Through the Karakum desert
Aqtau, the next morning. I had to find a cheap room. If looked at closely, Aqtau is quite a bizarre place. The town doesn’t have a well or any other water supply except for a desalination plant, powered by a nuclear power plant which also supplies the town with electricity. Apart from that, Aqtau holds next to nothing of interest for the average tourist. There are few hotels relicts of the old soviet days, which is perhaps an explanation for the astronomical prices. Finally, with some local assistance I found a place. It was located in a communist-style, prefabricated concrete block, where one had left the flat-structure intact, simply the locks to the rooms inside the flats had been individualized. Good for me, so I had the benefit of a fridge and a nice balcony overlooking the promenade. Next task was to find the Irish Pub. Not to have an overpriced Guinness, but to get a map of the Mangystau Peninsula from the book store next door. There was a dense grid of roads and tracks around Aqtau mostly to reach the industrial sites, so it would come in handy when leaving Aqtau.
Once I would be on the right track to Beyneu there won’t be much need for it, except for comforting oneself. After I had found a suitable one, I headed for the supermarket to get some supplies. After I had allowed myself another day for mental adjustment as a preparation for the leg lying ahead of me, I hit the road. 9 o’clock in the morning and it was already quite warm. At noon I felt like I was cycling in a baking oven, with the sun burning mercilessly and the hot headwind drying me out. A long break in the shade would have been nice, unfortunately there was none. There was nothing but treeless steppe around me, with occasional caikhanas, Truckstops which I shall learn to appreciate soon. 3 days later, I reached Say-Utes in the morning, a place which marks the beginning of a 100km stretch of bad road and without water supply. In spring, with bearable temperatures and therefore the amount of water needed far less, now in summer it is quite a logistic challenge to carry 15L of it. But apart from being the last place before this stretch, Say-Utes also has a haunting side.
Back in the old days of the cold war, there was a nuclear test site not far from here, which is up to the present day considered to be problematic especially because of the careless handling of nuclear waste. After taking a few pictures with some guests of the caikhana, I took off. My strategy was to go slow and steadily, trying to sweat as less as possible besides that, there was not much I could do. 2 hours later, when struggling to cycle on the very right edge of the road, I saw a car passing me on the right off the road. It seemed that there were rideable secondary roads! I had to check them out – and was surprised that I made far better progress than on the main road! Despite this I still didn’t make it to the next roadhouse until the next morning, literally on the last drop of water. From here, distances between roadhouses wouldn’t be that big any more, and in 50kms there would even be tarmac again.
From Beyneu, I had planned to head for Uzbekistan. I had heard of a minor border crossing which I reached in the late afternoon after a desperately needed rest day in Beyneu. There were young blokes wearing camouflage seemingly bored all over the place, and somehow it was not straight forward who the emigration process was taking place. I stood there a bit disoriented, when I guy in uniform called me to come to his place, whereupon another guy mentioned to him something like to mind his own business, and to me, to follow him. I received my stamp, then he wanted to take my bike for a test ride. I approved it, and after he was done the toll-gate opened. In front of the Uzbekan checkpoint was a long queue of trucks waiting. It seemed like I had arrived outside the service hours or this was a method of extorting baksheesh. I pushed my bike up to the toll-gate, and called for attention. I don’t know the reason why, but they processed me.
I had to fill in a customs declaration form and had been asked a set of questions. I decided to declare only the Kazakh money I had left, as I didn’t want to get out all my funds because I feared a “counting attempt”, which I was trying to avoid. But that had a downside. The downside was that every policeman in Uzbekistan was officially entitled to body-search and to confiscate all funds and valuables which had not been stated on the customs declaration form. Apart from the danger of getting body searched again and taken away money this would give me a headache when leaving the country as I had to fill in another declaration form. But for the moment I was in, and would take care of this later. In the meantime the sun had set quite a bit. 20-25km was supposed to be a town with a railway station. I had made it a personal rule to not take advantage of public transport but to cycle whenever possible. But now, there was a stretch of 400kms or at least 3-4 days of bad road with unknown means of water supply lying ahead. It was a tough decision. As it was getting dark soon and I needed a place to sleep, I decided to delay this decision and head for the town of Karakalpakiya which after a while could see in the distance. After I had come closer I couldn’t make out a road leading in town or a sign pointing in its direction.
All there was was a bunch of tracks leading nowhere. It took me about 2 hours and several attempt till I managed to make the remaining 2-3 kms in town. Apart from a bunch of teenagers, which immediately started to hassle me, the town looked extinct. I asked for the train and have been told that I just missed it by a few minutes. That was very unfortunate, as the town was only frequented by 1 train a day in each direction. That meant I had to wait for almost another 24 hours. The solution to this problem appeared right away in the form of a couple of traditionally dressed older Uzbeks with caps and white goatees, who suggested to hitch a ride with them on the freight train in front of them. This train would only go as far as the town of Kungirot, but from there it would be tarmac and more important, no shortage of water. Before I had time to think it over I found myself sitting on the floor of the wooden train carriage with 4 Uzbeks, rumbling through the night. Some time later, perhaps 2 hours had passed, the train started to slow down and the others started to became hectic. They pointed out to me that, because I couldn’t jump off with the bike, I should stay in the corner of the carriage and remain silent. Well I don’t have to mention that I didn’t like the idea to be left behind in the middle of nowhere, but what else could I’ve done? After a while I saw a spot coming towards me. Obviously the train was being checked.
I was detected and taken to the stationmaster’s office. I tried to explain myself to him when suddenly a young Uzbek guy who was with me on the train appeared and explained the situation to the stationmaster. Half-heartedly the stationmaster wrote down my passport number and mentioned that we were ok to leave. My young Uzbek friend told me to go back to the carriage and to remain there. After another few minutes I saw another spot coming towards me. This time it was the local head of the police and he didn’t seem like somebody to f@!k with. He demanded my passport, yelling a set of questions at me. In situations like this one it is best to not speak any of the languages my opponent was likely to speak, so I gave him my friendliest smile, telling him with a relaxed voice in German, that I wouldn’t speak any Russian. This made him even more angry. Then suddenly, my Uzbek friend appeared again. It seemed to me that they knew each other, but still the Policeman demanded his passport. Then it was him being yelled at. The whole situation went on for a couple of minutes until suddenly the train started to move. Still talking German, I made signs to get my bike off the train. The Policemen ordered me to stop, when I then said, ok, then I hop on the train.
Again he ordered me to stop. Obviously he didn’t know what to do. Continue interrogating me and hopefully extort some baksheesh, or, eventually finding out that I wouldn’t have anything of value on me, and having to do paperwork. He decided to let go. He handed me my passport and with a “Daweij, daweij” allowed me to leave. But he still had my new Uzbek friend’s passport and had him beg to give it back and not causing trouble to him. Then he also let him go. We ran for our carriage, jumped in and rumbled through the desert for the rest of the night until we reached Kungirot the next morning. After the train had stopped, my friend helped me to get the bike off the carriage. It was a drop of about 1,20m, not easy to lift a fully loaded bike of about 50Kgs weight off this height. We managed to leave the railway compound unseen where we parted, after he had asked me for a sip of water from my bottles. Anything else he refused. The rest of the ride through Uzbekistan led me to via Nukus and Chiva to the ancient Silk Road towns of Bukhara and Samarqand. Originally I had intended to visit the Aral Lake, but I didn’t have any Uzbek money and first had to go to Nukus to find a bank and to have a rest. To see the beached ships I was hoping to meet a tour group in Nukus which I could join. I met one indeed, but they had already been there and told me that it would have been ok, but a lot of the ships would be dismantled these days and the metal taken to China. Had I guessed that I would be sitting in Samarqand for a week waiting out the start date of my Tajik visa, I would have gone there anyway.
The Caspian Ferry
Taking a ferry across the Caspian Sea turned out to be one oft the greatest headaches so far – ’cause this is not an ordinary one. Actually it is not even a ferry – it’s a cargo vessel for big trucks and train carriages with some more or less unofficial passenger facilities where basically the staff is sharing their cabins for a little mite, usually 10 USD. To successfully catch the boat several tasks have to be mastered. First, one has to find the ticket office. Second, one has to find out when it is open. Third, and now it’s becomes more interesting, (more…)