Today- Almaty

Finally up to date...thank goodness.

Yesterday we arrived at Almaty in good time, having bumped into two rally teams on the way in. Almaty is by far the biggest city we have been to, and the traffic was maddening, with cars stopping for flat tyres left right and centre. Buses are totally mental, and beep at you to move before the light has even gone green.

We drove around the city trying to find a hotel, starting at the Holiday Inn where we found a rally team parked outside who had been sponsored by the hotel group. 310 dollars was a bit out of our price range. So was 190 dollars at the international hotel Astana and everywhere else on trip advisor.

After three hours of searching, and one hour spent sitting in the car while two of the swiss team - Mario and Rojer- looked for a hotel they found in their guide book (long since gone) we finally found teh Hotel Astana (Astana means city in Kazakh but does also happen to be th ecapital of Kazakhstan) which was much cheaper.

When we saw the team outside the Holiday Inn we left a note with a mobile number, and through text messages we agreed to go for a drink after supper.

No bars seemed to pop out at us, so we asked them if they knew anywhere we could go. They went on google and found `the hottest bar in Almaty`. Got there, it was closed. At 11.30pm. Not even the second biggest city, ex captial has a night life! We then found a sports bar and had a few beers there.

Today after a nice long lie in (and as you can see, mass loads of blogging) we went up to the cable car, and a mountain view of Almaty. We took the local bus, which then took us past the cable car, as apparently we needen`t cable car it and coould walk. Which we did, and was much cheaper, and finally some exercise!!!

 The view was good, but today it is overcast and cold...so could be better. Almaty is amazing though as it has snow- capped mountians running around half of it, which you can see when looking down some of the streets.

After that we wandered around teh city some more.

Tomorrow we are heading fo rteh nature reserve and Lake Balqash (i think) where we are hoping fo rlot sof lake swimming and a bit of hiking (give those bottom sa rest).

Promise to be more active blogging, although some may be done by text when we have no internet.

Also, we got stopped by police again, because we didn`t stop long enough at a stop sign. Fortunately he couldn`t speak English and got very bored of my `I don`t understand`....so far our best and most used tactic!

Shimkent

Shimkent and two police stops on route to the city centre. Police down south have got more frequent, although they mostly seem interested in what we are doing and nothing else.

 Shimkent is probably a city, as it seemed pretty big and hectic traffic. Found a hotel, and managed to barter them down from 40,000 tenge and night to 10,000 for 3 and 8,000 for 2. Thank goodness as the rooms were rubbish, might as well have been sleeping in the desert the beds were so bad. The boys were pleased as their dreams of a loo seat finally came true - although in their heads they envisaged a sparkling marble loo with polished gold handle, not a loo that shuffled around the floor....

Pizza was on the menu that evening, and after looking around for an hour for the pizzeria the hotel had advised we eventually went to the closest neon `pizza`sign we could find.

Ordered 2 margherita, 2 pepperoni and 3 menu roulette. Recieved 7 menu roulette....Was it chicken, or Tuna? Who know`s but at least it wasn`t goat!

Beer then bed.

Aral Sea....possibly a lake

We added another sea to the list by taking a dip in what we hope was the aral sea but was most likely a lake as we didn`t get a mouthful of salt. The beach had gers for beach huts, which was pretty cool!

A day was spent chilling here before we headed off back into the desert, stopping off for beers along the way. As we left the shop we bumped into a rally team - The Chippies down under. They camped with us that evening, and told us how they had taken the road we meant to take from Aktobe, and told us that it was much worse than the road to Aktobe - a lucky escape.

Our desert camping that evening wasn`t too slever, as we camped near a river (unintentionally, it was further up the road so we hadn`t seen it) and we came away with hundreds of mossie bites - we reckon jamie had about 30 on his back.

Following day we set off early to Shimkent, with a lunch stop at Turkestan. The roads were in a constant state of repair, and at one point we accidently went too far on an unfinished road. One of the road workers came up to us and started screaming at us to get off. As we turned around we noticed that the Swiss team had a puncture. Probably the quickest tyre change I have ever seen, as the tractor in the background got steadily closer to our convoy. Fortunately they got it on just in time.

We had lunch in Turkestan, a traditional market town, and headed to Shimkent which is near the border of Uzbeckistan and was where we hoped to meet more ralliers.

Number One Terrorist Town

After a very slow day with both teams exhausts constantly threatening to fall of we hoped for better roads and a little civilisation (although we did come across some cool cafes along the route). Fortunately luck was with us, and we made it to Aktobe, and a motel.

We booked in and queried where to park our car, `Not in front of the hotel, terrorists`Terrorists? The receptionist must mean vandalism. However, once we were safetly esconsed in our rooms, Jamie browsed through the hotel handbook, only to discover a full page on what to do in case of a terroist attack. George checked the British embassy website and discovered that Aktobe was indeed a hot spot for terrorists - number one in Kazakhstan.

Suddenly we started seeing suicide bombers everywhere...! The five men kazakhi men in the immigration office, the kind kazakhi`s who tried to take us on a night out in the mountains (Aktobe is in the desert, where were the mountains there?!).

 We spent two nights in Aktobe, finally relaxing and letting Terence have a day off. Aktobe is a pretty sleepy town and trying to go out in the evening was pretty tricky. There was a football match so it was livelier than usuual, but as we have so far discovered, the kazakhi people aren`t the most socialble, and bars and restaurants seem to close at 11.30om most nights.

 From Aktobe we headed to the Aral sea and then to Turkestan and Shimkent, along roads that were deemed unsuitable. Fortunately for us, we took a wrong turn out of the city and ended up on one of the good roads in Kazakhstan, and saw a lot less of the crater size potholes.

We spent the night in the desert again, which was ridiculously windy but we managed to see lots of eagles which was awesome. They were just sitting on sign posts along the road, alongside yet more camels, horses, cows, goats and sheep.

Look, A Camel^^^^

We crossed the Kazak border, which took about 4 hours. Not due to any problems, just because they are pretty lazy..(we also got pretty lost on our way there). As we crossed the Russian border, we then knew we had to drive a bit in no mans land until we got to the kazak border. After about 10mins of driving, George began to panic and was convinced that we had already entered Kazakhstan and were now driving through teh country illegally, and that the kazakhi police would be after us. Fortunately, we then arrived at the border.... After waiting a while we finally got to the check bit, and riht ahead of us one of the ralliers had fallen into the check gap bit. Was pretty funny... Got through, an ddrove through the desert towards Alturyu (sp). Met a Mongol Charity Rally Landrover7ambulance on the way. That night we camped in the desert, and the stars were amazing. Our convoy wa sto split the next day as th etwo other teams were heading to Uzbeckistan and we were heading up to Aktobe. We went into Alturyu to wander around and look for a map. Took us 2 hours to find one. Apparently people don`t use maps here, because no one knew where we could find one, and the only book shop we coudl find sold mostly games. That day we had decided to head to the Caspian sea to go to th ebeach. On our way we found a map in a garage. Unfortunately we never made it to the beach as the road we were following stopped. Think we probs took the wrong one+ However, we were next to the river, so we decided we would have a swim there. Jamie went down to the river bank to do a bit of a recce and discovered (after he had walked in a bit) that it was all mud... So we drove instead. Headed for Makat, where we found a swiss team 0 Team Uf U Dervo. And have been convoying with them ever since. The road to Aktobe was the worst we have ever down, and took us 2 hours to go 50km. Pot holes are a thing of teh past here, they are more like bomb craters. Eventually the `tarmac`got too much and we had to drive on the sand desert paths...theses also had potholes.

 We camped in the desert that night.

Russian Desert

Maybe it is our naivety, but when you mention Russian climate, dessert is not the first thiing that comes to mind. Crossing the Russian derssert was not teh most enjoyable thing i have ever done = but that is entirely because of the heat. Otherwise it was totally amazing. Seriously flat and rather beautiful. We came across camels, horses and cows. and even was in a miny sand storm. Dust devils are everywhere.

We got stopped three times by the police. Two were pretty armful, but the stop outside Astrakhan wasn`t great.

Over evey border crosssing teh uards ask for our green card, so we hand them over our insurance policy. They all seem to think that this is ok, so we have so far got away with not paying insurance or road tax.

A policeman stopped us outisde of Astrakhan and demande dto see our green card, so as usual we showed him our insurance policy. He told us that it was not a green crad (which was true, but why would we admit that?) Apparently because it had a web address at the bottom this meant it wasn`t right.

Trying to tell a russian policeman who cannot speak english, that this is how insurance is done in England is not an easy thing. 45 mins later and we wrere still trying to persuade him and hi AK47 wielding friend that it was alright, they should let us go, and not fine us.

Fortunately they got bored of our `I don`t understand you`and sent us on our way. However, not before Mr AK studied our map, clicking his saftey catch at every country we showed him....

Got to Astrakhan that evening, and eventually found a hotel, after getting very lost. Turns out Astrakhan has had a massive refurb, so all the maps are wrong....

That evening was navy leave, so there were fireworks on the river, and the city was packed. Wandered around over the pretty bridges and around the kremlin, which was massive and amazing.

Astrakhan was a really nice city^, well worth a visit. Also the people were much nicer than the people in Rostov. Apparently this is because their are so many nationalities (140) in Astrakhan, so........

Kazak border tomoorw, and meeting a few teams to convoy together.  

Map Skills

`Today` we headed for Astrakhan, via Elista. Well I though we were. Turns out two of us were reading different directions, and we nearly ended up in Moscow, before we realised we weren`t in fact on teh road I thought we were on.

Instead we went to Volgograd, which turned out to work in our advantage as we met up with some ralliers, who we convoyed for a bit with.

 43 degrees, and getting hotter. Oh Joy...

`We hate foreigners`

Into Russia at the Rostov na donu border crossing. Much easier than we expected, partly because they spoke very poor english and we no russian. Think they got bored of us as everyone else had to empty their cars and put their bags through the scanners, but they told us to bugger off...

 Drove through Rostov na donu trying to find a place to stay. Pretty hectic city, but `fortunately` had Lonely Planet guide. Our guide was published in 2009 so most of the hotels weren`t there anymore. Went to three hotels who when asked if tehy had room for us replied, `neicht`and sent us on our way....sweet.

 Had murderous time trying to find somewhere to camp, as everywhere is so open, and after our unplesant encounter with the locals we decided not to risk it and at 11.30pm finally found a truck stop motel.

Sea of Azov

Finally got to the coast and went for a swim in the sea(once we had found a secluded enough beach). Was pretty amazing until a wave of dead fish came crashing over us. Still, a wash is a wash.

 Was absolutly bakiing by the coast 40 degrees, and set to be worse in russia.

Sunflower state cont..

Another hardcore day of driving. The country is still beautiful. Roads very mixed, one minute a bit of good road and the next pot holes everywhere. Would do amazing in a bending race now.

For a relitively poor country Ukraine is insanely over populated. Had a murderous evening trying to find somewhere to camp, but couldnt find anywhere hidden enough so slept in Terence (our car). Can of beer and shared packet of crisps for suppper.....living the dream

 Next day headed for the coast and a much needed dip in the sea.