Uzbekistan

During the last few days the landscape around us has changed quite a bit and we have really entered Asia and left Europe behind. The border to Kazakhstan is just about 100km from Astrahan, so after having one lazy day in Astrahan we left Russia for now. But we'll be back... It didn't take too long cross the border to Kazakhstan. Leaving Russia was no problem, we didn't have to provide any proof of registration, and strange enought, the guys there were even really nice... and on the Kazakh side the border officers were quite friendly too and even helped with filling in the forms. The first maybe 50kms of Kazakhstan are still in the Volga delta, and the water, horses, reed and clay (?) houses made quite a nice scenery... after we left the delta behind, the landscape changed to steppe, and everything was flat, dry and the roads just straight for hundreds of kilometres. Besides a few bad parts we have so far had the best roads since Germany on this trip in Kazakhstan, contrary to what we heard before... most of them brand new. On our way through Kazakhstan we passed one city, Atrau, and it is amazing how those new cities are quickly growing out of nothing (but with money from oil and other ressources). It might not be very objective, but cruising along the countryside I got the impression that Kazakhstan has a lot more dynamics and positive atmosphere than Russia.

Also we met some nice animals along the road and crawling over our tent...

It was large! very large. Larger than my hand including fingers...

After a few nights in the steppe in Kazakhstan we spent our last night in Beinju (little place with nice Basar), where we met a German cyclist. From Beinju to the border and about 120km into Uzbekistan the road is just a gravel road. In Russia we were told there would be no proper roads in Kazakhstan, which proved to be totally wrong. In Kazakhstan we were told there would be no proper roads in Uzbekistan. Which proved to be totally wrong. After those 120km of gravel road we were again on brand new roads... and since we are back on asphalt we have found that Uzbekistan actually has a quite good network of roads. But I am not complaining about good roads... I think this will change rapidly once we get to Tajikistan.. but before we can go there we have to get over some little problems... which I will write about in the next post. To get into Uzbekistan took a few hours, but in the end people were nice and let us into their country. And here we are...