Stuck in Shymkent

Total distance: 3137 km
Tashkent - Uzbek/Kazakh border crossing - Qazyghurt - Shymkent

Behind the border: 805 km to Almaty

Friday late afternoon we have got our Chinese visa. It is a 3-month tourist visa! This is more than we had hoped for. In Marseille or Frankfurt, the longest you can get is one month. Our initial plan was to apply for the Chinese visa in Almaty (Kazakhstan). However, Cat and Adam mentioned that it would be impossible in Almaty and advised to apply in Tashkent instead. They had got it in one single day without a letter of invitation (French people need one though) and it had been an easy procedure. We met a German guy in Tashkent Friday morning who tried to get some visas for his onward travel to Pakistan etc. but all the consulates were closed for the Uzbek independence celebration. We would have been stuck in Tashkent for several days if that was the case for the Chinese consulate as well. Luckily the Chinese consulate was open on Friday and issued our visas right away.

We left Tashkent the next morning and cycled to the Uzbek-Kazakh border that is about 25 km from the city center. On the way to the border we witnessed traffic chaos at an intersection. The traffic lights went off. Cars from all four directions approached the middle of the intersection and not surprisingly everybody got stuck. Honking didn't help but drivers did it anyway. Two police officers were watching the spectacle from 20 m distance. What did they do? They hopped on a bus and drove away. Another police officer felt pity and was brave enough to do some coordination from the middle of the intersection. Traffic moved on. 30 seconds later the officer was gone and chaos was back.

The Uzbek-Kazakh border had the size of a real border station. Nowadays it is open to pedestrians only. We were a bit worried about three missing registration slips (minimum fine 700 Euro). Normally tourists are supposed to register every night at a hotel in Uzbekistan. You get paper slips for the duration of your stay at each hotel and you are supposed to show them on demand. Well, that is not a problem for normal tourists and backpackers but on our way from Samarkand to Tashkent (330 km) there were no hotels. So we had to camp instead. We were lucky and nobody asked for the registration slips. After customs declaration and the departure stamp we rolled over to the Kazakhs. There were no problems on the Kazakh's side either. There was not even a customs declaration to be made. In total we had to show our passports seven times!

In Kazakhstan we set time one hour ahead. Immediately the temperature climbed up by 5 degrees. On our way to Shymkent it was 46°C. We knew that it was only about 19°C in Germany at the same time. What a difference! German summer suddenly sounded really nice to us ;)

We noticed that Kazakhstan must be richer when we saw the car makes. While Tajiks drive mostly Russian Lada, Uzbeks prefer for example Korean Daewoo and German Opel but many Kazakhs drive the German upper class cars, in particular Audi, that we did not see in Tajikistan and rarely in Uzbekistan. When we crossed the border into Kazakhstan only a few cars still honk. What a relief! You can't imagine how annoying and painful it is when a truck passes you and honks right next to your ear.

A relief for our wallet is also the Kazakh money. One Euro is about 187 Tenge, one USD is about 147 Tenge. We don't need plastic bags any more to go shopping.

Coffee, finally!

We arrived in Shymkent, the first bigger Kazakh city behind the border, on Sunday. The only reason why we make a stopover in Shymkent is to get registered. Foreigners are supposed to register within 5 days. The immigration office was closed on Sunday. This morning we went to the office. It was closed! The Kazakhs celebrate their 15th constitution anniversary. That means one more day of break, which isn't too bad, considering the fact that we found a nice cafe that serves real good cappuccino and cream cake :)

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