(Kazakhstan) I am going to miss horses on the endless filed

I was so excited to enter into Kazakhstan which was larger than Western Europe and 9th largest land in the world.

But my excitement was erased by the snow with the strong headwind. I could not see the front clearly and my clothes and bags were covered by the snow.

I reached a small village after fighting against the snow.

I was cycling slowly to look around the village and saw some family around their garage. I asked for pitching my tent at the inside. Then they invited me into the house. The dinner was quite big portion with a warm tea.

The calm morning was starting and the road was busy with children going to school. Their clothes were very bright in the white and dark village.

It was very quiet morning on the way I got out of the village.

Nomad leading sheep greeted at me kindly and two sheepdogs were following them.

Nomad was so friendly that they even let me try to ride a horse. The one thing I really liked about Central Asia was I could get a chance to ride a horse sometimes. Also, it was very cheap and easy to hire a horse for hiking because there were everywhere horses.

I always so felt so peaceful and calm whenever I saw a horse on the field because it looked so free.

Nomad’s yurt was covered by the snow on the field far from the road.

I had to dress warmly because it was very cold. I wore long sleeve, winter jacket, long pants, and long waterproof pants. Just started cycling in the morning, I had to wear a red waterproof jacket as well. These waterproof pants and jacket were really good to keep the heat from the body. But as more I cycled, I took off the clothes one by one.  The only problem was to keep the heat on fingers and toes. I bought cheap winter gloves. But it was small that the glove didn’t help to keep the heat much. I would buy winter gears when I get to China.

There was one big hill from the morning that it helped me to stay warm cause I burned lots of energy.

After the hill, I cycled between valleys. I always enjoyed cycling on this kind of road, for curves were always fun. I could not guess what kind of scenery I would see after the curve so I always got surprised by a new scenery after turning on the curve.

After the valley, there was endlessly field. I found some old building made of sand. It was similar to what I saw in Sudan or Iran.

I left my bicycle on the road and walked into deep inside the field to check how it looked like.

There were some patterns. I could not know why it was made and when it was built as there was no any explanation around.

As I was about to go back, the scenery of my bicycle on the wide field looked so beautiful.

I faced camels suddenly in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t see real camels though. I thought maybe there were camels around.

Arriving in a small town, I was having very strong wind. I thought there was the storm coming. But later, it became calm.

I asked a few people to look for a bank and then I took some money from ATM.

I didn’t want to go out once I get an accommodation. So I bought the food before finding a hotel. I must say Shashlik, a meat bbq on a metal skewer, was fantastic tasty in Central Asia. All of the meat on the picture cost less than $2. After I got the food, I checked a few different hotels. I chose the hotel which had a room for $8 shared bathroom. During the night, I was wakened up with sweat as the heater was too strong. So, I had to open the window. I was curious that Kazakhstan was like Russia which must be very hot inside of house always. When I was in a Russian house in Russia, I had to wear summer clothes because of a very hot heater, which was good.

At the next morning, I found a nice road under the construction that there were only few cars. Later I was afraid that the road is not connected to the main road. I asked the road construction worker and he told me there would be no problem to reach my destination on this road.

Sometimes beautiful nature stayed with me for a while as like a best friend while cycling.

I wanted to arrive at my destination before the dark. But the last part was really bad and I had to go around many times.

Finally, I got to the city after the dark.

I was checking a few different hotels and then I found one restaurant. I decided to have dinner first because I was starving. The food was just amazing. There were many different foods on the menu as well. I felt like Kazakhstan had many good foods. But I would stay only for short-term that I couldn’t know many things about the country.

I got a bit expensive hotel for $18 with private bathroom since I stayed very cheap hotel last night.

They served a lot of foods into the room in the morning. It reminded me of Uzbekistan. Whether cheap or expensive hotel, the breakfast was a lot in Uzbekistan. I really loved a big breakfast on the day I had to cycle.

Although Kazakhstan was the ninth biggest country in the world, I could move to China with three days cycling only. On the bottom of the east south in Kazakhstan, there was a border to China. I thought it was too short to know. So I decided to stay at least two more days in a small city here.

Although it was a small town, there were many people and cars going around.

I had Shashlik and Laghman as a lunch. Laghman was my fav food in Central Asia. Every region cooked different ways, but it never ever disappointed me.  One funny thing was they served the beer with the straw.

On my last day, I had local beer and prepared to cross the border for the next day.

Sometimes I could see a vintage vehicle and it looked just awesome.

On the way to the border, there were so many corns on the road. Later I found the reason that there was a corn factory just next to the road. It seemed so many trucks kept going with corns and they dropped a lot of them on the road. I felt it was a bit of waste of corns. On the mountain area in Tajikistan, trucks dropped many small coals. I always wanted to pick when trucks drop something. haha.

When I arrived at the border, I heard that the border would close after the sunset. There were many people around and It was not that simple that it took the time at the immigration. I met a backpackers and he was waiting for a minivan to cross the border. I had realized that I had to go around about 8km (5mi) more because there was something between borders, which I didn’t know before. I tried to cycle so fast but there was a strong wind. I could see that the sun was about to disappear. I worried that I should set up my tent on the land between Kazakhstan and China. While cycling next to the fence, I was afraid and excited that the next country was just after this fence.

All of Asian and European cyclist I met took the train to skip western China. Only Jamy, British girl which I cycled together in Pamir, cycled all the way to South East Asia in China. I had only three months visa in China and I should cycle more than 6,000 km (3,728 mi) to South East Asia. According to the law, I could extend the visa. But still, 6,000 km sounded too much for only one country. I was not sure I could make it or maybe I would take the transportation like other cyclists. Anyway, I would try and see how it would go.

This was the time to say goodbye to Central Asia which was one of the most adventurous places on my trip. I really liked Central Asia so much. This was a very beautiful place. I would miss everything which I had in Central Asia. I sincerely thanked everything of Central Asia, which let me cycle safely. Now I needed to move to a new county, China! Yeah! But if they closed the border, I would go the next day?

Route
Days in Kazakhstan = 6 Days
Distance of cycling in Kazakhstan = 253 km (157 mi)
Expenditure in Kazakhstan = 96$
($1=331 Tenge)