Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan

Yet another border crossing can be chalked up as the team enters Uzbekistan! Although the crossing itself was not without several challenges, including closed crossing points and broken down vehicles. Of course, this is nothing the four travelers can't overcome!

Sophie Ibbotson:

I’m sat typing in the dark because there’s a power cut and all the lights have gone out. I’m tempted to think that this isn’t a regular occurrence in Tashkent as otherwise the hotel would have an emergency generator. Either way, you have me for as long as the laptop battery lasts.

We arrived here yesterday evening after what could easily have been a disastrous day. We left Turkestan bright and early, if a little smelly. The latter point was beyond our control: the hotel had no water and none of us could face showering with the murky contents of the coke bottles lined up in the bathroom for flushing the toilet.

The drive from Turkestan to the Kazakh-Uzbek border at Shymkent isn’t far – just a 100km or so. As we approached the border, we were hailed by the traffic police and had to pull up by the curb. We had been driving at around 40 km/h, our headlights were on, and we hadn’t committed any illegal manoeuvres, so we assumed it was merely that the GB registration plates had caught their eye and they were curious. We were half right. They had seen the plates, but it was greed rather than curiosity that was motivating them.

Sometimes policemen spot a foreign vehicle and see dollar signs. It’s not a pretty trait, but a fact of life nonetheless. These particular traffic police were rather persistent. We’d been nice, been less nice, shown them lots of official looking paperwork (some genuinely official and some less official), spoken a little Russian, claimed to understand no Russian, and refuted silly allegations for speeding and having unauthorised Afghanaid signs on the sides of the car. One of the officers had taken Steve’s UK driving license and was being belligerent about returning it.

Ah, the power has returned.

As usual in such situations, I began to copy down all the details of the event in clear view. I started with the date and time, moved on to the registration numbers and makes of the police cars, and tried to get the cops’ badge numbers. Perhaps in anticipation of this, they’d already tucked the lower part of their badges into their top pockets so that the numbers couldn’t be read. Still, it had the desired effect, and one officer in particular started to get a little edgy, trying to read my writing over my shoulder. He couldn’t read English but certainly got the gist of what I was up to. He disappeared into a huddle with his colleagues. We watched and waited.

The balance of power had now shifted, and the nervy officer approached us to make a deal: if we would tear up our notes on the incident, the police would return Steve’s driving license. I paused a second as if to consider the proposal. Then smiled, tore the page from my note book, and took the license out of his hand as I gave him the sheet of paper. We were on our way. I made a mental note to myself to always present an international driving license to police rather than the UK photo card: the former can always be left behind as it is much easier (and cheaper) to replace.

The border crossing was now in sight. We congratulated ourselves on having found it first time round, and remarked happily on the lack of traffic. This may have jinxed our fate. The reason that there were no queues of cars and lorries approaching the border was that the border crossing was shut. Three surly looking guards stood by the locked gates, garbled something at us, and pointed back the way we came. There was no apparent reason for it to be shut, and no one could give us an explanation why. It just was.

There are a number of border crossings between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, not all of them are open to vehicles, and only two are open to foreigners. We were being directed to one that did not fall into the latter category, which made me particularly hesitant: I’d recently heard horror stories about people being caught in no man’s land between the two countries for 10 days until the bureaucrats finally got things sorted. That was not a prospect I fancied.

The border we had to try was Chinaz and it’s about 50km drive west from Shymkent. It isn’t signposted and we repeatedly thought we’d gone the wrong way as the route took us through some fairly remote villages that were unlikely to have a lot of passing lorry traffic. When we finally got there, we whizzed through emigration in record time and were feeling quite optimistic about the whole process. We jumped back into the Isuzu, turned the ignition…. and nothing happened. Well, that’s not quite true. The starter motor made its usual grrrr noise, and then nothing happened.

Bryn is our self-proclaimed grease monkey. This is great, as I go cross-eyed when I look under the bonnet of a car. I can change a tyre and bash out dents with a hammer, but anything more technical than that and I’m at a loss. Sadly, even Bryn was a little confused. We had fuel, air, water and oil in ample quantities, and the car had shown no signs of suspicious behaviour previously. It just wouldn’t go. We had already officially left Kazakhstan and so there was no going back for a mechanic. The only way out was forwards, propelled by human power.

We pushed the Isuzu through no man’s land. We pushed the Isuzu through quarantine. We pushed the Isuzu through immigration, customs and, finally, along the long, narrow road to the exit gate. The lorries stuck behind us were less than impressed but, as they weren’t inclined to get out and help push, we didn’t feel too sorry for them.

At this point I want to divert your attention for a short while to the Lada crawling along beside us. Jo has written about Lada’s far more poetically than me, but this Lada deserves a mention because it was particularly pathetic. For a start, even when it was brand new, it was poo brown. This is not a colour to paint your car. Secondly, it was so rusty that slamming the boot was a serious threat to its structural integrity. The wheel arches were no longer arched, and the car winced and wheezed as it drove.

The Lada’s passengers also gave us something to look at. They appeared to be a middle aged man and, somewhere under the voluminous floral headscarf, his mother. Mother was incredibly old, incredibly small, and incredibly loud. Most of the time she seemed to be talking to herself, but sometimes she’d turn her attentions to various border officials, chastising them for making her wait or other perceived slights. Most interestingly of all, although she was very much in force in no man’s land as we parked beside her, she had completely disappeared by exit gates. Quite what her son had done with her, we don’t have a clue. Perhaps she was in the boot.

Anyway, back to Suzy and her ills. Having pulled various things out from under the hood and fiddled with them, Bryn established that no fuel was getting through to the engine. Running our reserve tank down to almost nothing whilst out on the steppe had pulled all sorts of grot from the bottom of the tank up into the system. This had now got stuck in the fuel filter, the fuel pump or one of the connecting tubes and the Isuzu wasn’t going to go anywhere at all until it was clear. It was time to summon a mechanic.

We didn’t get one mechanic but a car full. Some of them may have been bystanders coming along for the excitement of the ride. There isn’t much to do in Chinaz. They got very excited by our shiny silver socket wrench kit, and even more excited by the giant Leatherman multi-tool. It was a veritable fest of boys’ toys.

I was a little alarmed to see one of the mechanics disconnect a diesel tube, put it to his mouth and suck. I can understand blowing through it, but sucking is an entirely different matter. I know he wanted to clear any potential blockages, but getting a full mouthful of dirty diesel for your efforts cannot be recommended to anyone. It’s a very silly idea.

Silly idea or not, the sucking, fiddling and thumping did the trick. Suzy choked back into life, we parted with some Euros and half a packet of cigarettes, and were on back on the road to Tashkent. The relief was immense, and the end of a very long day was in sight.


Jo Dew-Jones:

And so it was that yesterday provided plenty of drama of its own - fitting, really, as my adventure is soon to be complete. Having written that we were 'very close to the Uzbek border', this turned out to be both true and false; upon our arrival (12km from Tashkent!) the border was quite determinedly closed, and we were directed to a point further along the M23.

Onwards we drove and arrived at a swarming entry point; here we were harangued by shifty looking Kazakhs trying to wheedle money out of us by offering to drive to where we actually ¬were going - further on. It always feels a little harsh to be so rude and dismissive in those situations, but equally the knowledge that they are so blatantly trying to pull a fast one lessens the sympathy (and politeness) towards the strangers.

Away we went, and around 1.30pm we found a point at which the melee of cars and officials which had marked our previous crossings was present. This seemed a positive sign, and we were allowed in, and thus our spirits lifted. We drove to the stop point, piled out for passport checks, and enjoyed a late picnic.

At this stage, there were two developments: Sophie received a text to say that according to the internet, this was not an official entry point and there was therefore a risk that Kazakhstan would let us out but Uzbekistan would deny entry; and Suzie the trusty Isuzu refused to start.

The latter was more perplexing than the former -there was nothing we could do about that and would have to hope for the best. As for Suzie, however - what was wrong? Fuel was ample, battery charged, other obvious problems not present... our collective engineering knowledge (=Bryn) provided no answers.

Of all the places to break down, a border is surely the most ideal. In-between pushing the car as we made progress through the Uzbek bureaucracy (there seemed to be no problems letting us in! Hooray) we attracted a crowd of truckers attempting to help. Communication with home indicated it was something to do with the fuel pump or filter, so attention was focussed there. After our final luggage inspection we rolled the car into our official new host nation, whereupon a man called some mechanic friends, and a troop arrived to aid us in our trial.

When Suzie purred into life, it filled us with relief. It was about 6.40pm, and having only started the border process at around 2pm, that barely constituted a significant delay. We were now further away from Tashkent, about 50km, and once we'd navigated the city we got to the hotel around 9pm. But then we had to turn the clocks back anyway, dinner was yummy and the beds very nice. A successful day, all told.