The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

As earlier mentioned, a week last Friday was my 30th birthday. I had spent the past few months insisting to Astrid that I did not want to celebrate this in any special way, but in the end it did seem like a nice idea to do something on the day. I don’t like such celebrations very much, but there is nothing wrong with spending a day according to your own wishes.

The list of interesting things to do in Almaty was getting rather short by this point – I had already been round most of the museums, markets, and parks that the town has to offer. So we decided to head out of town, up into the mountains, towards the Ile-Alatau National Park and the “Bolshoe Almatinskoe Ozira” (Big Almaty Lake), 2500m above sea level and squeezed in between some impressive mountains and beautiful scenery.

To get there, we employed the practice most common here, which is to stick your arm out next to a busy road and wait for someone to pick you up. Everyone is a taxi, it would seem. This did appear to be the case, as it only took about five seconds for someone to stop. Unfortunately the guy driving was not as knowledgeable about the route as he had at first appeared to be, leading to some confusion and eventually a stop and much wandering around inside a seemingly random office building to ask for directions. But we got there in the end, and it was certainly worth it.

The area around the lake was very beautiful, and refreshingly cool due to its high altitude and the shadow of the mountains. Unfortunately, in a turn of events which had an air of familiarity about it, we were stopped from actually approaching the lake itself by some park guards. They asked to see our passports, but when we said that we did not have them with us, they left us alone – although under observation. I guess they need to look like they are doing something useful.

Even higher up the mountainside, we came across the Tian Sian Astronomical observatory – or at least what is left of it. Various rusting telescopes, satellite dishes, and other fantastical pieces of equipment lay dotted around the hillside, providing simultaneously a sad reflection on past Soviet glories, and a bizarre setting which appeared as if it should be the mountain base for a James Bond villain or for Dr. Evil out of Austen Powers. Very touching were the curtains in the (remaining) windows, which were suitably patterned with little stars, moons, and planets. Perhaps this is the Russian sense of humour.

The following Thursday, we were finally able to collect our passports, with one-month tourist visa, from the Kyrgyz consulate. Although this had taken ten days, the actual preparation of the (handwritten) visas took place there and then in about five minutes. Quite perplexing and frustrating, since it appears that they just let the passports sit around for the rest of the time gathering dust.

We immediately said our goodbyes to our German/Swiss housemates, and set off along the busy road to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. The three-day journey began with a horrible few hours choking our way through the pollution of the rush-our traffic on the road out of Almaty, followed by a peaceful trek along the main road west.

So on Sunday morning, almost three months after crossing the border in much elation, it was time to finally leave Kazakhstan. It has been a remarkable experience, mostly pleasant although certainly not always, but in any case a journey which has left a profound impression on me. The rest of the trip will have to do a lot to match it.

The border crossing to Kyrgyzstan was the quickest and easiest since leaving the EU, meaning that we would reach Bishkek by mid-afternoon. In contrast to our earlier city stops, I had booked us somewhere to stay in advance this time – in a yurt, no less. It stands in the garden behind the “Nomad’s Home” guest house, fully equipped with electric lighting and with easy access to the bathroom and shower around the corner. So not quite the authentic nomadic experience, but close enough. The yurt is a very important symbol of cultural identity in Kyrgyzstan, and the distinctive wooden roof centre-piece even appears on the national flag.

Of course the yurt is not exclusively Kyrgyz, and at this point it is quite hard to spot very many cultural differences from Kazakhstan. Bishkek seems to be not so very different from Kazakh cities, aside from being slightly more disorganised, cheaper, and with even more aggressive drivers. But these are early days.

That’s not to say that Bishkek does not have some nicer sides. The weather is good, and the centre of the city is one fantastic and monumental Soviet architectural relic – all marble, fountains, and dramatic war memorials. However, the very best thing has to be the fresh нан (“nan” – flat bread) baked in a clay oven at the market just around the corner. The sweaty man who works the oven takes your money and hands it to a colleague through a tiny window, who in turn hands back a freshly-rolled нан to be baked.  You may then pick your bread yourself from the steaming pile on top of the oven. It smells amazing and tastes just as good.

At the Nomad’s Home we have been suddenly flung into the middle of an endless stream of western backpackers and cyclists – Israeli, German, Belgian, Dutch, English, French, Swiss, Italian, Swedish, Argentine, and probably a few more that I have forgotten. It has been nice to be able to swap travel stories and have people marvel at our enormous journey, but to be frank I will be quite glad to get away from it. Of course there were many friendly folks, but unfortunately it’s the annoying ones who stick in the memory. Some travellers can be extremely irritating, especially the know-it-alls who insist on telling you that you don’t want to be taking a particular road, that you must stay in a particular hotel, and that a particular pass is actually 2450m and not 2500m. I can get quite frustrated at Central Asian and Russian ways, but our stay here has been a useful reminder that Europeans can very tiresome too.

The main purpose of our stay here was to arrange the despatch of our passports by courier to my mother in Edinburgh, who will deliver them to the Chinese consulate there before returning them, with visa, (hopefully) to us here. Or more precisely, to Osh, where we will arrive in around eight or nine days time. This is all quite expensive, complicated, and risky, but it appears to be the only way we have of obtaining a Chinese visa at this stage.

Of course, this will leave us without means of identification until we reach Osh. To prevent potential problems with the police, I had sought advice from a very helpful man at the British consulate here. He gave me the name of a translation agency, who for about €10 were able to obtain an officially-certified copy of our passports, with a declaration (in Russian) signed by a lawyer that they were genuine. All beautifully sealed together with red ribbon, making it a nice souvenir if nothing else.

We have both, and Astrid in particular, accumulated quite a collection of items on the road, and so we decided to package them up and send them back to Holland. As had earlier been the case in Kiev, this was a very long and bureaucratic process. We had to bring everything, unpackaged, to the post office, where it was meticulously inspected. After being weighed and jammed into a cardboard box, the assistant then turned to a small desk with a sewing machine. She proceeded to sew a perfectly-sized canvas bag for our parcel, which after being hand-sewn shut was sealed on all sides with hot wax. All ludicrously inefficient, but the result was quite beautiful. Of course, it was also once again necessary to fill in a customs declaration no less than four times.

There was one other important thing to be done in Bishkek. A few days before we left Almaty, I woke up one morning with toothache. Looking in the mirror, I saw that I had quite a large cavity in one of my wisdom teeth. Of course this was very disappointing, especially since I have been very conscientious in forcing myself out of the tent late at night in all weathers to brush my teeth.

The helpful man at the British consulate was also able to give me the address of a good dentist here in Bishkek, to which I paid a visit on Tuesday. Two more visits later, and the tooth has been beautifully drilled and filled – in fact it looks much better than the other (Scottish) fillings in my mouth.

I must admit that I am not very brave in such situations. It was extremely terrifying to be sat in the dentist’s chair with numerous things inserted in my mouth (is it ever not?), with the additional confusion of the dentist and her assistant barking things at each other and at me in Russian. No-one could speak much English, meaning that I could not even ask what they were going to do with me. This would have made the whole experience a lot less frightening.

With not many other reasons to hang around here, we will head off again today for the arduous road south. Within a few days we will reach a mountain pass at around 3500m, followed by another soon after almost as high, and with luck some beautiful scenery to make it all worthwhile. It will certainly test our legs.

During the earlier part of our travels in Kazakhstan, we had not planned to visit Almaty at all, intending instead to head straight for the Chinese border after getting visas in Astana. People generally reacted with some surprise when they heard that we were not doing so, leaving me with the nagging suspicion that we were missing out on something important.

Well, as I have explained earlier, events beyond our control put paid to our earlier plans and set us on the road south after all. I must say that on reflection, I am quite glad about this; Almaty is a fine place to spend some time, and is much nicer in many ways than Astana.

Firstly, it is much larger and feels much more like a real capital than the northern upstart which has usurped it in this role. Secondly, it much more international. We met absolutely no-one from beyond the former USSR in Astana, whereas on the very day we arrived in Almaty, we ran into a German couple who are also cycling to China – and quite surprisingly, on a tandem.

Not only this, but we spent an evening earlier in the week with a group of Dutch expats. We had been in contact with one of them as she had earlier worked at the same farmers’ market in Amsterdam as Astrid. We ate in a Korean restaurant, and drank Heineken; I could almost imagine we were somewhere on the Zeedijk in Amsterdam.

Through the German pair who we met earlier, we got into contact with some more Germans (and one Swiss) with whom we are now sharing a very strange flat in a микрорайон (“meekro-rayon”) – something like a Scottish housing scheme, but with better weather than the Gorbals.

Talking of weather, this has been quite strange, and certainly different from what we have otherwise experienced in Kazakhstan. It is usually very warm and sunny, but every few days there come sudden light showers of rain which can go on for ages without really turning into a downpour. And now and then there has even been thunder and lightning. I suppose this might all be due to the range of enormous mountains to the south of the city, the Tian-Sian, which tower into the sky quite dramatically. Even now, in August, they are white with snow.

And most surprisingly of all, it is now chucking it down buckets outside, all of a sudden. I had just stepped out of an Internet café where I had spent several tedious and headache-inducing hours trying to sort out our never-ending visa problems, when I realised that I would not be able to walk more than a few metres without being soaked to the skin. Thankfully, there happened to be a posh and swanky European-style beer bar next door, to which I immediately made a frantic dash. The reward for this is a half litre of their own home-brewed unfiltered beer, with jazz playing on the stereo and German football on the television.

The apartment is much cheaper than a hotel, and feels much more like a home from home. It has been decorated in a very interesting way, with home-made cloud-pattern wallpaper in the kitchen, plastic chandeliers, mismatched Soviet furniture, curious paint effects on the ceiling, sticky-backed-plastic cut-outs of fruit and vegetables on the fridge, and indeed a different decorative effect on just about every exposed surface. It is quite an assault on the eyes, but it is comfortable and quiet, aside from the pigeons which keep scrambling around on the plastic roof above the balcony next to our room. As long as they don’t make a mess on the washing which I have drying there, that is okay with me.

A few days ago, something very unfortunate happened – I got robbed. I had very stupidly cycled off without my bag after stopping outside a café for something to drink, and when I returned less than five minutes later it was gone. Also gone was the toothless woman with child who had been begging on the other side of the pavement, immediately raising my suspicions.

I asked for some help from the staff at the café, and very soon two guys were walking around the block with me. We came across the beggar woman, who of course denied having anything to do with it.

One of the guys soon had some policemen on the scene, who then drove away the woman. Around twenty minutes later they returned minus the woman, but with my bag. My immediate joy at this was very quickly dampened when it became clear that my camera, mobile phone, and about 15000 Tenge (around €75) was gone. There was little I could do but thank the policemen and the guys from the café, and accept that I would not get the rest back.

Of course I have no idea if the woman has my stuff, or if the police took it or even made a deal with her, but in the end it doesn’t make any difference to me – I have lost a lot of money and expensive stuff, and worst of all, almost all of my photos from Kazakhstan besides the low-resolution ones on this website (which is better than nothing). I am naturally very upset about all this, but it could have been much worse.

What is most upsetting is that is partly my own fault for going off without the bag in the first place. Throughout my whole life I have been doing stupid things like this – it is just something I am very bad at, a sort of behavioural handicap. I am aware of this and have been very paranoid the whole trip, always checking everything multiple times in an almost obsessive-compulsive manner, and yet it only needs one slip up to happen and this occurs. Of course if I had left my bag next to the road in the steppe, it would probably still be there a week later. But this is not the steppe.

I was determined not to spend any time sulking about this, and so the very same afternoon we set off to do some very touristy things. We took the cable-car which runs to the the top of the Kök-Töbe hill, giving spectacular views over the city, passed the wooden cathedral (which actually looks like stone) in Panfilov park, before heading for the Arasan baths. This spectacular piece of Soviet architecture houses Russian, Turkish, and Finnish saunas. Of course it is segregated, meaning I found myself surrounded by countless naked and semi-naked Kazakh and Russian blokes. All very comradely. The Russian sauna was, well, refreshing, in an extreme sort of way. It is much hotter than a European sauna, in fact so hot that I could not stand more than a few minutes at a time. For a bit extra you can get yourself beaten all over with birch leaves, the idea being presumably to beat all the toxins out of the body. After all this, it was thankfully possible to dive into a pool of mercifully-cold water, and recover ready for the next round. After all this you can retire to the common area, order a beer, and come to your senses.

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed all this, and did indeed feel very refreshed afterwards. I can even see the point of the segregation – when relaxing in the pool, lost in a reverie, it would be quite distracting to have a naked lassie walk right past you. I do get the feeling that all the blokes get the chance loosen up a bit in such an all-male environment. Except if you’re gay, I suppose (but then there’s a different kind of sauna).

Earlier in the week, I paid a visit to the State Museum of Arts, the first proper art museum I have come across on the whole trip. Unlike in Kiev, this one was not only where it was supposed to be, and open, but actually contained what it was supposed to contain.

It has a very interesting collection, all from artists I had never heard of, and features work from the beginning of the Soviet era (mostly Socialist Realist) up to the present day. It was very satisfying to see painted scenes of Kazakh life and landscapes, and to be able to relate this to the experience of our travels in this country. Certain cultural symbols recur again and again – the yurt (nomadic tent), kumyz (fermented horses’ milk), herders, and kokpar (a ferocious sport resembling polo but with a dead goat instead of ball and sticks). I do feel that I have learned a lot about Kazakhstan in these past few months, which is not too hard given that I previously knew next to nothing. I am quite fascinated by this country, for reasons that I have probably already mentioned – for whilst it sits surrounded by Russia, Europe, China, and the Islamic world, and has clearly been influenced strongly and in equal measure by all four, it retains its own distinct identity, quite unique and independent of anyone else.

Being robbed is unfortunately not the only piece of bad news. We discovered yesterday morning that the company we had earlier contacted were not able to secure us a visa for China, for some nonsense reason related to Swine Flu or suchlike.

This has put us in a very difficult position, given that we are running out of options. We are also running out of time on our Kazakh visa; we have to leave the country by the end of the month. What we have done as a first step is to apply for a 1-month visa for Kyrgyzstan, the little mountainous country just to the south of where we currently are. This will give us a bit of breathing space time wise, one more embassy to try, and of course a whole load of interesting adventures along the way, I would hope. It also gives us the chance to arrange an invitation for a business visa, which should make things a lot easier when the time comes.

But while we are waiting for the Kyrgyz visa, we have about another week and a half to spend in Almaty. There is nothing to be done about this except to try to forget China for the moment, relax, and hope that our luck will change soon. Meanwhile, I have bought a new digital camera to cheer myself up a bit.

And one other thing. On Friday, I will turn thirty. I had really hoped that we would be in China by then, but that was not to be. If all our visa problems get sorted soon, that would be a very nice birthday present indeed. Better late than never.

Before reaching Almaty, we decided to try one last off-road adventure. I had heard about something called the “singing sand dune”, which is pretty much as the name suggests. It is a huge mound of sand which produces strange noises. Or at least that is what I have read, since we have unfortunately not actually succeeded in seeing, or indeed hearing, it.

The dune lies on the northern shore of Lake Qapshaghay, which is not directly on the way to Almaty. What we decided to try and do was to approach it from the north, via the Altyn-Emel mountains, a plan which looked quite sensible on paper but which was anything but in reality.

We began by heading off the main road east of the town of Saryözek, before slowly climbing to a height of over 1400m above sea level via a series of narrow, twisting tracks which lead up into the hills beyond the village of Qoyanqöz. It was here that we encountered the first real mountain-climbing of our trip, heading up steep slopes before hurtling down into deep valleys, only to have to climb all the way back up the other side. We spent a whole day doing this, getting lost along the way, and had covered a distance of only 30km when we finally found our way to Zhuzasu Pass, a steep and narrow cleft in the mountains which would have taken us all the way down to the shore of the lake some 1000m below, and thence to the dune.

But here, halfway down the pass, we were suddenly confronted by a most unexpected and vexatious problem: a locked barrier stood across the narrow dirt track, next to which was a small wooden house. A small, overweight woman emerged from the house and informed us that we could not pass without a permit. She was unable to tell us where we could get such a thing, besides that it was at the “office”, and any thoughts we had of defying her and making a run for it down the pass were dissuaded when she produced a walkie-talkie and began trying to make contact with authorities unknown. As if to offer some sort of consolation, she invited us into her little hut for tea, an offer which we accepted as there seemed to be no point in refusing out of spite. An awkward silence reigned as we sat drinking our tea and shooing away wasps and flies.

It was by then quite late in the day. We therefore decided to set up camp nearby, so as to make clear that we were not going to go away, and try again the morning.

When we awoke, we discovered that her husband and two large sons had returned, totally removing any chance of heading to the dune without permission. No amount of pleading or negotiation would persuade them to let us past, and leaving us with no alternative but to head back up the pass. This was very disheartening, especially since it had taken us two days to get there and would likely take the same amount of time to return to the main road to Almaty.

I guess that after the success of our earlier off-road gambles, it was time for our luck to run out. It is still quite frustrating though after scaling mountains, finding our way along seemingly endless and constantly diverging tracks, and finally being almost in sight of our destination, to be defeated by an old woman with a walkie-talkie.

Still I have no regrets about this little adventure. We saw some beautiful scenery in the mountains, which in themselves gave us some good practice for all the climbing that will have to be done in China. It is very encouraging to know that we are capable of such things.

And in any case, there is something to be learned from failure too. It is all very nice when you take a risk and it pays off, but a different sort of resilience is needed when you are faced with having to admit defeat. Or otherwise put, it is important to recognise which battles are important and which are not. Our priority at this stage is to get a visa for China, a process which would not be helped by run-ins with the authorities here. The singing sand dune will have to wait for another time.

Not long after reaching the top of the pass, we came across some friendly herders who were able to point us in the direction of a dirt track to the village of Qarashoqy. One even rode alongside us for a while to make sure we were heading in the right direction. This alternative route back to the main road meant that as well as avoiding the very demotivating experience of having to completely retrace our earlier steps, the distance to Almaty was reduced by a whole day. Definitely a silver lining to the cloud which we were then under. What followed was another gruelling day of ups and downs over the steppe, not aided by Astrid getting a flat tyre in Qarashoqy – unbelievably her first of the whole trip. Worse was that our pump then fell to pieces, which would have been a disaster had we not been in a village at the time. As it happened, we were talking to the mayor at the same moment, who quickly rounded up a pump for us to use. Yet another person to add to the long list of those who have gone out of their way to help us during the last few months.

The next day we headed at great speed along the busy motorway to Almaty, reaching the outskirts of the city as night fell. On Sunday morning we finally reached the centre, almost three weeks and 1500km after leaving Astana. Needless to say, we were very grateful indeed to be able to check into a hotel, get clean, and fall asleep in the heavenly comfort of a real bed.

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.

Kazakhstan is an enormous country. This obvious fact has been practically demonstrated by the fact that nearly a month after entering it, we are still on the first side of the map – and this was the one with the smallest scale (least area per page) available.

A consequence of this is that we will also unfortunately only be able to see a small fraction of it. In particular, we will not see anything of the South around Almaty, the Soviet-era capital. Certainly a good excuse for a return visit in the future.

One place I would have liked to have passed by on launch day is the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from whence all sorts of things are launched into space on behalf of a variety of countries. As we left Aqtöbe a week and a half ago, I looked into the sky and saw something shooting up vertically into the heavens, and having at that point not actually checked on the map where the Cosmodrome was (nowhere near us), assumed it was a rocket. My excitement was quickly dampened upon asking a local what it was – just an aeroplane. Oh well.

We are presently just east of Auliekol, a bit more than half way from Aqtöbe to Astana. Since leaving the former we have cycled for eleven days, covering almost 900km and passing nothing larger than the occasional village – and even then, only a handful. It has been a tough time indeed.

Firstly, we have had the weather to contend with. On most days, we have had a strong headwind, massively reducing our speed and sapping all energy and enthusiasm at the same time. When the wind has been absent, we have had to deal with tremendous heat during the middle of the day – at one point, almost 40°C. One day we even had both, with hot winds like the back-draught from a furnace. It is hard to stay motivated at such times.

To try and deal with this, we have been getting up at around 2am and doing all our cycling while the air remains mercifully cool and the winds have not yet picked up, before setting up camp and trying to sleep through the middle of the day. This last has not always been so successful, leaving me very tired to add to the other difficulties.

The country through which we have passed is also extremely empty, just as that before Aqtöbe was. This has meant that it has been necessary to make sure we buy enough of everything for two or three days at a time. This in itself is not a task about which I can get too enthusiastic, given what is generally for sale in the shops – precious few vegetables, stale biscuits, alcohol, and very little else. Still, we have managed to be quite creative with our little petrol stove, more often than not managing to eat well with what is available. Via a complicated procedure, I have even been able to produce something resembling pizza.

One other annoyance about the part of our journey just completed is how indirect it has been – for the lack of any direct route to Astana means that we have spent more time heading north, skirting just around the Russian border, than actually in the direction of our target. Now, at last, we are on a road which heads more or less straight for the capital.

Many months ago, back in Amsterdam, we spent quite some time planning our route for this journey. Sometimes the way is quite obvious, but sometimes it was difficult to know which to take. One such section was that between the main road north to Qostanay, just east of the border with Russia, and the main road between Auliekol and Astana.

The problem was that the main road (yellow on the map) made an enormous detour via the city of Qostanay. We could save almost 200km by taking a short-cut over a minor road (white on the map), but it was by no means certain that this was a realistic option.

We decided to ask the advice of some locals is Aday, the last village before the short-cut. We were told in no uncertain terms (no knowledge of Russian necessary) that this was a very bad idea, since there was no road of any kind and only steppe for much of the way.

There are times in life when you must realise that you are being given good advice, and should follow it. There are others when you must ignore what you are told, and go your own way. The problem is, of course, knowing which is which.

After much discussion and doubt, we decided to take the second option in this case, and head out along the long, dusty, stony track which greeted us at the turn-off from the main road. This was not before heading about 15km too far to the north along the “safe option” road, which wiser types may have taken as a sign of some sort. The deciding factor was that it would be a terrible shame not to go off-road at all on the whole journey, which would have likely been the case otherwise.

I am happy to say that our decision has paid off enormously. Not only have we had great fun heading over all sorts of gritty tracks, sandy paths, and occasional sections of badly-potholed asphalt, but we have seen some of the best countryside and most interesting sights of the journey so far.

Firstly, it is quite an experience to head 30km along a gravel track before reaching a village which is otherwise completely inaccessible. These places have been generally quite deserted, the population having headed off for a better and easier life elsewhere, leaving behind a crumbling time-warp trapped somewhere in the shadow of the 1980’s and the Soviet Union. I could not help noticing that the majority of the inhabitants of these villages were of Russian rather than Kazakh origin (the difference is obvious). I have not been able to verify it, but it would seem that these settlements are perhaps the remnants of the “virgin lands” programme of the post-war Soviet administration. This scheme sought to encourage people from the more populated parts of the USSR to start a new life as pioneers on the Kazakh steppe. Naturally this caused much conflict with the indigenous, often nomadic, people who were already living there. Since independence, many Russians have headed back for the Motherland. This means that the remaining settlers, who once outnumbered ethnic Kazakhs, are now themselves an ethnic minority. One wonders how long it will be before such places are totally empty; already we have passed numerous abandoned schools, factories, and collective farms. No work, no money, no infrastructure, no future.

Halfway across this stretch, we camped in a canyon – by which I indeed mean the sort of thing you only see in cowboy films. A small lake had formed from what was left of an otherwise dried-up river, set into a hollow in the land. Great for swimming in, and of course cleaning up after a week without a shower. It was a fantastic place to find yourself in, totally hidden and yet open to the sky. And not a sound to be heard at night.

Indeed you might well call this the “Wild East”. It has a lot in common with the imagery of the Western film, including cowboys with weather-worn faces on horses, long, straight roads, and even tumbleweed.

The morning after this, we came across something distinctly more East than West – camels. I was busy daydreaming on my bike and had not noticed them at all, until Astrid started shouting excitedly behind me. So I turned my head, and there they were. Massive beasts they are.

This was on the most rugged part of the trail, where there was indeed no road of any conventional sort but instead just a track through the steppe. The zig-zagged route which we had to take, aided for the first time on the journey by GPS, confirmed that the road shown on the map was pure fantasy – or perhaps just a pipe-dream which had never left the drawing board of the Department of Road Planning or suchlike in Soviet times.

Strangely enough, this middle-of-nowhere place was the first on the whole journey where we have been stopped and questioned by the police. A dirty, battered Lada came bumping over the dirt track from the nearest village, and a variety of people fell out, including a massive policeman. He demanded to see our passports, perhaps more out of curiosity than anything else, after which he left us alone. We were told of course that this would happen all the time in Russia, which was not the case. China may be a different story.

Shortly after this, we reached Moskalevka, a fine example of the sort of semi-abandoned village described above. One friendly lady we talked to said that things were not going so well because of the “crisis”, as seems to be the case worldwide, but to my eye the dereliction seemed a bit older than that. All the same, a small team of people was busy sweeping up the street around the (empty) school. I do not know if they were being paid to do this, or if it was purely out of pride in their hopeless little village.

Later, as we sat eating biscuits and crisps in an abandoned play-park – or at least one in which the remaining children of the village had less interest than the chickens and cows wandering around – I saw something growing which looked sort of familiar. Leaning closer and smelling it, it was as if I was walking down the Warmoesstraat in Amsterdam – wild cannabis. Not sure if it was very potent, but it looked and smelt like the real thing.

After Moskalevka, we were rather disappointed to find ourselves back on boring old asphalt. From here it was a much less interesting slog to Auliekol, and the normal world.

Having reached the same, stocked up on food, and filled ourselves up by a café, we were just preparing to leave when a man approached us with the usual enthusiastic questions about where we were going and where we were from. What was unusual was that he then invited us back to his house, in order to celebrate his small son’s birthday. Of course we could not possibly say no.

And so it was that we spent yesterday afternoon with Aymat, his wife Zhanna and her brother, and little Adlet, who had turned seven. They filled us full of pancakes, fried eggs, cake, and vodka, and seemed totally delighted with our presence. Myself and Astrid each had to give a toast (me in English and she in Dutch, since no-one could understand what we were saying in either case), we received some lessons in Kazakh culture, and many photos were taken. Finally we were sent on our way, but not before being escorted to the road out of town by Aymat and Adlet. I made to shake Aymat’s had before we parted, before he explained that Kazakhs don’t do this at such moments. You must hug instead.

The plan was that we would rest today by a large lake indicated on the map, but not for the first time this lake does not exist. We have still taken a day off, time to rest tired legs and arses before the week ahead to Astana. And tomorrow, finally, we can turn to the second side of our useless map.

So, here we are. Seven days across the semi-arid Kazakh steppe, and the first city in five hundred kilometres – Aqtöbe.

In these seven days, the road has passed through just two villages. Late one evening, in search of bread and water, we made a detour to a third over several kilometres of a road so bad the locals had taken to driving over the steppe instead.

There is precious little to be said about this except that this countryside is the most empty we have come across so far. Day upon day of flat plains extending so far to the horizon that I can begin to imagine that I can see the curvature of the earth, countless dead crows squashed on the road, and many more live ones screeching in the trees. It is all very impressive in terms of its scale alone, but I cannot say that it has been very pleasant or interesting. It is possible to look at the map of Kazakhstan and see that we have covered a respectable chunk of this enormous country, and that is quite satisfying. But the upcoming two to three weeks, which promise more or less the same, look like being very long indeed.

It has also started to become unbearably hot in the middle of the day. The solution to this has been to take a sort of extended siesta through the worst of it, cycle again until late in the evening, and get up once again very early in the morning. At least that’s the intention, but it’s been a bit difficult to get used to. Hopefully, the motivation of getting to Astana and the comfort of a hotel room will be enough to push us into getting up on time and cycling a good number of kilometres each day from now on.

Now and then, there has been some relief in the form of a river or lake to swim in, a café for sweet tea and sticky orange fizzy drink (sadly not Irn-Bru), and of course the long hours sun-bathing in the middle of the day. I have taken to cycling bare-chested, and have developed quite a nice brown colour as a result.

We are constantly stopped by curious people wanting to ask us things. This always starts with “откуда?” (“where from?”). The answer to this, “Голландия”, always provokes amazed shakes of the head and whistling through the teeth. If it gets as far as explaining that I am actually from “Шотландия”, people always make a gesture with the hand against the thigh – “where is your kilt?”. I am ashamed to say that I doubt many people in Scotland would have any idea about Kazakh national dress.

In Aqtöbe, we have had the luxury of air conditioning in our hotel room, as well as an enormous bed, fridge, wireless Internet and one English-language channel on the TV (amongst about sixty Russian and Kazakh). Given that there will be no such luxuries again for a very long time, we have spent three nights here and thoroughly enjoyed all of this. Tonight, it’s back in the tent.

It’s a nice city. The streets are very lively at night, with not only young people but whole families coming out to enjoy the cooler air. Around the corner is a combined mosque and shopping centre, opposite this a funfair complete with live giraffe, and everywhere fountains and parks. It’s very Mediterranean, and certainly a contrast to Russia. The other evening, around midnight, we passed some small boys, not older than about ten, enthusiastically playing chess with enormous pieces almost as large as they were.

It’s different here. I am not entirely sure what it is, but in any case it seems just much more relaxed and agreeable than Russia.

The best theory I can come up with for this so far is that while many Russians seem for reasons unknown to have a major chip on their shoulder, the Kazakhs appear to have nothing to prove. They just seem to want to get on with things, and it appears that they are doing pretty okay at this. While life in the countryside remains simple and maybe also quite deprived, the city has an air of quietly growing prosperity without the so much of the flashy conspicuous consumption evident in Russia. There’s also none of the silly macho attitude that is so characteristic there. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed our time in Russia, but I feel a lot more at ease here. Which is just as well, because we will be here for quite some time to come.

If everything is working properly, which I can only hope for since I lack the technical means to see for myself, it will be apparent from the map above that we have successfully reached Kazakhstan. I write from the luxury of a small but comfortable room in Hotel Sayakhat in Ural’sk, otherwise known as Oral (stop laughing at the back of the class, please).

In the last few posts I wrote of my worries about getting a hard time of it from the Russians at the border, but in the end they did not cause us too many problems besides a lot of delay while asking endless absurd questions (“How many kilometres from Voronezh to Saratov? Do you have any Russian cultural artifacts? How much did your bicycle cost?”), searching through our stuff, and even checking the contents of a USB stick in my bag. Finally they let us go, even chasing us away as we stopped for a quick sandwich in no-man’s-land.

The Russian and Kazakh checkpoints were not immediately adjacent to each other. To reach the Kazakh side, we needed to cycle to the summit of a hill.

What greeted us at the top felt more dreamlike than reality. The sun was shining, and as we reached the top of the hill, a vast panorama of rolling grasslands opened up before us. As we approached the gates of the Kazakh checkpoint, a man in a green uniform with an extremely wide hat approaches us, smiling, and greeted us in friendly English. It already felt like a whole new country.

The bureaucracy on this side took quite a bit less time, although not without the usual form-filling (in duplicate) and waiting in line at a series of small offices for things to be stamped. Each time, business was concluded with a very sincere “Welcome to Kazakhstan!” from the official who was dealing with us. This is the first border where we have been afforded such a courtesy.

Finally done with the formalities, we stopped for a coffee at the first café on the road. Here a busload of Uzbeks sat patiently in the sun for their turn to cross the border, many with very conspicuous gold teeth. We have seen more and more of these on our travels.

And of course, a new country means a few changes. No more Roubles, here they use Tenges (about 210 to the Euro), and the clock is yet another hour forward. In fact it’s two hours forward, but they don’t have summer time. So at the moment it’s just an hour ahead of where we last were in Russia, where they do put the clock forward in summer. In the winter, the difference will indeed be two hours. Quite confusing.

After this, we headed off again through the prairies, which began to look more and more like a film than anything from my own experience of real life. I saw a man on horseback herding horses (as you would herd cattle), and the slow, drifting, soundless movements they made through the shimmering grass seemed totally unreal, something which could not possibly be from this world, ghosts in the noonday sun. So this is Asia.

During the day-and-a-half that it took to reach Ural’sk, we passed through just one village. The road ahead will be even emptier, but what we have already seen has been itself quite a shock. I have the feeling that it is really getting to be quite a serious business now; we can no longer make rough guesses about how much water, fuel for cooking, and food we need. If we run out on the road, it could be days before we come across the next village. It is also becoming hotter and hotter during the day, meaning that we absolutely cannot go short of water.

But first, Ural’sk. Our visit here began with the usual extended search for a cheap hotel, which ended up not very cheap at all but at least less than all the others. This is probably because they are currently rebuilding it, meaning that it is necessary to dodge past men on ladders sawing plasterboard and pouring concrete on the way to the lift. But it is a nice enough place to stay and the breakfast is fantastic.

It seems that in just about every city we have stayed, I have ended up setting out on a quest for something which is difficult to find. In Saratov I spent about two days seeking and eventually finding a 1 hour charger for AA batteries. Here, amongst other things, I really wanted to find a small pair of Soviet-era binoculars, having had a go of a set belonging to crazy ol’ Grigori back in the Ukraine. Not just because they are cool, but for practical reasons too. Very often while cycling, I become very interested in things which are far, far away. This especially so since you can see such enormous distances without there being much in the way. It would also sometimes be handy to know if the small building in the distance is a shop, café, petrol station, or just an abandoned shed. Hence binoculars.

I asked the receptionist at the hotel, the only person around who could speak English, for advice on where I should look. She had no idea but said that her boss would take me to look around town.

So it was that I ended up in a car with the manager of the hotel and two other massive Kazakh blokes, driving around various antique shops. No luck with the binoculars, but we did see some interesting busts of Lenin and Stalin, war medals, icons, and suchlike. I am in any case grateful for their help. Better luck next time.

One very important task needed to be completed before we could leave town: just as in Russia, it was necessary to register our visa. Except that here, you must do it with the OVIR, a special sort of visa police.

I need hardly say that this was a massive pain in the arse, requiring no less than three visits and an extra night in the hotel before it was sorted. On the first visit, we were told that we must have a letter from the company we are “working” for (since we are here on a business visa). A few e-mails and a one day later, and this was duly arranged. But visit two was not the end of the matter, because of a mistake in the letter: it said that both myself and Astrid were German, which is of course nonsense. Another day and various e-mails, phone calls, and faxes later, and the problem was sorted. But not without costing a whole load of time, stress, and money. Sorry guys, but you need to get your act together a bit more if you expect anything more than the most determined foreign tourists.

Despite this, I already like Kazakhstan more than Russia. The people are more relaxed, more elegant, and surprisingly also very mixed. The majority Kazakh ethnic group are joined by plenty Russians, as well as many people who might as well be as western European as we are. Added to this are those who are perhaps of Indian, Pakistani, Turkish, or Armenian descent, and many more mixed folks of indeterminable origin. They could well teach us something about integration, given the ease with which all these people seem to get along. There may well be tensions under the surface, but I don’t see it.

Yesterday was Flag Day in Kazakhstan. The purpose of this holiday is to celebrate nineteen years of existence of the country’s distinctive blue and yellow sun-and-eagle flag, the symbol of its independence and emerging post-Soviet national identity.

We watched the formalities on the city’s main square, where some not-so-well-rehearsed soldiers paraded onto a podium, a brass band played, speeches were given, and diplomas were handed out to various meritorious individuals. While I usually dislike any sort of nationalistic outburst, the spirit of this one seemed very positive and non-threatening. A sort of touchy-feely-feelgood celebration of nationhood.

On our tour of the city’s hotels a few days ago, we passed by one which was much too expensive but which did have the unbelievable luxury of English-language newspapers to read in the lobby. I passed by yesterday morning to plead with them to give or sell me one, but this did not succeed. Instead, we spent a few comfortable hours in their restaurant reading them while drinking coffee, beer, and tea. This seems to be a very good way of enjoying the pleasures of a posh hotel without having to pay for a room, and is thus a practice which we will hopefully be able to repeat in the upcoming cities.

But these are some time away yet. It will probably take about eight days to reach the next, with not more than two or three villages on the way. This will be either extremely relaxing and peaceful, or very very boring indeed. I will explain which next time!