any way possible (which was in fact not at all), and continued on our way. It is hard to understand how it must be to live in a place where this track is the only means of reaching the outside world.

And then miraculously, at the very end of the day and in the middle of nowhere, the road suddenly turned to asphalt. I really cannot understand the logic in this, except perhaps that the money ran out just here exactly. We lay down on this magical warm substance and stared at the evening sky for ages, so thankful were we for its presence. There was incidentally no danger of being run over, since any oncoming car could be heard for quite some time before it arrived. In between, all was silent.

The next day, this time a lot easier of course, was still tough enough. It remained extremely hot, and the landscape was very oppressive, being as it was a seemingly infinite sea of rolling sand dunes, trees, and small plants. It looked the same whichever way you turned, giving no sense of direction or distance. There were no landmarks of any kind, and no sign of humanity aside from the monotonous road, devoid of junctions, signs, or any other features. It was hard to stay convinced that we were actually moving at all.

The map, which had been wrong about the road, also indicated several villages which were nowhere to be seen. It was then that we began to become a bit worried, having very little to cook with that evening and with only limited water.

And so when we did finally see some houses in the distance along a dirt track, we decided to pay a visit, at least in order to get water. In fact, the elderly lady who we encountered became immediately delighted at our presence, and invited us enthusiastically inside her house. We ended up sitting for a good part of the afternoon with her and her husband in their front room, as they placed numerous plates of food and endless cups of tea in front of us and insisted that we consume it all. Finally we were allowed to leave, with a parcel of sweets, fruit preserve, and bread for the road. It seemed as if they very much enjoyed receiving unexpected guests, which sadly occurs very seldom here, I might guess. We encountered perhaps one car per hour on the road outside.

And now, finally, we are entering the populated world once again. From here on lies a road which winds through the mountains, passing various towns of no great significance, before eventually reaching Almaty. It is perhaps a strange thing to get excited about, but when I folded up the map last night ready for this morning, I saw that we are now just a few hundred kilometres from China. For reasons explained in my last post, that country will have to wait a little while yet. But if all goes well in Almaty, we should be on our way there soon.

At the end of the enormous bed on which I am sitting, a large fan constructed mostly of white plastic creaks and hums, subtly hypnotising me with its oscillations and constant monotonous drone. I remember a scene from the beginning of a film, Apocalypse Now perhaps, with such a device. This is indeed an appropriate coincidence, given the slow and ominous sense of foreboding which has hung over us here in Astana, although to echo an earlier comment here, there is perhaps something more akin to Kafka about our recent misfortunes.

The principle reason for our presence in Astana, the capital (since 1997) of Kazakhstan, was to visit the Chinese embassy in order to secure a visa for that country. Over a week later, we still do not have a visa, and it is by no means certain that we ever will have. But first to the beginning.

My main concern before arriving was that we would have difficulties in finding an affordable place to stay – this of course had been our greatest headache in Kiev, the last capital city on our route. In the event this was not a problem, with only the second hotel we came across being extremely cheap. We became a bit suspicious when we were asked if we wanted the room for just half a day, and also by the fact that there were few other guests besides young couples nervously adjusting their hair in the mirror before leaving. It would appear that the place is used mainly for “laisons” rather than for sleeping in. In our naivety we asked what time breakfast would be served, and received some surprised looks. In the end they did actually supply us with some fried eggs and coffee, although we moved all the same to a more comfortable hotel the next morning, which did not cost much more.

And now begins the tedious tale of the embassy.

After our success in obtaining a three-month Kazakh visa in the Ukraine on our own, despite being told by the experts at het Visum Bureau in Amsterdam that this was not possible, we were confident about being able to arrange things ourselves again here. To this end we had sought the address of the embassy on the Internet, and on Monday morning set off in search of it.

It was not there. In fact half the street was not there, since a new elevated highway is being constructed through the middle of it. In any case the street sat in the middle of a slum neighbourhood which did not really look like the sort of place that the Chinese would have their embassy.

Having dressed ourselves up very nicely for the occasion, we found ourselves covered in mud, sweating and frustrated in the morning sun. The second address which we had was not even on the map, and by this point it was clear that we were not going to find it by noon, when the embassy shut.

The next step was a quick visit to the nearest Internet café to check the address. I discovered a completely different address and a telephone number, which I immediately called. Needless to say the man on the other end could speak no English, but I managed to ask and understand enough in Russian to be sure that this was the correct street at least (I haven’t got the hang of the numbers yet), but that they would not be open for the rest of the day or indeed the next day either.

Later in the afternoon, we decided to go and look for it anyway, so as to avoid the same problem when it came to the next visit. It was then that we discovered that the address was not entirely correct – for at number 37, where the embassy was supposed to be, was just a building site.

Thankfully Astrid had spotted something that might be a Chinese flag in another part of the street, which turned out mercifully to indeed be the location of the embassy. Lesson 1 – don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. Or at least, take it with a huge pinch of salt.

Although I had been told (I thought) that the embassy was closed on Tuesday, I asked at the gate anyway (this was Monday evening). “Tomorrow morning” said the guard, confusing things. Before doing so he saluted me military-style, the first and only time in my life that I have been afforded such an honour.

So back we came the next morning, at which point it transpired that we were right the first time: consular division shut, come back Wednesday.

Another day later, and they were indeed open, but still we did not get in the door: we were told to go online, fill out the application form, and return with it. They would not give us a copy to fill in there and then. By the time we did all this (form only in Russian and Chinese), the embassy was of course once again shut.

So back we came on Thursday. Yes, that’s right, consular section shut today. Come back Friday. At least the security guard was a bit more helpful this time, informing us that not only did the form need to be printed out, but also filled in in typed letters – no handwriting. He gave us instructions on how to reach an office in the centre of town where a woman could help us, but when we got to the street, this office was nowhere to be found.

A few hours in the Internet café later, and we had the forms beautifully typed up and printed, ready for Friday morning.

So, visit number six, and we were finally let in the door. The woman at the desk took a brief look at our forms, and told us flatly that we could not in fact obtain a Chinese visa here without a formal invitation from a state-approved organisation. This was quite surprising since there is no such requirement in Holland, or indeed the UK as far as I am aware.

As can well be imagined, we became quite angry at this and spent quite some time arguing with her. Eventually her colleague asked us to sit down at the long table in the middle of the room with him. Nervously, in the best English that he could manage, he explained patiently that they were very sorry but that these were the rules and that they could not help us here. Of course I was very angry and disappointed, but I still appreciate that he took the time to do this.

We had at this point spent five days in Astana, and were very depressed and de-motivated by the situation. We had been very patient and very determined, and it had got us absolutely nowhere.

Back at the hotel, it was time to consider the options. One of course was to say “screw China”, but that would mean a drastic shortening or massive re-planning of our trip. And I hate giving up on things. Finally, I did what I probably should have done much earlier, and called the British embassy, expecting to be laughed at or told to stop wasting their time.

In fact, the guy I spoke to was incredibly helpful and understanding, giving us all sorts of advice which would have been very useful earlier, and promised that he would call back when he had spoken to a colleague in Almaty. This he did, giving me the name and number of a travel agency who could arrange something called a “shopping visa”. This company were not directly able to help, but gave me the details of another who did; for about €60, they could arrange everything.

As another option, Astrid called het Visum Bureau, upon which I had earlier poured so much scorn. She asked if it would be possible send our passports to Amsterdam with DHL, get the visa done there, and have them sent back to us here by the same means. Also possible, but very expensive.

So now we have two options, which is two more than on Friday morning. Things are looking better already.

The company who can arrange us a visa here are based in Almaty. We had not originally planned to visit there, but for a number of reasons, we have changed our plans. Firstly, because that part of the country is said to be very beautiful. Secondly, because we still have a month-and-a-half left on our Kazakh visa. And thirdly, of course, because there should hopefully be a Chinese visa at the other end – 1200km away.

Meanwhile, we have had a week to enjoy the comforts of a shower and bed, not cycling, and seeing the sights of the Kazakh capital. Admittedly we have not really been in the mood to do much of the latter, but all the same paid a visit to the Baiterek on Tuesday, the huge flower-shaped tower in the heart of the new centre of the city.

The view from the top is quite impressive, especially in the way that it demonstrates the oasis-in-the-desert nature of Astana: beyond the building sites stretches flat virgin steppe as far as the eye can see.

The Baiterek (“Tree of Life”) stands proudly at the centre of an immense area of new development, with gleaming office blocks, immaculately manicured floral borders, an enormous mosque, and an equally enormous home for the president of Kazakhstan. There is yet more being built on every free space available, a phenomenon which has seen Astana more than double in size since it became the capital twelve years ago.

This is all very impressive, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Of course encouraging foreign investment is a good idea, but the amount which has clearly been spent here seems quite excessive in a country in which the majority of people do not seem to have running water or modern sanitation. Indeed something of a personality cult has built up around Kazakhstan’s first and thus far only president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, with his face on billboards everywhere and many of his wise sayings engraved onto public monuments. His birthday is a public holiday, and there is even a proposal to rename Astana after him.

Although such a state of affairs can seem absurd, uncomfortable, or even repulsive to Western sensibilities, I should at least put it into context. Kazakhstan is doing a lot better than many of its near and not-so-near neighbours, and not just because of its oil wealth. Despite possessing a highly ethnically-mixed population, it seems to have largely avoided the kind of tensions which have plagued Pakistan and of course Afghanistan, while at the same time being a much freer society than Iran or China. To have done so whilst at the same time developing for the first time in modern history as an independent country after the fall of the Soviet Union is quite an achievement.

But all the same, it appears that Nazarbayev is trying to secure himself a place in history on the back of Kazakhstan’s natural resources. But you cannot buy respect from the rest of the world with a few shiny buildings, while great numbers of ordinary people live quite deprived existences in the far-flung rural corners of the country where most foreign visitors never go (but we have). Of course as a Westerner it is perhaps quite arrogant of me to say so: we have already had our Victorian age, where the rich built palaces as the poor lived in squalor. But it would be nice if the developing world would learn something from our bad example.

Kazakhstan is clearly busy developing a national identity. a task which is not so straightforward given its history and current state. The official state language is Kazakh, although Russian is far more widely spoken, and the Russian media dominate. Proposals to replace the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin one, thus shaking off a vestige of colonialism, have stalled. And while the country is nominally Muslim, the habits and clothes of most people indicate more of a Western-leaning, secular mainstream. And there is plenty of beer consumed.

All of this is not so surprising given its location: Russia to the north, China to the east, the Islamic world to the south, and Europe to the west. It really is a crossroads and an important middle ground between the most influential cultures of the modern world.

Aside from its shiny new buildings, there is one phenomenon in Astana that I must mention – the traffic policemen. The road network of the capital is totally inadequate to cope with the volume of traffic, and so at rush hour (and at some places at all times), policemen are placed in very precarious positions right in the middle of crossroads. They each have a little illuminated baton, which they swirl very deftly with one finger in circles so as to indicate which lane can move. Simultaneously, they make a variety of signals to the rest of the traffic with the other hand, which I have been unable to decipher. The whole set of continuous movements is quite a performance, an immaculately choreographed dance for one in the middle of the highway.

As may be expected in a capital city, Astana has many large and expensive hotels. We have been visiting a few of these (just for tea and coffee, unfortunately), partly in search of English-language newspapers, but also as a sort of short, sharp burst of luxury to combat the frugal existence which we have recently been leading and will shortly once again embark upon.

Among these is the Rixos President Astana, quite the poshest hotel I have ever been in. Tea cost €5 (quite a lot here), and came served in a silver pot, with a little silver jug of warm milk, both brown and white sugar in more silver containers, and a platter covered with nuts, raisins, and little cakes. For more money than we could possibly afford, it was also possible to order sushi, and next to each of the comfortable sofas in the lounge was a polished wooden rack on which to hang your suit jacket. There were marble statues everywhere, as well as boutiques selling, for example, €10000 jewel-encrusted mobile phones. I was surprised they even let us in the door.

But unfortunately a cup of tea was indeed as much as we could afford there. We have being enjoying instead the more modest comforts of the “Hotel Delight”, which has been more than enough luxury for us. Today, it’s back on the road. We will head south-east for Qaraghandy, whereafter we will enter some quite mountainous countryside, and perhaps even some desert regions, before arriving in Almaty in a little over two weeks time. Only then will we have a better idea about what will happen next – to China, or elsewhere if that doesn’t work out. It’s quite nerve-wracking but exciting at the same time.

One and a half thousand kilometres after leaving Aqtöbe, the last place where we had a shower and slept in a bed, we have almost reached Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. Tomorrow morning should be a short sprint to the city centre, followed in all likelihood by a lot of searching around for an affordable hotel. But we are used to this by now.

It is also three years to the day since I moved to Amsterdam from Scotland. Thus this website has its birthday today. I must admit I did not imagine that I would still be updating it now, least of all from the middle of Kazakhstan.

Unlike these last three years, the past week has been quite uneventful. On the first day after our last day off, we had the wind behind us for the first time since I can remember. Because of this, we managed to cycle 150km, by far the longest distance of the trip so far. The reward for this was a little river at the end in which to swim and get clean; it’s strange how such small comforts are so welcome when there is not so much else to look forward to.

An unexpected annoyance is that the authorities are busy reconstructing the main road to Astana. This is good news, I guess, but the problem is that they have not done a very good job of providing a temporary replacement where the old one has been dug up. This has meant quite a lot of lugging of the bikes up and down piles of earth and bone-crunching cycling over kilometres of rough stones and grit. Just when it looks like the worst has been passed and brand new asphalt appears to stretch out endlessly to the horizon, along comes another enormous pile of rubble and a hole in the road as big as a house. This is very tiring and frustrating.

An interesting encounter occurred today, in a village too small to be named on the map. We had stopped to buy bread and ice cream, and saw that tables were being laid with all manner of sweets, dried fruits, and other delicious things. Cars kept turning up filled with people, who would get out and affectionately greet those already present.

We got talking to one girl who could speak some English, who told us that they were all members of the same family, come together to celebrate the lives of their grandparents; it is apparently a Kazakh tradition. Next to the café where this was taking place stood a yurt, the traditional Kazakh nomadic tent. The girl explained that this was the tent in which her grandparents had earlier lived. Apparently few people live the nomadic life any more, having exchanged it for an easier life in the city; she herself was a recent graduate in biotechnology. It is sad but perhaps understandable that this way of life is rapidly disappearing.

Aside from this, we have passed through quite the dullest landscape yet encountered, and have seen very little else worth writing about here. What has kept me going is the thought of a week’s rest in Astana, a hotel bed, and a bit more variety in what there is to eat. And, most of all, a shower. Everything stinks and everything is sore.