Day 72. Bishkek - Almaty

Happy birthday to me. Great treat this morning, face time with the grandies.

As I have mentioned we are ahead of schedule. It was difficult to know how long it would take to get through the Pamir region. So we have decided to collect another Stan.

So today we head to Almaty in Kazakhstan. This was not on our original schedule but neither were Georgia or Azerbaijan and overlanders are flexible right?

We have been following along a fellow Kiwi called Chris Eden who is far more experienced in this business than us and as it happens will be in Almaty tomorrow.

The border seemed to arrive quickly, hadn’t really cleared the built up area really. All straightforward but today I just couldn’t resist my Tiger quip. 

Goes like this. 

Bike Passport

Yes

Model 

Teeger

Teeger?

Yes Teeger.  GRRRRRRRR. 

Managed to get a small laugh from those inside so I consider that a result. 

That's about the highlight so far though.

The road is long, straight and to be honest pretty boring. A stiff side wind stirring up the the dust, If there’s anything to see we didn’t see it, the visibility would have been less than 5k’s the whole way.

A random monument in the middle of the desert.

 I thought the driving was better here as people seemed to be driving within the speed limits as there is a strong police presence. Didn’t last long though, the usual crazy overtaking and general bullshit. 

I have been thinking about this for a while now, so please contradict me if you like. 

What do the worlds most obnoxious, rude, and aggressive drivers have in common?  Mercedes Benz that’s what!  And if its black you are in the premier league. Bastards the lot if them. Pity ‘cause I quite like them. (The cars that is)

I was beginning to have dark thoughts about this country, especially after being sidelined at a police checkpoint (just being nosy I think), anyway we hit a massive  traffic jam for the last 5k’s to the hotel. The upside of this was many drivers wound down their windows to say gidday and were all friendly, so I’m feeling more positive now.
We found the hotel ok and had to wait for our room to be prepared, when we got in we noticed a strong funny smell from the bathroom, after a couple of hours it seemed to get worse so we asked for another room, luckily no problem.

We arranged to meet Chris for a drink and then wandered across the road for a meal. After a bit of fun with the waitress over our order we had a nice dinner.
Chris is a very nice man with a wealth of information and anecdotes of his many years of overland travel. Nice to hear a Kiwi accent again.