July 25 to 27: Goodbye Kazakhstan, Hello Russia!

After 20 lovely days in Kazakhstan, we said goodbye to our friends (see me & Roma figuring out the train in Ridder, below) and the country - or so we thought! After deciding to take a train from Ridder right to Biysk, Russia so we could get right into the "good stuff," biking through the Russian Altay, we got on in Ridder on the 25th and were on our way. (we decided to take a train to Biysk once we fouund out that the border crossing 60km east is closed to foreigners as we talked about in our last post)

Mike, eating our "last meal" at our very favorite "Kafe Lakoma" in Ridder. In our week here, we literally became regulars at this place - great food, nice and cheap, with a whole buffet of amazing desserts for like 50 cents each.

About two hours into the train ride, the police controlling the customs process came and told us that, between Kazakhstan and Russia, foreigners cannot cross the border by train. He said we could cross by plane, bus, car, bike or foot, but that it was not possible in the train. We were confused, as we have heard of many people doing this, and argued with him, especially since the train staff had assured Roma and myself that we would have no problem with our bikes on the train, it would be easier crossing the border, etc... all knowing full well that we were from Canada. The train staff was also confused and surprised, but then also mentioned that they had never actually had a non-Kazakh or Russian citizen on their train before....

The police who broke the news to us also mentioned that, at the town near the border, he could drive us and our bikes to the border in his car and have his brother pick us up at the border and drive us to the nearest train stop in Russia, and should be able to do this in time to get us on the same train (since the next one only came two days later), all for $200US...... This raised a few red flags. From what we've learned about Kazakhstan, the police are one of the few things to be careful with, and $200US is an exorbitant sum for the 30km we'd have to travel, about 2x the price of the train ticked for the whole 1000km trip! All that to say, we said no thanks, and got dropped off after dark in Shemonaika, a small town 20km from the Kazakh/Russian border, leaving us without a train, taxi or place to stay still feeling a little suspicious about the whole situation. Thankfully, at the train station after asking around for a bit, a very nice couple led us to the local hotel (which would have been impossible to find without them) and we had a lovely, evening in the hotel (Mike very hospitably doing vodka shots with other guests) before scouting out our options the next morning.

It all worked out, we ended up bussing it from Shemonaika to Barnaul, a much faster border-crossing option than by car or bike (2 hrs vs what looked like a 4-5hr wait in the cars) and met yet another fantastic and friendly fellow from Ridder who now lives in Barnaul (Max)- proving that these great people from our favorite Kazakh town continue to follow us even into Russia!

Bikers seemed to abound in Barnaul, we even managed to hook up with this group of 3 adults and 10 kids that just finished a bike around the Altay region we're about to head into. They were camping out in a park near the train station, so we joined them for a few hours at their camp in Barnaul until our 3 AM train left for Biysk.

Jen sleeping on the train to Biysk, after a very tiring 24 hours without sleep....

So here we FINALLY are, three days later in Biysk, VERY excited to finally get back on the bikes again. Due to the heat and the timing of our Russian visa, we did much less biking in Kazakhstan than we planned. We had a great time nonetheless, but are now super pumped to spend the next two months far away from busses and trains, camping much more and hotelling much less, both of us excited for the bike trip that we feel we're only really starting now.

We've got more reflections on our time in Kazkhstan that we want to post, but the Blinny (Russian crepe) joint we're getting our internet from is about to close, so we'll save that for later.

Tomorrow morning, we're back on the bikes, headed towards Gorno-Altaisk and then the rest of the Russian Altay, and we should be crossing over to Mongolia in a week or two. The "SPOT" will be back on, so you can follow our progress on the tracker. We're not sure how much internet we'll have, but from what we've heard, the next few posts should be packed with some great scenery.

-Jen

(Mike in "BlinnyMaster" that is about to close, which has free WIFI if you are ever in Biysk)

July 23 - Border crossing for locals only?!? What the hell!!

Our plan for the rest of our stay in Kazakhstan was to cycle east out of Leninogorsk across the nearby border crossing to Russia on the day our Russian visa takes effect and would get us to Onguday in Russia in only 280km or so. This road to Russia was built in the last couple of years and we were told that it is in great shape providing us with a very direct route through Russia (see below map shown in red)

Once in Leninogorsk though we heard rumors that the crossing was only open to locals only so we went to the local border office and they confirmed that there was no way we were going to get through that crossing....so back to the maps we went to try to find an alternate route.

The best route that we could come up with would extend the 280km to Onguday that we had planned to 975km (see below map shown in green at 700km+275km). The problem with this is that Roma (our local source of information!) assured us that it would be a boring and brutal ride.
As well this detour would add at least a couple weeks to our Russian segment and we are already running out of time to get all the way across Mongolia before the snow comes and winter sets in.

After much mulling and debating over coffee (albeit instant coffee which is all that can be found), beer, borscht and donairs we opted to take a train to Biysk (shown in blue in the below map) which brings us directly into the beautiful Russian Altai mountains and will save us some time hopefully making for a warmer ride across Mongolia this fall.

The map of our options (click on the map for a larger version)


While the first few weeks of our trip have been a bit more bus and train than we originally planned, but I guess this is to be expected. There is not alot of information available (that we could find) for this area (e.g. our lonely planet guide has only covered two of the cities we have been in so far) and what information is available is often inaccurate or outdated. As well it seems that some mistakes need to be made first hand before you really realize that you should have known better!

With that said we are having a good time in Leninogorsk hangining out, doing local rides and hikes and reading but we will be happy to get back on the bikes in a couple of days and tackle the Altai mountains! I will try to get some more pics uploaded of our stay in Leninogorsk at this link (http://picasaweb.google.ca/Jennifer.Zwarych/20090723Ridder2?feat=directlink), but the internet here is painfully slow so my patience may expire before all the uploads finish!

-Mike

July 19 to 24 – Hanging out in Ridder (NE Kazakhstan)

While Jen and I were sitting in a cafe in Ridder on the 19th we ran into Roma, a local engineer and cyclist who graciously offered to show us the town. After an afternoon ride with Roma he had shown us the town and introduced us to two of his friends, Zhana and Vitalli and the three of them offered to bring us along on a day hike the following day.

The hike was a beautiful climb up a local peak during which Zhana collected mushrooms which she later prepared into a delicious supper they invited us to later that night. Thank you Zhana, Vitalli and Roma, we had blast!

Jen and Vitalli starting the hike among the many flowers.




Roma, Zhana, Vitalli and Mike with the town of Ridder in the background.


The three peaks are called the three brothers, we climbed to the top of the one
on the far right.


Lunch time..


The group at the summit.


Zhana with the mushrooms she collected in the walk back down.


Waiting at the bus stop to bring us back into town...


The delicious meal that she created from the wild mushrooms which we all enjoyed later that evening at Vitalli and Zhana's house.


The plan now is to hang out in Ridder for the next few days until our Russian visa become valid near the end of the week and then we are going to try out a new road that was just built into Russia which will hopefully save us a week or so compared to our planned route! Ridder is a great city with nearby mountains and lakes and enjoying ourselves here for the next few days will be no problem! For more info on the town of Ridder (in Russian) go to Vitalli's site http://www.kazridder.info/.

July 17, 18 – Riding from Ust Kamenogorsk to Ridder (aka Leninogorsk...)

For anyone who likes bike touring and one day finds themselves in Northeastern Kazakhstan, this is an approximately 140km route we would highly recommend…. Now for the play-by-play of the last couple of days.The start of the trip did not go smoothly. We left Ust about an hour later than expected. We had originally planned to grab the 7 am breakfast at the hotel, be on our bikes by 7:30am and get as much biking in as we could before it got too hot, but got into an argument with the hotel when trying to check out (as they tried to raise the price we agreed upon) and arguing in Russian takes us a LONG time so we didn’t get out of town until 9 or so.

Leaving town, it was already starting to rain. We made our way through the outskirts of Ust quite skeptically. The major roads were strangely small and of poorer quality than some of the minor roads we’d seen, and though the center of the city is beautiful, industrial Ust Kamenogorsk is horrible. We were warned of the numerous factories and horrible pollution, but it was literally 10km of hellish roads behind huge trucks spewing soot with rust-coloured water (I hope?) spilling out the back. I felt bad for my lungs the whole time.

From 20090718 -Ust to Ridder

Sure enough, after about 10k we turned off and the remaining 130k between the turnoff and Ridder were all absolutely amazing. Beautiful, lush forests with all colours of wildflowers on either side, rolling hills, later mountains on either side, and the air that earlier stunk with smoke now smelled of flowers - all of it was just lovely.

From 20090718 -Ust to Ridder

It’s still very dramatic the change from urban to rural, just 30km outside of Ust we went from $70 hotel rooms to a full lunch of coffees, borscht and “piroshky” (big oval doughnuts filled with various things – this time meat and buckwheat), all for about C$3 for both of us at a roadside cafe run by a very friendly mother and daughter, in the pic below...

From 20090718 -Ust to Ridder

The village we stopped in next with this shashlik (meat kabab) stand and cafe had a very pretty rural Alpine feel to it, complete with sheep, cows, pigs and horses all grazing in the front yards we passed by.

From 20090718 -Ust to Ridder

After a hilly hundred kilometers, we found a quite pretty and nicely hidden campsite, close to a river, far from any roads or noticeably settled (or dog-guarded) properties. The weather had been great, with rain in the morning and temperatures no higher than +29C in the afternoon, and our good fortunes continued into the evening. We woke up the next morning fairly early and set off for what would be an even more uphill 40km day around 7:30am. We had planned to chill out longer at the campsite in the morning, but our campstove fuel can somehow sprung a leak, and dried apricots and cookies just didn’t make as leisurely of a campside breakfast as hot oatmeal or pancakes would have….

From 20090718 -Ust to Ridder

The second day was even more beautiful than the first, though the several kilometers of steep climbs in succession were definitely a challenge (for at least one of us! :).

We went up...

From 20090718 -Ust to Ridder

... and up...



... and up...


Due to some really deceptive signage (saying “Welcome to Ridder,” TWICE) and admittedly some wishful thinking, we actually thought we had reached our destination about 15km ahead of time.



Luckily we realized our mistake after asking for directions to a street that didn’t exist and marveling at the lack of cafes or hotels, so we took a break (and had a long chat with the friendly fellow below) and eventually made our way back to the road, which only continued uphill for a short while before a glorious 10km or so on picturesque, flat roads that lead to a town we were actually much happier to be staying in.

From 20090718 -Ust to Ridder

From here we’re contemplating changing our plan a bit. It’s a great town with lots of fun-looking hikes and bikes in the surrounding mountains, and we’ve realized that there’s a much more direct route from here to the part of Russia we actually want to visit that will allow us to avoid some of the less interesting parts our original plan would have taken us through. If that route does in fact turn out to be possible, then we’ll likely spend the rest of our time in Kazakhstan here in the mountains, but either way it’ll be a couple of days here at least before we either go back to Ust and then head out to Russia, or leave here for Russia directly. We'll see soon, I guess!

Running down the clock in Kazakhstan...

So, after our 45C experiences down further south and a couple days recovering in Taldykorgan, we took a 16-hour bus ride up further north to Ust-Kamenogorsk. (Unfortunately, the bus was almost full when we boarded, so we ended up squished between a closed window and another three dudes on the same bench, way at the back corner, without a/c.... but we made it!)

Our bus suffered a bit from a crisis of confidence....

Arriving in Ust Kamenogorsk, the difference between Northeastern Kazakhstan and the central steppe was obvious right away, and not just cuz of the cooler weather (only +29C highs). It's alot less frenzied, it seems quite well-off in terms of infrastructure and the people in general, even compared to Almaty. Not as many hummers and beamers, but alot less very poor people too.

We weren't here more than an hour before Mike took advantage of the first non-instant coffee since we've arrived in Kazakhstan...

One of the main attractions in the city is a newish mosque in the middle of a beautiful park and fountain. We later learned that it is not often patronized by many more people than tourists, but the word from the locals is that it was built by the mafia on top of an Orthodox graveyard to appease the public.... either way a nice backdrop for a photo!

Jen and our new friend Blake at the local Doner shop, a Peace Corps volunteer who's been in Ust for the last couple years and was the source of much of our new local knowledge (including the above anecdote about the mosque)

We both got a kick out of the tanks of "kvass" that are trucked around the city, parked all over the place. It's a tasty rootbeer-like drink made out of rye flour that you can buy all over the place for about a buck for 1.5l.... we like the sugary varieties best so far...

Tomorrow, we take off for a few days biking out and back to a nice little mountain town 130k away and staying out a couple days for some hiking around. When we get back, we should have a couple more days to spend in Ust before we are allowed to cross over into Russia, which we plan to do by train to a town just over the border. In the meantime, we are thoroughly enjoying "running down the clock!"

July 11-13 - In Taldygorkan

After being blasted by the heat we started working on a plan to get north as fast as possible via bus to Ust Kamenogorsk. We have had some time to look around the city (which is about 100K people and not exactly a tourist destination but we are enjoying ourselves regardless) and spend some time on the internet researching the rest of our Kazakhstan stay and our route through the Russian Altay mountains.

Researching the route going north...





Taxi drivers playing poker in a trunk (complete with chips and all) in between fares...


Everything here is covered in blue....

July 8-10, Riding in +44C heat

We left Almaty on the morning of the 8th early to try to beat the traffic. The ride out of Almaty was nice except for some guard dogs that decided to chase us for a while. Sorry no photos of that though as we were putting all our energy into not getting bit!


Mike resting at a bus stop just outside of Almaty.



As we left Almaty the old and the new were already starting to mix. Most of Kazakhstan seems to be a mix of new fancy cars and the "old world".



We ended up riding 78km to the next major town of Kapashguay. The ride could have been nice enough but as the day wore on the heat rose to the mid 40's and the traffic got bad forcing us onto the soft gravel shoulder. By the time we got to Kapashguay the heat had zonked us so we grabbed a room at a very nice (albeit expensive and empty) resort hotel with a beautiful view and recovered for the evening.



The view outside of our resort hotel.


The next morning we started early again to try to beat the heat but by mid morning it was again in the 40's and by the time we hit 70km we were zonked and found a tree (trees were so sparse that there were even road signs indicating where one could find shade) and camped for the night.
That evening a couple of yound sheep herders wandered to our tent on their donkeys and struck up a "conversation". They later returned and insisted that we go to their house and have tea with their family. We could barely walk after biking in the heat but went and had a nice tea with the locals even conversation was slow going. They had no running water, windows, or doors but had two large screen TVs with DVD players.

The farm house of the Kazakh farmers that invited us in for tea.


The next morning we started early again but the heat from the two previous days had gotten to us so we hired a ride into Taldykorgan where we would devise a plan to ESCAPE THIS HEAT!

Jen tearing down camp at sunrise trying to beat the heat.

The long trip here....

With an extra full day in Montreal and an overnight stopover in London, our itinerary wasn't exactly the quickest, but the six days we were enroute between Saskatoon and Almaty and total five flights made for a VERY long trip. We got here a little weary, but we got here!

On the way, we had a blast visiting with friends in Montreal on Canada day - thanks to everyone who made it out, it was great to do one last breakfast/supper before leaving the country! Then we spent about a day in London, and soon learned we love early morning tourism. Both suffering from some definite jet lag, we didn't see much of the sights, but we went to Buckingham Palace the evening we got there and weren't too impressed - too many people, only crappy pictures, not too much to do. But it was the closest thing to our hotel, so when we both woke up at 4:30 the next morning we took a walk there and liked having it all to ourselves much better!

From In Almaty

We eventually arrived in Almaty on Sunday morning at about 5:30 am Kazakhstan time. Our bikes got there in relatively good shape (just a couple slightly bent fenders) though it took alot of duct tape in between flights to get them here.

From In Almaty

We were then picked up at the airport by the cab we called ahead for, and we were VERY THANKFUL that we followed the Lonely Planet's advice and actually did arrange for it ahead of time. So far, we haven't been hassled at all by people selling us or wanting to "help us" excessively, EXCEPT at the airport. There, before they'd even give us our bikes from overside luggage, they asked us for some cash. We played dumb and they gave us our bikes in about two minutes, but there were about four or five airport guys in uniforms following us, trying to help us push our cart, load the boxes, etc. It looked for awhile that we weren't about to get out of there without at least 10 hands to help us with our boxes that we had got the whole way here on our own, but we managed to get them to give up eventually. It would have been the exact same thing with the cab, as about 42 different vendors offered us their services (many of which we've heard some sketchy stuff about), except that ours was already waiting, got us both in the same car with all our stuff and got us out of the airport and to our hotel in record time at exactly the price we were told by the hotel.

Anyway, now we're here, safe and sound. Almaty is beautiful, with a bit of the Tian Shan mountain range bordering the south end of the city, lots of greenery and minarets and steeples from various churches and mosques in the backround. We love it so far, and have managed to find our way around the amazing street bazaar, thousands of cell phone vendors and delicious little food kiosks just fine. We plan to leave tomorrow for Kapashguay, a beachy resort-area about 70km north of Almaty where all the wealthy folk from Almaty (and there are lots, judging by the cars they're driving) have their summer houses. We will post again as soon as we can! In the meantime, here's the view from our hotel room balcony.... not bad, huh?

From In Almaty

Kazakhstan: The first, and the easiest one so far....

This one wasn't too tricky, we just sent away and a couple weeks later it showed up. No letter of invitation was even required!