Making our way out of Tehran and up towards the border of Azerbaijan we longed for something new, Iran had been beautiful, but personally i felt Tehran had been the perfect way to finish our journey through this country.
7 days of cycling though still remained to reach the border and as each day came and went, for some reason the bad things about iran started to work their way into me, becoming almost annoying. The constant questions of, where was i from followed by fully grown men acting like children upon seeing us, plus the Iranian police which had so far seemed to ignore us for the best part seemed to now want to question us. On one instance speaking to two curious girls in Gazvin (a crime in the eyes of the religious police) a police man told us we had to leave, asking him why he failed to give an answer and to which the girl seemed to explain we are just talking!!! the second was at a restaurant, after telling the eight men who had come to stand near our table shouting at us “Koja?” to which we kindly “of course” told to leave, a police man, mid way through our meal asked the waiter to ask us for our passports, looking up to where he was pointing i noticed two men in plain suit’s, one playing with his phone and the other looking bored, so after being rudely interrupted during my kebab and rice we told the waiter that if he was a police man and wanted to see our passports then he should come over and ask for them himself. The man then chose to ignore us untill we paid and headed outside to which he again asked for them, this time in person and then phoned a car to come and write down our names on a scrap piece of paper. The whole affair lasted about twentyminutes of utter time-wasting.
Camping too wasnt easy to find either, as this was the heart of Iran’s rice-growing region so all our skills were put to the test as we headed down small tracks in search of a quite spot. Crossing the border at last after again, like our entry we had been interrogated, not politely i might add we made it across a small river and into Azerbaijan. Instantly everything turned Soviet, Lada’s, big round hats for officers and Vodka lots of it!!! We grabbed some cash from an ATM in Astara and then headed on up to Baku.
Personally i knew nothing about the country and im pretty sure Tim didn’t either but one thing we did find out in the first few days was that none other than the legend Tony Adams, described to us as “an ex Arsenal playmaker” was the manager of the international football team, yes that famous playmaker?? Tony Adams. I doubted the man who told us had ever watched Donkey Adams in his prime but never the less we planned to keep our eyes peeled to catch him off side.
The country-side leading up to the capital reminded me a lot of Eastern Europe, tall trees lined the roads and the weather was almost perfect as we cycled up the coast following the shore line of the Caspian. People for the most part were friendly enough and seemed to keep them selves to them selves, which was a nice contrast from Iran. The capital though was a different story and with us having no guide-book to tell us, we didn’t expect to see a posh up market city.
Couchsurfing again, Natalya our host told us it had all come in the last few years with an oil boom in the Caspian region and that actually all the buildings, which now looked like they were more suited to Paris, were actually fake, and had been tiled on top of the old concrete shell.
We had a few eirins to run in Baku before trying to catch the ferry to Kazakhstan, one of course being a Kazakh visa, and the second was to pile up with as many other visas as we could before the ferry left. The Kazakh embassy was really nice and coincidently also dealt with our Kyrgyzstan visa so we managed to kill two birds. Passports in, we thought we would take a look at the ferry. described on numerous blogs and internet posts as a nightmare at best, we didn’t hope for much in the way of Information, but the only word we managed to get on day one was “No”. Collecting our visas two days later we again headed to the same port, this time to be told the ticket office was 5km away, Progress!!! A que of cars where waiting and a horde of men blocked the entrance to a locked door. All the men were indeed Kazakh heading also to Aktrau on the boat but, the bad news was that they had been waiting for up to 6days and had no idea when it would leave??.
Leaving we were haled over by two blonde guys in an old BMW. Toby and Jim were doing a charity rally to Tajikistan from London and had thus far been waiting at the port for two nights, the good thing was they had made a few friends and apart from the copious amounts of vodka they had received they had also been helped to get a ticket. Relaying their experience we now had lift off but, Tim and I thought we would at least wait a few more days to pick up our Chinese visa and Tajikistan.
Sunday arrived and after a night in the watering holes watching a bit of Premiership football we thought bugger waiting for the visas if the ferry only leaves every 10 days. So in a manic few hours we packed our bikes up sad thankyou to Natalya and bombed it down to the ferry port asap. The cars were gone but, we were assured the ferry hadn’t left. Three hours and the locked door was finally open and Tim went inside, his experience was described as a level on Golden eye, opening doors to see and empty desk before trying another to find a few guards with round hats, RCP 90 or Klob??. finally had a ticket and then were told to hurry, grabbing food on the way back to the first port, plus a cheeky bottle of Vodka for a few night caps on our journey across the Caspian.
What a journey it was. managing to finish our vodka along with a few others on the ship on the first night, i think everyone slept pretty well but, that’s where the party ended, three nights in total and four days were spent on the delightful vessel. It seemed that there weren’t enough parking spaces in Aktau to fit us in as we spent almost 36 hours ten kilometers from the main land. Food stocks running low, all the four of us had left was Jim and Toby’s condiments bag which Toby displayed his love or need for horseradish sauce, the staff also gathered what they could and served us up some rice pudding.
Finally we docked but frustrated and tired our patience was running low with the border guards who were less than helpful at times. Saying goodbye to the boys as they hunted down their car we definitely made the right choice to join them for the crossing as laughs were needed.
Aktau was a pretty un-inspiring place to start our journey through Kazakhstan but all we needed to do was pick up a bit of food before trying to find the road heading east towards Shitpe. Rolling out of the town was like leaving civilisation as the road became less and less populated, it was what i needed after the craziness of boat and constant snoring.
The scenery was stunning, horses running free for miles with camels dotting the horizon, endless sky and nothing but a small strip of tarmac guiding us through an unspoilt land. Camping was easy and the only thing we did struggle with was the lack of fresh veg or decent food to cook, most shops sold only cigarettes and vodka and upon asking, everyone indicated Shitpe was the place to purchase your greens, 70km away.
Arriving in Shitpe after 3 days we were pretty tired but, managed to find the bakery pretty quick. Checking the map, which we had photographed from a Russian truck driver on the ferry, the next section of 300km didn’t look all that promising for shops so we hit the market and stocked up on tomatoes and pasta before joining the road again to find an early evening camping spot. 
Im not sure if it was the utter silence or horses galloping past our tents during the night but neither of us slept well for the first few nights in Kazakhstan.
It was a hard-fought battle on some pretty awful roads up to Beynou but being stocked up in shitpe paid off, although we did stop at a few road side cafe’s to sample a plate of full “Kazakh” breakfast. Trying to cycle all the way across Kazakhstan for us was absolutely impossible from day one so the only option to get across the 9th largest country in the world within our thirty-day visa was to at some piont hop on a train. Feeling like we had a descent taste of the country after a week we hit the ticket booth in beynou to try to get on the next train heading north, It was leaving the next morning which was great as we had time to get cleaned up and coincidently tune into watch the second leg of “El classico” Real Madrid vs Barcelona in the Champions league semi final.
The journey up to Makat was a breeze after finally getting our bikes on the train we enjoyed a day sitting back watching the endless miles of Steppe that we had missed!!. Rolling out of Makat and the landscape hadn’t changed even after 500km open plains, with horses and camels and small smelly plants, but again it was nice to know we could camp anywhere undisturbed. The following morning the roads were awful again as we slowly made our way towards Aktobe and the following day it got even worse. After a night of rain the road was a total mud bath and impossible to ride any sort of distance without stopping to scrape off the copious amounts of mud which had gathered on the chain and wheels. Progress was slow at best and with spouts of continues rain throughout the morning we again made the choice with only a certain number of days left on our visa to hop on the train, were not lazy honest!!!.
surprised at best the small town of well, who knows treated us like royalty as we waited a few hours for the train to roll into town and even put us up in a small office with beds so we could sleep. Again the train travel was a breeze, even when we did realize the lady had given us only one ticket and the over zealous conductor asked us for a little extra for the bike’s, only to be met by to tight arsed travellers who’s wallets would need to be crowbars out of their pockets.
Arriving in Aral famed for the disappearing sea, we took a quick look at the old harbour front and empty ships which were now stranded in the middle of the desert, it was a bit sad to see a town on its last legs as the rest of the building didnt fill us with any sort of prosperity.
Leaving Aral in the evening it was 800 and something kilometers to our next port of call Chimkent, but again the road was bad, this time with the construction of the new Europe to China highway. Deep sandy by passes made our bikes wobble all over the place and the dust from trucks blocked our view of the road ahead. Again the days seemed to merge, to the point when asked, how long it had taken us to get from Aral to Shielie we both gave different answers, to be honest i couldn’t remember five maybe six, maybe seven??!? The only defining day was named “Tornado day” due the fact that whilst visiting a small town to grab some food and teach some kids a little english, a huge cloud, menacingly grey had formed, which upon cycling up the road for about 10km we stopped and got out our tents. Diving inside the wind and rain suddenly smashed through for about twenty minutes before turning dry and calm again. This incident was confirmed the following morning by a man saying “Tornado”.
Surviving tornado box, tick.
He was drinking vodka with his work mates, at a record 8:00am
Twenty days of cycling and taking trains and finally the steppe started to leave us, after visiting the mouselum in Turkistan. Green trees lined the streets and we took full advantage of the irrigation canals to do some much-needed laundry and have a wash.
Today we arrived in Chimkent after hitchhiking to last sixty kilometers as Tim had seemed to have eaten some bad food.
The good news is though we staying with a cool guy called Bert who is an english teacher here and TIm is resting up before we head again on the train up to Almaty to meet up with Tim’s friend Joe and hopefully get involved in some Kazakh night life.
