In the last report about Russia, we were still amused about the fact that we had to answer the same questions to the employees of the border authority and the FSB when entering the country. And that our answers were each entered into a Word file. We assumed that the information we gave would be lost somewhere in the flood of data and would never reappear.
Information: The original language of this blog is German. Any other language is translated using DEEPL's machine translation (www.deepl.com), without proofreading.
Like the nomads with a tent through Mongolia
Together with a Spanish motorcyclist we were the first people to be conducted through the exit procedure at the Russian border in Tashanta. After half an hour we had the exit stamp in our passports and started the 25km ride through the no man’s land between Russia and Mongolia. When we reached the Mongolian border post, one and a half hours later, the car queue was already several 100m long. Thanks to the cyclist bonus, we were waved past all motorized vehicles directly to the passport control. There we queued as the only disciplined and were thereby diligently overtaken😉. At the chaotic border post, no one was interested in our bikes or bags, so we suddenly had Mongolian soil under our feet.
Russia Part 1 – Altai
During the last two days, the very friendly Kazakhs once again did their utmost to make sure that we would remember them and their country in the best possible way. On the way out of Oskemen, two policemen asked us (out of curiosity) where we were coming from, where we were going, etc… A few minutes after we had resumed our journey, a police Lada followed us and it blared via megaphone “…Velosipedistji…, Velosipedistji…“. Slightly perplexed we stopped… the two policemen had forgotten the selfie with us😊.
Back to Kazakhstan
The rough road, strong headwind and dark clouds did not make our departure from Karakol easy. Fortunately, the thunderstorms blew past us at the last pass of Kyrgyzstan, so we were dry and could stop for a snack in a small container. Here we finally took the opportunity to try the Central Asian specialty Kumis (fermented mare’s milk). The drink tasted less bad than feared and the predicted toilet trip as an immediate consequence did not occur😊.
Trekking in the Eastern Thien Shan Mountains
To top off our stay in Karakol, we wanted to explore the local hiking trails. Three roommates in our guesthouse came back excited about the popular tour to Ala-Kol Lake and assured us that the three-day hike was doable despite snowfields.