The
Ukrainian cyclist, Igor from Rivne, turned his iron horse around and rolled
down the hill, back towards Simferopol. His trip was almost over but I still
had many kilometers ahead of me. The landscape was changing as I moved further
to the south. The hills became higher and I could see some small mountains
further down the road. On the side of the road someone had put small coloured
pieces of cloth on some tiny trees. Some kind of muslim tradition I guessed.
Yes, there are muslims in Ukraine, the Crimean tatars. After some not too tough
hills I arrived in Bachchissaray, the old capital of the Crimean Khanate. They
have a theme park there with “Crimea in miniature” and a small zoo.They had
mini versions of all the Crimean palaces including the one where the 10th
Yalta Annual meeting was being held at the moment. This
yearly summit is organized by the businessman and billionaire Victor Pinchuk
and always attract many powerful guests. Among them was not surprisingly our
very active foreign minister, Carl Bildt.
On Mcdonalds back in Simferopol I had met a group of young stipendiates on
their way to the summit. Their leader, a young academic with a Ph.d in International
Economics had explained to me that corruption was not always something bad, his
thesis was that it could actually help the economy. I was not really sure about
what he meant and I might have misunderstood the whole concept, but it was
definitely an interesting point of view on corruption. For a moment I felt an
urge to attend the summit myself, the debates there must be interesting, but soon realized that I probably would not be
allowed in there. And it was still many kilometers to go to Jalta, By the time
I got there, the summit would be over anyways. No, better to not bother with
economy and politics for the moment and focus on being a very small man on a
very heavy bike.
I hit a
nearby street gym for some pull-ups and dips. I´m trying to not let my upper
body become too decrepit, so when I see these installations if I do not fell
too tired I usually do a small work out. As I rolled into the centre of
Bachchissaray my “Exotic radar” went on full alert. The town is situated near
some very non-scandinavian cliffs and contains old houses as well as mosques. I
arrived at the main attraction, the Khans palace. An old lady tried to convince
me to sleep at her homestay for a good price but I declined. After two days in
the busy city Simferopol I longed for some wild camping. I really enjoy
sleeping outdoors, most of the time I sleep much better in the fresh air than
in some unventilated rotting soviet hostel like for instance the one I had
stayed in in Simferopol. You could get a bed in a shared dormitory for a good
price, but only if you were Ukrainian or Russian. “We ususally don´t let
foreigners sleep with natives, people can become upset” the old hag in the
reception said. So I got a dormitory for myself. That´s what I call racism. Or
maybe it is just the same old soviet
mentality again. Well, at least I could walk naked in there without anyone
bothering. I went into the palace and admired the minaret, ornamented doors and
the chess table in the Khan´s harem. Then I pedaled out of town towards the Uspenskiy
cave monastery. I met a big van, apparently a Australian one. It had some
stickers on it saying they were travelling around the world or something.
That´s also a way to travel. I might try it too when I get old and weak. Or
maybe I will just keep on pedaling until the day I die, time will tell.
It was late
evening when I came to the end of the road. From here it was just a small path
leading towards the monastery. The sun was about to set behind the mouth of the
valley and I wanted to find some kind of place to pitch the tent. Here I met
Omari, a very friendly Georgian who immediately bought me coffee. He insisted
on that I should go to Georgia. “We Georgians are very hospitable, you will be
treated like a king.” Omari was a hard working bus driving man, he was taking
tourists to and from the monastery. He pointed towards a small plateau beneath
the precipices. “You can sleep there, my friend in the house over there will
keep an eye on you, if anyone tries to harm you he will help.” A very helpful,
hospitable, hardworking man he was indeed. Before I went to sleep I climbed up
the hillside to take some photos of the sunset. Some guys were welding
something on the opposite rock wall, probably a climbing route. Crimea seems to
be a good place for climbers, there are many, many walls in beautiful
surroundings. I passed through a restaurant in the valley for some Tatar food
and then found a small tea house. A very religious man worked in there with his
wife and son. I think his name was Ahmed. We had a very interesting
conversation about big questions, but that is a story of its own. The weather
was clear so I did not pitch the tent, instead I slept under the stars, in my
opinion the best version of camping, if not of sleeping.
The Uspenskiy Cave Monastery is situated in a breathtakingly beautiful valley where the monks are keeping their livestock close by their living quarters and the church which is situated partly inside of the mountain. The next days were spent cycling around the Crimean mountains, visiting some old cave towns. These places acted as fortifications for the Goths from about the 5th century until the 13th century when they were finally seized by the Tatars. In the local shops I met some Crimean Tatars. One of them, an old man where very excited about meeting a swede. “You know, we were allies once, fought on the same side against the Russians. Your king Charles the 12th said that our warriors were the finest he had seen.” After the second world war Stalin had a solution to the tatar problem, he sent them all to central Asia. “We lived in Uzbekistan for more than 30 years, but now we have returned to our land. When we got back here there were Russians living in our old houses. But we don´t care about that, we built new houses that are much better.” The mountains provided me with some very interesting trails connecting different valleys. A good opportunity for some bike pushing and downhill riding on narrow forest paths with the occasional beautiful scenery from the hilltops.
The route
continued towards the bay of Balaclava.
On the way there I tried fishing in a local stream but again, without any
catch. But the stream were very nice, with water crystal clear and cliffs
surrounding it. In Balaclava I sat down on an internet café for a Skype
session. A bearded man came in and asked if it was my bike that was parked
outside. He wanted to help me with a place to sleep, on the construction site
where he was working as a guard. The house was almost ready and was going to be
a hotel. This worked out fine. We cooked some food on a fire on the street and
then had a good meal together. My host told me about the nearby submarine docks
that were used during world war two and about the nearby battlefield of
Balclava, where British and Russian troops clashed during the Crimean war. This
was where the light brigade was almost annihilated as a result of a conflict
between some British commanders and very unclear orders. But the soldiers were
loyal and followed the handbook. They rode straight into the so called “valley
of death were they had Russian guns mowing them down from the hilltops around
them. The few of them who returned were exclaiming a “Hurray!” and “Shall we
attack again sir?” My host told that every year the battle is reenacted by enthusiasts
who come here from Britain and Russia. In the morning I had to leave before the
workers arrived to the site, it was not allowed to bring tourists there.
The road to
Jalta goes along the sea and offers some good views with the sea on one side and
mountains on the other. Unfortunately it is heavily trafficked but you cannot
always have everything. I stayed in Jalta for two nights on Sobaka hostel which
I found after some searching in the dark and narrow streets of Jalta. On the
hostel I met some very nice people from different parts of Europe. Among them
some British guys who were planning on arranging guided climbing trips to
Crimea. Now they were reconnoitering the terrain.
Jalta is
situated on the southern shore of Crimea which has some kind of subtropical
climate. So even if it was late September the water was about 20 degrees. There
were big waves so I was the only one swimming. After stocking up on some warm
clothes in local sport shops I continued eastwards. The next few days were
pretty tough with lots of serpentine roads and the kind of hill that you think
will go downwards around the corner but just keeps on going up and up. After
the physically most demanding day so far I found a nice camping spot on a beach
next to a small café close to the road. When I asked the owner of the café if
it was safe to sleep on the beach he replied “What are you afraid of? We are
afraid of ourselves. You see the van over there? There´s an old man sleeping in
there every night and no one has threatened him yet.” Then he showed me some
melon and cucumber plants that had set roots on the beach. There were two
gentlemen with metal detectors searching along the shore. They told me they
were looking for objects that people had lost. “Sometimes we find gold. We
search historical places sometimes, it is possible to find objects from the
ancient Scythes. No, we do not go to battlefields of the great patriotic war,
we know the places but there´s no reason to go there.”
The next
day the hills were a little bit easier and the day after that I came down from
the mountains. I rode through eastern Crimea for a couple of days. Eager to get
to Russia I headed for the ferry in Kerch. My Russian visa had already started
more than a week earlier. That´s what happens to me when I come to a place
where everything interests me, I move slowly. Now I had to go faster to get out
of Russia before the 19th of October when my visa would expire. The
first day on the plains the wind was to my favor, but on the second day it
turned against me. Riding a full day with headwind is not the easiest, on those
days the best thing to do is to take it easy. Eventually I reached Kerch on a
rainy day. I went to the market and bought a pair of warm and waterproof but
lightweight winter boots. Then I took the small ferry over the strait to Port
Kavkaz in Russia. I passed customs without any problems and after some food at
a café I followed the only road which headed to the main land with the sea
about 20-30 m on each side. I camped near the sea and the next day set off
towards Krasnodar.
I had
previously thought on going down through Georgia and Azerbajdjan but that would
be a complicated option if I wanted to continue the trip. There would be the
option of going through Iran but for me that was not so attractive, I want to
be able to speak with people and that would be hard in Iran. Another option is
to go with ferries from Baku to Turkmenistan or to Kazakhstan. The problem
there is that Turkmenistan only gives you a five day transit visa which is not
a reliable option since the ferries are not really ferries but cargo ships
taking some passengers. I read on the internet that some cyclists have had to
wait for up to ten days in Baku. That´s not what I want. I want to be able to
ride the bike into the sunset every day without waiting. Then there´s also the
processing time for a Turkmen visa, about 10-14 days. That´s something I could have
thought about earlier of course but now I just had to make the best of the
situation. Northern Caucasus would have been very interesting to for a cyclist but
I was unsure about the current security situation. If you read about Checnya
and its neighbouring areas on Wikitravel it seems extremely dangerous. The best
option I could see was to leave Caucasus until another time. It´s good for me
that life is long (inshallah). I decided that this time it was time for some
steppe cycling. I was going to go through the autonomous republic of Kalmykia
and Astrakhan and then continue into Kazakhstan with the goal to reach the
central Asian mountains in Kirgizistan. After leaving most of my decision angst
behind me I continued rolling through the Krasnodar area.
The
landscape here was not the most impressive, everywhere huge fields and long
hedgerows stretching several kilometers. The rain was pouring at least a few
hours most of the days. All over the sky were sullen clouds that seemed to have
pursued me since Odessa. People had been telling me all the way since southern
Ukraine that the weather usually was much dryer and warmer around this time of
the year. I passed a small town where I bought a Russian simcard. A guy working
in the telecomshop had an explanation for the bad weather. “This weather was
created especially in order to make snow for the Olympics in Sochi.” Could this
be true? It would in some twisted way feel good if I could blame someone for
the rain. But it would also be a little bit frightening if this was the truth. If
it was, what would the consequences be? I had heard something about weather
crafting before the 1980 Olympics so it does not seem impossible that it would
be used now as well.
In
Krasnodar I got some more winter equipment in the shop Alpindustrija. Then I
wanted to send some stuff home. I had decided not to try fishing any more so
the rod would go home with some other stuff I did not need anymore. I went into
a post office and asked if I could send a package to Sweden. No, I could not
send international mail from an ordinary post office, I had to go to the main
post office which was situated somewhere in the centre. I asked some people
about directions but could not find the place. I got confusing answers from
those I asked. It was a very annoying situation because I really hate cycling
in cities. Big cities in these countries are not a good place for cyclists.
There are no real bicycle lanes and the pavement edges are often very high and
people are driving like idiots. At last I found some old ladies who knew where
to go. Apparently the name of the street I was looking for was the same as the
name of some other place in town. Very annoying. Now it was getting late but I
almost found the way to the post office. I stopped at a street corner where I
asked some guys in a pub. They said that the post office was close but it was
closed by now. Then they invited me for beer. I could not refuse such an offer.
Then began about 24 hours of obscure entertainment such as beer drinking,
eating dried fish, billiard, eating Ossetinian pirogues, watching boxing and
more. I think places like this are a little bit like the island where Odysseus
was held captured by the nymph Calypso. You enjoy yourself while you are there
but they makes the trip take so much longer time. Overall it was a good
experience though. The next day I was not in top condition but I got help from
the Russian gents to send the package to Sweden.
After
almost two days in Krasnodar I steered the iron horse out of the city. The landscape here was the most boring of the
trip so far. I camped in exactly identically looking places two nights in a
row, near long hedgerows on huge fields. Now came the first nights with frost,
no problem at all with a good sleeping bag and dry socks on the feet. The roads
where the best I had encountered so far. With broad shoulders and slight
downhills I could almost effortlessly make 160 kilometers on one day. When I
entered the town Apaty I realized that it would be impossible to make it to
Astrakhan in time to make a Kazakh visa before the Russian visa would expire.
The solution was to leave the bike on the bus station and go with a night bus
to Astrakhan. After some sleeping in a dark place near the bus station a police
officer came by asking me what I was doing here. I answered that I was
sleeping, waiting for the bus. After checking my passport he mentioned that I
had to register. I replied that I had not had the opportunity to do it yet but
I would do it in the next town. He was satisfied with that and let me go. After
a very bumpy ride with bus I arrived in Astrakhan in the morning. I found the
embassy quickly but I had to wait for several hours outside. At least the guard
was friendly. Then I was let in by a guy looking like he was about fifteen
years. Then I got some papers to fill in handed to me by another official.
“Where are you from?” “Ah, Sweden, do you have Swedish money?” He was
apparently collecting money from different countries. I actually had a 20
kronor bill in one of my panniers back with the bike. I promised to bring him
Swedish money and he looked happy. No invitation was needed. I started filling
in the papers. The money collector was extremely impatient. “Don´t sit there
for ten minutes, just fill everything in now, quick!” “You know how to do it?”
“Do you have education?” I was thinking for myself that I probably had longer or
at least more qualitative education than he had but I kept quiet. After
everything was filled in and the fee was paid I was thrown out of the building.
“Come back in five days! And don´t forget Swedish money!” I took the bus back to Apaty and resumed the
cycling.
The
landscape became more open and soon I was on a steppe with gently rolling hills
as far as the eye could see. I passed a river and then I was in Kalmykia. I got
company for about a day by a black stray dog. She was running after the bike
without any signs of fatigue during the first day, then slept outside of my
tent. The second day I gave her some water but she eventually couldn´t keep the pace. But she was a strong
dog so I think she will do just fine without me.
Kalmykia is
a very special place. It is kind of like a little Mongolia inside Russia. The
Kalmyks, a people related to the Mongols immigrated to the area in the 17th
century from somewhere in western Sibiria. They had connections with Russia
early and became a part of the empire. The Kalmyks are Buddhists and had their
own distinct culture and language. However, much of that has been destroyed by
the Soviet powers, most people I met spoke Russian and the young people even
don´t know their native language. In the Second World War (or great patriotic
war as it is called in Russia) some Kalmyks sided with the germans and some
with the soviets. After the war Stalin decided to deport all of the Kalmyk
people to Sibiria. About half of them died before they were allowed to go back
to Kalmykia in 1957. In Elista, the capital of Kalmykia the main sights are the
big Buddhist temple and “Chess city”. Chess city was created by the former
president of the republic, Karsan Ilyumzhinov who is also president of FIDE,
the world chess federation. It is a
small town entirely dedicated to Chess and has hosted the chess Olympiad in
1998. Wandering around Chess city I met two Kalmyk ladies who were very
friendly and showed me some interesting places during the last evening in
Elista.
Next, I hit
the steppe again and went through Kalmykia to Astrakhan. On the way I met many
people from nearby Chechnya and Dagestan. The Russians in Krasnodar had warned
me about these places. But almost everyone from northern Caucasus told me that
it was perfectly safe there by now. “War is over, in the 90´s it was unsafe,
now its ok” they said. Someone mentioned that there was occasional explosions
every now and then but most people thought I should go there. I was not really
convinced but people from northern Caucasus seemed to be very friendly.
Astrakhan
is a big, dirty city on the Volga with many old decrepit wooden houses. A taxi
driver told me that some of the houses collapse every now and then and people
regularly get killed as a consequence. I went to the embassy again. The money
collector asked me if I had the Swedish money and I handed him the 20 kronor
bill. “It´s Selma Lagerlöf, famous Swedish writer and Nils Holgersson” I told
him. “Yes, yes” he was not so interested in Swedish literature. He impatiently
hid the bill so no one would see it. Then I got the visa, valid until the 16th
of November. “Welcome to Kazakhstan” the money collector smiled and then had me
leave as quick as possible.
“There´s
nothing there, only savannah, you should go down through Iran.” The words of a
cyclist I met in Vilnius ringed in my head as I closed in on the Kazakh border.
I had done the contrary to what he supposed. Well, now at least I was about to see what “nothing” looks like.
The border
crossing between Russia and Kazakhstan was smooth. The Russian customs
officials didn´t even seem to check if I had registered. I had registered one
day too late, you are supposed to register within ten days from arrival, but no
problem this time. After some 10 kilometers of no man’s land I passed Kazakh
customs and I was in Kazakhstan. For some reason I had counted on there being
an ATM near the border as there had been on many of the other borders. But this
was Kazakhstan, no ATM but a couple of guys ready to change my rubles to Kazakh
tenge. The tenge bills are very colourful but not worth so much. One euro is
about 250 tenge.
Now the
plan was to go to Atyrau and then cross the steppe all the way to the Aral sea.
Then I would take the big road down to Kyrgyzstan. I was not sure if there were
any roads on the steppe between Atyrau and Aralsk but on google maps I could
see that there were many, many dirt tracks. The road to Atyrau was pretty good.
I could easily make over 120 km a day. As soon as I got into Kazakhstan I could
see signs that told me I was in Central asia; camels, lots of sand and houses
made of clay and oil wells. People where generally very friendly and interested
in from where and whereto I was going. People often slowed their cars and began
a conversation through the window. I stopped at a small restaurant on the side
of the road and got invited by one of the guests. He had been drinking but I
did not understand how much until we sat in his car on our way to his home. He
was driving very fast and on a small dirt road going from side to side. I
was getting nervous and yelled at him in Swedish: “För helvete håll dig på rätt
sida av vägen!” Then he
started driving more carefully. In his house his wife gave me food and a place
to sleep and next day he drove me back to the restaurant. In Atyrau I went to
the local market and bought among other things a road map. Now I got confirmed
that there where roads between Atyrau and Aralsk, although they were so called
“steppe roads”. Atyrau is a big seaport and it is easy to see that people there
have got money. The streets were crammed with big new SUV:s and they even had a
TGI Fridays restaurant. I did´nt want to stay for too long, I didn´t bike to
Asia to sit on TGI Fridays, I can do that in Malmö.
I hit the
road again and realized there was a shortcut between Atyaru and Kulsary. I
could go on small dirt roads to Kulsary, yummy! But I lost time when I was
navigating out of the city in the dark. The next day I followed a road which I
thought would lead in the right direction, but it only led to some ind of
factory out on the steppe. I turned around and lost two hours. The steppe roads
were not shown on the GPS so I headed back to a small village to ask for the
way. An English speaking man in a SUV greeted me. “Hello!, I think you are
lost, because there is nothing here.” I told him I was going to Kulsary over
the steppe. “No, no that´s not a good idea, the roads are very bad. They are
bumpy like the one over there. And there are wolves out there! But if you
really want to go, it´s that way.” One of my principles in life is to ignore
the naysayers. As soon as you say you are going to do something just a little
bit outside of the box people will start saying it can´t be done. But that
doesn´t mean that it can´t be done, I would rather say that it means it is
something worth doing. So I set the compass to the east and drove into the
steppe.
After some hours on decent dirt roads I came to a small camelfarm where
the inhabitant showed me the way. Just follow the power poles. I went along the
poles and the next day I came to a small oil station. I could see on the map
that the sea was close, but there were no roads leading there and it was
probably 5-7 kilometers to go. The workers told me that it was about five
kilometers to the south but that there were “dirt” for 20 kilometers before the
real sea started. I wanted to see the “dirt” so I rolled to the south. After
five kilometers there was no water in sight but lots of loose dust, that must
have been what they called dirt I thought. I shot some pictures of this
desolate place and was just about to go back north when I saw a vehicle approach.
It looked like what we swedes would call a “bandvagn”, a tracked carrier. “Damn
it, now some kind of coast guard or something will bother me in some way” I
thought. As the vehicle got closer I saw that it was a Swedish Bv 206. The
vehicle stopped and two gents in civilian clothes peeked out. “Are you
military?” I asked. “No we are hunters.” They were on their way to the sea and
I asked them if I could go with them. “It´s just 3 km further down the road”
they said.
I followed the tracks and came to the hunter´s camp. They were six
guys, construction workers from Atyrau who were on a duck hunt over the
weekend. But how had the vehicle come from Sweden to Kazakhstan. Exactly how it
had made its way to Kazakhstan was unclear but it had been bought through
Russia in some way. The last date of vehicle inspection was in 1999. It was time to go hunting, the last hour before dark
is the best time. I jumped into the vehicle and it rolled out over the dirt
which here was covered with water. So I finally got to see the Caspian sea as
well. The sunset was very beautiful. There were lots of small patches of the
big grass called Kamysh by the Russians. Some hunters were already out there,
others deployed to their hiding spots in the grass. The carrier stopped in a
shrubbery and we waited. We could hear some shots and after an hour we went
back and picked up the guys on the way in. Then it was time to prepare dinner.
They had shot maybe six ducks and now there was going to be a feast. The table
as always had vodka on it and everyone in the company made a toast. I got
pretty drunk. The next day it was time to go hunting again, I didn´t feel that
well but I still jumped on the vehicle. This time I deployed together with the
oldest guy in the company. We got off the vehicle and immediately sank into the
mud. It was hard to walk, the boots got stuck in the mud. Then my companion
fell. I helped him up but he couldn´t move any further and his shotgun had got
mud in the barrel. I couldn´t move either. Not much to do but to wait. My
friend sent up an emergency flare to call for the carrier. It didn´t work. We tried
to call for help instead, it worked and we got picked up, but only after three
hours in the mud.
After
taking farewell to the hunters the trip went further east. I passed one more
oil industrial complex where the workers were very hospitable. The roads where
only dirt tracks, but they were not too bad. I really enjoy cycling on small
roads with little to no traffic. The central Asian chipmunks make things
interesting too. They live in small holes in the sand and when they see an
intruder they watch and make a warning sound. Sometimes they come running
straight across the road just before the bike and take refuge in their tunnel
system. There is also another desert rat which runs like a kangaroo and has got
a very long tail. It must be the fastest animal I have ever seen.
When I had
only about 30 km to go to Kulsary something happened. Suddenly the back hub broke. That means that there is no transmission of power from the chain
to the wheels. There was not so much to do but to wait for help. Some local oil
workers on vacation drove me and the bike to Kulsary. There was no bike shop in
Kulsary so we went to the market. They had some spare parts but nothing that
would fit. One of the oil workers thought I should by a new bike. “When we have
such problems with our bikes we usually throw them away and buy a new one.” I
tried to go back to Atyrau to find a hub. A man named Durman who worked as a
driver for different pharmacies in the area took me and my bike to Kulsary for
3000 tenge. Then he tried to find out if there were any bicycle shop in Atyrau.
There were no bike shop so we went to the market. They had a part that would
fit but it was made in China. The merchant said he was not sure it would work
until Aralsk. I thought that it couldn´t be that bad. I bought the hub and then
we went to Durmans home were we worked with putting the new hub on. It took half the night to get done
because this was something none of us had done before. The next day I found a
taxi that took me back to Kulsary. I was on the road again.
“Nothing
can stop me now” I thought as I drove into the steppe again. I came to a small farmhouse were an old man
and his wife kept camels, sheep and cows. I told them about the plan to go to
Aralsk through the steppe. They said that there were almost no people there and
as people always do, they warned me about wolves. They also gave me some camel milk
and bread for the road. The day after I cycled on small dirt paths and came to
a place called Munayli where I met some oil workers loading oil from big tanks
to their trucks. They pointed out the direction for me. I had to continue to
the east on a small path where camels were chilling out nearby. After a while I
thought that the road I was on seemed a little bit too small. I was about to go
north across a plain to find a road I supposed would be bigger when I saw a
small house far away. I went there to ask about the way. I could not see any
people there at first but then I saw some suspicious faces in a window. Two
women came out, one of them with a child on her arm. I asked them if they knew
the direction. “My husband knows, he will be here soon”. After a few minutes
two men appeared and soon they had taken the decision to invite me to stay over
the night. I got to sit down in a room with almost no furniture, except for a
low table. I was treated with tea, plof (a dish made of rice and mutton) and
later Bishbarmak. Bishbarmak is a dish made from all parts of the sheep,
including the head. The Kazakhs eat it with their hands. After the Bishbarmak
my stomach felt strange and I had to spend half an hour at the toilet but after
that it felt better. I got the directions explained to me by my hosts. They
thought I should go through the village Diyar but not through Oymaut because
there were a lot of hooligans and drunk people there. The
next day I set off into the east again. I passed a fountain for cattle and then
there was only one road to follow.
Towards the
evening I could see some small hills far away. The road split several times and
was joined by different roads. The new hub had already begun to make a
foreboding squeaky sound when the wheel rolled. I damned the Chinese bicycle
manufacturers but couldn´t do much more than that. The quality of the roads
varied depending on the soil. When the soil contained lots of gravel it was
easy to drive but on some places the earth was soft, like the dirt close by the
sea. On this places it was very hard to roll at all. I came to a valley were
this kind of dirt was predominant. It was a beautiful place, as the sun began
to set the soil got a reddish colour. It was a very isolated place, no signs of
people except for the tracks. I now felt that the real adventure finally had
begun. It was places like this that I was looking for.
A hill lay not far in
front of me and it was very unclear where exactly the main road was. I decided
to go up the hill to see if any roads were visible from there. Maybe I could
set up the tent there and see if there were any lights nearby. I now walked with
the bike towards the hill, because it was impossible to ride the bike in the
soft soil. I saw a car driving past a couple of kilometers to the south of me.
It disappeared into a small pass between two hills. So there was some kind of
road there. I decided to set up camp on the hill anyway because it wasn´t very
far now. I carried the necessary stuff up the hill and then had supper in the
dark. I could not see any lights. During the night the wind increased and
almost blew my tent away. I had to go out and reinforce the tent. Then the rain
came. In the morning it was rainy and misty and I couldn´t see anything from my
hill. The dirt now became a thick mud that stuck everywhere. I carried the gear
back down to the bike which I had left on the foot of the hill. I loaded the
bike and started pushing it towards the place where I had seen the car last
night. It didn´t move. The mud was so thick that it got stuck between the fenders
and the wheel and prevented all rolling. I had to take the fenders and the
brakes off. Doing this operation in the mud made all my gear become smeared in dirt.
When I finally was done it was possible to push the bike towards the assumed
road. When I got there I could see that there was a track. A car came from the
east. I asked the men in the car if this was the way to Diyar, the village
through which I planned to go. Yes, this was the correct way. Navigating here
was not so easy because the road map I had did only show a few of the roads.
The map stated that these should be “hard covered roads” but that was pure
bullshit. In reality there are only dirt tracks. I wonder if this is a way to make the country
look more civilized on the paper. “Look, we have this many hard covered roads
here, we are a truly great nation!”
I had to
trust the compass and the few locals I encountered. I lost the trail were I had
met the car after I had went to a nearby hut to ask for the way. The shepherd
pointed towards another road than that from which I had come and then I didin´t
find the “big” road again.
I went eastwards for a whole day. It went slow
because the Chinese spare parts were almost not functioning at all now. The hub
could work for a few kilometers and then not at all. I tried to make some
unconventional solutions with parachute cord and metal wire around the spokes and the ring. It didn´t work very well and it bent the spokes
with the result that they started to break too. When I combined the GPS with
the road map I came to the conclusion that I now should be somewhere close to
Diyar. There was another mountain to the south of my position, Diyar should be
situated about 30 kilometers north of that mountain so it couldn´t be very far
now. I decided to go north for some distance to see if I found some more used
track. Then I saw some kind of human made structure very far away. I started
walking towards it and after an hour or so I met a herder. His russian was
among the worst I have heard but with body language and some da and njet he
explained the way to Diyar. It was 12 kilometers he said. Towards the evening I
saw a truck driving by close by and where it had driven I found a somewhat bigger trail. My gut feeling told
me I should go left and after a while I heard some kind of motorized vehicle in
the distance. Then I could see some lights in the distance. I wanted to arrive
in Diyar before it got too late so I pedaled through the dark on the sandy
road. I had to push the pedals constantly, otherwise the hub would take the chain
with it resulting in total chaos.
I eventually rode into Diyar in the evening. It was dark and there were not
many people on the streets. The first one I talked to didn´t understand any
russian and soon drove away on his bike. I found a man pumping his car tires in
his backyard and asked him if there was a shop in the village. He showed me
where it was, in the backyard of a house. The owners of the shop let me buy
some supplies and then I was invited to stay in their home over the night. The
next day, after replacing the broken spocks I tried to go further. The owner of
the shop was going to show me the way and drove away with his car. The bike was
barely working now but I thought that I would give it a try. I didn´t know were
my host had gone, because his vehicle had disappeared behind the horizon. A
strange way to show someone the way. I continued on the road I thought was the
right one. After about 5 kilometers the shop owner showed up from behind me.
How did that happen? He confirmed that I was on the right way and then he went
back home. A few kilometers later the hub literally fell apart and I realized
that this was game over and chess matt.
The attempt to cross Kazakhstan by
bicycle had failed. There wouldn´t be time to find new spare parts and go back
here to go further before the end of the visa. I sat down on the side of the
road and thought about what to do now. Soon two gentlemen on a motorcycle
appeared. I explained the situation and they promised to return with a car and
pick me up later. Wile I waited I cooked some food on my stove and watched the
sunset, then I tried making a fire from the abundant steppe shrubs. It became a
small fire.
A few hours later some other guys arrived in a soviet style pick-up.
They explained that they were family of the motorcycle guy. We went back to
Diyar were I got invited for tea. I stayed in the home of the motorcycle guy. There
were lots of local men there, drinking in the garage. The motorcycle man had a
friend who said he might be able to weld the broken part. I said that we could
give it a try, it would be a possible solution. The welder and I slept in the
same room. He asked me for money for beer and I thought, “why not, a beer would
be fine now.” We went to the shop where I had spent the last night. I bought a
beer and the welder bought half a liter of vodka. Then we drank in the garage.
I refused to drink any vodka, I had lost all appetite for it since the feast
with the duck hunters. But the welder drank a lot. It was cold and I wanted to
go inside. “No, no we cannot go inside, the mother in the house doesn´t like
that we drink.” After a while we went inside anyway. We slept on the floor,
that seems to be how they do it here. The welder was quite drunk it seemed. He
kept turning and mumbling in his sleep and on several occasions he almost
rolled into men. I don´t know what the purpose was but I didn´t want to cuddle
and kicked him away over and over again. I didn´t mention anything about it the
day after.
We had a look at the hub but I decided that it would be pointless to try to repair it. I had to get to a
big city where they had a decent bike shop. A neighbor of the motorcycle man
helped me. First we had a look in the village, maybe there was some part I
could use. But they only had bicycles for children and no part that would fit
my bike. The neighbor knew that there
was a “taxi” leaving from Oymaut tomorrow towards Aktobe. I hitch-hiked with
some truck drivers to Oymaut, the place I had been warned about before. After
having placed my bike between rocks they were transporting and scratching it
severely the truckers handed me over to a small man who operated a taxi
business with his sons as drivers. The hospitality was good here as well except
for the drunk man who came late in the evening and accused me of being an
American spy.
The next day we loaded the bike into a small van that had room
for ten persons. The taxi departed and stopped at a house were the truckers
also had stopped. I was suspecting that the truckers were going to Aktobe too
and that I had paid money for nothing. I asked the truckers were they were
going. “I don´t know.” ”Where are you going?” I asked again. ”Aktobe.” I got
upset now and started barking at them in Swedish. ”No, no only a joke.” Yeah right. Well, there
wasn´t so much to do now, the bike was loaded. Now awaited 10 hours of
suffering in a small hot van on bumpy roads with Kazakh music in the speakers.
I really dislike buses, especially when the roads are bad it is a small hell,
and the Kazakh music is pure torture to me. When we finally arrived in Aktobe I
felt a great relief. After one night in a hotel I realized that there was no
bike shop there either. I had to go to Almaty to fix the bike. To conclude
things: the sustained bike effort across Kazakhstan failed, but that will not
prevent me from new adventures in central Asia. You find the photos here.
As always, stay tuned for future posts!
As always, stay tuned for future posts!