Around and across Lake Balkhash
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.
