We left the ferry port with Brad and Joel and headed off down a dusty road towards Aktau city. Our first glimpses of Kazakhstan were of open sandy plains, with houses perched on top of visible desert, and the Caspian Sea alongside us.
Aktau itself was a cosmopolitan city, made up of Hunger Gamesesque Microdistricts, with only numbers rather than names to guide us to our hostel. Finally ensconced, the four of us set out to celebrate our arrival with beer and shashlik, with Harriet’s beer presented to her with a pink straw to emphasise her femininity.
The next day we set off to get ourselves and our bikes on a train that would take us across several thousand kilometres of desert where no paved road existed. Our cycle to the station was bleak enough, with grim houses and desertscapes all around, so we were relieved to arrive and find the train waiting. However, our conductor was not pleased when he saw us merrily hauling our bikes on board, and stomped up before shaking his head and repeatedly making a crossed sign with his arms which left us in no doubt that, as far as he was concerned, our bikes were not coming on board. Luckily, Jonathan had perfected the uncomprehending, stupid but happy tourist look, and after several minutes of stalemate, was allowed to wedge our bikes upright in the smoking compartment. And so we set off, for 40 hours of desert and steppe, which we were frankly delighted to be viewing from a train window and not our bikes. Kazakhstan is just vast, and the west side is almost uninhabited, made up of endless barren landscapes populated only by horses, camels, and sandstone mausoleums.
We shared our train compartment with an assortment of Kazakh travellers, who came and went, drinking bozo (a fermented millet drink) while we sipped tea made from the ever-boiling samovar. We were also taken under the protection of Sergei, a Russian traffic policeman, who was concerned with our safety but also with our ability to drink, plying us with Cognac one night, and smuggling beer on board for us the next.
We left the train at Turkestan, where we visited a beautiful mausoleum, built by the same designer as Samarkand in Uzbekistan, and made up of the same characteristic blue tiles and sandstone walls.
From there, we cycled across the steppe for seven days, averaging around 100km a day. This was beautiful in a bleak way, but we were again pleased that there hadn’t been a viable option to cycle across the Western desert/steppe, as the headwinds, rolling hills and endless vast plains were hard on our bodies and minds.
However, we did find an oasis of green tranquillity during our day off on the edge of the Aksu Zhabagly nature reserve. Here we camped on a grassy hillock overlooking the mountains of the reserve, on land owned by a local family whose elderly matriarch both looked after us and merrily warned us of the dangerous snakes we might come into contact with.
We also got our own private kitchen/dining hut to cook and relax in, which was simple but provided immeasurable pleasure to us both.
The other highlights of Kazakhstan were again provided by those we met: in particular a local village man with an entire set of gold teeth, who loaded us up with a kilo of apples; a group of kindly older women who, discovering that Harriet was 32 and childless, insisted on praying for her fertility; and a local honey seller who allowed us to camp by him near Taraz. Our time with him proved that some things truly transcend cultural differences: as we settled down to cook supper, we noticed he was keen to tell us our sauce was not tomato. Yes, we said, pepper, and merrily added our usual herbs and chilli flakes. As we began eating we realised what he had been trying to tell us – this was a jar of chilli paste, to which we had unwittingly added yet more chilli. Much hilarity ensured, especially when he managed to mime most effectively that our bottoms would be on fire the next day. Luckily, he had tea and honey to spare and we ate with him in the dark while he regaled his wife on the phone with tales of our stupidity.
Another day’s cycling, an unfortunate night camping in the middle of a ploughed field to avoid the vicious thorns that appeared to cover all other camping spots, and we found ourselves crossing the border into Kyrgystan! We had decided to treat ourselves to a motel for our day off, which proved difficult to find, but after another 100 km plus day we were directed to a nearby guesthouse. All seemed well at first (although we were a little discombobulated when we went to put our bikes in the shed, and found it was full of dismembered mannequins, some of which had new parts stapled to their genitals). Undeterred, we settled down in our simple but cosy room, and Jonathan carried out his customary, slightly OCD check for bedbugs which had resulted from a pretty nasty ordeal in Sri Lanka. However, this time his checks revealed an incredible number of the tell-tale blood stains and track marks all over the bedding. Night was falling, and we considered setting up our tent and sleeping on the floor, but the thought of two nights in this state forced us out again into the town. After much wandering a kindly mechanic directed us to another guesthouse, this time a somewhat tired soviet relic with no shower, no electricity during daylight hours but thankfully no bed bugs.
So ended our first day in Kyrgystan.
Luckily things did improve from this point, although it has still proved the most challenging country so far, clearly far poorer and less developed than its neighbour. We spent our first week cycling around Lake Issy-Kol, and had a wonderful day off camping by and swimming in the lake, disturbed only by a local farmer and his cows.
The days were gloriously sunny, but every night thunderstorms rolled over the surrounding snow-capped peaks, and we were treated to amazing lightening shows all around us.
While the north shore of the lake was fairly developed, the south shore was rural and peaceful. Autumn was starting to arrive and potatoes were being harvested, apples picked and hay gathered all around us.
It was an idyllic spot, but during the 2 ½ weeks we had been in Central Asia we had cycled around 1500 km, and our bodies and particularly our moods were beginning to suffer, with angry weeping (Harriet) becoming a relatively common occurrence. So when we arrived in the sweet village of Tamga and found a beautiful guesthouse, we decided it was time to stop for a few days’ rest. We spent three days relaxing, eating, swimming in the lake, and on one glorious cycle without luggage, finally found the alpine scenery we had been dreaming of since we arrived in Kyrgyzstan.
Here were conifers, waterfalls, snowy mountains and a wonderful empty road, topped off with amazing hospitality from an international art group painting the scenes around us.
Revived, we left our bikes in the guesthouse in Tamga, and headed off on a minibus to Bishkek to meet Harriet’s mother. Alice had been quite intrepid in her journey to Kyrgyzstan, navigating a flight that had taken her halfway across the world with a stopover in Istanbul whilst laden down with new tyres and vegan protein powders to replenish our stocks. After exploring the monuments of Bishkek, the three of us headed to Lake Son-Kol, a 3000m-high lake surrounded by summer pastures popular with nomadic herders.
We were blown away by how peaceful and tranquil it was. We stayed in a yurt homestay, where our hosts treated us to freshly-made cream every day. Spread on flat bread and topped with jam, this made such a delicious cream tea that we gorged ourselves more than was probably necessary or sensible.
It was wonderful to spend a few days surrounded by nomadic families and their herds of sheep, cows and incredibly beautiful horses.
One day we went for a horse trek through the surrounding hills, where Harriet’s mother surprised everybody, including herself, when she started to canter across the plains like a true nomadic horsewoman.
At night we were amazed to see the layers of stars above us, including the Milky Way which looked like a shimmering silver rainbow streaked across the sky. Our final days together were spent in Karakol, where we visited the famous but somewhat muddy animal market.
Harriet and Alice also went for a beautiful mountain walk, finishing with a rather surreal mineral bath soak in an old Russian sanatorium. Jonathan stayed in the guesthouse and regurgitated some not-so salubrious meat.
After a tearful goodbye in Bishkek, we returned to Tamga to collect our bikes, re-waterproof our tent, fit our new tyres and head off into the mountains of Kyrgyzstan on our way to the border with China.