Route : A random grassland 30kms outside Semey >>> Tashantha, Russia
Approx Distance : 1300km
A random church in Semey, Kazakhstan
Yo! This entry is a double day entry because…we didn’t sleep on the night of the 17th…Yes! Our first night out on the trip…all out driving! We took turns at the wheel and at sleeping. The brilliant Russian roads was no impediment to crashing in the car…even in the Suzuki.
Anyway, lemme start at the beginning…so we woke up from our resting place. Packed up everything quickly and set off. We wouldn’t have gone for a couple of kms when the road became much much better…hmmm…looks like we stopped just at the end of the shitty roads last night. Damn! Anyway, the roads got really good…a speed sign limited us to 50kmph…for some weird reason…i was driving at around 65…and of course, we got stopped by the police for speeding. These guys had some cool equipment with them…a portable speeding camera with an inbuilt display where one can see ones vehicle with the speed it was traveling at! So caught pretty much red handed…and to add salt to the wounds, the Suzuki behind us was also stopped…the charge, not having their headlights on!! ermmm…! anyway, we played our dumb foreigner bit…worked well enough for the guy to ask if we spoke anything other than English (he didnt speak any thankfully)…Kristie could speak french..and so could the chief guy sitting in the police car…so they got acquainted. Kristie shot me a slightly desperate look within a couple of seconds…she rolled down the window and went “Arun, this guy is asking for my phone number…what do i do?”…i said “Dont give it to him!” Straightforward…but eventually she did give him a phone number…of her friend in America! It turns out that they guy was least interested in the offenses…he kissed her on the hand and asked her out for a night of dancing…he also apparently had porno on his cell phone! Ugh! Anyway, we got off without paying anything…phew…
Early morning light in Siberia...we saw this after a nightout of driving...
We reached Semey pretty quickly…stocked up a bit (we bought their entire stock of instant noodles!)…fueled up…withdrew some money…and decided to have a good breakfast. We were directed to a cafe which also had WiFi connection…as we pulled up, we spotted a couple of rally cars from Sweden parked outside. Skodas…but strangely and also in a very cool way, both had their rear suspensions raised way beyond normal. Looked cool we thought. We stepped in, met the guys…and eventually found out that their original suspension broke down and this one was actually from a Lada. Awesome! That was quite a bit of work…all for 80$ i think. Cool. We also met one half of an irish team we rode with to Samarkhand…hardly recognized the chaps as they were clean shaven now. Exchanged some stories and carried on…
Semey was the spot where the ex USSR did lots of nuclear bomb testing…the region is still suffering from the effects of this disturbing past…there are still regions around Semey which still had high levels of radiation afflicting it. Anyway, we figured that the greenest of the green grass and slightly extra bright sunflowers were cos of the radiation (kidding!)! After a couple of wrong turns, we were on our way to Russia…we followed the signs for Barnaul which were all over the place. After a couple of hours, we were at the border.
Team KnightMicra kicking the whatever little dust they could find on the russian roads...
We must have waited for about 2 hours…in this time, the Suzuki had to buy an insurance for itself…the Peugeot was not forced to…for some reason. We fixed some issues with the cars, burnt the in-car appliance charger we had thanks to a wrong fuse replacement, played some frisbee and managed to naturally take photos with the police officers! After the procedure, we found ourselves out of Kazakhstan and at the gates of Russia! It was a bit ominous…Russia…the country…and it became even more ominous when we saw the Swedish team from yesterday waiting there…for 3 hours!! We managed to borrow their guitar and keep ourselves occupied a bit…hehe…anyway, they were flagged in and we resigned ourselves to a long and arduous wait…the books came out, the laptops out…but somehow in a half hour, both the Peugeot and the Suzuki were flagged in…hmmm…maybe the guys decided to do his job before going home…the sun was setting with a brilliant orange hue! After a couple of hours more of red tape, we found ourselves driving fast towards Mongolia!
We were stopped by a policeman with an AK47…just like that…for no reason…he tried to create some issues…everything was in order…he reluctantly let us go. Anyway, from now on…we took turns and just kept going on and on through the night punctuated by a single stop for dinner at a gas station where we got ripped off! Damn! Armed with a handful of Redbulls, we set off into the night. The roads were amazing…western European standards easily. It took us by surprise…somehow i thought that Russia was struggling as much as the ex USSR countries to its south…but if the roads in this small region can be so good, it shows how awesome they would be around Moscow or St.Petersburg. Anyway, we made very quick progress…
Weird and slightly scary furiously rotating antennae like things close to the border...
Day rise…the landscape was hilly, green trees, early morning fresh air…it was very refreshing. Rajesh told me that this is the southern edge of Siberia…wow…and the next few hours were very very cool on the nerves. Spectacular snow capped mountains rising dramatically over green forests with sparkling rivers all through…we had to stop at one of those streams and take a dip! We also met another rally team in the hills…Craig and Dave of the team KnightMicra. They were a cool bunch and we stuck together till the Mongolian border. The only hitch was in this smallish town where we wanted to fuel up…we didn’t have any Rubles left…so had to go to a bank. A local led us there with his car…that was nice of him…until he demanded 500 Rubles for that 2 km ride!! He was not even a taxi! We offered 50 instead…and he left without accepting it! In spite of its relatively developed nature, Russia wanted to swindle us at every opportunity…maybe the people are suffering due to the communist system…hmmm…
Anyway, we were really enjoying this part of the drive…we wished we could stay here for a couple of days in the mountains and hike and jump into the river and all that…but not this time. We drove on pretty much the whole day…saw some scary looking antennae scanning the skies…looked like some kind of military equipment. Anyway, we knew that the border closes at 5pm…so that was the deadline for the Kris and Dink (the rest had visas until the next day) to get out of Russia. A couple of hiccups almost left us short of the mark…but we reached Tashanta and the Suzuki did make it through at exactly 5pm! Just in time! The Peugeot couldn’t make it through unfortunately…we stayed back to help the Micra dudes with their car issues..they needed fuel to couldn’t start their car as their fuel filter was clogged a bit…we lent them our reserve fuel…but in all the excitement, we missed the border crossing. So had to camp out on the Russian side…was not such a bad deal…by now the trees disappeared and was replaced by endless miles of gentle grassy hills with livestock grazing all over…not bad at all.
Camping out with Knight Micra on the russian side of the border...the fire roared and yet our bones shivered till the joints! brrrr! Siberian summer is not pleasant...
We parked the cars by the side, interacted with the couple of words we knew in russian until we got some beer, some green peas, onions, tomatoes and some wood for the campfire. Of course, we really didn’t feel like camping by the roadside…so went onto those hills mentioned before…the micra made it through. But i sorta screwed up…drove into soft ground and one of the front wheels got stuck in about 25cms of mush! The micra had to pull us out with 3 guys pushing as well! In the end, no issues…didn’t burn the clutch at all. By now the sheer mass of the Peugeot was beginning to make its conspicuous…it must weigh more than 2 tons fully laden and with all 3 of us…couldn’t help but wonder how this would make our time more interesting on the Mongolian un-roads!
Anyway, we had some fun at the camp…got the fire going…Raja whipped up his famous green peas masala…beer to go…and finally, after 32 whole days, some music! So SO liberating it was…the guys left the car on and they had some decent stuff on their ipod, their speakers were half working…but cool! Heard some Floyd and Led Zep after ages…felt really nice. Soon it got freezing cold…so cold that we kept the fire going by pouring gin and vodka in it…damn! Anyway, we couldnt stand it anymore…and said goodnight and crept into our tents and shivered ourselves to sleep…so SO cold!! Brrrrrrrr…
The marriage was at this town called Taldyquorghan about 270kms from Almaty. Thankfully it was on our route to Russia…we reckoned we could make it out of Kazakhstan on the 17th (which was when my visa was running out)…so we agreed to really check this marriage out instead of just passing through. We did head back to Cafe Delia for some morning juice/coffee and to do some stuff online…didn’t spend too much time but spent enough to make the drive to the marriage a not too gentle one.
